When he was 25, he started making sketches of downland subjects. He visited France in 1924. By the time he was in his 40s, he was a landscape painter.

He settled in Sussex in 1940 and chose as his main subject matter the richly wooded landscapes around his house. He woorked in non-naturalistic terms, his colours were subdued and usually in long rectangular formats.

Other subject matter were flowers and figures.

It was quite late in his career that he used much brighter colours with contrasts in large patches of colours.

He was made a CBE in 1958.

Between 1955-63, a changing selection of works by Hitchens from the Bliss Collection were toured by te Arts Council. This tour journeyed not only around the UK but abroad as well. In the UK alone it visited ober 15 locations.

Collections:

• Aberdeen
• Adelaide
• Birmingham
• Buffalo
• Cambridge (Fitzwm)
• Cardiff
• Edinburgh
• London (Tate, V&A)
• Melbourne
• Montreal
• Nottingham
• Oslo
• Ottawa
• Paris (Mus. d'Art Mod.)
• Seattle
• Toledo Ohio
• Toronto
• Wellington, New Zealand
• Yale

//Gallery//