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Lot Essay
STUDIES FROM IMPORTANT BODIES OF WORK
BY GRAHAM SUTHERLAND
The four works by Sutherland included in this collection (lots 141-142, 181-182) represent several dominant motifs the artist adopted from the late-1930s into the early 1950s, during the Second World War and in its aftermath. All but one of these motifs are represented by important oil paintings which inhabit prominent public art collections: Cactus from 1950 at the University of Michigan Art Museum see lot 181), Thorn Trees from 1945 in the Collection of the British Council (see lot 182), Entrance to a Lane from 1939 residing at the Tate, London (see lot 141).
Sutherland had been appointed an official War Artist after the outbreak of the Second World War, responsible for documenting Britain as it underwent significant change; translating its physical and emotional impact into the language of visual art. Influenced by Peter Blake and Samuel Palmer, Sutherland’s visual style has a visceral romanticism that was apt for this task, expressing tensions through his gestural, textured application of media and mark-making. Thorn Trees shows the dual influences of Surrealism and Cubism, particularly Pablo Picasso’s late-1920s and 1930s oeuvre. Contrasting organic and angular forms to create loaded subliminal metaphors, this work powerfully indicates the zeitgeist of the British wartime consciousness. Here, nature is reduced to its bare bones, with the skeletal limbs of the plant standing in for the human casualties of war and its degradation of the landscape.
BY GRAHAM SUTHERLAND
The four works by Sutherland included in this collection (lots 141-142, 181-182) represent several dominant motifs the artist adopted from the late-1930s into the early 1950s, during the Second World War and in its aftermath. All but one of these motifs are represented by important oil paintings which inhabit prominent public art collections: Cactus from 1950 at the University of Michigan Art Museum see lot 181), Thorn Trees from 1945 in the Collection of the British Council (see lot 182), Entrance to a Lane from 1939 residing at the Tate, London (see lot 141).
Sutherland had been appointed an official War Artist after the outbreak of the Second World War, responsible for documenting Britain as it underwent significant change; translating its physical and emotional impact into the language of visual art. Influenced by Peter Blake and Samuel Palmer, Sutherland’s visual style has a visceral romanticism that was apt for this task, expressing tensions through his gestural, textured application of media and mark-making. Thorn Trees shows the dual influences of Surrealism and Cubism, particularly Pablo Picasso’s late-1920s and 1930s oeuvre. Contrasting organic and angular forms to create loaded subliminal metaphors, this work powerfully indicates the zeitgeist of the British wartime consciousness. Here, nature is reduced to its bare bones, with the skeletal limbs of the plant standing in for the human casualties of war and its degradation of the landscape.