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Ivon Hitchens

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© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Ivon Hitchens

by Ida Kar
quarter-plate film negative, 1954
Purchased, 1999
Photographs Collection
NPG x133280

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Ida Kar (1908-1974), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 1567 portraits, Sitter in 137 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Enjoying the Hitchens's warm hospitality and friendship, Kar visited on numerous occasions, often with her assistant John Cox, taking portraits of the family. Following this photograph taken in August 1954, Mollie Hitchens wrote to Kar: 'Your photos arrived safely this morning and we really are highly delighted with them'.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Freestone, Clare (appreciation) Wright, Karen (appreciation), Ida Kar Bohemian Photographer, 2011 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 10 March to 19 June 2011), p. 64 Read entry

    Hitchens studied at the Royal Academy Schools before being elected a member of the influential Seven and Five Society of modern British artists. Hitchens's first solo exhibition was held at the Mayor Gallery in London in 1925, but from 1940 to 1960 he was represented by the Leicester Galleries and later by the Waddington Galleries. In 1940 Hitchens, his wife, Mollie, and baby son, John (who also later became a painter), moved from Hampstead to Greenleaves, Petworth, Sussex, where he was able to develop his mature style of semi-abstract, richly coloured paintings undisturbed. Enjoying the Hitchens' warm hospitality and friendship, Kar visited on numerous occasions, often with her assistant, John Cox, taking portraits of the family. Following this photograph, taken in August 1954, Mollie Hitchens wrote to Kar, 'Your photos arrived safely this morning and we really are highly delighted with them.'

Placesback to top

Events of 1954back to top

Current affairs

Roger Bannister runs the four-minute mile. Bannister was the first man to achieve the 'miracle mile', a feat that was thought by some to be impossible, beating his rival, the Australian John Landy, to the record. Bannister went on to a career as a distinguished neurologist.
Food rationing ends in Britain.

Art and science

J.R.R. Tolkien publishes the first two parts of the Lord of the Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Tolkien was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature and drew on his scholarly interests in history, language and mythology to create the fictional land of Middle Earth where the books are set.
Williams Golding publishes, Lord of the Flies.

International

The South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) is established in Bangkok. This international defence organisation was established as part of the 'containment' policy of limiting the influence of communism. SEATO was, however, found to be ineffective as the member organisations failed to agree on combined action; it was disbanded in 1977.

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