Graham Sutherland
Born – London, England 1903
Died – London, England 1980
Graham Sutherland abandoned a career in railway engineering to study at Goldsmith’s College of Art in London, specializing in etching. By the late 1920s, he had developed an enthusiasm for the visionary artist Samuel Palmer. In response Sutherland’s own work reflected the dreamlike, pastoral qualities of the earlier romantic. The print market collapsed due to the Wall Street Crash in 1929 and, fortuitously for Sutherland, this inadvertently influenced his decision to become a painter. His first visit to Pembrokeshire in 1934 marked the beginning of a love affair with the country’s landscape. His compositions are bold perceptions of the natural world, abstracting forms and colours to starling effect. His admiration for Picasso who, he claimed possessed the “true idea of metamorphosis”, guided his own concept of emphasizing nature’s personality. He was employed during the war years as an official war artist and responded to dramatic scenes of human endeavour and devastation as in Devastation: House in Wales. Sutherland’s work retains references to the strangeness of Surrealism but it is his beginnings as a printmaker that his painting owes its most enduring influence.
Masterpieces:
- Tapestry Design, Christ the Redeemer
- Red Landscape
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About graham sutherland
Graham Sutherland
Ronald Alley
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Graham Sutherland: Landscapes, War Scenes, Portraits 1927-1950
Martin Hammer
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Portraits by Graham Sutherland: Exhibition Catalogue
National Portrait Gallery
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