Graham Sutherland

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York
Waddington Galleries, London
James Kirkman, London
New Art Centre, London
Redfern Gallery, London
Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London

New York, Curt Valentin Gallery, Graham Sutherland, 1953, no.23;
Touring exhibition, organised by Museum of Modern Art, New York, States of Mind, 1953, no.53;
Paris, Artcurial, English Contrasts, September - November 1984;
London, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, Graham Sutherland, 1993, no.19, illustrated in the catalogue;
Monte Carlo, Galerie d'Art Moderne, Maitres du XXeme Siecle: Peintures - Sculptures, 2001, illustrated in the catalogue.

The sheet is not laid down. It undulates slightly across the surface but otherwise it is in good condition. The top and bottom edges of the sheet are very slightly frayed but this is consistent with its original condition. There are a few artist's pinholes in the top of the sheet which are visible in the catalogue illustration. Under ultra-violet light no retouching is visible. Presented against a black backboard and held in a gilt wooden and plaster frame with a black cross-section. The colours are slightly paler in the flesh than they appear in the catalogue illustration.
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Sutherland made his first visit to the South of France in 1947, returning for prolonged periods each year until, in 1955, the purchase of the house at Menton which was to become his principal home.

The exposure to this vibrant region released a much brighter palette into his work, along with a specifically Mediterranean range of subject matter, such as vines, palms, cicadas and gourds. Sutherland began the series of ‘Standing Form’ paintings in 1949, although they clearly have their antecedents in the Thorn Head images of 1945-6. However, by 1949, Sutherland was well-established in the south of France and the forms and palette are much more redolent of that location.

The slightly disturbing anthropomorphism of the forms, which often appear to have a composite quality, was recognised by the artist, and it seems that these derive from a variety of sources, including tree roots and hanging maize. The carapace-like element of the figure here begins to appear in Sutherland’s work around 1949 when it is introduced into works like Articulated Form (Private Collection), and it also appears in vertical format in the Origins of the Land mural painted in 1950 for the Festival of Britain.

Recent study of the connections between Sutherland’s work and that of Francis Bacon has drawn some very interesting parallels, and if one accepts that there are links between Sutherland’s ‘Standing Form’ paintings and Bacon’s contemporary work, then it seems apposite to observe the similarities between the raised base upon which the form in the present work is placed and the constructions which appear in Bacon’s paintings, such as that found in Study of a Nude (Robert & Lisa Sainsbury Collection, U.E.A.) of 1952-3. This motif was also appearing concurrently in the contemporary sculpture of Reg Butler.

Indeed, the sculptural quality of these standing forms led Sutherland to experiment with actual sculpture and, according to Douglas Cooper about six examples were made in the 1950-54 period. Of these, all were destroyed apart from Standing Figure of 1952 which was cast in bronze in an edition of three in 1959.