Howard Hilder,, Tannis (sic) Hammock, Dade County, Florida. March 2, 1920. Gouche, 9 and three eights by 11 and one quarter inches.
Howard Hilder, born in London, England, came to the United States in 1905 and Miami in 1917. Hilder was one of the first artists to settle in South Florida and by 1923, considered the dean of the Miami artist colony. Hilder painted a series of murals, The Life of Christ for the St. Stephens Church in Coconut Grove, murals for the King Cole and Nautilus Hotels on Miami Beach, a mural for the Miami Woman’s Club, scenes at Miami Senior High School, and a mural for the opening of Rollins College’s Bok-Anne Russell Theater in Winter Park. The Miami Herald, March 20, 1920 describes Hilder, “Howard Hilder, Chopin of Painters, Has Expressed Spirit of the Florida Jungles.
Mr. Howard Hilder is rapidly becoming known throughout the United States as the Chopin of Painters by reason of his brilliant technique combined with deep poetic feelings and the pensive half sadness that runs through his compositions. So much is there of music in his painting that at his last summer’s exhibit at Newport, R. I., of his work at the famous and beautiful garden at Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, Dr. Alfred Robyn, the composer, gave an interpretation on the piano of his pictures. Howard Hilder’s art is a very direct, sincere interpretation of whatever place he selects to paint. It is entirely free from tricks. He feels the divine in natural beauty and believes that the good is beautiful and the beautiful good. He has intuition and keen insight backed by the teaching of the best masters of France and Holland and the scorn of fads, fashion and humbug in art, of a well blooded John Bull. Having spent three winters in Dade County, Florida, and the two last in Royal Palm State Park, going there first at the suggestion of The Miami Herald, he has studied Florida scenic conditions intimately at all times of the day and night. He has produced the truest and best paintings of Dade county scenery yet attempted.
He has expressed the spirit of Florida in a manner unrivaled. Mr. Hilder’s recent exhibition at the home of Mrs. David Todd in Coconut Grove, was an overwhelming success more than two-thirds of the pictures having been sold. Mr. Hilder returns shortly to Charleston, S.C., where in 1917, the Charleston News-Courier said of his work, ‘It will be remembered that Mr. Hilder is a poet as well as an artist, several of his poems appeared last winter in the columns of the News- Courier and Charleston is to be congratulated in having found favor in his eyes and we, his friends, in the fact that he will soon again be with us.’ Mr. Hilder’s service to Florida, not only in expressing so truly and skilfully the rather difficult beauties of her tropic jungles, but in bringing these same beauties before the people of the United States as widely as the crowds at his northern exhibitions would indicate, is unquestioned.”
In 1923 Hilder had a studio in Audubon Hall in Coconut Grove where he worked on a series of 13 murals portraying the life of Christ for St. Stephens Episcopal Church. Among Hilder’s most beautiful canvases was a Gulf Stream ocean view, the painting of which was prompted by a poem in The Gallery section of the Miami Herald written by Marjorie Stoneham Douglas; later to make the Everglades famous as a River of Grass. The painting entitled The Wind Horses, three by four feet, was donated by Hilder to the Y.M.C.A. to be sold at auction. Douglas described the painting in the Herald: “’The Wind Horses’ is an indescribably beautiful piece of work, and there is little doubt of its quick sale. Asked how long it had taken to paint the picture, Mr. Hilder said, ‘Fifty-six years and some days.’ In other words, the true artist puts thought and soul of his whole life into every picture he paints, though its transfer to the canvas may not require more than a few hours or a few days or weeks. Mr. Hilder’s pictures ‘are different’ as the saying goes-they possess an individuality, Hilder’s thought and soul. His generosity is no less remarkable, as may be gleaned from the above donation. He gave a similar picture to St. Stephens church last year…”
The Miami Herald, January 16, 1928, “With the King Cole Hotel filled to its capacity, the Howard Hilder murals in the lounge will be coming in for their merited share of attention. The Hilder King Cole, as modernized in the paintings, fishes in the Gulf Stream, which is as big a fish story as one could imagine…Hilder danced at the first Flamingo tea dance of the season. He could have been dancing because he was happy that so many eyes were taking inventory of his handiwork, but no one could refrain from dancing on that occasion. There were charming partners. And even a wooden Indian could have danced to the spirited music.”
Born: September 28, 1866, London, England.
Died: 1935.
Education: Academy Julian, Paris with Bouguereau and Ferrier, 1900; Dagnan-Bouveret, De la Gandara and Jacque in Paris; with De Bock; Joseph Israels in Holland.
Memberships: St. Lucas Society, Amsterdam, Holland; Florida Society of Arts and Sciences (founder); Miami Beach League of Artists; Miami Art League; Blue Dome Fellowship; Newport Art Association; Architectual League of Greater Miami.
Exhibits: National Academy of Design, New York City, Elliott Silver Medal, 1906, 1907; Coconut Grove, Home of Mrs. David Todd, Matsuba, exhibit of paintings from Royal Palm Park, February 1920, Little Mangroves, Hammock with ‘Paurotis Wrightii, A Sunlit Trail, From the Cape Sable Road, Wind in the Palms, Moon Magic, Dawn, After the Rain, Royalty (Royal Palms), Beware (A large Diamond Back rattlesnake in the Florida jungle), Limpid-Lapis-Lazuli, A Moss Veiled Oak, Palm Vista, In the Hammock, Distant Pine Lands, A Moonset, Nocturne, The Moon and I; Newport, Rhode Island Pagent, stage setting, 1922; Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce Building, Art Exhibit, February 1923, Miami Beach League of Artists, Wild Horses; Housekeeper Club, Annual Exhibit of Local Artists, Prominent Visiting Artists, Miami Beach, March 1923; Coconut Grove, Matsuba, home of Mrs. David Todd, January 1924, one man art exhibit, including, The Spanish Bayonets, Nocturne of Palms, On River, Wreck Island Maine, Bej Paies, Silver Fog, After the Storm, Nocturne of Moonlight, Paradise Key, Beach at Coco Plum; Miami Woman’s Club, 1st Annual Artists’ Salon, February 1929; Miami Woman’s Club, 2nd Annual Artists’ Salon, February 1930; Art Institute of Miami, 1st Annual, Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables, 1933, Along the Trail at Dawn, Camp Mavooshen-Maine (watercolor), Sundown in the Everglades, Mrs James Parker Jr., Total Eclipse of the Sun, Sunrise-Anastasia Island; Dawn at Paradise Key, Mrs. Arthur Laidler-Jones, Jr., Mabel Loomis Todd in Matsuba Patio, Mabel Loomis Todd at her Island Home- Maine (watercolor), Florida Moonlight, Mural Design-Omar Khayam.
Directory: Listed in the Miami City Directory in 1930 as a portrait artist with studio at 1737 North Bayshore Drive.
Howard Hilder, Dade County Hammock. Gouache, 15 and one half by 18 one half inches.
