The photographs in this and the following two lots are well documented portraits Weston made of Jerome Hill and his family. Hill was a noted film producer who, in 1938, was awarded an Oscar for his film portrait, Albert Schweitzer (cf. Edward Weston: Photographs, fig. 648). He was a published photographer as well whose worked recalled Weston's (ibid.).
Amy Conger notes that "Louis Hill and his relatives must have considered Weston their family photographer. An inventory of his commercial portrait negatives shows that he made portraits of at least eleven members of the family, and he did some of them twice. In 1931 and 1932, Mrs. L. W. Hill purchased half a dozen of his prints and subscribed, apparently, to five copies of The Art of Edward Weston. On one day, April 13, 1931, Jerome Hill bought ten of Weston's prints, his brother ordered two and his mother, one. This was a record for Edward." (op. cit.)
Dorothy Millet Hill was Jerome Hill's sister-in-law, first wife to his brother Louis W. Hill, Jr. Lucille Millett Whitman was her sister.