Derek Hill (1916-2000) Born in England / Active in Ireland, Oil on Board. Titled 'At the End of the Day'. Overall Size: 15 x 18 in. Sight Size: 8 3/4 x 11 5/8 in. Thickness: 2 1/8 in. #1111 . Derek Hill is known for Portrait and landscape painting. Born in Hampshire, son of a wealthy sugar trader, Hill first worked as a theater 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, whose grandfather had emigrated to the US from the nearby village of Milford, and who subsequently made a fortune from his patent gas meter. Hill 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, Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek and the Prince of Wales. He was also an enthusiastic art collector and traveler, with a wide range of friends such as Bryan Guinness and Sir Isaiah Berlin. Greta Garbo visited Hill in the 1970's, a visit which formed inspiration for Frank McGuinness' 2010 play Greta Garbo Came to Donegal. In 1981, he donated his County Donegal home, St. Columb's Rectory, near the village of Churchill (pronounced Church Hill), which he had owned since 1954, along with a considerable collection including work by Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas, Georges Braque, Graham Sutherland and Jack Butler Yeats to the Irish State.