Ivon Hitchens 1893-1979
Landscape at Heyshott
oil on canvas
16 x 21¾ ins


Literature
Ivon Hitchens, Lund Humphries illustrated

Biography

His mature work depicted landscapes, still-life and (very occasionally) figures, in a rich and subtly-coloured semi-abstract manner, although for a period in the 1930’s he produced some totally non-figurative works. His usual medium was oils and he usually employed an elongated horizontal canvas format ('seascape') after c.1936.

Born in London, he travelled to New Zealand, Australia and Ceylon in his late teens when recuperating from an illness. He studied at St.Johns Wood School of Art in 1911 and spent four years, with breaks, at the RA Schools 1912-1919. He was a co-founder of the 7 & 5 society in 1919. His style, during the 1920’s was influenced by Braque Bonnard and Matisse, of whom he had learned through Fry and Bell; in 1923 he visited France and painted landscapes (La Roche Guyon) for example, in homage to one of his greatest influences, Cezanne. In 1925 he had his first one-man show at the Mayor Gallery, and became a member of the London Group in 1931.

After his London house was bombed in 1940 he moved to Midhurst, Sussex, and adopted the landscape of the Downs as his prime subject, often painting out-of-doors, using a white ground. His use of vibrant colour and loose brushwork gave his works a characteristic appearance, as, for example, in the many versions of Terwick Mill; he saw nature as a series of objects and spaces; he aimed for a transcendental, musical quality: 'My pictures are painted to be listened to'.

He was a great painter of flowers, seeing them as presenting the same problems as landscape whilst in his last phase he painted a number of pictures of the Sussex sea. He had a major retrospective in 1945 (Leeds), won an Arts Council award for his 1951 work for the Festival of Britain, Aquarian Nativity, and executed an important mural commission for the English Folk Song and Dance Society (Cecil Sharp House, 1952-4); his work was shown at the Venice Biennale in 1956.