Roger Hilton 1911 - 1975

Roger Hilton was born in Northwood, Middlesex in 1911 and studied at the Slade School of Art between 1931-9. He served in the army during WWII and was held prisoner of war 1942-5. He painted his first abstract work in 1950 and travelled to Amsterdam and Paris with Dutch painter Constant in 1953 and saw works by Mondrian. He was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Painting at the Venice Biennale in 1964 and the CBE in 1968. Hilton rented a studio in Newlyn, Cornwall between 1957 and 1960 and moved to Bottallack, Cornwall in 1965 where he died in 1975.

works in the collection - 5

PAC/032

Although closely associated with the St Ives group during the 1950s, Hilton rejected the romanticist tendencies of artists such as Lanyon and Wynter. Hilton's emphasis on process stressed the formal qualities of the work over and above its apparent content.

Three Boats, circa 1958


PAC/033

The work's tentative title suggests the dialogue that existed in Hilton's work between figuration and abstraction. At the heart of many of his paintings lies a deliberate ambiguity between their plastic properties possible meanings. Hilton moved between phases of increased abstraction and figuration throughout his career. This is reflected in his interest in Mondrian and Neo-Plasticism in the early 1950s and the semi-figurative expressionism of his late gouaches.

Boat - perhaps?, circa 1958


PAC/031

Hilton rented a studio in Newlyn from 1957-60 and the works he made at this time established him as a leading abstract painter. With the other Middle Generation artists, Heron, Frost, Wynter, Davie and Lanyon his work was compared to that of the American Abstract Expressionists.

Red Sea, 1958


PAC/030

The example of Dutch painters Constant and Mondrian had a profound impact in Hilton's work in the 1950s. This work is typical of Hilton's organic non-figuration; dense painted forms contrast with gestural linear passages creating an expressive composition anchored by Hilton's formal concerns. Hilton rented a studio in Newlyn, Cornwall between 1957 and 1960. He became a central figure in the group of artists working in Cornwall in the 1950s. Close friends with Terry Frost and Patrick Heron he moved permanently to Cornwall in 1965.

Brown, yellow and black, circa 1958


PAC/029

Hilton's practice at this time emphasised informality and improvisation. His range of mark making allowed for drawn and smeared lines and areas of heavy impasto within a single image. From the mid-fifties his work balanced representation and formal abstraction.

Black and Brown, circa 1958