Biography

Vernon Hill was born in Halifax

Halifax, West Yorkshire

Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...

 (Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

) and undertook formal training in print-making from an early age, being apprenticed as a lithographer in his early teen.

His first commissioned illustrations are thought to be The Arcadian Calendar published by John Lane

John Lane (publisher)

-Biography:Originally from Devon, where he was born into a farming family, Lane moved to London already in his teens. While working as a clerk at the Railway Clearing House, he acquired knowledge as an autodidact....

 The Bodley Head

The Bodley Head

The Bodley Head is an English publishing house, founded in 1887 and existing as an independent entity until the 1970s. The name has been used as an imprint of Random House Children's Books since 1987...

 in 1909 for the following year. Two further commissions followed from the same publisher and further suites of images from Hill were published in exceedingly low volumes in The New Inferno (1910) and Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912).

Reviews of his work

Hill's artistic talents were described by Chope in the Foreword to Ballads Weird and Wonderful through the following words:

[he] is an artist who is not limited to the actual things of life, whose fancy is not confined within the
limits of a green field or a marble column - who, indeed, can see visions - whose inner life is not of our
life but of a strange occult devising, is impelled irresistibly towards the supernatural.

Reviewing Hill's contributions to Ballads Weird and Wonderful, the critic for the New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

wrote

... the design of Satan rushing down through the waves with the boat containing
the faithless wife, is tremendous. Satan himself has one of the most graceful and
beautiful human bodies

Human anatomy

Human anatomy is primarily the scientific study of the morphology of the human body. Anatomy is subdivided into gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy. Gross anatomy is the study of anatomical structures that can be seen by the naked eye...

 over drawn; the rhythm of the whole is thrilling, and the
conventionalized waves are splendid. There are two pictures of the dead Christ
which are solemnly and mystically impressive; "Edward, Edward" and "Hugh of
Lincoln" are powerful and imaginative, and the arm and torso of "The Mermaid"
are rare in their suggestion of soft and perfect beauty.

His work at Guildford Cathedral

Following war service undertaken during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Hill returned to artistic pursuits, but was to never receive the comprehensive commissions for book illustrations that he was granted earlier in his career, but did gain commissions for sculptures. Some of his finest work can be seen at Guildford Cathedral

Guildford Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Spirit, Guildford is the Anglican cathedral at Guildford, Surrey, England.-Construction:Guildford was made a diocese in its own right in 1927, and work on its new cathedral, designed by Sir Edward Maufe, began nine years later, with the foundation stone being laid...

 in Guildford, Surrey

Guildford

Guildford is the county town of Surrey. England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the administrative headquarters of the South East England region...

, and apart from the reliefs on the south door entrance he carved the angels on the Sedilia inside the Cathedral, as well as the “Tongues of Flames” on the Pulpit and Lectern. He also carved the Arms of Bishop Greig

John Harold Greig

The Rt Rev John Harold Greig was Bishop of Gibraltar then Guildford in the first half of the 20th century. He was born on 13 February 1865 and educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was ordained deacon in 1888 and priest a year later...

 over the inside of the Sacristy Door and St Ursula

Saint Ursula

Saint Ursula is a British Christian saint. Her feast day in the extraordinary form calendar of the Catholic Church is October 21...

over the inside of St Ursula’s Porch.

At the south door entrance are two magnificent bronze doors set under two arches, and these feature Vernon Hill’s reliefs. These are depictions of various occupations, some of men, others of women. The men’s occupations are on the right hand door and include sowing, woodcutting, fishing, hunting,shepherding and ploughing and on the left door are the occupations accredited to women and include milking, spinning,and teaching.

External links

• Vernon Hill A comprehensive article on The National Archives website with information on several of Vernon Hill’s works and files at The National Archives linked to those works. The article also has further images of Hill’s work.