Howard Hildebrandt went to work in an Allegheny stained-glass factory when he was fifteen. Three years later he came to New York to study at the National Academy of Design. He was enrolled for only one academic season, 1890-91, in both the antique and the life classes, then moved on to Paris and the Académie Julian, where he worked under Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens, and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Exactly when he returned to the United States is not clear. However, in 1898, on his first appearance in an Academy annual exhibition, he gave an address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
By 1902, when he next showed at the Academy, his address was one of the studios in New York's Carnegie Hall. One of the two works he exhibited was Portrait: Miss C., the subject of which might have been the miniature painter Cornelia Ellis, whom he married that same year. Hildebrandt participated in almost every Academy exhibition thereafter, always giving a New York address through 1948. From 1913, however, the Hildebrandts lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, and their lifelong association was as members of the Silvermine Guild of Artists. Hildebrandt was a founding member of the Knockers Club, precursor of the Silvermine Guild. In 1924 he served as the guild's president. He was also an active member of the Salmagundi Club, the American Watercolor Society, and, earlier in his career, the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh.
Hildebrandt had a long, successful career as a portraitist and was frequently commissioned to paint images of academic and corporate leaders. He also worked in landscape, figure subjects, and still life, examples of which were regularly among his contributions to Academy exhibitions.
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