Still life

Mabel Hill was born in Auckland in 1872, the daughter of Charles and Eliza Hill. Charles was a hatter by trade, the couple had emigrated from Bristol to Australia in 1858, before moving on to Auckland in the mid 1870s. In 1876 Charles sought to extend his business to Wellington, and the family moved south. Hill started as a student at the Wellington School of Design at the age of 14, remaining there for the following nine years – first as a pupil and then as a teacher. While at the School of Design she was taught by James Nairn, of whom she painted a wonderful portrait that is also in Te Papa's collection (https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/35834).

In 1898 Hill married the printer John McIndoe and moved to Dunedin. She continued to paint, through pregnancy and motherhood, and following her husband’s death in 1916. Hill exhibited with art societies in Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington, unusually showing her work under her birth name rather than her married name. In 1925 she established a small school in Dunedin where she taught art.

Hill painted portraits, landscapes, still lifes and flower studies. One of her still life paintings was chosen to represent New Zealand at the 1925 Wembley Empire Exhibition. In 1926 she left New Zealand for the first time, spending 10 months painting in Tahiti. She then travelled to Europe at the end of 1927 – over the following seven years she lived and painted in England, France and Italy, returning to New Zealand in 1934. In 1946 Hill moved back to England. She spent the rest of her life in Sussex.

This watercolour is a good example of Hill’s style of painting and preferred subjects. She often combined flower paintings with still life elements, and was very interested in replicating the effects of light, and the contrasts between different textures and materials. Hill was fairly a conservative painter, largely un-interested in modern art beyond Impressionism. As a prolific art society exhibitor, she represents a significant part of New Zealand’s 20th-century art history.