Ivon Hitchens

Sale, Christie's London, 13 May 1994, lot 158, where acquired by David Bowie

His sale, Sotheby's London, Bowie/Collector Part II: Modern And Contemporary Art, Day Auction, 11 November 2016, lot 178, where acquired by the present owner

'Don't try to find a picture. Find a place you like and discover the picture in that' - Ivon Hitchens, sketchbook, 1936, reproduced in Claudia Milburn, 'The Landscape Sketchbooks of Ivon Hitchens', Ivon Hitchens, Space Through Colour (exh. cat.), Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 2019, p. 57)

The present lot was created circa 1920, and is an early exploration of the South Downs landscape which are a range of chalk hills that run directly through the middle of West Sussex from east to west, the defining geographical feature of the county. This work is one of a number of charming early works when Hitchens is at his most detailed and lyrical: other examples include Didling on the Downs (circa 1920), South Downs Landscape (1923) and South Downs (The Plough on the Downs) (1919). The sinuous lines of the sweeping hills are depicted in each with great feeling, and these works predate Hitchen's later move to the West Sussex countryside near Petworth in 1940. At the time, these works would have been an antidote to the much more formal commissions, predominantly for churches, from which Hitchens was making a living at the time.

In flowing lines of green and purple, Hitchens' love for the landscape is palpable. A patchwork of fields make up the composition, further populated with a snaking path that winds its way diagonally across the centre, and intricately detailed trees and hedgerow blossoms.

The present work was formerly in the collection of David Bowie and was sold in these rooms in 2016 in his sale, Bowie/Collector.