杜鹃花园：1956年5月

Heron painted this picture, inspired by his garden in West Penwith, Cornwall, during a period when he saw himself moving from representational art to abstraction. He recalled: ‘I referred to the series as garden paintings, since they certainly related in my mind to the extraordinary effervescence of flowering azaleas and camellias which was erupting all over the garden.’ Amongst the older generation of British artists, Heron admired Hitchens for his ability to create the illusion of space through colour. In 1953, Heron organised an exhibition entitled ‘Space in Colour’ at the Hanover Gallery that included works by Hitchens, Lanyon and himself.