David Octavius Hill, 1802 - 1870. Artist and pioneer photographer

This sculpture of the painter and pioneer photographer David Octavius Hill is by his second wife, Amelia Robertson Hill. She has depicted him in the form of a 'heroic' portrait bust, in which the sitter wears classical drapery rather than contemporary dress.

Amelia encouraged her husband to complete his most ambitious painting, ‘The Signing of the Deed of Demission’. The painting, which commemorated the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland, contained portraits of over 400 ministers. It was begun in 1843, and when it was finally exhibited in 1867, a reviewer wrote that Hill had completed his picture 'with a heroism unsurpassed in the history of art'.

Credit: Given by the artist 1904