About a dozen Railway Age covers after 1953 are unsigned and cannot definitely be attributed to Bern Hill by another criteria. Here, I’m going to look at these covers to see if they look like Hill’s style or that of another artist.
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This Southern Pacific locomotive looks more like Kenny’s style than Hill’s. This painting has some detailed features that Hill tended to smooth over, as shown in the March 29 1954 Milwaukee Road painting, so I’d consider it unlikely to be done by Hill.
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This Bangor & Aroostook image shows the unusual angles characteristic of most of Hill’s work. I wouldn’t call the locomotives overly detailed, so I’d consider it a definite possibility.
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This painting shows both Soo Line and Wisconsin Central locomotives. The locomotives are a bit oversimplified and the people look like people in other Bern Hill paintings. So I’d consider this a clear possibility for Hill.
Click image to download a 2.4-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here to download a 9.6-MB higher-resolution PDF of this image from Greg Palumbo’s collection.
This Florida East Coast train looks like a toy train, a complaint I also had about the Southern Railway train on the February 11, 1950 cover. The arches in the train station match the arches in the July 28, 1952 cover. Based on that alone, I’d attribute this to Hill.
Click image to download a 2.3-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here to download a 9.3-MB higher-resolution PDF of this image from Greg Palumbo’s collection.
This one could be by Hill, but it could also be by Kenny. It doesn’t look like the work of Handville. I’d put this in the possible but not likely category for Hill.
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This collage of Burlington, Missouri Pacific, and Santa Fe passenger locomotives had to have been painted by someone at Kudner and Hill is a possibility. I don’t think it is highly likely simply because no other Railway Age cover he did was like this, but I can’t rule it out either.
Click image to download a 2.3-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here to download a 10.0-MB higher-resolution PDF of this image from Greg Palumbo’s collection.
The July 4, 1955 cover featuring the Aerotrain is signed by Hill. The 1955 Christmas cover starring the Aerotrain was signed by Stan Ekland. This one isn’t signed, but the simplicity of the locomotives makes me think it was by Hill.
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I can’t find a signature on this Aerotrain painting either. It looks more like a Handville painting than one by Hill. Google’s images of this cover are in black-and-white so this is my photograph of the cover at the U of O library.
Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here to download a 9.3-MB higher-resolution PDF of this image from Greg Palumbo’s collection.
Greg Palumbo believes this is Hill’s last cover painting for General Motors. It looks enough alike the 1952 Florida East Coast cover that it is hard for me to argue with him.
Click image to download a 2.3-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here to download a 9.6-MB higher-resolution PDF of this image from Greg Palumbo’s collection.
This one came out six weeks after the previous one. It doesn’t really look like Hill’s work and was more likely done by Brillhart.
So how many Railway Age covers did Bern Hill paint? A total of 55 covers are signed, were made into posters, or Greg Palumbo has their original artwork in his collection. Another seven covers were published between February 1 1950 and December 21 1953, a period during which all of the full-page artworks were done by Hill. Most of them look like Hill’s work, so I’ll credit them to him even without signatures.
Among the ten unsigned paintings shown above, I count five as likely done by Hill and five as not likely. That would make a total of 67 by Hill. Greg Palumbo had estimated 65, and he may be right if I’ve erroneously attributed a couple of the questionable paintings to Hill.