Ivon Hitchens (1893-1979)

By 1960, Hitchens had begun to use freer, bolder brush marks and less rigid compositional structures. He moved further away from naturalism towards greater abstraction, a trend that was to continue for the next two decades, until his death in 1979. It did not, however, mean that he was any less involved in the experience of nature, which remained the indispensable source of his inspiration.

In the present painting the mill and bridge are reduced to a pink rectangle and a blue arc, demonstrating the strict economy of form in Hitchens' later work. The calligraphic sweeps of vibrant colour over bare canvas, however minimally defined, still suggest the reflection of trees and dappled shifts of light over water. The spectator can trace in the picture the passage of Hichens' eye as it picks up information, and follow the movement of the brush translating it into pictorial language (A. Causey, exhibition catalogue, Ivon Hitchens A Retrospective Exhibition, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1979, p. 18).

The painting was at one time owned by Howard Bliss, who was as much an evangelist as a collector of Hitchens. Through his kindness and enthusiasm, the Art Exhibitions Bureau was able, in the 1950s and 60s, to draw freely on his collection to tour a varying group of up to fifty works in all genres throughout the United Kingdom and, in 1961, in the main cities of Australia.