Ivon Hitchens (1893-1979)

Hitchens was selected to represent Britain in the 1956 Venice Biennale, where 20 of his works were exhibited including Four Ways. The Biennale was a seminal moment in the artist’s career as it was Hitchens’ first opportunity to exhibit a larger group of his works on an international platform. Consequently, his work was requested for several international exhibitions in the following months.

Peter Khoroche proposed the question ‘How far could a picture develop away from nature, so as to give aesthetic pleasure in its own right without snapping the life-giving umbilical cord that connects it with nature?' (P. Khoroche, Ivon Hitchens, Aldershot, 2007, p. 152). Painted in 1955, Four Ways is representative of Hitchens’ shift towards total abstraction beginning in the late 1940s. Panoramic in format, Hitchens has characteristically built up the picture with flat screens of colour. The curved planes of colour in contrasting bright cool blue and warm toned brown serve to draw the viewer’s gaze over the surface of the painting. The colours used only hint at the possible subject matter of trees and water, common themes in many of Hitchens’ works of this period.