Roger Hilton 1911-1975

Hilton’s paintings walk a tightrope between success and failure that few of his contemporaries could match. Schooled in the formal abstraction of post-war Paris, Hilton’s work employs a level of bravura which, when at its best, is truly stunning. In his abstract works, simplified forms which carry with them no implicit figurative references dive back and forth across the canvas, using only a gift for placement and paint manipulation to achieve their effect. Often incorporating a free charcoal over-drawing into the finished images and using the simplest of palettes, his paintings become images representative primarily of an emotional expression.

Figure references had started to reappear in Hilton’s work in the late 1950s, a time when he was spending longer and longer periods in Cornwall, and in the first years of the decade, the hints of figuration were becoming stronger. In his correspondence the artist frequently made reference to the fact that he felt that abstraction per se was perhaps a dead end, and that whilst ‘one can no longer depict women as Titan did’ (The Artist, 1961, quoted in Chris Stephens, Roger Hilton, Tate Publishing, London, 2006, p.47) a reinvention of figuration may be his way forward. Hints of the body, often with suggestions of the erotic, began to appear more frequently and in Figure 1961 (Coll. Southampton City Art Gallery) Hilton produced the first unambiguously figurative canvas he had painted in years. The obvious progression from this relatively confined image to the unbridled enthusiasm of Oi Yoi Yoi, December 1963 (Coll. Tate) finally marked the triumphant return of the figure to Hilton’s painting. However, Hilton being Hilton, this was never a constantly explored theme and for many of the oils throughout the remainder of his career, he seems to have steered a path between the two poles, although he was to consistently, and latterly obsessively, draw the figure until the end of his life.

Whilst at first glance, this can appear to engender a relatively limited repertoire, one only need look at the failure of so many of his peers to achieve in their own abstract work the level of release seen in Hilton’s paintings to understand why for many he is considered one of the most consistently adventurous and talented artists of his generation.