English painter and a pioneer of abstract art in post-war Britain, Roger Hilton is one of the most unique voices in 20th Century British art. Having moved to Cornwall in 1965, many of the Hilton's paintings from this period took initial inspiration from the rhythms and colours of the natural world. This has generally been interpreted as a mark of his association with the 'middle generation' of St Ives artists, Frost, Heron, Lanyon, Wynter.
By the early 1970s Hilton was bedridden with a muscular disease. Still making art, Hilton returned to the childlike subjects that had characterised his early work: animals, boats, a horse and cart and nudes, as displayed in Currell Collection. Memory, observation and the simple joy of making marks constitute a complex variety of impulses behind these late works, in which Hilton retrieved a childlike freshness of vision, but one marked by a lifetime's experience.
Major retrospectives of Hilton's work have been held at the Serpentine Gallery (1974), Hayward Gallery (1993) and Tate St Ives (2006) and his work is represented in major museum collections throughout the world.
Lit: Tate; Jonathon Clark & Co Gallery; BBC.
The Estate of Roger Hilton is represented by Jonathon Clark & Co Gallery, www.jcfa.co.uk