Evelyn Hill

Evelyn Hill left her native Oklahoma to study at Black Mountain College in North Carolina under Josef Albers, whom she later cited as having an enormous impact on her work. She continued her studies at the Institute of Design in Chicago and as an apprentice to Cranbrook-trained weaver Majel Chance.

Hill worked only briefly in the contract textiles industry, but the designs she introduced at Knoll vastly broadened the scope of the company’s early textiles program. In the early 1950s, as Knoll was beginning to position itself as a major textiles manufacturer, a special handweaving studio was set up under the direction of Evelyn Hill. Hill’s ability to bring designs conceived on a weaver’s loom to production brought new possibilities of texture and depth to the Knoll collection.

After leaving Knoll, Hill had an illustrious career as a master tapestry weaver and fiber artist, working often from her studio in Mexico. She was known for her enormous architectural tapestries and her work was exhibited in the MoMA show Wall Hangings in 1969.