Jane H. Hancock

Homecoming is the catalogue for an exhibition which took place from May to Sept 1991. James J. Hill built his new home in 1891 with a two story art gallery to showcase his impressive collection of the Romantic and Barbizon period French landscape paintings. The room was unique, with grooves along the walls that enabled paintings to be hung frame to frame, several tiers high, and the skylight flooded the room with natural light. Paintings by 19th century artists such as Corot, Courbet, Millet, and Delacroix crowded the walls.
This was a historic house with many innovations built by railroad baron Hill. Sophisticated technical systems throughout the mansion provided central heating, gas and electric lighting, plumbing, ventilation, security, and communication.
In The Great Gatsby, Hill is the man whom his father says Gatsby would have equaled if he had lived long enough.… (mehr)