Roger Hilton

Private Collection, Australia
Sale, Sotheby's Sydney, 4th December 1994, lot 180
Austin/Desmond Find Art, London, where acquired by the present owner, January 1996

London, Institute of Contemporary Art, Roger Hilton Paintings, 1953-57,  February - March 1958, cat. no.6, illustrated;
Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, Recent Paintings: Seven British Artists, with British Council tour, 1959, cat. no.31.

We are grateful to Stuart Sanderson for his kind assistance in preparing the below condition report: Unlined canvas and original stretcher. The painting has a light gloss varnish. The paint has a very fine cracked appearance, and there are areas where it is lifting away from the canvas. The painting is very fragile and there are two recent losses. In the red form there are numerous filled and retouched losses, which are very apparent under a UV light. In the rest if the painting there are some thin lines of scumbled paint along the edges. I think this may mostly be cosmetic, to tidy up the uneven edges. There are some very minor losses in the main body of the painting, disguised with neat retouchings. Tightly float-mounted in a thick black wooden frame. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present lot.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

We are grateful to Timothy Bond for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

As with so many artists of his generation, Roger Hilton’s career was interrupted by the Second World War, and it was not until he was well into his forties that his mature style began to coalesce. The summer of 1953 marked a pivotal shift in the direction of his work, and during the next year and a half he produced a series of austere canvases, including January 1954, with pared back compositions made up of rough edged forms of interlocking bold colour, banded by areas of raw canvas. Applied delicately with a palette knife, the paint surfaces of works such as January 1954 have a real physicality, providing a particularly sensory visual experience.   

Hilton prescribed his shift in 1953 to the ‘influence of Constant via Mondrian’ (Roger Hilton, inscribed on his copy of Patrick Heron, ‘Introducing Roger Hilton,’ Arts Magazine, May 1957, pp. 22-6, collection of Rose Hilton, reprinted in Adrian Lewis, Roger Hilton, Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 2003, p.40). The Dutch artist Constant A. Nieuwenhuys was part of the avant-garde Cobra group, and he was introduced to Hilton through Stephen Gilbert, a contemporary from Hilton’s days at the Slade. Constant opened up for Hilton theories of abstraction, which had already been occupying his thoughts since the end of the 1940s. Hilton was actively concerned with relationship of the paintings within the context of the wider environment and he wrote that painting ‘is no longer regarded as a vehicle for images or even as an arrangement of shapes. It has become an instrument, a kind of catalyst, for the activation of space…We see that their role has become more anonymous and that their effect is not to say “Look at me” but “Look at your surroundings.” Ideally they should provoke harmony where none existed before.’ (Roger Hilton, ‘Writings Sheet 12, RHA, reprinted in Chris Stephens, Roger Hilton: St Ives Artists, p.10). It was with Constant that Hilton saw the paintings of Mondrian in February 1953, at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, when he accompanied Constant on his return to Holland.

While the influence of both artists can be seen in the aesthetics of Hilton’s works of this period, one can see also see in January 1954, with its jagged explosive lines bursting their bounds, that Hilton never completely camouflaged the thoroughly expressive, passionate side of his creative production.  As artist and critic Patrick Heron commented in 1957: ‘Despite all their training Hilton’s forms break ranks and wave a scraggy arm at one wildly; or they let their heavy heads hang down, like lifeless scarecrows’ (Patrick Heron, ‘Introducing Roger Hilton,’ Arts (NY), vol. 31, no.8, May 1957, reprinted in Mel Gooding (ed.), Painter as Critic: Patrick Heron, Selected Writings, Tate Gallery, London, 1998, p.133).