Ivon Hitchens is widely held to be the greatest British landscape artist of his age and his paintings are held in museum collections worldwide.
During the 1920s & 30s Hitchens lived and worked in Hampstead, a period when the area became the artistic nexus of a vibrant cosmopolitan community, which included such migratory Europeans as Piet Mondrian and Naum Gabo and members of the British cutting edge - Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, and Barbara Hepworth. During this time Hitchens was actively involved in the introduction of the European avant-garde to British cultural life and produced a handful of the most advanced and beautiful abstract paintings from British art of the era. However in contrast with a fair number of his contemporaries, he felt that the strict doctrines of International Modernism represented a narrowing path leading to a cul-de-sac. Transcending theory, he pursued a more intuitive interaction with life, and above all with nature.
Spanning five decades of Hitchens’ career, this exhibition is the largest showing in a public space of Ivon’s work since that held at the Serpentine Gallery in 1989 and paves a way for the major survey to be held at The Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, next year.
We are grateful to the Sandelson brothers for their support in presenting this exhibition in memory of their father, Victor.
