Evelyn Corthell Hill's painting of Lake Marie in the Snowy Range.
Selected paintings by a life-long Laramie resident who created hundreds of Wyoming landscapes during her 88 years will be shown Sept. 8-25 at the University of Wyoming's Centennial Complex Gallery at 2111 Willett Drive.
The exhibition of paintings by Evelyn Corthell Hill, 1886-1974, has been organized by descendants of Laramie's historic Corthell family, many of whom continue that family's vital involvement in the life of Wyoming and its university to the present day.
Evelyn was the daughter of early Laramie attorney Nellis Corthell and his wife Eleanor, who were married in 1885 in Laramie. Corthell helped draft of the legislation that created UW in 1886 and he later was on the defense team for Tom Horn. His daughter Evelyn's formal art training began before she was 10 and she continued painting, studying art and teaching young artists until her death.
Her works were included in an IBM collection exhibited at the San Francisco World's Fair in 1939-40 and are prized possessions today in numerous private and museum collections.
The UW show will present 18 paintings, most of them oils, featuring not only depictions of scenery from the mountains around Laramie, but also some of her more experimental creations.
A special guest at the opening reception of the exhibit on Tuesday from 6-9 p.m. will be Mrs. Hill's only surviving child, Sally Hill Mackey of Pinedale, who is 88.
Evelyn attended UW and then graduated from Wellesley in 1908, returning home to work as a writer for the Laramie Boomerang in the 1900s.
After her marriage in 1911 Evelyn devoted herself to her family, her painting and the study and teaching of art throughout her long career, studying with several of America's best-known artists of the time and helping young artists to develop.
In the 1950s, she was elected to the Laramie City Council.
Posted on Friday, September 04, 2009