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Lot Essay
The present work eloquently displays Sutherland's poetical and lyrical response to the ravages of War.
In 1938, Kenneth Clark wrote of Sutherland's poetical lyricism, 'Poetical painting should come naturally to the English; actually it is rare. Many English painters have attempted poetical subjects, few have painted poetically. Turner did so in some of his later works, Blake did so in his illustrations to Dante, Palmer in his paintings of Shoreham. Graham Sutherland does so. His colour and design are a joy to the eye, but they exist and acquire their force through his magical vision of nature. The strangeness of his vision - and it must seem strange to those who experience it for the first time - is completely unforced, and gradually convinces the spectator, who ends by discovering Graham Sutherland in nature ... Sutherland's work is the reverse of abstract. Nor is it Sur-realist, for he never consciously introduces images on account of their pyschological associations. Indeed those who like to arrange pictures into categories and influences will find his work hard to place. But those who are prepared to trust their eyes will recognise one of those rare and precious talents which can furnish the mind with memorable images' (see Exhibition catalogue, Graham Sutherland, London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2005, p. 78).
In 1938, Kenneth Clark wrote of Sutherland's poetical lyricism, 'Poetical painting should come naturally to the English; actually it is rare. Many English painters have attempted poetical subjects, few have painted poetically. Turner did so in some of his later works, Blake did so in his illustrations to Dante, Palmer in his paintings of Shoreham. Graham Sutherland does so. His colour and design are a joy to the eye, but they exist and acquire their force through his magical vision of nature. The strangeness of his vision - and it must seem strange to those who experience it for the first time - is completely unforced, and gradually convinces the spectator, who ends by discovering Graham Sutherland in nature ... Sutherland's work is the reverse of abstract. Nor is it Sur-realist, for he never consciously introduces images on account of their pyschological associations. Indeed those who like to arrange pictures into categories and influences will find his work hard to place. But those who are prepared to trust their eyes will recognise one of those rare and precious talents which can furnish the mind with memorable images' (see Exhibition catalogue, Graham Sutherland, London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2005, p. 78).