Explore: Roger Hilton

(1911 - 1975)

Roger Hilton was born in Middlesex. He studied at the Slade School of Art during the early and mid 1930s and at the Académie Ranson in Paris. His first solo exhibition was held at the Bloomsbury Gallery in 1936. He joined the army in 1939 and was a prisoner of war until 1945. Around 1950, Hilton turned to abstract art, after seeing Mondrian’s work in Paris and Amsterdam. He visited Newlyn in Cornwall while teaching at the Central School of Art and Design in the mid 1950s and finally moved to Cornwall in 1965, joining the St Ives Group. A major retrospective was held at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1993, followed by a drawing survey at Tate St Ives in 1997.