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).