About The Artist

Allison Hill-Edgar is a visual artist working in New York City. Her oeuvre focuses on the human form and seeks to explore and analyze the human experience. In particular, she investigates the often complicated relationship between the understanding of one’s internal world, both physical and mental, and one’s external reality.

Hill-Edgar was born in 1972 in Washington, D.C. and has spent most of her life living in the New York City area pursuing her passion for art. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard College in 1994, where she majored in Fine Arts. During her time in college, she also worked for Art Education for the Blind in New York City and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Following college, she took a post-graduate year in Paris to study art history, photography, and figure drawing.

Although studio art has been her enduring passion, Hill-Edgar also has pursued a fascination with the human body from a scientific perspective. She earned her MD from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2003, and completed her medical internship at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and obtained her medical license in 2004. During the period in which she studied medicine, she complemented her medical work with life drawing classes, photography, and the study of the history of anatomy in art. 

In 2004, Hill-Edgar decided to return to a full-time career as an artist.  In addition, she earned an MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2017 and is currently painting, exhibiting, and teaching in New York.  As a doctor and artist, Hill-Edgar’s combination of these two fields of study has given her a unique understanding of the human form and functions. It is this melding of art, science, and consideration of the human condition that drives much of her creative endeavor today. In addition to her studio practice and teaching, she was awarded the 2020 Michael E. DeBakey Fellowship in the History of Medicine at the National Library of Medicine for an ongoing research project, “Reframing Anatomical History Through the Female Body.” She gave the Annual Michael E. DeBakey Lecture in the History of Medicine at NLM in 2021.

Hill-Edgar’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in the New York area. Her work also is in private collections in New York City, Washington, D.C., Charleston, SC, Upstate NY, Connecticut, Maine, California, Florida, and Holland.

When not in her studio or the classroom, Hill-Edgar enjoys studying historical anatomy and art history, visiting museums, and exploring different cultures.  In addition, she is active on boards and committees for non-profit organizations that support the arts, history, medicine, education, and the environment.