A Lake and Outflow (Warnford Series), 1960
Oil on Canvas
Signed bottom left
Inscribed on label verso 'Hitchens, Sussex, 1960'
Purchased Waddington, November 1992. Ref 2332830.

Provenance
Estate of the artist
Waddington Galleries, London
White House (Regents Park) Ltd., London
Private Collection

Exhibited
Three Masters of Modern British Painting (Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland and Ivon Hitchens), Arts Council of Great Britain, 1961, (18)
Contemporary Paintings in London, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Oct - Dec 1962, (31)
Ivon Hitchens: A retrospective exhibition, Tate Gallery, London, July - August 1963; Bradford City Art Gallery Aug - Sept 1963; Birmingham City Museum & Art Gallery Sept - October 1963 (128)
59.0 x 170.0 cm (23¼ x 67 inches)

Provenance:
Estate of the artist
Waddington Galleries, London
White House (Regents Park) Ltd., London
Private Collection

Exhibition History:
Three Masters of Modern British Painting (Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland and Ivon Hitchens), Arts Council of Great Britain, 1961, (18)
Contemporary Paintings in London, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Oct - Dec 1962, (31)
Ivon Hitchens: A retrospective exhibition, Tate Gallery, London, July - August 1963; Bradford City Art Gallery Aug - Sept 1963; Birmingham City Museum & Art Gallery Sept - October 1963 (128)

Notes:
By the time A Lake and Outflow 1960 was painted, Hitchens had been living near Petworth in the Sussex woods for twenty years. In an exhibition catalogue of the time the inspiration behind this painting is described in some detail: ‘To the artist, the interest of this subject lay in the combination of four entities, each in itself having pictorial value; the lake, long,
receding into the distance...The swift flowing water race tumbling in a small fall...The deep, cool, clear trout pool...and leading out of this pool the winding stream...These four entities, forming the whole subject each had their rival claims, depending on the concentration of interest...’1 Hitchens set up his easel out of doors. The challenge was to shed the traditional painting of his art school days (Sargent and Orpen) and to investigate the landscape more radically in terms of abstract elements such as space, form and colour. He had studied Braque and Matisse, for example, but he worked out his own aesthetic and method, often summarising his sensations by using courageous, sweeping brushstrokes. Between the world wars Hitchens had lived in Hampstead, London as part of the circle that the poet and critic Herbert Read dubbed a ‘gentle nest of artists’. The circle included Nicholson, Hepworth, Moore, Gabo and Nash. In 1940 a nearby bomb expelled Hitchens and his wife to a caravan on six acres of recently acquired Sussex countryside. Gradually a simple dwelling was built, and added to as sales of paintings increased. The local woodlands, which Hitchens left largely undisturbed, became his obsessive but joyful inspiration for some forty years. Lake and Outflow, 1960 (one of a series of eight paintings) is almost three times as long as it is high - a typical Hitchens format. Hitchens is widely represented in public galleries around the world including the Tate. There have been many retrospective shows including the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1963 and Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1979.
1 Ivon Hitchens, The Warnford Water Series and Five Other Paintings, p2 (London : Waddington Galleries) 1960

See also 'Ivon Hitchens' by Peter Khoroche, pp132-135, which illustrates several of the Warnford paintings
POA