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  • Graham Sutherland OM

Graham Sutherland OM

1903–1980

Portrait of Sir Charles Clore 1965–75
© The estate of Graham Sutherland
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Prints and Drawings Rooms

29 artworks by Graham Sutherland OM
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Biography

Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmaking, tapestry and glass design.

Printmaking, mostly of romantic landscapes, dominated Sutherland's work during the 1920s. He developed his art by working in watercolours before switching to using oil paints in the 1940s. A series of surreal oil painting depicting the Pembrokeshire landscape secured his reputation as a leading British modern artist. He served as an official war artist in the Second World War, painting industrial scenes on the British home front. After the war, Sutherland embraced figurative painting, beginning with his 1946 work, The Crucifixion. Subsequent paintings combined religious symbolism with motifs from nature, such as thorns.

Such was Sutherland's standing in post-war Britain that he was commissioned to design the massive central tapestry for the new Coventry Cathedral, Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph. A number of portrait commissions in the 1950s proved highly controversial. Winston Churchill hated Sutherland's depiction of him and subsequently Lady Spencer-Churchill had the painting destroyed.

During his career, Sutherland taught at a number of art colleges, notably at Chelsea School of Art and at Goldsmiths College, where he had been a student. In 1955, Sutherland and his wife purchased a property near Nice. Living abroad led to something of a decline in his status in Britain. However, a visit to Pembrokeshire in 1967, his first trip there in nearly twenty years, led to a creative renewal that went some way toward restoring his reputation as a leading British artist.

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Neo-romanticism British War Art

Artworks

Left Right
  • Graham Sutherland OM Portrait of Aloys Senefelder

    1971–2
    View by appointment
  • Graham Sutherland OM Pastoral

    1930
    View by appointment
  • Graham Sutherland OM Portrait of Sir Charles Clore

    1965–75
    On display at Tate Britain part of Tate Archive is 50
  • Graham Sutherland OM Green Tree Form: Interior of Woods

    1940
  • Graham Sutherland OM Welsh Landscape with Roads

    1936
  • Graham Sutherland OM Devastation, 1940: A House on the Welsh Border

    1940
  • Graham Sutherland OM Devastation, 1941: East End, Wrecked Public House

    1941
  • Graham Sutherland OM Devastation, 1941: An East End Street

    1941
See all 56

Film and audio

  • Look Closer

    Digitising Sutherland's Sketchbooks

Sketches, letters, etc.

  • Graham Sutherland OM Sketchbook 2

    1936–7
  • Graham Sutherland OM Sketchbook 7

    1943
  • Graham Sutherland OM Sketchbook 17

    1947–62
  • Graham Sutherland OM Sketchbook 36

    1961–8
See all 40

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