Ivon Hitchens was an English painter who started exhibiting during the 1920s. He became part of the 'London Group' of artists and exhibited with them during the 1930s. His house was bombed in 1940 during World War II. Hitchens and his family abandoned London for the Sussex countryside, where he acquired a small area of woodland on Lavington Common (near Petworth), and lived there in a caravan, which he gradually augmented with a series of buildings. It was here that the artist further developed his fascination with the woodland subject matter, and this pre-occupation continued until the artist’s death in 1979.
Hitchens is particularly well-known for panoramic landscape paintings created from blocks of colour. There is a huge mural by him in the main hall of Cecil Sharp House. His work was exhibited in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1956. Hitchens was the son of the artist Alfred Hitchens. His son John Hitchens and grandson Simon Hitchens are both artists.
