England, circa 1960

An unusual large rectangular mirror by artist Ron Hitchins, the wooded frame mounted with numerous hand carved terracotta tiles of abstract geometric design, signed to the lower corner.

Height 130.00cm

Width 104.00cm

Ron Hitchins was a highly prolific artist with a vast output, working with ceramics, plaster, metals, perspex, fibreglass, wood, paint and ink across his active period of some sixty years. He is most recognised today for his idiosyncratic terracotta tiles, of which he produced thousands. These apparently came about after the Canadian sculptor Maryon Kantaroff(1933-2019) asked him to sit for her in the mid-1960s. He was fascinated by the way she both used clay and created moulds for her sculptures. Using left-over clay, he developed unglazed clay pendants and necklaces inspired by Mexican Aztec designs, and these were the genesis of his 5cm (2in) square tiles that he is now best known for.

Carved and impressed by hand with low relief geometric designs from a shallow block of terracotta clay and baked in a kiln in his basement, he produced tens of thousands from the mid-1960s until the 2000s. Although many motifs were repeated, each tile is unique in precise design and composition. Many were combined to decorate the surfaces of mirror frames, picture frames and furniture – including his huge four poster bed. They were also carefully assembled and mounted onto wood to create panels of varying sizes, many of which decorated walls and surfaces of the interior of his Hackney home. Such assemblages were typically stained with boot polish or sprayed with car paint. Colours range from gold and silver to copper and bronze, dark red, and black.