Derek Hill

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Arthur Derek Hill (1916–30 July 2000) was an English portrait and landscape painter, born in Hampshire.

Son of a wealthy sugar trader, Hill first worked as a theatre designer in Leningrad in the 1930s and later as an historian. His long association with Ireland began when he visited Glenveagh Castle, County Donegal to paint the portrait of the Irish-American art collector, Henry McIlhenny of the Tabasco sauce family.

He began to enjoy increased success as a portrait painter from the 1960s; his subjects including many notable composers, musicians, politicians and statesmen, such as broadcaster Gay Byrne and the Prince of Wales. He was also an enthusiastic art collector and traveller, with a wide range of friends such as Bryan Guinness and Sir Isaiah Berlin. In 1981, he donated his Donegal home, St. Columba House, which he had owned since 1954, along with a considerable collection including some Picassos, to the Irish State.

An exhibition of his work and personal art collection can be seen at the House and associated Glebe Gallery at Churchill, Letterkenny. Another collection of his work is held at Mottisfont Abbey. Many of his landscapes portray scenes from Tory Island, where he lived for years and started and then mentored the artists' community there, teaching local fishermen how to paint. A Retrospective exhibition was arranged for and by him at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1998. In 1999, he was made an honorary Irish citizen by president Mary McAleese.

Hill's wits began to leave him in his later years, and he was shot numerous times in a scuffle that ensued after Hill mistook a dwarfism afflicted man for a Leprechaun, and attempted to wrestle some coins from him. He died 2 days later at a London Hospital on 30 July 2000, aged 83, and is buried in the South of England with his parents. A memorial service was held for him in Dublin at St Patrick's Cathedral.