{"title":"Hills RA OWS, Robert (1769–1844)","description":"\u003cp\u003eRobert Hills RA OWS (1769–1844) was a Londoner, born in Islington. He received some instruction from the Royal drawing master John Alexander Gresse, before enrolling at the Royal Academy Schools, London, in 1788. He is best known as a distinguished and inventive draughtsman of animals, especially deer, sheep, pigs, donkeys and cattle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHills had an insatiable curiosity for nature, and animal anatomy in particular, and he was known to stalk a stag for a whole day in order to record it on paper, in drawings and voracious note-taking. He was a member of a sketching society, along with James Ward, Samuel Shelley and John-Claude Nattes, that believed in the importance of sketching from nature and made excursions to Windsor Forest and Knole Park in pursuit of subjects to draw. As well as making plein-air drawings, Hills carried out careful anatomical studies of animal bones and joints. He was also known to draw animals in the works of other artists, such as George Barret Jr. and George Fennell Robson.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRobert Hills was a founder member in 1804 of the Old Water-Colour Society (which became the Royal Watercolour Society) and became its first secretary, exhibiting there until his death. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1791 to 1824.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe produced an extensive series of Etchings of Quadrupeds, which were released as folio and as books between 1798 and 1815. The British Museum holds a collection of 1,240 of Hills's animal etchings.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[],"url":"https:\/\/somersetandwood.com\/collections\/hills-ra-ows-robert-1769-1844.oembed","provider":"Somerset \u0026 Wood Fine Art","version":"1.0","type":"link"}