Graham Sutherland OM

Graham Sutherland 1903-80

Portrait of Somerset Maugham 1949

N06034

Oil on canvas 1373 x 637 (54 1/16 x 25 1/16)

Inscribed in black paint with pale highlights ‘Sutherland 1949’over another inscription ‘Suther[...]’ t.r.

Presented by Lady John Hope 1951

Provenance:
Commissioned by Somerset Maugham 1949 and given by him to his daughter, Lady Joan Hope

Exhibited:
Graham Sutherland 1924-51: A Retrospective Selection, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, April-May 1951 (32)
Le Livre Anglais, British Council, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Sept. 1951-Feb. 1952 (524)
Sutherland, Wadsworth, New Aspects of British Sculpture, XXVI Venice Biennale, June-Oct. 1952 (British pavilion 43)
Graham Sutherland, British Council tour, Musée nationales d’art moderne, Paris, Nov.-Dec. 1952 (42, repr.), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Jan. 1953 (41), Kunsthaus, Zurich, March-April 1953 (41)
Paintings and Drawings by Graham Sutherland, Arts Council exhibition, Tate Gallery, May-Aug. 1953 (49)
Graham Sutherland, Kunsthalle, Basel, Feb.-March 1966 (56, repr.)
Graham Sutherland, Haus der Kunst, Munich, March-May 1967, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, June-July, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Aug.-Sept., Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, Oct.-Nov. (27, repr. p.70)
British Portraits, British Council tour of Romania and Hungary 1972-3, including Szèpmüvèszeti Mùzeum, Budapest, 1973 (53, repr.) (no other catalogues traced)
Henry Moore to Gilbert and George: Modern British Art from the Tate Gallery, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Sept.-Nov. 1973, as part of Europalia 73 Great Britain (58, repr. p.72)
Portraits by Graham Sutherland, National Portrait Gallery, London, June-Oct. 1977 (27, repr. in col. p.19 and detail p.10)
Graham Sutherland, Tate Gallery, May-July 1982 (113, repr.)
Graham Sutherland, Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt, Aug.-Sept. 1982 (230, repr. in col. p.197)
Loan to The Graham Sutherland Gallery, Picton Catle, Haverfordwest, May-Oct. 1984
Forty Years of Modern Art, Tate Gallery, London, Feb.-April 1986 (no number)
National Portrait Gallery, London, April-Sept. 1989
The Figure in the Age of Abstraction, Kunsthalle, Mannheim, Oct. 1998-Jan. 1999

