Jean Hill literary manuscripts, ca. 1989

MLMSS 8006

fonds

ca. 1989

916990

0.15 metres of textual material (1 box) - computer printout

Jean Hill studied sculpture at East Sydney Technical College in 1934, and taught painting at TAFE for about twelve years. She received public commissions as an artist and was an exhibiting painter. She was the author and illustrator of the books "Echoes are calling in Kendall country : 12 sketches of a past era in and around the historic township of Milton, N.S.W." [Milton, N.S.W. : J. Hill, 1988] and "Pencil in the Wimmera : Wimmera sketches" [Wimmera : Wimmera Regional Tourist Authority, 199-?]. Papers of Jean Hill, including catalogues of exhibitions in which she participated, are held in the Art Gallery of New South Wales Research Library and Archive. Jean Hill died on 15 May 2006.

Jean Hill was the daughter of Sir Edward John Lees Hallstrom (1886-1970). Hallstrom was the manufacturer of the Silent Knight refrigerator and a benefactor and administrator of Taronga Zoological Park. His philanthropy was wide ranging, most notably to the benefit of hospitals and medical research.

Jean Hill's manuscript "The silent knight : the life and character of Sir Edward John Lees Hallstrom" is cited in the Hallstrom's entry in Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Hill spent many years "hiking, digging for clay, sculpturing, painting and camping in our Australian bush". The "hot, red interior of Australia" is the setting for her unpublished novel, "Red mud : a perception of visions unseen". Its main character, who is blind from birth, becomes a successful artist, expressing Hill's idea that "there are 'visions splendid'; a source of an unknown quality and quantity, with an excitement all its own".

Drafts (dot-matrix computer printout) of "The silent knight : the life and character of Sir Edward John Lees Hallstrom", and "Red mud : a perception of visions unseen"