
Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland
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Head of UK and Ireland

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Provenance
Acquired by the family of the present owner in 1979, thence by descent
Private Collection, U.K.
Please note that this work has been authenticated by John Hitchens, the artist's son, and bears studio stamp (verso).
The present work is one of several known paintings outside the numbered Firwood Ride series. Along with the Winter Walk series of 1948, they are centred around the woodland by the artist's home near Petworth, West Sussex. Hitchens wanted to demonstrate the vivid, flowing nature of the countryside and the dramatic change the seasons had on the landscape. As in the present example the viewer is drawn across and into the image, discovering variations in colour and light as we move amidst the tree trunks and through the tangled branches beneath a deep blue sky.
A number of these works were exhibited together at Hitchens' one-man exhibition at The Leicester Galleries in May 1959 and gave the public the fullest opportunity yet to understand and appreciate his painting practice. Whilst at first glance similar, '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' (Peter Khoroche, Ivon Hitchens, Andre Deutsch, London, 1990, p.91).
We are grateful to Peter Khoroche for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.