Roger Hilton

Roger Hilton (1911-1975)

Roger Hilton was an english painter and pioneer of abstract art in post-war Britain. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1929 to 1931 under Henry Tonks and during the 1930s alternated between London, where he showed annually with the London Group (1935–8), and Paris, where he studied periodically at the Académie Ranson under Roger Bissière.

During World War II he served with the commandos (1940–42), was captured during the raid on Dieppe and spent three years as a prisoner of war.
After the war he increasingly visited Cornwall during the 1950’s and 60’s, moving there permanently in 1965, where he met and married Rose Phipps (Rose Hilton) in the same year.
During the final years of his life Hilton was confined to bed, but still produced over a thousand paintings and gouaches later known as the ‘Night Letters’.