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Lot Essay
Painted in 1962, Study of a Broken Branch comes from an important decade in Sutherland’s oeuvre. In 1955 he had bought Villa Tempe a Paia, a modernist home in the South of France at Menton, which had been designed and built by the Irish architect, Eileen Gray, in 1934. His interest in the surrounding landscape and exotic flora and fauna of the Midi region became the focus of his art and a bolder use of colour with themes from nature now preoccupied his work.
Compositions depicting a tree form in a cross shape, wrapped with vines and thorns, with a strong coloured background from this period were inspired by Sutherland’s earlier Northampton Crucifixion commission in 1946, which would inspire him to develop the use of the symbol of the cross and thorns in his art. He commented that ‘As the thorns arranged themselves, they became ... something else – a kind of stand in for a Crucifixion and a crucified head ... the thorns came from the idea of potential cruelty – to me they were the cruelty; and I attempted to give the idea a double twist ... by setting them in benign circumstances: blue skies, green grass, Crucifixions under warmth’ (see exhibition catalogue, Graham Sutherland, London, Tate Gallery, 1982, pp. 108-109).
The present work previously formed part of The Save & Prosper Group (later The J.P. Morgan Fleming) Collection, from where it was purchased by the present owner 25 years ago.
Compositions depicting a tree form in a cross shape, wrapped with vines and thorns, with a strong coloured background from this period were inspired by Sutherland’s earlier Northampton Crucifixion commission in 1946, which would inspire him to develop the use of the symbol of the cross and thorns in his art. He commented that ‘As the thorns arranged themselves, they became ... something else – a kind of stand in for a Crucifixion and a crucified head ... the thorns came from the idea of potential cruelty – to me they were the cruelty; and I attempted to give the idea a double twist ... by setting them in benign circumstances: blue skies, green grass, Crucifixions under warmth’ (see exhibition catalogue, Graham Sutherland, London, Tate Gallery, 1982, pp. 108-109).
The present work previously formed part of The Save & Prosper Group (later The J.P. Morgan Fleming) Collection, from where it was purchased by the present owner 25 years ago.