Jonathan Clark Fine Art

In August 1940 Hitchens’ studio at 169 Adelaide Road, Hampstead was damaged by a bomb. He and his wife, together with John, their four-month-old son, moved permanently to Lavington Common, near Petworth in West Sussex, where at first they lived in a caravan which they had bought the year before.
‘Jordan’ was the name of a tin bath, stowed under the caravan when not in use, and the group of John by Jordan paintings are intimate portraits of mother and baby son. The life they depict is one of peace and primal innocence in a sunlit forest glade. Both the subject and its treatment - rich colour and bold brushmarks - express a joyful affirmation in the completest contrast to the anxiety and deprivation of wartime. Peter Khoroche


John by Jordan no 2 1942 Signed lower right Signed dated & inscribed on stretcher label Oil on canvas 29 1/4 x 16 1/4 in : 74 x 41 cm Exhibited Leicester Galleries August 1944 no 132 Tate Gallery Retrospective 1963 no 29
In August 1940 Hitchens’ studio at 169 Adelaide Road, Hampstead was damaged by a bomb. He and his wife, together with John, their four-month-old son, moved permanently to Lavington Common, near Petworth in West Sussex, where at first they lived in a caravan which they had bought the year before. ‘Jordan’ was the name of a tin bath, stowed under the caravan when not in use, and the group of John by Jordan paintings are intimate portraits of mother and baby son. The life they depict is one of peace and primal innocence in a sunlit forest glade. Both the subject and its treatment - rich colour and bold brushmarks - express a joyful affirmation in the completest contrast to the anxiety and deprivation of wartime. Peter Khoroche