"With their contemplative stillness and cool austerity, Tristram Hillier's paintings present a dreamlike, often bleak world of empty streets, deserted seashores strewn with debris, and country lanes where it is forever winter." "This is the first biographical account of an artist who quietly carved his own path, in increasing isolation from the artistic developments of his time. Pery examines Hillier's career, from the hedonism of the artist's early years, when he was associated with Surrealism and the international avant-garde, to the asceticism that marked his later life." "This illustrated book reproduces many of Hillier's important works and re-establishes him as one of the most important British painters of his time."--Jacket.