The Toad

Douglas Cooper writes of Sutherland's work of the early 1960s, 'During the last few years, Sutherland has also hinted at some of his own preoccupations and dilemmas in a series of paintings taken from the world of animals. Whereas in the past his animals were somewhat stylized and presented in the form of exhibits, today he depicts them more naturalistically in romantically suggested settings ... One toad seeks to escape from imprisonment in a glass gar, while another, emerging from some dank corner, turns the beam of his orange eye on the world and stretches out his fierce claw-like paw as though to strike down some prey (D. Cooper, The Work of Graham Sutherland, London, 1961, p. 49).

Sutherland had picked up the toad on the road home from Menton in the South of France in 1958. He kept it in water in the bathroom and drew and photographed it before releasing it. Altogether he painted five large pictures of the toad between 1958 and 1962.

Sutherland painted Charles Clore's portrait twice, the first in 1965 (which was not completed until 1975) and the second in 1977 for the exhibition of his portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in London.