Anna Hills was born in Ravenna, Ohio on January 28, 1882. She was raised in Olivet, Missouri and attended Olivet College. She studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Cooper Union and the Academie Julian in Paris, and privately with Arthur Wesley Dow in New York. After four years of travel and study in Europe, she settled in Laguna Beach. Anna was a founder and served as president of the Laguna Beach Art Association for six years and helped raise the funds to establish the present Laguna Museum of Art. A bronze plaque was placed there after her death on June 13, 1930 to honor the memory of her community work in Laguna. Her early works are mostly dark tonal interior, genre and figure studies, whereas upon her arrival in California she turned her attention to painting landscapes and marines. Using a highly colorful palette, she painted many beautiful scenes of the Southern California coast and landscapes.

Biography courtesy of DeRu's Fine Arts, www.antiquesandfineart.com/derus