Literature:
‘Art: Payoff’, Time, vol.53, no.24, 13 June 1949, p.29, repr.
Benedict Nicolson, ‘Graham Sutherland’, New Statesman and Nation, vol.41, no.1056, 21 April 1951, p.446
Eric Newton, ‘Graham Sutherland’, Art News and Review, vol.3, no.6, 21 April 1951, p.2
Denys Sutton, ‘Living Art for Britain’s Festival: Retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Arts’, Artnews, vol.50, no.4, summer 1951, pp.27, 54, repr. p.27
Eric Newton, ‘The Paintings of Graham Sutherland’, Canadian Art, vol.9, no.3, p.121
William Gaunt, ‘Profile: Graham Sutherland’, Art Digest, vol.27, no.15, 1 May 1953, p.25
Cyril Ray, ‘Sutherland: Portrait of the Artist’, Times, 17 May 1953
‘The Arts: Mr Sutherland’s Paintings’, Times, 19 May 1953
‘Shafts from Apollo’s Bow - Build Up: Exhibition at the Tate Gallery’, Apollo, vol.58, no.341, July 1953, p.3
John Curtis, ‘Graham Sutherland’, Studio, vol.146, no.725, Aug. 1953, p.51, repr. p.50
Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, Masters of British Painting 1800-1950, New York 1956, p.139
Herbert Read, ‘Great Britain’ in Marcel Brion (ed.), Art Since 1945, London 1959, p.246
René Huyghe (ed.), Larousse Encyclopaedia of Modern Art, London 1961, p.366
Douglas Cooper, The Work of Graham Sutherland, London 1961, pp.39, 50, 56-7, pl.165
John Woodward, A Pictorial History: British Painting, London 1962, p.157
Ronald Alley, ‘The Work of Graham Sutherland by Douglas Cooper’, Burlington Magazine, vol.104, no.710, May 1962, p.221
Noel Barber, Conversations with Painters, London 1964, pp.51-2
Herbert Read, Contemporary British Art, 2nd ed., Harmondsworth 1964, p.33
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, Tate Gallery: The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, II, London 1965, p.708
Bryan Robertson, John Russell, Lord Snowdon, Private View, London 1965, p.55
Ronald Alley, British Painting Since 1945, London 1966, p.6, pl.8
William Gaunt, A Companion to Painting, London 1967, p.217, repr. (detail)
Udo Kultermann, The New Painting, London 1969, p.20
Edward Lucie-Smith, Movements in Art Since 1945, London 1969, rev. ed. 1975, 1984, p.58
Giorgio Soavi, Protagonisti: Giacometti, Sutherland, de Chirico, Milan 1969, p.120
Robin Gibson and Keith Roberts, British Portrait Painters, London 1971, p.16, pl.47 (col.)
John Rothenstein, Modern English Painters: Wood to Hockney, London 1974, pp.67-8
Iain Stewart, ‘Writing from a Good Address’, Country Life, vol.155, no.4011, 16 May 1974, p.1226, repr.
John Sunderland, Painting in Britain 1525-1975, Oxford 1976, p.245
Richard Shone, The Century of Change, London 1977, p.33
Rosalind Thuiller, ‘Graham Sutherland Portraits’, Arts Review, vol.29, no.13, 24 June 1977, p.418
Keith Roberts, ‘Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions’, Burlington Magazine, vol.119, no.893, Aug. 1977, p.584
Louise Collis, ‘Graham Sutherland’, Art and Artists, vol.12, no.5, Sept. 1977, p.34, repr. p.33
Ian Jack, ‘Why Portraits Can Hurt: Interview with Graham Sutherland’, Sunday Times, 15 Jan. 1978, p.4
Edward Lucie-Smith, Cultural Calender of the 20th Century, Oxford 1979, p.120
John Spurling, ‘All That Fall’, New Statesman and Nation, 20 April 1979, p.566
John Hayes, The Art of Graham Sutherland, Oxford 1980, pp.29-35, 119, 140-1, repr. p.119, pl.88 (col.) and p.140, pl.110 (detail)
‘Londoner’s Diary: Portrait of the Artist as a Generous Man’, Evening Standard, 18 Feb. 1980, p.14
‘Obituary’, Financial Times, 18 Feb. 1980, p.9
‘The Outstanding Painter of his Generation’, Daily Telegraph, 18 Feb. 1980, p.17, repr. (detail)
‘Obituary’, Times, 18 Feb. 1980, p.14
‘Graham Sutherland, 76: British Artist’, International Herald Tribune, 19 Feb. 1980, p.4
Roger Berthoud, ‘Portait of a Man and his Courage’, Times, 20 Feb. 1980, p.14
Bryan Robertson, ‘Graham Sutherland’, Spectator, 23 Feb. 1980, p.22 (as 1937)
‘Graham Sutherland’, Sunday Times, 24 Feb. 1980, p.38
‘Sutherland Leaves Behind an Affectionate Memento’, Sunday Telegraph, 6 April 1980, p.10
Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1982, p.15
Roger Berthoud, Graham Sutherland: A Biography, London 1982, pp.134, 140-2, repr. in col. between pp.192 and 193
Stephen Hackney (ed.), Completing the Picture: Materials and Techniques of Twenty-Six Paintings in the Tate Gallery, London 1982, pp.91-4, repr. p.93 (col.)
Rosalind Thuiller, Graham Sutherland: Inspirations, Guildford 1982, pp.87-8, repr. p.89, pl.88
Danny Halperin, ‘The Faces which Measure our Time’, Sunday Telegraph, 18 April 1982, p.68, repr. (col.)
Roger Berthoud, ‘Life of Graham Sutherland 1: The Truth about that Churchill Portrait’, Sunday Telegraph, 9 May 1982, p.819
‘Face to Face with Maugham and the Beaver’, Daily Telegraph, 15 May 1982, p.8
Roger Berthoud, ‘Life of Graham Sutherland 2: Face to Face with Maugham and Beaverbrook’, Sunday Telegraph, 16 May 1982, p.819
Richard Holmes, ‘A Very Private Artist and his Mystery’, Times, 20 May 1982, p.12
‘Sutherland: Agony and Ecstasy’, Evening Standard, 20 May 1982, p.20
Marina Vaizey, ‘The Intelligent Dandy’, Sunday Times, 23 May 1982, p.41
Stephen Spender, ‘Sincere Sutherland’, Listener, 27 May 1982, p.19
John Spurling, ‘A Man Required to Fill a Place’, New Statesman and Nation, 28 May 1982, p.27
Arthur Marshall, ‘Fuel for the Aga’, Spectator, 29 May 1982, p.25
Geoffrey Grigson, ‘Grand Names’, Guardian, 3 June 1982, p.9
Max Wykes-Jones, ‘Sutherland: Bound for Coventry’, International Herald Tribune, 5-6 June 1982, p.10
‘Sketchy History’, Daily Telegraph, 7 June 1982, p.14
A.A.D. Montague, ‘Sutherland’s Churchill’, Spectator, 19 June 1982, p.19
Gay News, no.243, 1982
Roger Berthoud, ‘The Un-Britishness of Ambitious Art’, Alliance Review, July 1982, p.30
J. Frederiksen, ‘Das Geheimnis im Innern der Wälder’, Rhienische Post, 21 Aug. 1982
Klaus Staat, ‘“In dieser Stadt spürt man sofort das kulturelle Flair”’, Darmstädter Echo, 30 July 1982, repr. (detail)
Argentinisches Tageblatt, Buenos Aires, 25 Sept. 1982
Edward Lucie-Smith, Lives of the Great Twentieth Century Artists, London 1986, p.246
Anty Pansera and Maurizio Vitta, Guida all’arte contemporanea, Casale Monferrato 1986, p.298
Peter Fuller, ‘Nature and Raw Flesh’ in Boris Ford (ed.), Cambridge Guide to the Arts in Britain, vol. 9: Since the Second War, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne 1988, p.125
Malcolm Yorke, The Spirit of Place: Nine Neo-Romantic Artists, London 1988, pp.140, 142
Peter Fuller, ‘Sutherland v. Bacon: Nature and Raw Flesh’, Modern Painters, vol.1, no.1, spring 1988, pp.24-5, repr. p.25
A.M. Nielsen et al, En Temnbog Ansigter, Copenhagen 1989, p.118
Michael Foot, ‘How a Great Artist Saw Churchill’ (letter), Evening Standard, 24 April 1989, p.39
Roy Strong, The British Portrait 1660-1960, Woodbridge 1991, p.421, repr. p.28, pl.22 and p.419, pl.405
‘That Painting Would Have Been Fantastic’, Western Mail, 2 April 1994
Sutherland Ritratti a cura di Marco Goldin, exh. cat., Palazzo Sarcinelli, Conegliano 1996, p.258
Catherine Vasseur, ‘La nature inquiétante de Graham Sutherland’, L’Oeil, no.498, July-Aug. 1998, p.81

