Among Us Mortals

W.E. (William Ely) Hill (1887-1962) was known for his masterful black and white Sunday page, Among Us Mortals, sometimes referred to as the Hill Page. His 1915 drawing for Puck, "My Wife and My Mother-in-law," is perhaps one of the best-known examples of a dual image--it is a drawing that at once depicts a young woman and an old crone, where the young woman's chin serves as the nose of the old woman. The image originally appeared on an 1888 German postcard, but Hill’s interpretation is the one that ended up in the psychology textbooks. Hill also drew the dust jacket art for the first editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise (1920) and Flappers and Philosophers (1920). Bohemians and artists, commuters and theatergoers all found themselves captured (and sometimes caricatured) in drawings of W. E. Hill. Hill’s “Among Us Mortals” feature began in 1916, starting out in the New York Tribune. It began syndication by the Chicago Tribune in 1922, and then jointly by the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News from 1934 until it ended in 1960. Hill was a masterful observer of human beings, and each Sunday page was devoted to a particular slice of observation. Hill’s work got a lot of attention quite rapidly. Franklin P. Adams writes in his preface to Among Us Mortals (1917): "Hill is popular, by which I mean universal, because you think his pictures look like somebody you know, like Eddie, or Marjorie, or Aunt Em. But they don't; they look like you. Or if you prefer, like me. He is popular because he draws the folks everybody knows." The collected volume showcases W. E. Hill's satirical images of modern Americans, including his take on modern art appreciation. There was no one doing pen and ink artwork in the newspapers like Hill. The original artwork, with its delicate hatching, cross-hatching, and stippling, probably to not even translate that well to newsprint. The details spent on the figures and tones is truly amazing, with lots and lots of delicate pen-work. “I learned very early in my career as an artist that if you stick pretty close to the people you see about you, every day you need not draw on your imagination for types,’ said Hill, in an interview. “People, just plain, everyday, commonplace people, alive and in motion fascinate me far more than anything else in the world,” he continued. You can see a sort of observed reality that got everyone’s attention with Hill’s work in these examples. I am a little surprised that I have not found comparisons between Hill and Norman Rockwell. It is tempting to think of them as realists, drawing their subjects from the world. I like the term favored by George Lucas: narrative art. Hill does not act as a photographer. He identifies archetypes, and then caricaturizes them just enough to generalize them. And in doing so, every reader gets a starting point that combines with their lived experience and then, with that connection, the person in the image seems strikingly familiar.

There are 49 Pieces of Art In This Gallery.     19 through 36 shown.

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There are 49 Pieces of Art In This Gallery.     19 through 36 shown.

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