Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/ivon-hitchens-1291" aria-label="More by Ivon Hitchens" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Ivon Hitchens</a>
Damp Autumn
Purchased 1941
autumn
bracken
England
England, South East
England, Southern
landscape
Lavington Common
places
plants and flowers
river
seasons
Sussex - non-specific
Sussex, West
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
water: inland
wooded
<p>In 1940 Hitchens and his family evacuated their bombed-out London home for Lavington Common near Petworth in Sussex, where he had often painted in the late 1930s. The woods there became the main subject of his art. While such works clearly follow the tradition of Thomas Gainsborough and John Constable, Hitchens was also interested in modern artists, in particular the Cubist Georges Braque. He wrote that his new ‘more settled life, with permanent roots in this soil, has led to a deeper search for the more abstract elements of a given subject’.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
25 June 2001 – 2 August 2004
2004-08-02
25 June 2001
2001-06-25
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-06-25
Modern Art and Tradition
Collection based display
Damp Autumn
support: 406 × 743 mm
Purchased 1941
<div class="para3">
<span class="text13">In 1940 Hitchens and his family </span><span class="text0">evacuated their bombed-out London </span><span class="text13">home      for Lavington Common near Petworth in Sussex, where he had often painted in      the late 1930s. The </span><span class="text7">woods there became the main      subject of his art. While such works clearly follow the tradition of Thomas      Gainsborough and John Constable, Hitchens was also interested in modern      artists, in particular the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/cubism" title="Glossary definition for 'Cubism'"><span>Cubist</span></a> Georges Braque. He wrote </span><span class="text13">that his new ‘more settled life, with </span><span class="text7">permanent roots in this soil, has led to a deeper search for      the more <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Abstract art'"><span>abstract</span></a> elements of a given subject’. </span>
</div>

Display caption
2004-08-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N05255</b> DAMP AUTUMN 1941
<br/> 
<br/>Inscr. ‘Hitchens’ b.l.
<br/>Canvas, 16×29 1/4 (41×74); the painted canvas is turned in 1 in. above and below and  1/2 in. on right. The size given is that of the stretcher.
<br/>Purchased from the Leicester Galleries (Knapping Fund) 1941.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> <i>New Year Exhibition of Contemporary British Artists</i>, Leicester Galleries, January 1941 (82).
<br/><i>Repr:</i> Mervyn Levy, <i>Painting for All</i>, 1958, facing p.16 (in colour); <i>Painter and Sculptor</i>, 11, No.3, 1959, p.6.</p>
<p>Painted in 1941 at Lavington Common, where the artist has lived since 1940. He wrote (23 November 1957): ‘Whereas in the Shropshire days the romantic element of <i>place</i> was paramount - the more settled life with permanent roots in this soil, has led to a deeper search for the more <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Abstract art'"><span>abstract</span></a> elements of a given subject which I may paint from continuously many times over. The earlier period is of course represented by “Damp autumn”.... Tho born in London, at a very early age I went to live among the silver birches and bracken and heather of Surrey, so that this area of Sussex has seemed homelike and familiar from the start.’ See also <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hitchens-winter-stage-n04923" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04923</span></a>.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, I</p>
<p></p>
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Catalogue entry
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
autumn bracken England England, South East England, Southern landscape Lavington Common places plants and flowers river seasons Sussex - non-specific Sussex, West UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions water: inland wooded