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Philip HICKS
(b. 1928)
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Philip Hicks (b. 1928) attended Winchester College of Art before honing his skills at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. He is married to the sculptor Jill Tweed and both artists have passed on to their daughter, the wildlife portraitist Nicola Hicks, the priority of careful observation.
Painting farmyard animals has a long history in British art, from the naive painters of the eighteenth century charged with painting portraits of the prize bull, pig, sheep or carthorse through to the monumentality of Henry Moore’s drawings of sheep or the childlike wonderment of Mary Newcomb’s artistic encounters with nature. Hicks’ work resides deep in this vein of British whimsy. While Hicks is most famous for his depictions of sheep, in the frequent repetition of the subject he nonetheless subtly reminds us that each one of them is unique; that while they are an everyday sight, as we whiz past them in our cars, they have inhabited the landscape since ancient times and rely on us for their well-being.
Since 1990 when Philip Hicks moved from London to Oxfordshire, joining Messum’s a few years later, he has worked in a mainly figurative manner. But in the 1970’s and 80’s his style was much more abstract. Over the last year he has concentrated on bringing together these two sides of his work, forging a synthesis which has resulted in a new personal and very recognizable style. It allows him to deploy his subject matter with great freedom across the canvas, and his gifts as a colourist, together with his love of paint, reveal themselves more strongly than ever.
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