Reproduced:
Robert Melville, Graham Sutherland, London 1950, pl.64
Eric Newton, ‘Round the London Galleries’, Listener, vol.45, no.1155, 19 April 1951, p.626
H.U. Gasser, ‘Londoner kunstchronik: Graham Sutherland’, Werk, vol.38, no.6, June 1951, supplement p.83
J.P. Hodin, ‘Graham Sutherland’, Les Arts Plastique (Brussels), 5th series, no.6, June-July 1952, p.436, also published in Numero (Florence), vol.4, no.2
John Rothenstein, The Tate Gallery, London 1962, p.259
Albert Schug, Kunst in Bild, Der Neue Weg zum Verständnis der Weltkunst: Erlebnis der Gegenwart, Baden-Baden 1969, p.181 (col.)
Alan Jenkins, The Forties, London 1977, p.168 and back cover (col.)
Christopher Neve, ‘A Question of Appearance: Graham Sutherland Portraits’, Country Life, vol.162, no.4176, 7 July 1977, p.16
Simon Wilson, British Art: From Holbein to the Present Day, London 1979, p.156
‘Sutherland’Schau’, Volksblatt, 31 July 1982
‘Rund 300 Werke von Sutherland in Darmstadt’, Oberhellische Presse and Wetzlarer Neue Zeitung, 31 July 1982
Mittelbayerische Zeitung, 31 July 1982
Westfalische Rundschan, 2 Aug. 1982
Rhein Zeitung, 3 Aug. 1982
‘Forty Years of Modern Art 1945-85, Tate Gallery’, Arts Review, vol.38, no.4, 28 Feb. 1986, p.96
Artist, vol.101, no.4, April 1986, front cover (col.)
William Boyd, ‘Draughtsman’s Comeback’, Observer Magazine, 26 Sept. 1993, p.15 (col.)

