Tristram Hillier, R.A. (1905-1983)

In 1937, following a whirlwind courtship and marriage to the actress Leda Hardcastle, Tristram Hillier settled in Austria with his new wife. With political unrest building the Hilliers moved to Provence in France and it was here that his good friend and mentor Edward Wadsworth would regularly visit.

As artists from the Unit One Group in the early 1930s both men shared a similar vision and their works, inspired by expeditions to the North coast of France, were stylistically similar in conception, with Wadsworth urging Hillier to use tempera to minutely depict these disquieting coastal landscapes. It was Wadsworth who also introduced Hillier to his dealers Arthur Tooth & Sons and he was to sell with them throughout and after World War II. The present work is from this highly productive pre-war period and depicts Bruneval on the French coast, painted before Hillier had to flee back to England in 1940.