Roger HILTON

Roger HILTON CBE
1911
1975

According to Frank Ruhrmund, of the Western Morning News in 1973, Hilton was 'One of Britain's leading modern painters, a first prize-winner in the John Moores Exhibition 1963, he has exhibited at Gimpel Fils, Tooths and the Waddington Gallery, London, the Tokio Biennale, and the International Biennale, Venice....Although he has worked in Cornwall for many years it is, I believe, his first one-man show to be presented in the county - an astonishing fact when one considers his achievements and reputation which are, of course, enormous.'

Hilton arrived with wife Rose, in 1965 to live at Botallack, near St Just in Penwith, West Cornwall, declaring (as Jeremy LeGrice recalls) 'with considerable regret that he had been driven out of London by behaving insufferably to the most important people in the art world'. He died there in 1975 after a long illness.

In 2011, a centennial exhibition and retrospective celebrating his birth is being given, with the organisational help of Rose HILTON, by the Newlyn Art Gallery (February-April).

media

Painter in gouache and oils of nudes and abstracts, teacher

works and access

Works incl:  Abstract Composition 1 (c1951), Abstract Composition II (c1951), two in 'golden age' exhibition 2008.

Access to work: Tate Britain; Arts Council; Gulbenkian; V&A, London; Museum of Modern Art, Edinburgh; National Gallery of Canada

In Cornwall: Cornwall Council

exhibitions

University of Birmingham (Orion Gallery Touring) Artists of Cornwall Exhibition 1972

Orion Gallery, Penzance Roger Hilton/recent paintings 1973

RWE Artists from Cornwall Exh 1992 Bristol (selected)

2011 Programme of NAG:  100th Birthday Celebration for Roger Hilton (Feb-Apr)

2024: Truro School Art Collection, Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro (30 Jan-18 May)

references

Personal bibliography

Hilton Night Letters

Lewis (2003) Roger Hilton (illus)

General

Bird (2008) St Ives Artists: Place & Time;

Cross (2002) Catching the Wave, Contemporary Art & Artists in Cornwall (pp27-30, photos & illus); 

Great Atlantic Publications & Clark Art Ltd (2008) the golden age of cornish art

Hardie (1995) 100 Years in Newlyn: Diary of a Gallery (p111ff, photo illus)

Hoyle, H (Dec 2010 Women Artists in Cornwall www.cornishmuse.blogspot.com) Review of BBC4 documentary 'Art of Cornwall'

LeGrice (2008) The First Eleven: St Ives Artists

Public Catalogue Foundation (2007) Cornwall & IOS, Oil Paintings in Public Ownership;

RA (1977) British Painting 1952-1977;

RWE Artists from Cornwall Exh Cat (1992) Bristol

Tate (1985) St Ives 1939-64 Twenty Five Years of Painting, Sculpture and Pottery (biog info pp126-7 with photo 1957)

WMN 22 June 1973, F Ruhrmund: 'International Star in Orion Constellation'