Sutherland’s depiction of the elderly writer William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was the first of over fifty portraits that he would paint. His account of its genesis showed that this divergence into a new area of activity was driven principally by chance. Subsequently, his continued pursuit of the genre established a further dimension to his reputation, with some of the most famous and most wealthy figures of Europe sitting to him, but was seen by some to undermine the claims of sympathetic critics for his importance as a modernist.

The artist recalled that the portrait was painted in the first half of 1949 in the South of France from drawings made during a series of approximately ten sittings which lasted for about one hour per day.[1] With the encouragement of Francis Bacon, the Sutherlands had first travelled to the French Riviera in April 1947 with the art dealer Eardley Knollys. The painter was greatly attracted to the area and would subsequently spend the majority of his time there, settling at Menton in 1955. It was during this initial trip that he met Maugham probably through an introduction from Kenneth Clark.[2]

Though he had described himself as ‘in the first row of the second raters’,[3] Maugham was by that time one of the grand old men of British letters and was seen by Cyril Connolly in 1946 as ‘the last of our great professional writers’.[4] He published his first novel in 1897 but his reputation was secured in the second decade of the twentieth century with such books as Of Human Bondage (1915) and The Moon and Sixpence (1919) and plays like East of Suez. The Razor’s Edge (1944) has been described as his ‘last important novel’,[5] but in 1949 he published selections from A Writer’s Notebook. In 1954 his eightieth birthday was marked by a special edition of his 1930 novel Cakes and Ale with a portrait lithograph by Sutherland as a frontispiece.

It is indicative of the fame that Sutherland’s portrait of Maugham would acquire that, according to the painter’s biographer, there have been several variations of the story of its commission. Following his first meeting with Maugham, at lunch at the writer’s Villa Mauresque on 20 April 1947, Sutherland is reported to have said to a friend, ‘If I was a portrait painter, I think that’s the kind of face I could do’.[6] This was relayed to Maugham by Monroe Wheeler of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the writer responded positively. However, the artist offered a different version in the early 1960s when he told Nöel Barber: ‘Maugham asked me to do a portrait. I was reluctant and at first refused ... He asked me to try and I replied: “If it can be regarded purely as an experiment I would very much like to try”.’[7] Maugham, in contrast, believed that Sutherland had ‘begged and begged him to let him do it’.[8] Berthoud recounts Knollys alternative account:

