Roger Hilton:
Works on Paper
Flowers
1000 Madison Avenue, 2nd Floor
New York, N.Y., 10021
212-439-1700
February 20 - March
27, 2004
By ERIC
GELBER
"Art if it
is anything, is a blood and death battle, into which you have to throw
everything you got."
- Roger Hilton
Roger Hilton Untitled
1973
gouache on paper, 9 x 11-1/2 inches
Courtesy Flowers Gallery, London and New York
Along with Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Terry Frost, and others,
Roger Hilton was an important part of the post-war artistic vanguard
in Britain. The critic Lawrence Alloway ascribed avant-garde status
to Hilton in 1954 due to his non-figurative proclivities. Like members
of the New York School, Hilton exploded the cubist grid with his compulsive
love of the intuitive mark. Although Hilton exuded existentialist drama,
in part due to his drinking and also as a product of his times, he thought
about art making in a pragmatic way; as if it were something he needed
to do everyday, not unlike a bodily function. The typical modernist
was ambivalent about the act of making; partially convinced it was a
necessity, something they could not do without, and at the same time
ironically circumspect about their misanthropic existence in a free
market society. Not unlike other twentieth century painters, Hilton
believed in the notion of inner necessity, that the artist had to transform
their entire existence, to translate their being into works. The modernists
who strove to regain the "genius" of childhood, believed in
an idealized regression, as compared to realism's idealized progression.
As his body wasted away Hilton's compositions became more like annotations;
confident scribbles hovering over and slicing into the void of the blank
page.
The gouache and pencil drawings
in this small exhibit were done in 1973-4 when the artist was bedridden.
A year before the artist died he wrote, "Because I have peripheral
neuritis I have largely lost the use of my legs, the arms and midriff
are going. I have a skin condition which is driving me mad. All this
is caused by alcohol." Hilton drew all the time. What do abstract
artists perfect after years of making? Perhaps their line takes on a
life of its own, suggesting many things but avoiding specificity. Achieving
complexity using simple means might be a goal. Hilton embraced ambiguity
and avoided references to his own identity, his autobiography. He strove
for the timeless.
Roger Hilton Untitled 1973
charcoal on paper, 9-1/2 x 7-1/2 inches
In the same letter he said
that "I no longer have any balls." "I have been left-handed
from birth, but because I lean on my left hand, I have been forced to
paint with my right." So the naivete of these drawings may be due
to the artist's use of his non-dominant hand, but this does raise interesting
questions about the nature of abstract art. How important was the final
product, and was the transmission of energy and the act of making more
important? As conceptual artists have pointed out again and again, the
final product was certainly important with regards to the art market.
There is something heroic about his efforts in these final years. The
alcoholism had destroyed his body and sapped his vitality, but he still
derived pleasure from the act of mark making. He learned from Matisse
that less is more, that blank spaces could be as charged and meaningful
as the imagery and that a few lines could conjure forth a plethora of
associations, especially the complexities and nuances of the female
form. The female form played an important role in Hilton's oeuvre and
even though this might not be immediately obvious, these drawings are
infused with a strong sense of carnality.
Some of these gouaches suggest
landscapes, the meeting of earth and sky, and the presence of plant
life and/or the human figure. This anthropomorphizing of abstract shapes
in the mind of the viewer is unavoidable. The same way we cannot stop
the constant stream of thoughts and images in our minds, we can't stop
ourselves from translating ambiguous marks into something identifiable.
The rectangle, which appeared
in many of his early oil paintings, is present in only one composition
in this exhibit. It has a bright yellow square with crayon line drawing
over it. The rest of these gouache drawings could easily be mistaken
for the inspired artwork youngsters make at school and parents proudly
display on their refrigerators. This is not a put down. Hilton had tremendous
drawing skill, but he rejected representation. This fit in with his
existentialist mindset. The fact that he was always sloshed added to
the drama, the urgency and fury of these works. Picasso claimed that
he wanted to recover the purity of childhood in his work, and the playful
sloppiness and simplifications and distortions of the human form found
in many of his late oils testifies to this. Hilton manages to recapture
the pure abandon or lack of self consciousness found in children's art
in these gouaches.
By drawing for so many years
Hilton could balance a composition with ease. Although he liked to think
he was struggling with the materials, he must have known that he could
"get it right" whenever he wanted to. An artist feels a private
sense of pleasure when making a drawing that is the offspring of years
of experience. Hilton loved to cut into a painted surface with a pencil.
He also liked using unmixed colors, and reacted against preciosity.
He wanted to "humanize Mondrian" and a love of mark marking
eventually consumed him. He did three to five gouaches a day during
his final years and was proud that they were selling quite well.
Roger Hilton Untitled
1973
gouache on paper, 8-1/4 x 13-1/4 inches
The pencil drawings in this
exhibit are metaphysical meditations on the female form and imaginary
creatures consisting of symbolic orifices and phalluses. Hilton displays
tremendous sensitivity and visual wisdom in the way he varies the amount
of pressure he applies to the surface of the paper with the tip of the
pencil. He caresses imaginary forms with pent up sexual energy and allows
his mind to travel to very odd places while he doodles.
When do you stop? When is
a work that consists of tapering scribbles and half formed shapes finished?
Like the traveler in Frost's The Road Not Taken, Hilton "took the
one less traveled by." An abstract artist is a wanderer in the
wilderness in the sense that the masses prefer realism and tend to scoff
at abstract art and the artist must constantly turn inward which can
be a meditative or hellish experience depending on the artist's temperament
and mental makeup. There is an overwhelming sense of clarity in these
works on paper, but we can never be quite sure what we are seeing or
what the artist was feeling. These are enigmas, a triumph of will and
energy over emaciated matter. And the playfulness that is apparent in
all of the them attests to the fact that Hilton derived enjoyment from
making stuff until the very end.
