As a further rejection of Hill’s painting style, 1954 saw General Motors ads retreat to the area below the Railway Age masthead. The paintings that fit into this area were landscape style (wider than tall) and occupied less than half the area of Hill’s previous paintings.

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Despite the size restrictions, Hill managed to make this into an action shot with the locomotive leaning forward as if it were photographed with a focal plane shutter. His signature is near the lower left corner of the painting.

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Only seven Railway Age covers in 1954 can be attributed to Hill with certainty. Three other covers have no signature and may be Hill’s work.

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Instead of interspersing Hill’s covers with the comic-strip covers used in 1953, either GM or Kudner brought in a number of new artists. There are two paintings signed Kenny, one Ettich, one Handville, and one Sizemore. (I’ll cover these artists in a future post.) The Christmas painting is unsigned, but is more of a cartoon style and is not likely to be Hill’s work.

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That leaves three other paintings that are unsigned. I’ll examine those in a future post but it is possible that some of them were painted by Hill.

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This painting is unsigned, but Greg Palumbo has Hill’s original artwork in his collection so we know it was done by Hill.

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This painting is signed near the lower right corner.

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This is another unsigned painting for which Palumbo has Hill’s original artwork.