Bevis Hillier (born 28 March 1940) is an English art historian, author and journalist. He has written on

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

, and also a biography of Sir John Betjeman.

Life and work

Hillier was born in Redhill, Surrey, where the family lived at 27, Whitepost Hill. His father was Jack Hillier, an authority and author on Japanese art; his mother, Mary Louise (née Palmer), was an authority on wax dolls and

automata An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...

. Hillier was educated at

Reigate Grammar School Reigate Grammar School is a 2–18 mixed independent day school in Reigate, Surrey, England. It was established in 1675 by Henry Smith. History The school was founded as a free school for poor boys in 1675 by Alderman Henry Smith with Jon Will ...

and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won the Gladstone Memorial Prize for History. He was employed as a journalist on ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' from 1963 (on the editorial staff until 1968; antiques correspondent from 1970 to 1984; deputy literary editor from 1981 to 1984). From 1984 to 1988, he was an associate editor of the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

. He has since been a reviewer for ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

''. In 1968 Hillier's book '' Art Deco of the 20s and 30s'' was published by Studio Vista. This was the first major work on a hitherto neglected genre of art that had previously been referred to as

Art Moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...

(the term ''Art Moderne'' has since come to be used to refer to the later ''streamlined'' style of Art Deco in the 1930s). Hillier's use of the term ''

'' became definitive. In 1971 Hillier curated a major Art Deco show at the

Minneapolis Institute of Arts The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United Stat ...

, which helped to increase popular awareness of this style. In 1969 Studio Vista published Hillier's ''Cartoons and Caricatures'', a study of caricature from the 13th century to the late 20th. Hillier has also written books on ceramics and posters, as well as ''The Style of the Century'' (1983), a review of the various styles of art in the 20th century, from Art Nouveau through

psychedelia Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...

and pop art to

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

. Hillier's major work, however, is the authorised biography of Sir John Betjeman. It took Hillier 25 years to research and write, and was published by John Murray in three volumes (1988, 2002 and 2004). A one-volume abridgement was published in 2006 for Betjeman's centenary. From the age of 60, Hillier has resided at the almshouse of the

Hospital of St Cross The Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty is a medieval almshouse in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It has been described as "England's oldest and most perfect almshouse". Most of the buildings and grounds are open to the pu ...

in Winchester,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

, having an appreciation for the architecture reminiscent of his time at Oxford.

Betjeman letter hoax

In August 2006 a rival biography of Betjeman was published by A. N. Wilson. It was later discovered to contain a hoax letter, purportedly by Betjeman, but actually containing an acrostic insulting Wilson. The letter had been sent to Wilson by "Eve de Harben", an anagram of "Ever been had?", and the first letters of each sentence, beginning with the second sentence, spelled out the message "A. N. Wilson is a shit." Hillier was an immediate suspect for the

literary forgery Literary forgery (also known as literary mystification, literary fraud or literary hoax) is writing, such as a manuscript or a literary work, which is either deliberately misattributed to a historical or invented author, or is a purported memoir ...

: the '' Sunday Times'' article revealing the hoax was accompanied by a prominent picture of Hillier and noted that an envelope containing a letter supposedly from de Harben to the newspaper had been bought in Winchester, his home town. Hillier initially denied responsibility, but soon admitted that he had written the letter. He explained that he had been angered by Wilson's negative review of the second volume of his biography of Betjeman, and by pre-publication publicity for Wilson's own biography.

Bibliography

Books

* '' Art Deco of the 20s and 30s'' (Studio Vista/Dutton Picturebacks, 1968) * ''Posters'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969) * ''100 Years of Posters'' (Pall Mall Press, 1972) * ''Victorian Studio Photographs: Unique Portraits of the Makers of the High Victorian Age. From the Collections of Studio Bassano and

Elliott & Fry Elliott & Fry was a Victorian photography studio founded in 1863 by Joseph John Elliott (14 October 1835 – 30 March 1903) and Clarence Edmund Fry (1840 – 12 April 1897). For a century, the firm's core business was taking and publishing photo ...

, London'' (Ash & Grant, 1975) * ''The Decorative Arts of the Forties and Fifties: Austerity/Binge'' ( Clarkson N. Potter, 1975) * ''Travel Posters'' (Phaidon, 1976) * ''Bevis Hillier's Pocket Guide to Antiques'' (Mitchell Beazley, 1981) * ''John Betjeman: A Life in Pictures'' (John Murray, 1984) * ''Young Betjeman'' (John Murray, 1988) * ''John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love, 1934-1958'' (John Murray, 2002) * ''Betjeman: The Bonus of Laughter'' (John Murray, 2004) * ''The Virgin's Baby: The Battle of the Ampthill Succession'' (Hopcyn Press, 2013)

Articles

* Review of .

References

External links

Review of the third volume of Hillier's biography of Betjeman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hillier, Bevis 1940 births Living people English biographers Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature People educated at Reigate Grammar School People from Redhill, Surrey Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Literary forgeries