Percy Hipkiss was a formidable talent in the region and president of the DSOA. He was an Artist and Jewellery designer. He was born in 14 Union Street, Blackheath, nr. Birmingham. 8th. August 1912. He was the youngest of seven children and was the only one to show any ability in art, although his father was a skilled woodworker. He attended the local council school and an entry in an autograph book from his headmaster when he left, referred to his artistic skills. He also showed excellent craft skills, seen in a remarkable carved candle holder which was at home when I was young, sadly this was broken and was thrown away.
Art College was not an option for a person with his family circumstances and so he was apprenticed into the jewellery trade, working for a manufacturing jewellers in Vyse Street, Hockley. He always saw himself as an artist, and he regularly practised his drawing skills, sadly there are no examples of his pre-war work.
He was a keen cyclist and spent weekends with the CTC, often riding to Aberystwyth and back in a weekend. He referred to the ‘breakfast run’ which meant leaving at midnight in order to reach Llangollen by breakfast. He met Dorothy at a dance at Smethwick Baths, circa 1935 and they were married in 1938. I was born in 1940, I don’t know whether it was the shock, but my father volunteered for the RAF. His jewellery skills meant that he was trained as an instrument repairer,serving on various fighter squadrons before leaving for India. In India he was posted to a Maintenance Unit, which meant that he worked normal hours and had a stable routine. He put this to good use, producing paintings reflecting the Indian landscape and culture. He was also an illustrator and cartoonist for the weekly newspaper of the India Command called ‘Victory’ and for some reason he adopted the pen name of ‘Phil’. The illustration work, which consisted of heading pictures at the start of stories and articles and thumbnail images, show a strong influence of the Art Deco style. When, after three years he returned from India, he disliked the landscape work that he had produced there, because he found the colours garish when seen in English light. In actual fact they give an excellent impression of the light in which they were painted.
When he left the RAF, he resumed work in the same company in Vyse Street but had an eye to expanding his work into the design side of the business. in 1947 he won a prize for his designs in a national competition at the Design and Research Centre and this gave him the confidence to think about becoming a free-lance designer, so, he set about building a customer base in his spare time. He bought a jewellers bench and a second hand desk for designing, which he installed in the bay window of my bedroom. I would go to sleep at night to the sound of sawing and filing. In 1948 he decided to set up on his own, which was a big risk, with a mortgage and a family to support, however, he was confident in his own ability and I remember him telling me, that at the end of the first week, he had earned twice as much as he had the week before.He was an excellent craftsman and could turn his designs into a three dimensional reality, however, one of the reasons for his success was that he always saw himself as an artist and it was, undoubtedly, his artistic skills which underpinned his design work. In the early days it gave him extra earning power by doing promotional work for his customers such as showroom display materials and page layouts for trade magazines.
While he was developing his business, he made sure that there was time to develop his drawing and painting. He had joined Dudley Art Circle (Now Dudley Society of Artists) before the war and continued his connection with them for the rest of his life, being President for a number of years in the 1980’s. DSoA Is fairly unique in that it meets weekly and always has a portrait model for the members to work from. Each week, my father used to work from the model, sometimes in oil but almost always in pastel. These were always more than just a ‘study’, being well finished works that would make handsome framed portraits, however, their value lay in the discipline, which this regular commitment to drawing gave to his work, both as an artist and as a designer.Although he enjoyed the challenge of portraiture and produced a large number of finished works on Wednesday nights at Dudley; he rarely accepted commissions, for although he always captured an excellent likeness, I think that the process was probably too time consuming to combine with his professional commitments.
He also attended life classes at the City Road Branch School of art, which was part of Birmingham College of Art. He also used pastel for his life studies producinga finished piece each week.My father was involved in the local art scene and in addition to Dudley Art Circle, he was a member of Birmingham Watercolour Society, of which he was President from 1973-1979; he was also a member of The Midland Painting Group and Birmingham Art Circle.
As can be seen from the story so far, he had enormous energy, developing his business in tandem with his career as an artist, which was no mere hobby but a serious way of life. It was common for him to work until 10 or 11 o’clock at night on his jewellery commitments and when finished, get out his paints and produce a picture.
He balanced the various aspects of his life with ease and always had time for his family. He never failed to provide a fortnights holiday each year either in Wales, Somerset or Norfolk where he always found ample subject matter to paint. The phrase ‘all-rounder’ carries connotations of ‘Jack of all trades but master at none’. My father was an all-rounder but he seemed to excel at whatever he did. His art skills can be seen in his jewellery designs which are beautiful things in their own right, as well as perfectly fulfilling their function as ‘visuals’ from which a client could make a decision.When producing a picture, his choice of medium was usually governed by his subject matter and sometimes how much time was available. If he was working ‘on the spot’, he preferred to work in oils.
He first worked in this way in the 1950’s when he started going out on a Sunday morning with another Dudley Art Circle member, Enoch Adams. They would drive to a location, usually in the Worcestershire area around Clent, Frankley or Chaddesley Corbett and produce a painting in about two hours. He extended this working practice to the annual holiday, making sure that there was an adequate supply of primed panels, his easel and paint box in the boot of the car before packing less essential items such as food. He worked on hardboard panels measuring about 14x10 inches, priming the smooth side with emulsion paint which was given a ‘tooth’ by mixing in a powder such as Polyfilla. He made a box to carry his paints, with a special lid into which the wet painting could be clipped. He continued with these Sunday expeditions for many years, honing his observational powers and gaining a great understanding of colour mixing, leading him to use a restricted palette giving his paintings great visual unity.in addition to colour, his paintings always displayed a well organised tonal element which gave his work great strength. When I was young he always encouraged me to think about tone in my work, a lesson which I have never forgotten.
Watercolour:Over the years he became an accomplished water colourist, developing a sure touch with composition and laying on the paint with bold strokes which gave his work visual strength and freshness. Apart from occasional flower paintings, he used watercolour for landscapes. His exhibition paintings were produced in the studio, often from oil panels done ‘on the spot’. The years working outdoors enabled him to create paintings in which the colours and tones were used to good effect. His paintings were often deceptively simple, sometimes composed of a few marks which the spectator could interpret in the way that he intended even though often there appeared to be little there.Pastel:As I mentioned earlier, my father used pastel mainly for portrait and life studies although he did occasionally use the medium for landscape.
Oil:My father used oil for work out of doors, but also for larger works in the studio, these were sometimes based on little more than a simple pencil sketch, but the knowledge gained from the years of working on location, enabled him capture the authentic quality. Although my father was a very hard worker, he always had time for and was very supportive of his family, and my sister, Veronica, and I greatly benefited from growing up in a home where art was an important part of everyday life. I know it gave him great pleasure to be able to send us both to Art College. I gained an NDD in Pottery and Lithography at Stourbridge and my sister a BA in Textiles at Liverpool. Paul Hipkiss.