Strauss & co - 15 October 2018, Cape Town

206 501 Ivon Hitchens BRITISH 1893-1979 Felled Trees signed and dated 46; inscribed with the artist’s name, address and the title on a label adhered to the reverse; fragments of exhibition labels adhered to the reverse oil on canvas 40 by 85cm R  –   PROVENANCE Howard Bliss. Dr A Hunter, 1950. Mr and Mrs Harrison. The Labia Family Trust. EXHIBITED The Mayor Gallery, London, 1925. Art Exhibitions Bureau. Waddington Galleries, London. South African National Gallery, Cape Town, 1956. South African National Gallery, Cape Town, Friends of South African National Gallery, Labia Private Collection , exhibition, catalogue number 37. The son of a landscape artist, Ivon Hitchens was trained at London’s Royal Academy and early on influenced by critic and painter Roger Fry. It was only in the 1930s that Hitchens began to synthesise his admiration for Paul Cézanne into a noteworthy personal practice. A founder member of the Seven and Five Club in Hampstead, an English group of artists committed to a home-grown version of modernist abstraction, he is best known for his energetic landscapes of West Sussex. Hitchens began painting in this region in the late 1930s. The bombing of his London studio in 1940 prompted Hitchens to relocate to Lavington Common near Petworth in Sussex, where he settled permanently. This lot is typical of his earlier representational landscapes using more sober colours. The dramatic horizontal form, sweeping brushwork and ability to render the sensation of light are hallmarks of his esteemed landscape practice. – Sean O’Toole PROPERTY OF THE LABIA FAMILY TRUST LOTS 491-513