MIKE HILL - Sculpture Reclining Female Form

MIKE HILL - Wood/Metal Sculpture. - Reclining Female Formc. 1970s

Wood - 17 H x 31 L

Mike Hill was born on October 16, 1940, in Evanston, Illinois to parents Claude and Genevieve Hill. In 1944, they moved to California. They lived in Pasadena for a year until they settled in South El Monte in 1945. Hill attended Petreo Grade School, was promoted to Lexington Junior High, and graduated from Rosemead High School in 1958. He moved onto Mt. San Antonio Junior College and graduated in 1960, transferring to Cal State Los Angeles where he received his Art degree in 1962.  Hill then married Roberta Lalli in July of 1962, and they had three children: James, Tom, and Sydney. During this time, he worked at General Dynamics, Fedway, and Bullocks Department Store.   

It was not until 1976 that Mike Hill became a full-time artist working for Woodworks creating glass terrariums. In 1978, he rented a small workspace next to the old Claremont Theater on Bonita and opened a studio producing stained glass. His first major commission was for the then fledgling Ontario Airport.  Mike entered a competition to create a large stained-glass window for Terminal One.   He won the competition and created an artwork he called “Space Sunset”.   Spanning 26 feet wide by 13 feet high, the translucent mural of stained glass, with sweeping lines and geometric shapes rendered in bright red, yellow, blue and black, graces the western wall of the original Ontario International Airport terminal, and when the afternoon sun streams into the now vacant building the entire space is filled with color. 

Over the next 20 years Hill created a number of series in many media including painting, sculpture and of course stained glass. During this period, he created steel and stained-glass gates for the law offices of lawyer Herb Hafif in Claremont. He also worked with Hafif to create dozens of stained-glass and sculptural works for his Foster Rhodes Jackson designed home in Live Oak Canyon.

In 1997, he moved to a studio in College Business Park where he produced multiple works of art through different mediums. These works of art included stained-glass, multiple paintings, and sculptures consisting of stainless steel, marble, aluminum, and wood. In 2001, Hill moved to a studio in Claremont where he currently resides and continues to work in wood.