Roger Hilton CBE (1911 - 1975) was a pioneer of abstract art in post-war Britain. He was born in 1911 in Northwood, London and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London under Henry Tonks and also in Paris, where he developed links with painters on the Continent.In World War II he served in the Army, part of the time as a Commando, for about three years being a prisoner of war after the Dieppe raid of 1942. He worked as a schoolteacher for a time after the war, also teaching at Central School of Arts and Crafts, 1954-56.During the 1950s and 1960s Hilton began to spend more time in west Cornwall, moving there permanently in 1965. In the same year he married Rose Phipps, 20 years his junior, having divorced his first wife, Ruth David.