The story of Hilton’s life and career is enlivened by numerous anecdotes recalling the vicissitudes of his personal relationships with other artists, such as Peter Lanyon, Terry Frost and Patrick Heron, all supported by the extensive firsthand evidence and personal memories of his widow, Rose, who has helped greatly in bringing this book to fruition. Lavishly illustrated with works from all stages in Hilton’s career, it provides a visually stunning reminder of the range of his output, including examples of the unique series of Night Letters written in his last years when his still alert mind struggled to come to terms with physical frailty.

In the history of postwar painting Roger Hilton (1911-75) holds a special position as one of the pioneers of British abstract art. In his heyday in the early i96os he had gained international recognition and was chosen to represent the country at the XXXII Venice Biennale, where his painting March 1963 won the UNESCO prize. All the while, however, despite being much admired as a painter, Hilton’s reputation was marred by bohemian excess and rudeness fuelled by alcohol, addiction to which would eventually contribute to his early death.

After studying at the Slade in London and at the Academie Ranson in Paris (to which he returned on many occasions), Hilton came to public notice in I936 with his first solo exhibition at the Bloomsbury Gallery. His early career would, however, be interrupted by military service and it was not until the late 1940s that his distinctive style began to emerge, at first influenced by tachisme (the French response to American Abstract Expressionism). By the early 1950s he had developed a fully abstract style, leading in tam to neo-plasticism (involving the creation of a sense of space beyond the picture plane).

From the mid-1950s Hilton adopted a style which he described as ’semi-figurative expressionism’, evident for example in works dating from his first period in Cornwall (first in St Ives and especially in Newlyn from I957 to 196O) when, for example, boat shapes began to make an appearance in his paintings. Eventually, by the mid-I96OS he alternated between figurative subiects, often depicting female nudes, and purely abstract works. His interest in the nude is especially evident in drawings. Throughout his career Hilton practised his drawing skills (it was once said of him that ’il dessine comme un ange’), and several thousand works on paper survive, ranging from early sketchbooks to individual sheets from his final years when his ability to work was restricted due to ill-health.

After his second marriage in 1965, Hilton moved permanently to Cornwall, with only occasional visits to London for medical treatment or to attend exhibitions such as the major retrospective held at the Serpentine Gallery in 1974. As his health deteriorated his last oil paintings were produced in 1972, but there was a final flowering in the form ofcolourful gouaches - some abstract, some decorative, some figurative - of which many hundreds of examples survive.

The story of Hilton’s life and career is enlivened by numerous anecdotes recalling the vicissitudes of his personal relationships with other artists, such as Peter Lanyon, Terry Frost and Patrick Heron, all supported by the extensive firsthand evidence and personal memories of his widow, Rose, who has helped greatly in bringing this book to fruition. Lavishly illustrated with works from all stages in Hilton’s career, it provides a visually stunning reminder of the range of his output, including examples of the unique series of Night Letters written in his last years when his still alert mind struggled to come to terms with physical frailty.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART ONE LONDON (1911-55)

1 The Family Context (i9ii-29)

2 A Student in London and Paris (1929-39)

3 The War Years (1940-45)

4 Sowing the Seeds (1945-55)

PARTTWO CORNWALL (1956-75)

5 ’The Appalling Unrest of the Soul’ (1956-60)

6 Tasteful or Turbulent? First Waddington show and John Moores Exhibition (1960-65)

7 FruitsofSuccess(1965-72)

8 Final Flowering: to the Close (1972-75)

Conclusion: ’A Careful Disorderliness’

List of exhibitions

Select Bibliography

Sources of illustrations

Index