Firwood Ride No. 6

Details

Ivon Hitchens (1893-1979)
Firwood Ride No. 6
signed 'Hitchens' (lower right), signed again, inscribed and dated '"Firwood Ride No. 6" 1958/February/Ivon Hitchens/Greenleaves. Petworth. Sussex' (on the artist's label attached to the stretcher)
oil on canvas
17¼ x 43 in. (43.8 x 109.2 cm.)

Provenance

Howard Bliss.
Compassion in World Farming, 1970.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 2 November 1983, lot 149.
Dr John Birch, Chichester, and by descent.

Exhibited

London, Leicester Galleries, Ivon Hitchens, May 1959, no. 22, listed as no. 7.
London, Arts Council of Great Britain, Tate Gallery, Ivon Hitchens, A Retrospective Exhibition, July - October 1963, no. 100: this exhibition travelled to Bradford, City Art Gallery, August - September 1963; and Birmingham, City Museum and Art Gallery, September - October 1963.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Brought to you by

Louise Simpson

lsimpson@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2681

Lot Essay

‘Hitchens’ one-man exhibition in May 1959 was dominated by a series of thirteen variations on a single theme – the firwood ride near his home, which he had painted regularly between autumn 1957 and spring 1958. This gave the public its fullest opportunity yet to understand and appreciate his painting practise …Those who took the trouble to look more deeply into each of the variations and then compared them, one against another, must surely have been exhilarated by the artist’s orchestration of so many subtle changes of emphasis and mood in this one seemingly undramatic subject’ (P. Khoroche, Ivon Hitchens, London, 1990, p. 91).

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