Study for the Mural Painting at Cecil Sharp House, London c. 1950

Curator: This is Ivon Hitchens' "Study for the Mural Painting at Cecil Sharp House, London," though the date remains unknown. It's currently housed at the Tate. Editor: Wow, it feels like peering into a fragmented dream. So much blue, and those fractured shapes… a building facade? Curator: Indeed. This work is a study for a mural that was never realized, a casualty of the Second World War. The building depicted, Cecil Sharp House, was a center for folk music and dance. Editor: That context gives the abstraction a new layer. It's like Hitchens is capturing the communal energy, the rhythm of folk traditions, but through a shattered lens. Curator: Absolutely. The fragmentation speaks to the disrupted social fabric of the time. It’s a premonition, if you will. Editor: The use of blues and browns adds to that feeling of impending doom, but there's also a quiet resilience there, a sense of something trying to be preserved. Curator: It’s a poignant reminder of art’s capacity to reflect and refract the complexities of history. Editor: A fitting, albeit haunting, tribute.