(London, 24 August 1903 – Menton, 17 February 1980). Graham Vivian Sutherland can be considered among the leaders of contemporary British painting. Read the full biography
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(London, 24 August 1903 – Menton, 17 February 1980). Graham Vivian Sutherland can be considered among the leaders of contemporary British painting. He began as an engraver, influenced by Blake, and taught engraving at the Chelsea School of Art. He illustrated books, designed costumes and sets for the theatre, then, from 1936, he dedicated himself to painting, giving a highly original and typically English version of surrealism in in which there are influences from Klee, Lam and Picasso. In the first period he worked on an idea of landscape transforming vegetal and mineral forms into species of totems that emerge menacingly from the united background in a climate full of psychoanalytic suggestions. During the war he was commissioned, together with other artists, including Moore and Nash, to illustrate episodes of London life during the war. He gave a very personal interpretation of it, painting hallucinating visions of London and Wales devastated by bombing. Present as an exhibitor at the Venice Biennale in 1952 and at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1955, a large anthological exhibition of his work was set up in Italy in 1965 at the Modern Art Gallery of Turin.
