Hill 82

Stylistic diversity has proved as much a disadvantage as an advantage to the English painter Derek Hill, whose life has brought him everywhere he wanted to go. His long list of acquaintances and friends reads as a roll-call of the 20th-century arts world. His work is varied: from stage design to portraiture and landscape, the range is daunting and his style moves between various schools and influences, even cultures. This versatility has made it difficult to assess his worth as an artist, although there have been undisputed masterpieces such as Lough Gartan: Winter (1956) and Tory Island From Tor More (1958) as well as several wonderful Tory Island works.

Mood is central to his work. He is a tonalist rather than colourist and has a maverick quality which continues to intrigue. The ultimate socialite whose stories feature a cast of international figures ranging from artists to royalty, many of who he has painted, he is also drawn to solitude and has spent many, long periods living and working in remote places such as Tory Island.

Irish art has benefitted from his connection with Ireland. Involved with the Wexford Opera Festival from its inception 43 years ago, Hill has also championed the Tory artists. In 1981 he presented to the nation his Co Donegal home, a Georgian glebe house whose former lives include service as a rectory and more latterly a fishing hotel. Included with this gift is his exciting and eclectic personal collection of more than 300 works by various 20th-century artists. Beautifully situated on the shores of Lough Gartan, at Churchill, near Letterkenny, St Columb's, now known as the Glebe House and Gallery, is open to the public: the former stables has been converted into a gallery.

Now approaching his 82nd birthday, Hill has a large retrospective on view at the RHA Gallagher in Dublin and is delighted at the idea of becoming an honorary Irish citizen. "I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me and I have never been included in any group show of Irish art, but then I'm not an Irish artist. But this is an honour I am delighted to receive." He beams his child's smile and then adds by way of statement: "I have never liked labels, I'm an artist, and English, but an artist, not an `English' artist." Waiting to escort the President, Mrs McAleese, through his show, he announced he had lost a tooth at lunch and said optimistically: "I might try sticking it back in, I have some chewing gum with me. But she might not notice."

Hill is neither angry nor driven, he has enjoyed his work but clearly does not regard it as finished quite yet. He sits back on a small sofa, fidgeting with his large, thick hands, puffing slightly with exertion, yet refusing any offer of assistance when rising to his feet. He refers to his bad leg and mentions "having to disappear from time to time to take some silly pill or other". The pink and gold Regency-style wallpaper behind him provides a suitably flamboyant backdrop. The voice is upper-middle-class, very English; the delivery is straight out of Waugh and his gestures tend towards the theatrical. Almost immediately, Hill is living up to his reputation for being a lively, anecdotal talker possessing impressive powers of recall. Many of his subjects have found sitting for him to be an enjoyable experience - he paints quickly and creates a relaxed atmosphere for his sitters. As an interviewee he is also quick, impatient, benign, prickly, possibly capricious in a Pooh Bear sort of way and makes a point of several times reminding his questioner, "well I am almost 82".

Hill's small vanities are well countered by a genuine modesty. He does not depend on the approval of others, yet he flushes with pleasure at praise of his paintings. Mention of the fine portrait of Prof Anne Crookshank pleases him. "Do write that, will you?" he asks, "as she didn't like it at all." Well known for his kindness to artists, Hill has encouraged them and bought their work. It was he who secured Evie Hone's commission to do the famous glass window at Eton and he painted one of the figures. Asked about his childhood, he expresses mock surprise at such interest and says, "well, that was rather a long time ago, I am almost 82". Hill was born into privilege, a factor which has had no small effect on his career. He never needed to paint to live, has never accepted commissions, has never had a dealer and in fact dislikes selling his work. "My paintings are my children," he says. He is well known for buying back his work whenever it comes on the market. "I see them as being part of a family and so they belong together."

Born in Southampton in 1916, the third of three boys, Hill was a late baby, some 10 years younger than his second brother. "My mother was 45 or 46 when I was born and my brothers were grown up by the time I was 10 - I was, in effect, an only child." The family was comfortable. His childhood home was Romsey, a dower house on the Mountbatten estate. "We had servants and gardeners. . . of course I had a nanny whom I adored and was heartbroken when she left and I went off to school. It was all very wonderful," he says and appears ready to move on. But on being pressed further, he elaborates. "My father was a businessman, he was the first to bring coal from Newcastle down to Southampton, shipped it down by sea. He also had a cloth business."

