Anna Hills received her education at Olivet College in Michigan, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Cooper Union Art School in New York City. She worked with Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922) for two years. She then went to Europe where she studied at the Académie Julian and traveled and painted in Holland and England, where she studied with John Noble Barlow (1861-1917).

She returned to the United States and moved to Los Angeles around 1912. A year later she relocated to Laguna Beach where she became a founding member of the Laguna Beach Art Association in 1918. She became an indefatigable leader of that group, serving as president from 1922 to 1925 and from 1927 to 1930, the period during which the group raised the funds necessary to build their permanent gallery on Cliff Drive. A highly respected teacher, Hills promoted the visual arts through lectures and the organization of special exhibits which circulated among Orange County public schools.

San Gorgonio from Beaumont, 1927
Oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches

Southern California Landscape
Oil on canvas, 30x36 inches

By the Roadside, Near El Toro, 1914
Oil on canvas 14 x 10 inches

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Originally a figure painter, Hills turned to the landscape after her move to California. In addition to the Laguna Beach Art Association, Hills held memberships in the California Art Club and the Washington Water Color Club. Among her awards were a Bronze Medal, Panama-California Exposition, San Diego, 1915; a Bronze Medal, California State Fair, 1919; and the Landscape Prize, Laguna Beach Art Association, 1922,1923.

Summer in the Canyon
Oil on canvas, 18 x 26 inches

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