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| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nov 16, 2011 | Bonhams | London | 20th Century British & Irish Art | 125 | $****** - ****** | Variations on a Theme |
paintings
41 x 74.3 cm (16.14 x 29.25 in)
oil on canvas
signed 'Hitchens' (lower left), further signed, inscribed and dated 'Ivon Hitchens/Greenleaves/Lavington Common/Petworth/Variations/on a Theme/1950/No.1' (on a label attached to the stretcher)
With The Waddington Galleries, London, where purchased by Mr & Mrs J. Matthews Variations on a Theme is a rare example of figure painting by Ivon Hitchens. It was not until the Leicester Galleries mounted an exhibition of twenty-seven figurative pictures in 1950 that this aspect of his oeuvre was properly brought to wider public attention and due to the few examples that exist, it is not something that has often been discussed. Hitchens had always been interested in and keen to paint the human form. As a student at the Royal Academy Schools there would have been a strong emphasis on draughtsmanship and he would have drawn from antique casts and live models. However, as he forged his own career, a lack of money made the hiring of a professional model difficult and his move to the Sussex countryside gave him unlimited access to landscape. The twenty-seven paintings that were exhibited at the Leicester Galleries, and the present work, came about due to a unique and prolonged period Hitchens had with a professional model in 1948.
