Figures in Sunlight

Catalogue entry

T03125 FIGURES IN SUNLIGHT 1942

Inscribed ‘Ivon Hitchens’ bottom left
Oil on canvas, 17 × 29 3/4 (43 × 75.4)
Purchased from the artist's estate through the Waddington Galleries (Grant-in-Aid) 1980
Exh: Ivon Hitchens, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, October 1948 (6); Paintings by Ivon Hitchens, Southampton Art Gallery, February–March 1964 (24)
Repr: Alan Bowness (ed.), Ivon Hitchens, 1973, pl.8 in colour

In 1939 Ivon Hitchens and his wife bought 6 acres of land at Lavington Common near Petworth, Sussex, together with a horse-drawn caravan. They moved there in 1940 after their house in Hampstead was bombed. A studio was built at Lavington Common in 1941. The present picture shows the artist's son John (born in 1940) on the extreme left with his mother recumbent, leaning against a chaise longue, on a piece of flat ground outside the studio; the blue door on the right leads into the studio. Both figures are naked; Hitchens often painted his wife and son at this period, both clothed and naked.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1980-82: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1984

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