Roger Hilton was one of the pioneers of abstract art in post-war Britain. He was born in 1911 in Northwood, London and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London and also in Paris, where he developed links with painters on the Continent. But he is always connected with St. Ives, and moved permanently to west Cornwall in 1965. By 1974 he was confined to bed as an invalid precipitated in part by alcoholism. His work became less abstract in his later years, often being based on the nude or images of animals. He died in 1975. 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... Part of the University College London, the Slade School of Art was founded in 1868 as the result of an endowment by Felix Slade. ... One of these three places is famous for the nursery rhyme and riddle As I Was Going to St Ives though it is not entirely clear which. ... Alcoholism is a dependency on alcoholic beverages characterized by craving (a strong need to drink), loss of control (being unable to stop drinking despite a desire to do so), physical dependence, tolerance (increasing difficulty in becoming drunk), and withdrawal symptoms. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...
As a result of their encounter Hilton was stimulated to think more intensively than ever before, through the medium of paint, with the result that though he never abandoned easel-painting to collaborate with architects, as did Constant, he embarked on his first unequivocally abstract paintings.
Hilton s statement in Alloway's book was existential in tone, vividly conveying the trauma of creativity: 'The abstract artist submits himself entirely to the unknown himself entirely to the unknown...
Hilton was a man subject to unrelenting - though possibly self-projected - furies, and a determined courter of catastrophes.
Although Hilton exuded existentialist drama, in part due to his drinking and also as a product of his times, he thought about art making in a pragmatic way; as if it were something he needed to do everyday, not unlike a bodily function.
Hilton manages to recapture the pure abandon or lack of self consciousness found in children's art in these gouaches.
Hilton displays tremendous sensitivity and visual wisdom in the way he varies the amount of pressure he applies to the surface of the paper with the tip of the pencil.
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