Jerome Hill

Jerome Hill (1905 to 1972), born James Jerome Hill II, was an American filmmaker and artist best known for his documentary and experimental films. The son of the railroad executive Louis W. Hill, he was educated at Yale, where he drew covers, caricatures and cartoons for the campus humor magazine The Yale Record. His 1950 documentary Grandma Moses, written and narrated by Archibald MacLeish, was nominated for an Academy Award in the short subject category, and he won the 1958 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Albert Schweitzer. Besides directing he painted and composed music, and his last film, the autobiographical Film Portrait of 1972, was added to the National Film Registry in 2003. He also shaped arts funding: he founded the foundation that became the Jerome Foundation, which gives grants to arts organizations and artists in Minnesota and New York City, and the Camargo Foundation, which runs a residency program in Cassis, France.