Harold Hitchcock

Born in Camden Town, London into a family of artists (descended from the animal artist George Stubbs on his mother’s side), Harold was inspired to paint as a result of an ecstatic experience he had as a young boy whilst living with his grandparents in the Essex village of Thundersley. At the age of 16 he was hailed in the press as a child prodigy as a result of the enthusiasm of Dame Laura Knight for his work. He went into commercial art.

In the Second World War, as a conscientious objector in the Non-Combatant Corps, he volunteered for bomb disposal work. He continued to paint and in 1945 was given an exhibition of his work by Margaret Torrie, who was very influential on the London art scene at that time running the International Arts Centre in west London. Margaret and her husband Alfred, both Quakers, later introduced Harold to the spiritual movement Subud, which had a profound effect on his life and work.

After the war and now married, Harold enjoyed much success selling his work at the Hampstead open-air exhibition. and in 1964 he gave up commercial work to concentrate on his own painting full-time. He came to the attention of Hastings, 12th Duke of Bedford, who became a patron, giving Harold an exhibition at his palatial home. Woburn Abbey. Major London exhibitions followed as did a widening market for his work in the US. His work was admired by art establishment figures of the time, including Kenneth Clark and Sir Roy Strong, then director of the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1984 Hitchcock was given the rare honour of a retrospective exhibition at the RSA gallery in London.

His work is purely imaginative - often depicting, in fine detail, a romantic mythological world of idealised beauty, suffused in light, and reminiscent of the 17th-century painter Claude Lorraine. However, his art often has a peculiarly English quality following in the tradition of artists such as William Blake (in his adoption of a personal mythology) and particularly Samuel Palmer in his depiction of a pastoral idyll. His use of light also recalls the paintings of J.M.W. Turner. Remarkably unaffected by modern trends in art, he followed his own unique inner vision, working in a spontaneous way with great technical skill.

Later works have additionally included a more figurative and semi-abstract style, but without sacrificing the prismatic jewel-like quality of light and colour seen in the landscapes.

• Harold Hitchcock, 'A Romantic Symbol In Surrealism’ by Ian Williamson, Walker and Co, New York, 1974. ISBN 0-8027-0697-5
• 'Life In Light' Phillips Publishing, Carmel, 2000. ISBN 0-9679504-0-6

• Artist's Homepage
• undiscoveredworldspress.com
• johncoulthart.com