Graham Sutherland OM
1903–1980
© The estate of Graham Sutherland
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© The estate of Graham Sutherland
License this image
Biography
Graham Vivian Sutherland OM (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was an English artist who is notable for his work in glass, fabrics, prints and portraits. His work was much inspired by landscape and religion, and he designed the tapestry for the re-built Coventry Cathedral.
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. It is these oil paintings, often of surreal, organic landscapes of the Pembrokeshire coast, that secured his reputation as a leading British modern artist. Sutherland taught at a number of art colleges, notably at Chelsea School of Art and at Goldsmiths College, where he had been a student. He served as an official war artist in the Second World War drawing industrial scenes on the British home front.
Such was Sutherland's standing in post-war Britain that he was commissioned to design the massive central tapestry in 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. After initially refusing to be presented with it at all, he accepted it disparagingly as “a remarkable example of modern art".
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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Read full Wikipedia entryArtworks
Graham Sutherland OM Black Landscape
1939–40
Artist as subject
Keith Vaughan Journal number twenty-one
19 May–16 June 1944
Sir Jacob Epstein, recipient: Peggy Jean Lewis Letter from Jacob Epstein to Peggy Jean
31 August [1953]
Henry Moore OM, CH, recipient: Kenneth Clark Letter from Henry Moore to Kenneth Clark
30 March 1941
Henry Moore OM, CH, recipient: Kenneth Clark Letter from Henry Moore to Kenneth Clark
22 July 1939
Bernard Meninsky Notebook
date not known
Henry Moore OM, CH, recipient: Michael Ernest Sadler Letter from Henry Moore to Michael Ernest Sadler
27 June 1942
Sir Jacob Epstein, recipient: Peggy Jean Lewis Letter from Jacob Epstein to Peggy Jean
[20 October 1955]
Henry Moore OM, CH, recipient: Michael Ernest Sadler Letter from Henry Moore to Michael Ernest Sadler
21 February 1942
Vanessa Bell, recipient: Duncan Grant Letter from Vanessa Bell to Duncan Grant
[c.May 1940]
Film and audio
Digitising Sutherland's Sketchbooks
Explore Sutherland's sketchbooks and see how they were digitised for Tate Archive
Features
Art Term
Neo-romanticism
Neo-romanticism is a term applied to the imaginative and often quite abstract landscape based painting of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland ...
Tate Etc
To the rescue of civilisation man: Kenneth Clark: Looking for Civilisation
In his day Kenneth Clark was an influential patron, art historian, collector, gallery director and broadcaster - and one of the ...
Blog
Archives & Access project: the information behind the image
Transforming Tate Britain, Archives & Access
Sketches, letters, etc.
Graham Sutherland OM Sketchbook 17
1947–62
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