In Memorium

Jennifer Ann Hill
October 8, 1947-March 11, 2006

For a mini biography of Jennifer and the eulogy delivered by her sister, Nancy Broderick, please click here.
 

North Gallery

                      
      Welcome!                                       South Gallery                               Bill and Jennifer Hill

We have just created two new exciting videos that highlight artists Gary Price and Ken Auster.
Please clink on their respective links below to view the videos.
Gary Price in Carmel
Ken Auster in Carmel

Please click on this link to read the feature article about Bill and Jennifer , which appeared in the April 2004 issue of ART-TALK.

Our Newest Staff Member
"Maggie Mae"

"If anyone had told them on that first date in high school that, by now, they would be celebrating 36 years of marriage and running a highly successful fine art gallery with a 30-year track record, in by the way, Carmel-by-the-Sea, they might have laughed. Possibly at the good fortune to come and possibly in disbelief.

They might have believed the romance part, it was, after all, a pretty good date. But the kids from Illinois , who went on to become a math teacher in her case, and a journalist in his, had no plans for art.

            Today, Bill and Jennifer Hill, who own New Masters Gallery in the heart of this legendary art community, can hardly imagine anything else. Anywhere else.

            Bill actually lived in Carmel when he was 19 years old, having been lured to the Peninsula by older brother Jack, an officer at Fort Ord at the time, who simply said, “You wouldn’t believe what it’s like here.”

South Gallery

            He even spent a semester at Monterey Peninsula College before returning home to study journalism at the University of Illinois . After college, followed by a stint in the Army during the Vietnam era, he went into the grocery business with his father. But when the recession hit hard in Illinois , he enrolled in graduate school to pursue a Masters in Business Administration.

            Meanwhile, Jennifer, who had started college in chemistry with a premed focus, graduated with a degree in math and went into teaching. They couldn’t have known what kind of foundation they were laying for the business of art.

            Once Bill had completed graduate school, he was anxious to get his career started, but he wasn’t sure how or where. His family suggested he return to California . Jack was still there, having become a lawyer in San Francisco . Once again, Bill went west to stay with his brother.

Dolores Entrance

            “We drove down the coast for a three-day vacation,” said Jennifer, “to Carmel , where I saw an ad for a position as business manager of an art gallery.” Bill said, “I don’t know anything about art.’ I said, ‘Bill, it’s a business.”

            Bill applied for the job, received an offer and went over the legendary “Hog’s Breath” restaurant to make his decision. Four months into the job, he decided he could do it on his own.

“I really got into it,” he said. “When I started, I didn’t know anything about art, but I was selling it really well. I had found the perfect spot for myself; I had found that I am, actually, very visual. I hadn’t known that.”

            What he did know was that he wanted to work for himself. He borrowed $5,000 from his father, enough to keep himself afloat for three or four months, and scouted out a space for an art gallery at 5^th and Dolores in Carmel .

 
Sunset Glow
40" x  60"
Ovanes Berberian

            When baby Melissa come along shortly thereafter, they cradled her in the back room of the gallery and continued building a gallery of what they call ‘new masters.’

            “When we started the gallery,” said Bill, “I had met some very young, very talented artists in their late 20s. All very close friends from Los Angeles and Aptos, I thought of these young, gifted artists and realized they could become the ‘New Masters’ in art. A few of these artists are still with us, no longer so new but definitely masterful.”

            New Masters Gallery first opened its doors in 1974 on the second level of a courtyard on the edge of Carmel ’s business community. The gallery was home to six painters. During the next two decades, the gallery moved to larger locations and attracted additional fine artists from the area and around the world. Part of the need for more space was to accommodate a greater depth and diversity of art. Another reason was the arrival of the Hill’s second child, Michael, who recently wrote a college essay on what it was like to grow up in an art gallery.

 
Road to Alcatraz
10" x  22"
Ken Auster

            Today, the elegant gallery sits in an expansive site at the core of Carmel and proudly exhibits the works of 80 painters and sculptors.

            One of those early artists is Barbara Conley, an award-winning American landscape artist, whose works favor nostalgic compositions of ancient wooden and native stone mills their silent waterwheels and weathered valley homesteads as much a part of the emotion in the landscape as the seasonal foliage and telling atmosphere.

            “Those who collect, and those who jury fine art,” said Jennifer, “appreciate the skill Barbara uses to created her superbly tranquil paintings.”

            Tranquility is often a matter of perspective. Arguably one of the finest landscape painters in American art today, Ovanes Berberian is a colorist whose compositions focus on color harmony first and form second, which yields a most engaging subject.

 
Still-Life with Fruit and Flowers
36" x  48"
Ovanes Berberian

            “His works are expressionist in nature but based in the traditions of the Masters,” said Bill. “His mastery of technique reinforces the illusion of depth, atmosphere and rhythm, resulting in the ability to translate the composition into a single, sweeping gesture. Ovanes has an ability to simplify, reducing matter to the most poetic form, which at the same time endowing the painting with vitality.”

            Simplicity is often a matter of skill. Artist Ken Auster’s ability to distill his subject into an abstraction of elements results in a highly evocative style of impressionist cityscapes.

            Still renowned for his classic surf art via silk screen images on T-shirts and paper, Auster’s work has been the fine art of beach culture during the heyday of the surf scene and its recent renaissance. During the mid-1990s, however, he moved to a more serious interpretation of fine art and its subject matter with a shift to plein aire painting and the urban landscapes of London , San Francisco , Venice , Carmel , Napa and other favorites around the world.

 
Rehearsal
36" x  48"
Ken Auster

            “In a relatively short time since the transition to plein air painting,” said Jennifer, “Ken has moved to the forefront of American contemporary impressionists. He consistently walks away with gold medals and first-place awards at juried exhibits, and he was recently voted into the Plein Air Painters of America.”

            Contemporary is often a matter of interpretation. In a decidedly different take on the city, Merry Kohn’s internationally collected graphic illustrations of the cityscape are as popular for their wit and whimsy as they are for her use of color and detail in portraying an exceptionally animated scene for a static surface.

            Those who understand and appreciate the culture of naïve art have collected and commissioned her work for various art collateral, including Kohn’s 1993 image, “Made in Paris ,” which was selected at the European Workshop to be used by UNICEF for its 1995 advent calendar and Christmas card.

Bullseye  
 24" x  36"
Merry Kohn

            Naïve art is often a matter of application. The naiveté of Gary Price’s sculpture often emerges in his subject matter, not his style, not his perspective, not his experience. Renowned for his bronze imagery of fanciful children, fantasy creatures and forceful installations, the Idaho-born artist makes his home with wife Lanea and five sons in Utah , where they established their “Kolob Sculpture Works” five years ago.

            “What I try to do,” he said, “is to remain open not pigeonhole myself to one subject matter. And, although my work is constantly evolving, with each creation my goal is to end up with a piece of art that is somehow inspirational in nature. Something that lifts us to a higher plane or level.” Nothing more than a matter of perspective, skill, interpretation and application."

The above article was written by Lisa Crawford Watson and appeared in  Carmel Magazine, Winter 2004 Edition

Circle of Peace
Life-Size Bronze
Gary Price

We are located on Dolores Street between Ocean Avenue and 7th Street in beautiful downtown Carmel!
P.O. Box 7009
Carmel, CA  93921
831-625-1511
800-336-4014

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