Meet the Artist
Rick Hill
Kentucky native Rick Hill is a Kentucky Department of Fish and
Wildlife Resources employee. Largely self-taught, Hill at age 18, successfully
marketed several limited edition prints and added the fine art of wood sculpting to his
craft. That's when his first limited edition wildlife art print went on the market.
By the mid 1970s, he had released 10 more limited edition prints which soon sold
out. Organizations and individuals often commission the professional artist.
Perhaps without realizing it, Kentucky trout anglers carried Hill's
art in their wallets in 1986. Rick Hill is the first (and only, to date) Kentucky artist
to win the KDFWR's trout stamp design contest. Since 1987, he has produced wood
sculptures of both freshwater and saltwater fish species for the Blakeslee Gallery of Fine
Art in Palm Beach, Florida.
The KDFWR is proud to claim this outstanding wildlife artist as an
employee. Hill began in the fisheries division in the late '80s and joined the I&E
division as artist in 1994. Even before his employment with the department, the artists
work appeared in Kentucky Afield - the magazine and in several brochures. Hill's
art enhances the Kentucky Wildlife Viewing Guide (1994)
his work has earned numerous awards from the Kentucky Association of Government
Communicators. In 1998, he received a national award for the "Big River
Ecosystem" poster from the American Association of Conservation Information.
Following "Fall Bachelors", the 4th print of the wildlife series, Hill began
work on a poster featuring mussels and their host fish for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
Hill's originals reflect his knowledge of and respect for his
subjects and their surroundings. With attention to the minutest of details, he not only
accurately portrays a chosen species but emphasizes its natural habitat, whether fish
sculpture or wildlife painting. Trying to capture a certain mood in each work is the
artist's goal. Only the viewer can judge his success.
Rick Hill's art is spread from Florida to Alaska and points
in-between, but his heart is definitely in Kentucky where he shares his Shelby County home
with wife Gina, daughter Sarah and son Clinton.
