Joan Hill

Joan Hill
Acrylic painting depicting an Eagle Dance, Joan Hill, 2006
Born	Che-se-quah 1930 Muskogee, Oklahoma, United States
Nationality	Muscogee (Creek) Nation
Education	BA Northeastern State University; Bacone College
Known for	Painting
Awards	Smithsonian Institution's People of the Century.
Patron(s)	US Department of the Interior

Joan Hill (born 1930), also known as Che-se-quah, is a Muscogee Creek artist of Cherokee ancestry. She is one of the most awarded women artists in the Native American art world.

Joan Hill was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma in 1930. Hill is a descendant of both Muscogee Creek and Cherokee chiefs. She was named Cheh-se-quah, Muscogee for "Redbird," for both her great-grandfather, Redbird Harris, and her maternal grandfather.

Hill currently lives on the site of old Fort Davis of the Confederacy with her family. Her studio is adjacent to a Pre-Columbian Indian mound dating from 1200 CE.

Hill attended Bacone College. In 1952, she received her BA degree in Education from Northeastern State University of Tahlequah, Oklahoma in 1952. In 1953, Hill took the Famous Artists Course. She was a public art teacher for four years before becoming a full-time artist.

She has received more than 290 awards from countries including Great Britain and Italy. Other honors include over 20 Grand Awards, and the Waite Phillips Artist Trophy. In addition, Hill was the winner of a prestigious mural competition at the Daybreak Star Performing Arts Center from the Seattle Arts Commission in Washington. In 1974 Hill was given the title "Master Artist" by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee.

Over 110 of her works are in permanent collections, including the Sequoyah National Research Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, the United States Department of the Interior Museums of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Washington, D.C. and the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, New York City. State appointments include to the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women by Governor Henry Bellmon, 1989. National Appointments include U.S. Commissioner to the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Washington D.C., by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior-2000. In 2000, Hill was the "Honored One" of the Red Earth festival in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.