IVON HITCHENS CBE
London 1893 - 1979 Petworth
Ref: CD 162
Yellow and orange lilies
Signed lower right: Ivon Hitchens; signed and inscribed on the artist’s label attached to the stretcher: IVON HITCHENS / Greenleaves . Lavington Common / Petworth . Sussex / "Yellow and orange Lilies"
Oil on canvas: 22 x 26 ¼ in / 55.9 x 66.7 cm
Frame size: 33 x 29 in / 83.8 x 73.7 cm
In a waxed and coloured hollow frame
Painted circa 1947
Provenance:
The Redfern Gallery, London;
Donald Carnegie, 30th August 1950
The Redfern Gallery, London;
Keith Seeley, 30th May 2001
Private collection, USA, then by descent
Exhibited:
Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, Ivon Hitchens, 31st October-27th November 1948, no.29 (no catalogue)
Despite difficulties at the start of the decade, including bomb damage to his London studio at Adelaide Road, the mid to late 1940s were a time of success and distinction for Ivon Hitchens. His first retrospective was held at Temple Newsam House, Leeds in 1945 and only three years later, another major exhibition of his work was held at the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, in which the present work was displayed. Moving permanently to Sussex from wartime London confirmed Hitchens as predominantly a painter of landscape, but Hitchens also excelled in the depiction of flowers, and still life painting formed an important part of his artistic output throughout his career. In conversation with TG Rosenthal, Hitchens once said, ‘I love flowers. I love flowers for painting. It’s only that life’s too short – one can’t always do flower paintings – not a carefully arranged bunch such as people ought not to do - but doing a mixed bunch in a natural way. One can read into a good flower picture the same problems that one faces with a landscape, near and far, meanings and movements of shapes and brush strokes. You keep playing with the object.’[1]
In contrast to Hitchens’s earlier depictions of lilies, whose soft, pale pink tones are balanced with silvery grey/green leaves at Brighton & Hove and Ulster Museums, here the vibrant orange and yellow flowers are surrounded by a more dramatic palette of rich, autumnal colours including brown, mauve and various shades of blue and green. A magnificent variety of mark-making in Hitchens’s brushwork, a characteristically sensuous handling of paint, adds equal interest to his bold use of colour in each area of the canvas.
[1] The artist cited in Alan Bowness (ed.), Ivon Hitchens, Lund Humphries, London 1973, p.13.
