The Christopher Hill Gallery

Friends from wine country invited me up for a Mario Garcia Miro reception. Lovely wine. Gracious gallery hosts who made every kind of visitor feel welcome. It was a sweet space with great artwork. What I loved about the place was the wide selection of contemporary art. I can’t remember the last time I was in a gallery where I wanted to buy so much … Looking forward to visiting again during my next trip to Napa.

My husband and I were shopping in St. Helena for art and went into most of the galleries along Main St. in St. Helena. In other galleries we barely got a «hello» or were hounded by the salesperson as we tried to browse. Although we didn’t buy anything at Christopher Hill Gallery we had a great talk with Christopher, who was personably, unassuming, and not at all pushy. He described his gallery as «an urban gallery in The Napa Valley» and that’s exactly how it seemed. He had fabulous works in different mediums. Even if you’re not in the market for a piece of art definitely stop in here to take a look and sign up for their events.

My fiancé and I stumbled upon this gallery recently while we were in St. Helena buying parmesan cheese. (Yes, we drive all the way to St. Helena to buy parmesan. My honey is Italian and picky about his cheese.) We were literally walking down the street when I stopped in my tracks and said, «Honey, Jeremy Mann!» We are already very familiar with Jeremy’s work from Studio Gallery and John Pence Gallery in San Francisco. So, we headed upstairs to see what else we might find. We had a sneaking suspicion that we would find some of Greg Gandy’s work and we were correct. In addition to the artists that we already knew, we were introduced to some that we weren’t familiar with, such as Mario Garcia Miro (no relation). Mario, as he signs his works, paints amazing surrealist interiors looking out on very real looking landscapes. I wanted to take several of them home with me.
Christopher Hill, the owner of the gallery, is extremely nice and very knowledgeable about the works in the space as well as art in general. I think we were in there talking for a few hours!
I would love to see the gallery’s Web site updated. It is desperately out of date at this point. Some of the artists on the list are still accurate, but the list of exhibitions is still reflecting things that happened in 2005. For those of us who live a good distance away, an updated site is essential.
It would also be nice if printed price lists were available in the gallery. I understand higher end galleries not posting prices on the wall, but I appreciate places like John Pence having lists available. It makes visitors feel less shy about asking and also makes people more comfortable in knowing that everyone who walks through the door will be told the same price.
I’m sure we’ll be back here next time we need to buy some cheese. I’m still wishing we had bought one of those paintings…