The Emotions Behind The Art

The life and work of a hugely influential mid-20th century artist is being celebrated in a new exhibition at the Museum of Somerset. Stephen Moss reveals more about the extraordinary art and its deep connection to the Somerset landscape

- Stephen Moss

Tristram Hillier is, if not quite forgotten, certainly overlooked compared to his more famous contemporaries, such as Barbara Hepworth, Paul Nash, and Henry Moore. Yet as this new exhibition shows, his work has not just stood the test of time, but is as fresh and powerful as when he created it, during the years before and after World War Two.

At the entrance to the exhibition, curator Sam Astill, Head of Museums for the South West Heritage Trust, points out the juxtaposition of two paintings, whose subject and style could hardly be more different. One is a bright, sun-drenched image of a town in Portugal and the other a wintry, almost monochrome painting of a bleak winter landscape near Glastonbury. These two images perfectly evoke the dichotomy at the centre of Hillier’s life: although after the war he was based in Somerset, he spent long periods living and working in the sunnier climes of Spain and Portugal.

While in Somerset, he mostly painted scenes of the Moors and Levels in autumn and winter, often with a single country lane stretching off into the distance, symbolising the start of a journey. His work is full of intricate detail, especially the branches and twigs of the trees, and it has an otherworldly feel: realistic, yet at the same time highly idiosyncratic.