Painter, printmaker, and collagist Clinton J. Hill was born in Payette, Idaho, on March 8, 1922. He earned his Bachelors degree from the University of Oregon in 1947, followed by study at the Brooklyn Museum School in Brooklyn from 1949 to 1951. Hill then traveled to Europe, studying at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris (1951) and the Instituto de Art Statale in Florence (1951 - 1952). Among his teachers in New York were Max Ernst, Max Beckmann, and John Ferren, who was a founding member of the Abstract Expressionist group 'The Club'. A Fulbright Scholarship in 1956 allowed Hill to travel to India, where he worked as an assistant to Mark Rothko and studied metaphysical theory, which greatly influenced his art.

Hill began exhibiting regularly in the 1950s, participating in his frist group show at the International Watercolor Biennial at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1951.  Other group shows included artists such as Alex Katz, Robert Motherwell, Man Ray, and Vincent Longo, among others. Hill's first solo exhibition took place at the Zabriskie Gallery in New York in 1954. A secondary career as a teacher began in the 1960s at the City University, where he would remain through the 1980s. In 1972 Hill traveled to Woodstock to participate in a workshop on experimental paper arts, taught by papermakers John and Kathryn Koller. Among the participants were Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Jim Dine, Karl Appel, Robert Motherwell, and many other leading experimental artists of the time. This proved to be a turning point in Hill's career as he began incorporating collage into his portfolio, eventually making a name for himself in the medium.

Hill exhibited throughout the U.S. and abroad, and his works can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim (New York); the Victoria and Albert Museum (London); the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles); the Baltimore Museum of Art; and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (Fort Worth), among others. Hill died in New York on September 6, 2003.

A complete list of Hill's exhibitions and publications can be found on his estate's website.