On returning to civilian life, Hill completed his studies at the
Royal College of Art and then painted professionally for a living. Hill also taught at both the
Hornsey School of Art and the
Westminster School of Art. His own work combined elements of impressionism and surrealism as well as more conventional representations, and was widely displayed at major art galleries during his lifetime, both in Britain and abroad. In 1938, while convalescing from
tuberculosis at the
King Edward VII Sanatorium in
Midhurst, he passed the time by drawing nearby objects from his hospital bed, and found the process helpful in aiding his own recovery. In 1939,
occupational therapy was introduced to the sanatorium for the first time and Hill was invited to teach drawing and painting to other patients - at first to injured soldiers returning from the
war, and then to general civilian patients. The Adamson Collection of about 6000 drawings, paintings, ceramics and sculptures by people compelled to live at Netherne was at
Lambeth Hospital in South London between 1997 and 2012, and has now being re-located to the
Wellcome Library in anticipation of a securer future in several international institutions. Hill worked tirelessly to promote art therapy, eventually becoming president of the
British Association of Art Therapists, founded in 1964, though he found himself at odds with its increasingly psychoanalytical orientation. In 1968 Hill was elected president of the
Royal Institute of Oil Painters. ==Ideas about art therapy==