Ivon Hitchens 1893-1979

Ivon Hitchens's abstraction was rooted in the English landscape. He experimented with perceptual abstraction and his mature style was heavily influenced by Braque. After his house was bombed in 1940 he moved to a patch of woodland near Petworth, West Sussex. He worked there for the next forty years, distanced from the predominantly literary currents of British modern art.In his commitment to colour and open brushwork he was closer to the modern French masters, especially Bonnard. However he painted mostly outdoors and his technique developed from a tonal treatment that recalled the informality of Constable's sketches.He valued the disciplines of Cézanne too highly to allow structure to be controlled by subjective response alone. The paintings of his last years were characterised by both a glorious freshness of colour and grey tonalities.