Graham Sutherland
| Graham Sutherland | |
|---|---|
| Born |
24 August 1903 Streatham, London |
| Died |
17 February 1980 (aged 76) Kent, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Goldsmiths College |
| Known for | painter, etcher, designer |
| Notable work | Tapestry for Coventry Cathedral |
| Movement | neo-Romanticism, abstract |
| Awards | Order of Merit |
| Patron(s) | War Artists' Advisory Committee |
Graham Vivian Sutherland OM (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was an English artist, notable for his work in glass, fabrics, prints and portraits. His work was much inspired by landscape and religion, and he designed the tapestry for the re-built Coventry Cathedral.
Printmaking, mostly of romantic landscapes, dominated Sutherland's work during the 1920s. He developed his art by working in watercolours before switching to using oil paints in the 1940s. It is these oil paintings, often of surreal, organic landscapes of the Pembrokeshire coast, that secured his reputation as a leading British modern artist. Sutherland taught at a number of art colleges, notably at Chelsea School of Art and at Goldsmiths College, where he had been a student. He served as an official war artist in the Second World War drawing industrial scenes on the British home front.
Such was Sutherland's standing in post-war Britain that he was commissioned to design the massive central tapestry in the new Coventry Cathedral. A number of portrait commissions in the 1950s proved highly controversial. Winston Churchill hated Sutherland's depiction of him and publicly humiliated Sutherland when the painting was presented. In 1955, Sutherland and his wife purchased a property near Nice. Living abroad led to something of a decline in his status in Britain. However, a visit to Pembrokeshire in 1967, his first trip there in nearly twenty years, led to a creative renewal that went some way toward restoring his reputation as a leading British artist.
Graham Sutherland was born in Streatham in London, the son of a lawyer who later became a civil servant in the Land Registry Office and the Board of Education. Graham Sutherland attended Homefield Preparatory School in Sutton and was then educated at Epsom College, Surrey until 1919. Upon leaving school, after some preliminary coaching in art, Sutherland began an engineering apprenticeship at the Midland Railway works in Derby. After a year he succeeded in persuading his father that he was not destined for a career in engineering and that he should be allowed to study art. There being no vacancies at his first choice, the Slade School of Fine Art, he entered Goldsmiths' School of Art in 1921, specialising in engraving and etching before graduating in 1926. In both 1925 and 1928, Sutherland exhibited drawings and engravings at the XXI Gallery in London.
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