Kathleen drew a sketch of Maugham with a pencil on a napkin ... Graham said. ‘No, he wasn’t a bit like that,’ and drew something quite different. Knollys said, ‘You ought to paint a portrait of him’ ... then ... came back to England and said to Monroe [Wheeler], who was going to stay with Maugham: ‘You must egg him on to get Graham to paint his portrait.’[9]

The Sutherlands returned to Britain a few weeks later and, despite returning to the Riviera for ten weeks before Christmas 1947, it was some time before the idea of a portrait was taken up. Sutherland was busy in 1948 with his first post-war one person exhibitions in London and New York and inclusion in British Council shows in Paris and Brussels. Towards the end of November Maugham, addressing his letter ‘Dear Graham Sutherland’, invited the artist and his wife for a fortnight in Cap Ferrat.[10] In 1957 the artist told the Tate that the portrait was begun in February 1949 and completed around the end of March,[11] but his biographer has dated their arrival at Maugham’s Villa Mauresque to 14 March, after they had travelled via Paris and visited Braque’s studio on the way.[12] Sutherland began his series of sittings with Maugham and after a week took a villa nearby where he could paint freely. Though Kathleen Sutherland posed for her husband in the writer’s borrowed clothes, Maugham visited for further sessions and, on one occasion, the artist had to travel to his mountain retreat at Valberg. When the portrait was complete Maugham and his secretary, Alan Searle, came to the Sutherlands’ villa for the unveiling on 24 May.[13] The sitter is said to have been uncertain of his reaction at first but to have grown more enthusiastic as others admired the work and, in an interview that announced the portrait’s existence, he described it as ‘magnificent’.[14] Within less than two years, in April 1951, the writer offered it for indefinite loan and perhaps bequest to the Tate Gallery and, on its return from exhibition the following year, it was acquired for the collection.

Several drawings and numerous sketchbook studies are the products of the painting process. It would appear, however, that some of these were produced as works in their own right. A double-sided portrait drawing in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in pen and ink over pencil, shows Maugham’s face from the right and from the left on the reverse. On close inspection this secondary image is actually a tracing of the recto drawing and is, therefore, a mirror image of Maugham’s left side. Sutherland explained to the museum how it came to be made: ‘The original working drawing was made on tracing paper and when it seemed ... that the drawing was going to suffer, I made your two drawings at the same time as I was doing the portrait in order that if I needed a further reference, in view of the damage to the original drawing, they would be on hand.’[15] He explained that he had made another, ‘weaker’, drawing previous to the one on tracing paper. A number of drawings are in the Beaverbrook Gallery, Fredericton and a further two have appeared at auction. One was very close to the verso image of the Fitzwilliam drawing[16] and the other, more sophisticated, to the recto.[17]

Studies suggest that the artist, with his wife as a model, experimented with different poses for the portrait. In one sketchbook a drawing of a faceless figure seated in a similar pose to that in the painting is followed by drawings of Mrs Sutherland in a variety of seated positions viewed from a range of angles.[18] Similarly, he considered a range of seats before settling on the bamboo stool in the painting. Some of the drawings concentrate on a kitchen-type chair and, in particular, its turned wooden legs. There are others of a bamboo chair, similar to the stool, and of such details as the rolled front of its seat and its joints bound with bamboo strips.[19] Like the palm fronds above the sitter’s head, the change to a bamboo seat fixes the portrait to an exotic location and perhaps alludes to the sitter’s association with the Far East. A large number of sketches of details reveal that Sutherland found certain aspects of the painting problematic. Specifically, there are numerous studies of the lower part of the foremost leg and the turned-up trousers. Some of these show the raised foot from the front and it would seem that the artist surmounted some of his difficulties by showing it side-on.[20] In the final work, the right foot disappears off the bottom edge of the canvas and problems with trousers and feet would recur in later portraits. There is also an isolated study of Maugham’s right eye,[21] but the fact that many adjacent pages of the sketchbook are missing may indicate that more finished drawings were removed.