Hill's mother belonged to a Quaker brewing family. "She played the violin and was rather good. But gave it all up. She thought it wasn't right to continue after she married. My father never liked music, simply hated it in fact. Myself, I adore it, have all my life. I have a fantastic music collection," he says and mentions some "splendid old 78s" of Russian singers dating from 1918. Hill's father was a sportsman and a useful cricketer who played with the legendary W.G. Grace. Sport never much interested the son. He even laughs outright at the suggestion. "My father also enjoyed shooting and fishing, neither of which ever appealed to me in the slightest. I can't justify the killing. But as you know I have always been opposed to violence and didn't go to war on those grounds. I was a conchy [conscientious objector] and spent the war as a farmer instead. I prefer to feed people than to kill them. "

Parting from his nanny was hard but Hill admits to having "quite liked" his prep school at Rottingdean, where he drew and did well at his lessons and games - "one of my classmates there was Robert Kee". This relative happiness was to end, however, when he followed his father to Marlborough in "about 1928 or '29, you have to forgive me, my memory is not what it was" - and experienced bullying. He continued drawing, won a prize and also painted.

Having passed the School Certificate exam at 16, Hill had already decided it was time to leave. "I wanted to do art." His ambitions were supported by his brother John. "He was very artistic and became a successful interior designer - he worked with Green and Abbott and did a lot of work on my house in Donegal. He was very interested in William Morris . . . Anyhow, he helped persuade my parents to allow me leave school for a career in art at 16."

On leaving Marlborough, Hill went to Munich to study stage-design. The Bauhaus was flourishing and Hill remembers Schwitters, the collage artist, addressing his class. A traditionalist, Hill is a conservative painter, and his approach to portraiture, though influenced by the sitter's mood, never attempts a satirical or innovatory flourish. He seems an unlikely exponent of the Bauhaus technique, but he worked at geometrical exercises and he agrees that traces of a geometrical construction underpin many of his finest landscapes. However, he was to continue stage designing for some time and spent six months in Paris with Paul Colin in 1935. While there, he became fascinated with Braque, Juan Gris and French 19th-century painting.

About that time he designed the sets and costumes for an Oxford University Opera Club production of Rameau's Castor And Pollux. After his first trip to Italy, during which he discovered the beauty of Florence, he moved on to Vienna. "It was a charming city then, but so was all of Europe, it was a different world," he says, with obvious regret. In Vienna he concentrated on set-design and studied under Dr Josef Gregor, Richard Strauss's librettist. Although he did little painting there, he worked hard at drawing from life. Early hints of what was to come emerged with the Nazi occupation.

In common with many of his class and generation, Hill admits to initially having noticed very little. "But the Agamemnon I did with Gregor for the Burg Theatre was cancelled because of the Occupation." In 1936, still 19, he travelled to Russia, and studied theatre design in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. "I spent six months in Moscow, it was fascinating. I worked with Tairov who ran the Kamerny theatre, and then with Meyerhold."

Theatre and ballet dominated his stay in Russia during which he lived in a hotel facing St Basil's Cathedral. He left Moscow to journey east, a trip which marked the beginning of his life-long commitment to travel. "It was wonderful. I went by train across Siberia to Vladivostok and headed for Japan at a time when tourists were rare creatures and treated as such." Theatre drew him: "I was interested in No and the Kabuki theatres, but I'm not really a theatrically-minded person. Anyhow, from there I went to Peking and worked on a boat as a steward and then on to Saigon."

Eventually arriving in Bali, he spent about six weeks living with a Balinese family in the mountains. Throughout his travels he was drawing, observing, recording. "I can say now I have seen every place I wanted to see. I have been everywhere," he says, matter-of-factly if not exactly contentedly. It is important to stress that Hill has never been a random wanderer, his travels are deliberate and highly productive, inspiring his own work as evident in the marvellous painting, Indian Cutting Corn, Delhi, as well as helping produce two authoritive books on Islamic art; Islamic Architecture and its Decoration with Prof Oleg Grabar (1965) and Islamic Architecture in North Africa with L. Glovin (1976). He has travelled throughout Yemen for a proposed volume on that country's architecture.

In 1937, Hill designed the sets and costumes for Frederick Ashton's ballet, The Lord Of Burleigh, and the following year returned to Paris, where he settled.

A visit from the couturier, Edward Molyneux, changed Hill's career. Hill sets the scene and the incident acquires some drama as he recalls Molyneux "imploring me to give up stage design". On arrival at his studio, the couturier, on having seen one picture, was convinced of Hill's talent and announcing "forgive me for bursting in but you must paint".

