Malcolm John Hitchcock
A challenge to us all, painting the British weather. Malcolm Hitchcock painted this scene at least three times showing different weather conditions. Two can be seen here in our Museum Highlights, and the barest hint of a third is shown in a newspaper cutting in 1976 on the Marie Dyson Award Winners. [Highlighted: August 2021]
by Malcolm John Hitchcock (1929–1998)
Tempera on board
64cm x 55cm
Date: About 1963
RGA member 1974–1983
RGA Councillor 1978–1980
Reading Museum Accession Number
REDMG : 1999.77.1
by Malcolm John Hitchcock (1929–1998)
Oil on canvas
64cm x 55cm
Date: About 1963
Reading Museum Accession Number
REDMG : 1966.137.1
This is a scene overlooking Thame railway station which is on the Wycombe Railway line and opened in 1862. The station was built with a train shed over its platforms. In 1963 British Railways withdrew the passenger services between Princes Risborough and Oxford, therefore Thame station was closed. This painting shows a goods shed and yard in the foreground with the white building over the platforms in the distance, and the signal box to the left.
Artist Malcolm Hitchcock painted at least 3 versions of this scene: Thame Station in Rain, Oxfordshire (tempera on board), Thame Station in Bright Sunlight, Oxfordshire, and Thame Station, Autumn Glory (oil and tempera on board) which he exhibited in May 1976 at the Reading Guild of Artists’ 46th Annual Exhibition, Reading Museum, and Art Gallery which won the Marie Dyson Award, chosen by the assessor Professor Carel Weight.
A newspaper article from 1976 headlined “Artist in Training” announces Malcolm Hitchcock as the winner of the RGA’s Marie Dyson Award saying “Mr Hitchcock’s winning entry is an oil painting of the disused railway line at Thame. He is an attendant at the gallery [Reading Museum]… Railways are his favourite subject and at present, he has two paintings hanging in an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.”
Malcolm Hitchcock worked in both tempera and oils and is described as a painter of everyday scenes and landscapes and is particularly remembered for those involving the railway.
During his time at the RGA he was one of the organisers of the sketching meetings at the Abbey Gateway, and he is also worked as a gallery attendant at the Museum.
In 1984 he married the author and artist Zaidee Lindsay a former RGA member (1955–1966). He was a member of the Royal West of England Academy.