Harold Hilton. Boca Chica Palms. Watercolor, 10 1/2 by 14 1/2 inches.
An Englishman, Harold Hilton worked as a store clerk while studying art at London’s Polytechnic School. He later immigrated to the United States and continued his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. During the First World War Hilton was chief designer for the Federal Sign System and worked as a painter for the U.S. Army camouflage unit. He moved to Jacksonville in 1925 and began cruising Florida waters from his home on the St. John’s River. In 1930 Hilton was elected president of the Florida Watercolor Society and from 1937-1938 and 1947-1948 president of the Florida Federation of Art.
His work in Jacksonville included murals for the George Washington Hotel auditorium, the Indian Room of the Seminole Hotel, and the Peacock Club. Hilton did murals in Miami for the ceilings of the Florida National Bank and the Du Pont Building in Miami, and in Key West for the La Concha Hotel. The Du Pont ceiling mural was a Florida tarpon fishing scene, The Silver King. He was known in Jacksonville for his decorations for the annual “Ye Mystic Revellers” Coronation Balls.
When Hilton opened a one man exhibit of his watercolors in Gainesville in April, 1930, the Gainesville Sun reviewed his work, “Not the ships that pass in the night, but the ships that lie in lazy fashion along the wharf to be used as fishing smacks as a means for plying in lazy fashion along a sun and wind drenched shore, are the kind that Howard Hilton loved best to paint. The walls of the auditorium in City Hall are alive with watercolors painted by that master of transparent wash who has injected into his pictures the very pulse beats of Florida, her elusive beauty, her color tones that have proved in almost every instance always the unfathomable to artists that have gone before. Not so with the London born painter who is now in the University City holding an exhibit under the auspices of the Gainesville Association of Fine Arts. The wild and natural scenery that is the heritage of Florida has found a sympathetic friend in artist Hilton, who speaks the same language as the winds that sway the top most branches of tall trees or the waters that lap along the shrimp boats he so faithfully reproduces on paper, even to the most minute detail that would be overlooked by anyone not wise in the lore of both the land and the sea. Although he claims England as a birthplace and although he first mastered the brush in English schools, Harold Hilton came at an early age to continue his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. And although he has spent a great portion of his American life in the middle west, it is Florida to whom Mr. Hilton has given his heart…He has translated into the language of the arts, bright sunshine, shades and shadows of evening, moss that hangs a shaggy beard from comfortable old oaks and stately palms or again has let his fancy dwell upon a piece of translucent seaweed or a shell, a moccasin and ‘Big Chief’s’ pipe that project themselves from his pictures of still-life as a most definite object. Mr. Hilton’s paintings contain a definite color; they pulsate with life and living. He is as sensitive to the changing whims of nature as a violin string to fingers of a master. He is so in accord with his subject that they take on a new life under his skillful touch and emulate the very heart beats of a throbbing world…”
Born: 1886, London, England.
Died: 1959.
Education: Polytechnic Art School, London; Art Institute of Chicago.
Membership: Jacksonville Art Academy, director; Florida Federation of Art, president; St. Augustine Art Association; Florida Watercolor Society, president, 1930; Soubriquet Club of Jacksonville.
Exhibits: Florida Federation of Art, 2nd Annual, 1929, August Afternoon, Waterfront Fernandina; Fine Arts Society of Jacksonville, January 1930, Chamber of Commerce building, watercolors, The Fernandina Wharf, Fort Marion, August Afternoon, McGirts Creek; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, City Hall, one man exhibit, watercolors, April 1930; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Circuit, Tampa Art Institute, Municipal Auditorium, January 1931, Still Life, Cloudy Morning-St. John’s River; Florida Federation of Art, 9th Annual, Tampa, November 1935, still life, Cabbage and Carrots, chosen for annual circuit; Florida Federation of Art, 11th Annual, December 2-5, 1937, St. Augustine, member jury of selection, watercolors, December Sun, The River Mai; Young Woman’s Christian Club, Jacksonville, January 1938, one man exhibit; Florida Federation of Art Annual, Society of The Four Arts, Palm Beach, December 1938, watercolors, Sea Mist, Below Taxaway Falls; Art Club of St. Petersburg, January 1941, English scenes; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Circuited Exhibition, 1941-42, At Cienaga-Havana; Florida Federation of Art, December 1941, Tampa, At Cienaga-Havana; Florida Watercolor Society, Palm Beach, March 1941, The River Mai, Swamp Creek, Cottages at Tintern, Below Tavenier, Live Oak at Mandarin; Florida Watercolor Society, 3rd Annual, Society of The Four Arts, January 1942, Palms at Boca Chica, Hurricane Path, Sails at Havana, At Cienaga-Havana; American Association of University Women, YWCA, Jacksonville, March 1945, watercolor, Summer Squall; Florida Federation of Art Annual, Miami Beach, December 7, 1945, member jury of awards; Art Club of Jacksonville, Fall Exhibition, November, 1947, at American School of Art, East Adams St. judge; Ogunquit, Maine, 29th Annual National Exhibition, 1949, honorable mention, watercolor; Jacksonville Woman’s Club, 1949-50 annual art cover; Florida Federation of Art, Lucille Nott Award, Florida landscape, 1949: St. Augustine Art Association, judge, February 1950, January 1951, February 1952.
Directory: Listed in the Jacksonville City Directory as a portrait artist in 1929 with studio at 420 Main. Later in 1944, 1946 to 1950 as a commercial and portrait artist with studio at 9 East State.