At that time Molyneux possessed a superb collection of Impressionist painting, including Manet, Monet, Corot and Van Gogh "which he sold after the war to Mrs Ailsa Mellon Bruce and they now form the basis of the National Gallery in Washington's Impressionist collection". Molyneux promised Hill his support.

The young painter developed classical leanings but nonetheless appreciated Picasso, Bonnard and Vulliard. But his Bohemian life was ending. War was declared. "It was like the famous photograph by Horst, you know the one with the empty glass?" The party was indeed over and Hill returned to England and a duller life, during which his farm work left little time for painting.

In 1943 he had his first one-man show and during the next two years organised two major exhibitions, "Constable To Cezanne" (two painters important to his own work) and "Since The Impressionists".

Soon after peace was declared, Hill came to Ireland and lived and worked for a year on the west coast, painting in Galway, Mayo and on Achill Island, where he worked with his contemporary, Louis Le Brocquy. It was not his first time to visit this country. "I had been here many times as a child, visiting my O'Mahony relatives in Co Wicklow." The chance to design sets and costumes for a Covent Garden production of Il trovatore caused him to return briefly to theatre work. Famous names such as Cecil Beaton, who photographed him, art historian Bernard Berenson - "he was once the most famous man in the . . . " he pauses for effect, "the world" - the wonderful Italian artist Giorgio Morandi and Kenneth Clarke populate Hill's conversation: the more he criticises his failing memory, the more obvious is the strength of his recall. Berenson was not only an important mentor, but he helped filled the space created by the death of Hill's parents in the early 1950s. Italy was also to become a second home. Not only did Hill spend five winters painting at Berenson's home, he held the post of art director of the British School in Rome for two years, while also engaged in lecturing on European art through Italy and Sicily.

While living in Italy, Hill met the American millionaire, Henry McIllhenny, the owner of Glenveagh Castle in Co Donegal. "He mentioned a house to me which he thought I should buy." That was in 1951. But he dithered. By 1953, Hill had decided to buy St Columb's and on moving in the following year began work on the gardens. "Not that they could compete with Henry's (McIllhenny's)." The American, who died in 1985, was to prove a great friend. "I have met many wealthy people in my life, but none of them have ever enjoyed their money as much as he did. He was wonderful, marvellous company."

Casually mentioning that he is writing an autobiography but doesn't know when it will be finished, Hill remarks: "it will probably never be published".

A few years before securing his Irish home, Hill had also established a London home at Holly Hill, where he still lives when in England. But his travels continued. Shortly after buying St Columb's he set off for Anatolia and journeyed through Turkey with travel writer Freya Stark, the last of the Victorians. It sounds better than it was. According to Hill the great old lady was "an absolute hell to travel with. She was very impressive, of course, but was one of those people who really never give the slightest thought to anyone else." This observation is offered more with surprise than annoyance.

Regrets do not interest him. For all his gift for sustaining long friendships, he has often referred to his failure to have sustained a lasting intimate relationship. "I would have loved children. I adore them, particularly the very young." At times his large genial face assumes the look of sadness which lingers so strongly on Self Portrait, a melancholic profile painted in 1964 when he was in his late 40s.

"There were three people I could have, should have, might have married. One was an Italian girl. There was the artist Mary Kessell, whom I adored but she would have been a hopeless wife, she couldn't cook or anything and we would have been hopeless. . . and there was an Irish girl, but she married someone else and I missed out. I remember visiting an old aunt and she made me promise I'd never marry. She thought I would be hopeless. She was probably right. I am a loner," he says, not entirely convincingly. But Hill is well aware that an artist's life can be selfish as well as lonely.

As he speaks about his life, his eyes often wander across the room to a large painting of Venice done by Walter Osborne in 1916, the year of his own birth. "Osborne is a wonderful painter." Of Irish painting he says, "there isn't really a school as such. I admire Jack B. Yeats and Paul Henry" - the latter's influence is evident in several of Hill's west of Ireland paintings. Of the later generation he praises Basil Blackshaw and Cherith McKinstry, and applauds Camile Souter. There are four Souters in his collection. "I think she is a wonderful painter," says Hill, "wonderful, wonderful. Always have." Time for Derek Hill now means an endless succession of deaths - "It seems almost everyone I knew is dead" - and, unlike many survivors, he does not appear pleased to have outlived so many.

Aware his own life has run parallel with the story of the 20th century, Hill says with humour rather than emotion: "I live in the past, it's a rather good place to be."