Graham Sutherland, O.M. (1903-1980)

The Fountain

細節

Graham Sutherland, O.M. (1903-1980)
The Fountain
signed and dated 'Sutherland./1963.' (lower left)
oil on canvas
56 x 47 in. (143.6 x 120.6 cm.)

來源

Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London.

展覽

New York, Paul Rosenberg, Recent Paintings by Graham Sutherland, May-June 1964, no.2, p.27 (illustrated).
Torino, Galleria Civica D'arte Moderna, Graham Sutherland, October- November 1965, no.131, p.293 (illustrated).
Basel, Kunsthalle, Graham Sutherland, February-March 1966, no.118.
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Graham Sutherland, March-May 1967, no.78 (illustrated): this exhibition travelled to The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, June-July 1967; Berlin, Haus der Kunst, August-September 1967; and Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, October-November 1967.

拍品專文

Sutherland trained as an engineer between 1919 and 1921 as an apprentice to the Midland Railway in Derby. Hereafter he was fascinated by machinery and its functional simplicity. The pump which forms the central image of 'The Fountain' and several other large paintings from this period, was discussed by the artist in conversation with the critic Edwin Mullins: 'There was this extraordinary warehouse in Venice, empty and derelict. I'm afraid they are pulling it down now but I loved the atmosphere of the place. I wanted to paint a picture about an interior of great size, and about mystery, and I wanted to furnish this empty warehouse with a machine just working away without anyone around, because if people had been there the pump would have been irrelevant. I like the incongruous situation in painting. Almost any machine would have done, but as I chose a pump it had to be a useful pump. Among other things it had to have certain cavities to dispose of water, and the idea for this I got from a piece of bark'.
(Transmuting a Tortured Landscape, Daily Telegraph Magazine, 161, 3 November 1967, p.32-33 (illustrated)).