Ivon Hitchens: Painter in the Woods


Colourful exhibition at the Garden Museum looking at how Ivon Hutchins used the natural environment in his work.

In 1940 Hitchens moved to a caravan in the woods of Sussex after his London home was bombed. He eventually built a house there and curated the land around to be make a natural garden. 

The show looked at how he then the land in his art and began by looking at his simplified blocked landscapes in swathes of colour which experimented with abstraction and then moved to at his lovely still lives with flowers picked from the land around him. Finally it looked at his Tangled Pond series showing the vegetarian around the four ponds in his garden.

I loved the descriptions in this show including the fact that he had a potted horse chestnut in his studio which he took to his exhibitions so that real nature was included. I also liked the inclusion of some delightful sketchbooks and textiles designed by him and his son.

Closed on 15 July 2019

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