Alfred Hitchens (27 November 1861 – 5 October 1942) was an English painter, father, grandfather and great grandfather of artists

Ivon Hitchens Ivon Hitchens (born London, 3 March 1893 – 29 August 1979) 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 du ...

John Hitchens John Hitchens (born 1940) is an English painter. His work is influenced by the landscape of the South Downs and his main subject area is the countryside of West Sussex, England. He also spent extended periods working in North Wales and North West ...

and Simon Hitchens respectively. His work was regularly exhibited at the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

Biography

Alfred Hitchens was born in Peckham Rye,

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

(now London). He entered the South Kensington School of Art in 1877, followed by studies in Paris, at the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...

and in Rome. He married Ethel Margareth Seth-Smith in 1887 and toured Italy and southern Germany.Peter Khoroche: ''Ivon Hitchens''; Lund Humphries, 2014. He gained early recognition, aged 21, at a National Competition of Schools of Art. The London Daily News reported: "...among the gold medallists, the first prize for an oil painting from the nude having been gained by Mr Alfred Hitchens, a very young man...". After 1887, Hitchens came to exhibit regularly at the Royal Academy. His work is described in ''The Morning Post'' as: "a worthy recruit to the classic art is to be found in Mr Alfred Hitchens’ and ‘his cleverly painted picture ‘The Shadow of a Vow’. More recently, in a biography of his son,

, his paintings of that period are characterised as "in the academic mainstream of the day... Classical mythology alternating with the sentimentalised rustic realism of the school of

Bastien-Lepage Jules Bastien-Lepage (1 November 1848 – 10 December 1884) was a French Painting, painter closely associated with the beginning of naturalism (visual art), naturalism, an artistic style that emerged from the later phase of the Realism (art movem ...

..." He exhibited regularly in pastels at Walker's Gallery and the Fine Art Society, London in the early 1900s. Hitchens was also noted as a portrait painter for work such as his "well-executed portrait of Mr George Hitchcock, the painter, ..." or 'An Officer of the Machine Gun Corps', now at the National Army Museum. He died at a nursing home in Midhurst, West Sussex. He was married to Ethel Margaret Seth-Smith, the sister of the architect William Howard Seth-Smith. Both his son

and his grandson

followed his profession as painters. His great-grandson, Simon Hitchens, is a sculptor.

Work in public collections

His most widely known painting, 'The Legend of the Christmas Rose' is in the collection of the church of Montclair, near New York City, US. The model for the painting was his son,

. Work in the UK can be seen at the National Army Museum.

References

External links

National Art Library, catalogue entries for Alfred Hitchens

Artprice on Alfred Hitchens

Bonhams: paintings by Alfred Hitchens

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchens, Alfred 1942 deaths 1861 births 19th-century English painters 20th-century English painters Painters from London