Tristram Hillier RA (1905-1983)
dal 13/3/2008 al 24/6/2008
Segnalato da
13/3/2008
Tristram Hillier RA (1905-1983)
Royal Academy of Arts, London
In the art of Tristram Hillier RA, 20th century English Surrealism is seen at its elegantly restrained best. This exhibition, which covers a wide range of work from the 1920s to the early 1980s, provides a rare opportunity to see examples of Hillier's paintings and preliminary drawings.
In the art of Tristram Hillier RA, 20th century English Surrealism is seen at its elegantly restrained best. This exhibition, which covers a wide range of work from the 1920s to the early 1980s, provides a rare opportunity to see examples of Hillier’s paintings and preliminary drawings.
The exhibition coincides with the publication of Painter Pilgrim - The Art and Life of Tristram Hillier by Jenny Pery, the first biography of the artist. This extensively illustrated volume reproduces many of his most important works and re-establishes Hillier as one of the most significant English painters of his time.
Born in Peking in 1905, Hillier was educated at Downside School, where he first professed an interest in drawing. Both the disciplines and the iconography of the Catholic faith, instilled in him during those early years, were to have a major influence on his work. The Slade School of Art sharpened Hillier’s natural ability as a draughtsman, and throughout his life he maintained a rigorous approach to drawing. Hillier moved to France in the late 1920s, where he immersed himself in the Paris art scene, becoming close friends with Georges Braque, Max Ernst and André Masson.
Membership of Paul Nash’s Unit One Group brought Hillier into contact with the English Surrealists, particularly Edward Wadsworth, with whom he drew and painted around the coast of Normandy. His close links with the Surrealist Movement both in this country and abroad, as well as his deep admiration for the early Italian and Flemish masters, were to ‘set’ Hillier’s artistic direction. After the war he settled with his family in Somerset, and was elected a Royal Academician in 1957. For several years, before his death in 1983, he worked in artistic isolation.
Hillier’s classical, timeless images, full of steely light and ominous shadows, have a unique place in the history of modern art.
Painter Pilgrim – The Art and Life of Tristram Hillier RA will be on sale in the RA Shop from 3 April 2008.
Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House Piccadilly, London
Open to the public daily
4–6pm, Fridays until 10pm
Admission free