At 15 years old, he sought entry as a student at Charles Rennie Mackintosh 's new Glasgow School of Art.
He was awarded scholarships for a total of 12 years at the school and, after his parents’ move to London in 1914, at the Royal Academy, where he graduated in 1920.
Hillman studied portraiture under William Orpen and John Singer Sargent, and stained glass under Sir George Frampton.
He painted the British Home Secretary in 1920, Edward Shortt, the distinguished Indian/Jewish Sassoon family, and his uncle Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog.
He moved to stained glass in 1935, following a commission to design a window in Leeds Synagogue commemorating the Jubilee of King George V. Thereafter, he designed full sets of windows in several London synagogues,[3] including Gt Portland Street,[4] St John's Wood,[5] St Albans,[6] Walm Lane[7] (now installed at Brondesbury Park Synagogue and elsewhere), and the Hechal Shlomo centre in Jerusalem.