Early life Gill was born in
Camden, South Carolina, on July 1, 1859. His father, William Harrison Gill, a merchant, was killed in action serving in the
Confederate Army when DeLancey was five. Nine years later, his mother and stepfather moved to
Fort Laramie in the
Wyoming Territory. Gill chose instead to move in with an aunt in
Washington, D.C. He briefly worked as a
typesetter before finding employment as a draftsman for the
Office of the Supervising Architect for the U.S. Treasury, specializing in ornamental ironwork and tiles.
Painting and illustration While employed as a draftsman, Gill began a series of ink sketches and watercolor paintings, primarily of landscapes in Washington, D.C. He focused on capturing the villages of the district's rural periphery. Gill's sketches are a relatively rare depiction of poorer neighborhoods of Washington during the 1880s, including Black and immigrant communities. A detailed illustration of a
shanty house, his only drawing showing an indoor environment, serves as an isolated example of the interiors of working-class housing in the city. Gill's watercolors brought acclaim, to the point that he received a greater income from art sales than his work with the Treasury. In 1881, his paintings were shown at an exhibition in New York City.
United States Geological Survey (USGS) chief of illustration
William Henry Holmes hired Gill as a paleontological draftsman in 1884. Holmes, a fellow watercolor painter, came to greatly respect Gill's artistic work, later claiming that "as an illustrator in pen, pencil, and water-colour, and as a photographer, he had few equals." Gill was rapidly promoted through the USGS, due in part to Holmes's admiration. In 1889, he succeeded Holmes as chief of illustration when the latter joined the
Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) to direct archaeological operations. As chief of illustration, Gill managed the publication of illustrations and photography, examining all copies of printed illustrations. As
John Wesley Powell was the director of both the USGS and the BAE, employees of both agencies were frequently assigned duties in the other. As such, Gill was additionally tasked with supervising the BAE's illustrations. During his initial time with the Bureau in the late 1880s, Gill produced paintings of southwestern
pueblos, departing from his prior focus on Washington. These included the
Hopi pueblo of
Oraibi, the ruins of
Pueblo Bonito, and
Zuni Pueblo. His painting of Oraibi was based on an earlier photograph by Smithsonian photographer
John K. Hillers, but no photographic source is known for the other pueblos within the series. Gill accounted for climatic differences in his landscapes, making use of thin washes for his depictions of southwestern locations. Although Gill largely stepped away from painting during a period of increased work within the BAE, he continued to paint throughout his life. In 1890, he showcased several of his paintings at an
American Watercolor Society exhibition in New York. He returned to art exhibition in 1922, showcasing his paintings at the Morrey Gallery in Washington. He also pursued private illustration work, including the label for a local whiskey brand.
Reception Gill's watercolor work was favorably received by contemporary art critics, with a reviewer for the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle describing his landscapes as "airy, clean, silvery" and distinct from other watercolorists. In 1983, art historians
Andrew Cosentino and
Henry Glassie wrote favorably of the extreme clarity and attention to detail shown in Gill's paintings. Cultural historian
Lisa Goff praised his illustrations, writing in 2016 that his sketches of Washington, D.C. were "not nostalgic or sentimental, but[...] studies of a vanishing landscape", made without demeaning the working-class shanties. Like his later work, these drawings have been described by Goff as meticulous and documentative, taking "little if any artistic license".
Photography man by Gill, 1906. BAE portraits were posed to allow for facial and cranial measurements of subjects.|alt=A Yakama man's face in profile, facing left. He is wearing a mix of native and western clothing, with a feather in his hair. In 1889, Gill discovered ancient
stone tools while sketching at
Rock Creek Park, later estimated as dating to around 2000 BC. He later took photographs of the artifacts
in situ for an archaeological exploration organized by Holmes, his first known photographic work. In 1894, Powell resigned from the USGS to focus on administration of the BAE. Four years later, Gill also resigned in order to continue work on Bureau publications. Despite having no prior training in photography, Gill was appointed as the Bureau's photographer following the resignation of the BAE's two previous photographers. In this position, Gill's work consisted of portrait photography of Native American subjects, primarily delegates to the capital, at a rate of hundreds of individuals per year. The total number of his portraits is unknown, but has been estimated to be between 2,000 and 3,000; an
Evening Times account upon his retirement put the figure at around 7,000. He also extensively classified and cataloged the resulting photographic negatives along ethnolinguistic lines, at one point re-cataloging the entire BAE archive of Native portraits. From 1903 to 1905, Gill delegated some of his portrait work to
United States National Museum photographer
Thomas Smillie. Due to Gill's worsening eyesight, many of his photography duties with the Smithsonian were transferred to
A. J. Olmsted in 1926, although he continued to be involved with portrait photography in a limited capacity. He continued work as illustration editor for various bureaus within the Smithsonian in addition to the BAE, including the
United States National Museum. In October 1931, he photographed Crazy Bull, grandson of
Sitting Bull. This would be one of his last photographs taken for the Bureau. The
Economy Act of 1932 prompted Gill to retire from the Smithsonian and declare his intention to focus on art and painting. They had six children before Rose Gill died in 1893, including Robert Gill, a major in the
Corps of Engineers. They divorced in 1903, but continued to collaborate in their work. On January 2, 1905, he married Katharine Schley Hemmick, with whom he had one child. Gill was an active cyclist: during the 1880s he served as a team captain of the
Capital Bicycle Club, an early American cyclists' organization. He was later a member of the
Cosmos Club, the
Society of Washington Artists, and the
Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia. He taught painting classes at the
Corcoran School of Art and the
Art Students League of Washington. He collected and transcribed a large number of African-American
spirituals and folk songs. He also collected antiques, and was described as an expert on
oriental rugs and East Asian
porcelain. Following his retirement from the Smithsonian, Gill moved to
Alexandria, Virginia. He died on August 31, 1940, after fracturing his skull falling down a staircase at his home. == Notes ==