The portrait is painted on a commercially prepared white ground which is visible in some places. The design appears to have been drawn with black oil and while some of these lines were reinstated at the end of the painting process others were painted around. Much of the paint is of relatively thick impasto. The background was made up of a thin oil wash of bright yellow over which were laid several darker tones of yellow - some more orange and others more green - which are quite thick. The flesh tones of the face are also thickly painted around the thin, original lines of the sitter’s wrinkles. Squaring up with pencil is visible through the paint of the lower hand and sleeve and the fingers of the right hand. This, along with the awkwardness of the fingers, suggests that the artist found these areas especially problematic. In contrast, a pencil grid over the blue shirt cuff was added after painting as a pictorial device. Certain colours are water-soluble: the white in the scarf, the red in the socks and the shadow under the stool. In 1964 the painting was cleaned and crystallization was removed from the background which was thus revealed to be greener than had previously been thought. A crack in the impasto above the sitter’s right shoulder resulted from the impact of a customs stamp on the reverse prior to 1964.

This work received considerable attention and its public and private success ensured further portrait commissions. Through Maugham, Sutherland painted Lord Beaverbrook in 1951 (Beaverbrook Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick)[22] and over the rest of his career he portrayed many of the powerful figures of Europe. His Portrait of The Hon. Edward Sackville-West, 1953-4 (private collection)[23] was more personal, being a depiction of an old friend. The most famous, and ultimately most notorious, such work was painted for both Houses of Parliament who commissioned a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill to be given to the wartime Prime Minister as an eightieth birhday present in 1954.[24] The recipient loathed it so much that the painting was never seen again and, following the death of Lady Churchill in 1977, it was revealed that it had been destroyed shortly after the event.

Commentators have sought to associate Sutherland’s portraits with his paintings of natural objects. Benedict Nicolson believed that his move into the new genre was predictable as the earlier works had been full of anthropomorphic forms.[25] The sitter’s age contributed to such readings: Berthoud suggested that Sutherland was attracted to Maugham’s face because it resembled a ‘weatherbeaten objet trouvé’[26] and Nicolson thought it ‘difficult to imagine him tackling smooth, young faces, unsullied by experience, by suffering. Sutherland may be the master of decay or of the later stages of growth, but the one subject that is quite beyond him is immaturity.’[27] Douglas Cooper argued that the artist saw ‘his own role in relation to a sitter as being somewhat that of a bird-watcher, that is to say an observer who remains detached and unobtrusive yet is constantly on the alert to detect and note down typical gestures, attitudes or facial expressions which give a clue to the type of behaviour or underlying character associated with the “animal”.’[28] A similarly bestial metaphor was later employed by John Hayes when he spoke of Sutherland ‘stalking’ his sitter.[29] Cooper followed Edward Sackville-West’s comments on Sutherland’s psychological insight and uncompromising realism. Describing them as ‘among the most perspicacious’ of their time, he wrote that the portraits were

as ‘realistic’ as Sutherland’s handling of an old stone or a seed pod, except that this painter lavishes on old stones and seed pods an affection he apparently does not feel for human beings ... Sutherland’s profound sense of Original Sin, combined with a gimlet perception of some single but fundamental characteristic in his sitter, produces the portrait in which the soul has been brought to the surface.[30]

Nevertheless, the separation of the portraits from his other work in Cooper’s major monograph may suggest anxiety over its effect on the perception of Sutherland’s oeuvre. In fact, after the artist’s death, Cooper admitted that he ‘thought the portraits ... rather unplaesant ... I don’t think he cared for human beings at all’.[31] Claims for him as a modernist were undermined by the increasing sense of him as a society portraitist. Later in life, his entrance into the European high society whose members he portrayed exacerbated that view of him. Denys Sutton responded to the first exhibition of Somerset Maugham in 1951 with the apparently barbed description of it as ‘a capable work, [which] ... should earn Sutherland a position in the Royal Academy ... one can well understand how the return of an artist whose work has lain in a semi-abstract direction to a representational style is welcome in certain quarters like the proverbial lost sheep’.[32]

Chris Stephens
September 1998