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Overview
© reserved; collection National Portrait Gallery, London"Setting up canvas and box in all weathers, I seek first to unravel the essential meaning of my subject…and to understand my own psychological reactions to it" - Hitchens in P. Khoroche, Ivon Hitchens, 2007.
In his early career, Ivon Hitchens lived and worked from a studio in Hampstead, London, where he became part of a close circle of avant-garde artists including Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. He exhibited with the London Group from the early 1920s and later showed with the Seven and Five Society, aligning himself with the development of modern British painting between the wars.
Following the destruction of his Hampstead studio during the Second World War, Hitchens relocated in 1940 to Petworth in West Sussex, where he established a studio in woodland at Lavington Common. This setting became central to his work, providing a sustained engagement with landscape that informed his practice for the remainder of his career. He remained based in Sussex for the rest of his life, working in close proximity to the surrounding countryside.
Hitchens’ paintings, encompassing landscape, still life and the figure, are closely tied to direct observation. He worked predominantly out of doors, developing compositions through repeated studies and reworkings. His approach to colour and open brushwork has often been compared to that of Pierre Bonnard, while his early tonal handling reflects an awareness of Constable’s oil sketches. He was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1951.
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Works for sale
Ivon Hitchens British, 1893-1979
Study for A Giant Oak Tree, Circa 1978Oil on Canvas51 x 122 cms / 20 x 48 inchesUnsignedPrice on ApplicationDescription
This exquisite lineal landscape provides us with an unusually direct view of Hitchens’ thinking on canvas. Lines in blue and grey cross its broad white ground, meeting brushed areas of tone and longer horizontal strokes. Some marks establish a direction in a single movement; others test its weight or alter the space around it. The exposed ground is integral to the composition, allowing each gesture to be seen clearly and each interval to retain its force.
Of particular interest is the angular form near the centre. Its rising and descending lines invite comparison with the central structure in Hitchens’ Giant Oak Tree on Green Sky on Fields of 1978, in the Collection of the Courtauld Gallery, London. In this pinnacle artwork, a complex group of marks suggests the oak’s canopy and trunk, while the landscape opens towards the right. The study and the Courtauld work show a compelling kinship in their long format and the way a central form directs movement across the canvas, establishing this as a preparatory study for this painting.
Hitchens gave the study directly to contemporary artist Kenneth Webb. Its presence among the finished paintings is a testament to their friendship and artistic bond. Kenneth valued this as an object that reveals the decisions behind Hitchens’ expressive landscapes: the placement of a line, the space left open, and the moment when a painted gesture begins to suggest a tree or a distant field. In itself it is a vibrantly modern abstract work.
Provenance
Artist's Studio.The Private Collection of an Artist, UK, acquired from the above in the 1970s.
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