Hill’s mid-year paintings in 1952 ranged from mundane to highly creative. The Kansas City Southern/New Orleans image is perhaps most creative as it gives a definite feel of historic New Orleans even if it isn’t geographically accurate. A painting of a train along what is likely the Tennessee River is the least interesting.
A Kansas City Southern passenger train passes within sight of St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. This and all other images today are from Greg Palumbo’s collection. Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for a 9.0-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
Hill managed to combine iron work typical of the New Orleans French Quarter, St. Louis Cathedral, and the Southern Belle passenger train all in one painting. I’m pretty sure Kansas City Southern tracks did not pass within sight of the St. Louis Cathedral but the painting conveys a real sense of New Orleans. No signature is visible on this cover.
The Twentieth Century Limited heads north up the Hudson River at night. Click image to download a 1.8-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for a 7.8-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
This image of the streamlined 20th Century tilting around a curve is reminiscent of Gil Reid’s famous painting, As the Centuries Pass in the Night, which showed the heavyweight 20th Century Limited tilting around a curve. Reid’s painting, of course, had two trains, but by having only one Hill was able to show the lighted windows of the entire train. Characteristically, Hill also cropped out part of the observation car. I don’t see a signature.
A Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis freight train follows a major river. Click image to download a 2.8-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for an 11.7-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
Many of Hill’s paintings show a train following a river and sometimes I can only guess what river he had in mind. This is likely the Tennessee River, which the railroad followed for about 35 miles west from Chattanooga. Hill’s signature is near the lower right corner of the painting.
A Florida East Coast passenger train stops at a station. Click image to download a 2.8-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for an 11.9-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
This painting introduces another guessing game: what station does it represent? If I lived in Florida I would probably know, but the only stations I can find that have arches like those shown here, the arches are on the street side of the station, not the track side. Hill’s signature is in the lower right.
A GM&O freight train is dwarfed by a ship in what is likely the Port of Mobile. Click image to download a 2.6-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for a 10.8-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
The blurb attached to this cover says that Gulf, Mobile and Ohio’s Diesels were used principally between Chicago and St. Louis, but I suspect this painting is meant to represent Mobile, from which cotton, timber, and coal were exported. The sky is a bleak brown, which may have indicated industrial pollution or simply been an example of Hill’s “I can make the sky any color I want” aesthetic. Hill’s signature is near the lower right corner.
Tomorrow I’ll present the last five Bern Hill covers from 1952.