Roger Hilton produced the works now known as the 'Late Gouaches' and 'Night Letters' during the final two years of his life while at his cottage in West Penwith, Cornwall. Confined to bed and sustained mainly by the whisky and cigarettes that were at least in part the cause of his sickness, the insomniac Hilton created upwards of a thousand colourful gouaches and illustrated messages to his long-suffering wife Rose. Sometimes bitter, occasionally insulting, but always poignant and amusing, the letters record Hilton’s thoughts on art, his own imminent death, the irritations and pleasures of everyday life, and his often controversial assessments of colleagues and contemporaries.