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Details
- Date
- 1939
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 60.2 x 80.8 cm stretcher; 77.0 x 98.5 x 7.0 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.l., black paint "Hillier./ 1939".
- Credit
- Purchased with funds provided by the Watson Bequest 1946
- Location
- South Building, ground level, 20th-century galleries
- Accession number
- 7773
- Copyright
- © Tristram Hillier Estate
- Artist information
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Tristram Hillier
Works in the collection
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About
Tristram Hillier was born in Peking, China in 1905. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London in 1926 under Henry Tonks and later in Paris under André Lhote. He lived in the South of France until 1940, served in the Royal Navy 1940-43, then settled in Somerset, England.
While living in Paris in the 1920s, Hillier became friends with Max Ernst and other leading Surrealist painters, and their influence was to have a lasting effect on his work. Hillier loved the sea and many of his paintings are of ships and beaches, each painstakingly precise in detail. He was an avid traveller and sketched profusely during his journeys, later constructing paintings from his rough drawings. His use of brilliant light and colour can most likely be traced to his stay in the south of France and his travels through the Mediterranean and Spain.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 4 exhibitions
Paintings by Tristram Hillier, Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd, London, 07 May 1946–01 Jun 1946
Twenty three British painters: NAGNSW Travelling Art Exhibitions 1953, Exhibition Venue Unknown, , 1953–1953
Modern Britain 1900-1960, NGV: International, Melbourne, 15 Nov 2007–24 Feb 2008
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 5 publications
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Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd, Paintings by Tristram Hillier, London, 1946, cover (illus.). cat. no. 22
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Renée Free, Art Gallery of New South Wales catalogue of British paintings, Sydney, 1987, 86 (illus.).
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Ted Gott, Laurie Benson and Sophie Matthiesson, Modern Britain 1900-1960, Melbourne, 2007, 254 (colour illus.), 256 (colour illus.).
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Anne Kirker and Peter Tomory, British painting 1800–1990 in Australian and New Zealand public collections, Sydney, 1997, 100. cat.no. 965
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National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Twenty three British painters, Sydney, 1953, 8. cat.no. 23
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Provenance
Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd, London/England, Purchased by the AGNSW from Arthur Tooth & Sons 1946
