DeLancey Walker Gill (July 1, 1859 – August 31, 1940) was an American drafter, landscape painter, and photographer. Gill first became noted for his landscape illustrations and watercolors, featuring subjects such as Native American pueblos in addition to his main focus on Washington, D.C. Characterized as detailed and meticulous in his landscapes, Gill captured views of working-class and rural areas of Washington not commonly depicted in art of the period. Despite his other work, he continued to paint throughout his life, and taught art classes at the Corcoran School.
Gill was employed as an illustrator and draftsman for the United States Treasury, followed by similar work for the United States Geological Survey. He was director of the Division of Illustration at the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) from 1889 to 1932. Following the resignation of two of the Smithsonian's photographers in 1898, Gill, while not trained in photography, took over these duties at the BAE. In this role, he produced thousands of photographs of Native American delegations for the Bureau, including notable figures such as Geronimo and Chief Joseph. Gill's photographic work was showcased in Smithsonian publications, the Panama–Pacific Exposition and on a 1923 postage stamp. His portraiture has been praised for its pictorialist qualities and strength of design. He frequently gave clothing (at times outdated or misattributed) to Native American delegates. While Gill's costuming of delegates was considered salvage ethnography in the period, it has been criticized in modern studies for reinforcing contemporary stereotypes and misrepresenting his subjects and their cultures.
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.
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.
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".
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.
Delegations of Native American peoples to Washington, D.C., were common throughout the 19th century, often to negotiate treaties or dissuade frontier conflicts. Government photography of these delegations had begun in the 1860s and 1870s. The frequency of delegations increased over the 1890s, with many arriving during winter congressional sessions. They were generally not paid to sit for photographs, although Apache chief Geronimo, who had fixed prices for portrait sittings, successfully demanded payment from Gill before shooting.
Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, ordered that Native delegations should be photographed without headdresses so that the "configuration of the head" could be recorded. William Henry Holmes, succeeding Powell as Chief of the BAE in 1902, also emphasized the "anthropometric elements" of the photographs, placing items with known sizes around subjects in order to allow for facial and cranial measurements to be taken. However, as ethnographic and historical purposes were increasingly pursued, subjects were often depicted with headdresses, wearing Native dress and holding tools or artifacts associated with their tribe. Occasionally, subjects were given clothing that was anachronistic or from other tribes. Gill photographed all studio subjects in a "mug-shot" approach, with head-and-shoulders profile and front-facing shots. However, full body shots were also taken, usually of subjects in traditional clothing.