Ivon Hitchens: Forty-Five Paintings

Library Collection Space Manager Ruth Elder shares a lifelong interest in a little-known artist.

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I admit that this book has now been sitting on my desk for some time in the office.

All through my childhood a Hitchens print hung on the wall of my home. The same print now hangs in my parents' retirement apartment, and I have made them promise never to dispose of it without giving me first refusal. The print has, throughout my life, pulled me in with its sense of silence, shadows and the unshown, and still continues to do so.

'Divided Oak tree number 2' ; Photo courtesy of Paul Shields. Click image to enlarge.

I also remember a day trip to York in 1990 to see the  Ivon Hitchens Exhibition at York City Art Gallery. It is the catalogue to this touring exhibition which has now found its way to my desk as part of the York Art Gallery Collection, and which still holds me, absorbed by the shapes and shadows of the images.

Ivon Hitchens' lifetime was marked by two world wars and encompassed a period of enormous change and destruction on a global scale. Unfit for active service in 1914 due to a weakness from childhood, Hitchens studied art at the Royal Academy Schools, with a two year period of war effort in hospital supply.  With the end of the First World War and the conclusion of his studies, he set up his own studio in Hampstead in 1919.  Through the 1920s and 30s he lived and worked within the avant-garde circle known as the London Group, which included artists such as Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore.

In 1940 Hitchens was compelled to leave London after a bomb landed next door to his studio. He and his wife moved to a patch of woodland near Petworth in West Sussex called Greenleaves, living at first in a caravan which later required numerous additional outbuildings. Hitchens was to work there for the next 40 years, painting mostly outdoors.

He lived in the midst of what he painted, and most of his work was done within a few hundred yards of his home, which provided the inspiration and subject matter he looked for.

'Boathouse early morning' ; Photo courtesy of Paul Shields. Click image to enlarge.

“To look at the 'Boathouse, Early Morning' is to enter a world of stillness and expectant silence, and to become still oneself” Peter Khoroche, Forty-five paintings, London:Serpentine Gallery 1989.

It is this stillness and silence that continues to draw me back to the work of Hitchens.

Further reading:

Forty-five paintings
Hitchens, Ivon, 1893-1979 ; Serpentine Gallery ; South Bank Centre.
London : Serpentine Gallery 1989

Ivon Hitchens : a retrospective exhibition
London : Arts Council 1963

(Both from York City Art Gallery Collection)

T. G. Rosenthal, ‘Hitchens, (Sydney) Ivon (1893–1979)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009 (Library subscription)

Blood, Guts and Shipwreck

Tales of shipwreck, disaster and survival always make a compelling story; particularly so when based on a true account written by the Captain of a doomed ship.

The external appearance of a slim volume within the Raymond Burton Special Collection entitled A narrative of the loss of The Shannon of Hull on the 26th of April, 1832 gives little clue to the tale of drama described within its thirty close-typed pages…

Reproduced with permission of Wellcome Library, London under a Creative Commons Attribution only licence

On 27 March 1832 the 360 tonne whaling ship Shannon sailed out of Hull with a crew of 29 men and boys under the eye of Captain George Davey. On leaving the Humber they steered north to Lerwick in Shetland (picking up an additional 20 crew to make a total of 49) before starting on their journey to the whaling grounds in the Davis Straits, off the coast of Canada.

Four months later, following a hellish journey, the surviving crew – only 19 sailors – limped home to Hull on August 25.

The journey to the whaling grounds meant sailing though dangerous and unpredictable ice fields and at 3.30 am on April 26 with the wind blowing a gale, the Shannon ran stem on an iceberg with a tremendous crash. The water rushed in rapidly through the breach and the sea broke over the crew in huge waves. Isolated more than 170 miles from the nearest landfall the vessel drifted at the mercy of the elements. Seamen clung to anything that would float but, battered with each succeeding wave, gradually lost their strength. Their cries for assistance became frantic, until at last they ended in dreadful stillness. Sixteen men and three boys were missing following the night of the collision, lost in the frozen waters. The survivors clung to the floating hulk of the ship.

On Tuesday 1 May, crew member O'Neil died of hunger. The remaining crew had now been without fresh water since the ship was struck, and some in desperation turned to drinking sea water which produced a thirst that couldn't be quenched. In desperation the ship’s surgeon 'bled' O'Neil by opening one of his veins and taking a "shoe-full" from him...

"His blood was then divided among us, and that draught, which at one time our hearts would have sickened to look at, and we should have turned from with horror and disgust now became welcome and palatable...to us in our thirsty state was quite sweet."

All hope of rescue had faded by the morning of Monday 2 May and the remaining crew prepared for death when at 2.00pm two Danish Brigs sailed into view and came to their aid. At the time of the rescue the crew had dwindled from 49 to 27, through the rigours of six nights and seven days exposed to the northern cold. All were frost-bitten – with the exception of the Captain – their hands and feet blistered and swollen.

Sadly, rescue did not assure survival. Two crew members died on the 3 May from the effects of having drunk so much salt water. Two more died on the 21 and the 24 May. On the 24, Thomas Walker from Hull died from "mortified feet". On the 25, the cook died: "his whole body was discoloured and in a dreadful state of gangrene". So intolerable was the smell, reportedly, that none could undress him; his body was sewed up in his hammock and committed to the deep.

The survivors returned to the north of England – there to be greeted by a warm, dry summer and a raging cholera epidemic (an epidemic which, ironically, was just abating in Canada).

Details from:  A Narrative of the Loss of the Shannon of Hull on the 26th of April, 1832 by Davey, George (Hull : W Stephenson [1832]) found in the Raymond Burton Yorkshire Collection (available through Special Collections)

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas…

Receiving a new gift collection into the library always feels a little bit like Christmas - you unpack it with hope and excitement that it will have all kinds of wonderful items in it… 

And so it was when we first unpacked the book collection that was given to the University of York by the York Museums Trust last year. We were not disappointed!

The collection of approximately 5000 items, which was previously located at York Art Gallery, was transferred to the Morrell Library in Spring 2013. Library staff are currently adding the collection to stock with completion by Spring 2015.

All photos are by Paul Shields, the University Photographer, and are used by permission.

Click on any of them to enlarge the image.

The subjects covered by the collection range from woodcuttings to Warhol, sculpture to sign-painting, and from Hogarth to Hepworth; they will undoubtedly enhance the breadth and quality of the art related stock available at York.

We want to keep you informed of our progress and to highlight some of the items which interest and excite us as we add them to stock. It is a great additional resource for the Library and we want to make sure that our users are fully aware of the collection and can take advantage of the wealth of material it offers, so keep an eye on this blog for updates.

You can also check on our progress by simply searching through YorSearch using the Advanced Search option - selecting Provenance and entering York City Art Gallery.

All photos are by Paul Shields, the University Photographer, and are used by permission.

Click on any of them to enlarge the image.

Ruth Elder,
Collection Space Management Co-ordinator