Graham Sutherland, Bird About to Take Flight, 1968

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This artwork titled "Bird About to Take a Flight" from the suite "Bestiary and some Correspondences" 1968 is an original … Read more This artwork titled "Bird About to Take a Flight" from the suite "Bestiary and some Correspondences" 1968 is an original color lithograph on Arches paper by renown British surrealist artist Graham Vivian Sutherland, 1903-1980. It is hand signed and numbered 2/70 in pencil by the artist. The sheet size is 26 x 19.75 inches, framed size is 36 x 29.5 inches. Published by Marlborrough Fine Art Ltd, London, Printed by Fernand Mourlot, Paris. Referenced and pictured in the artist's catalogue raisonne "Graham Sutherland Complete Graphic Work" by Ediciones Poligrafa, published by Edward Quinn, plate #95. Custom framed in a wooden black frame, with gold color spacer and fabric matting. It is in excellent condition.

About the artist:

Graham Vivian Sutherland became a landscape painter in his mid 30s, having been a printmaker of pastoral subjects. He painted his landscapes in an abstract style, showing much interest in shapes and forms, and he experimented with Surrealism and exhibited in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London. He also did teaching in London art schools, did designing of glass, fabric and posters, and painted many portraits including Somerset Maugham and Winston Churchill, which was commissioned by the Houses of Parliament for Churchill's 80th birthday celebration in 1954. The latter commission turned into a public controversy that pitted Sutherland's modernist approach to portraiture against the Churchill's expectation that the work would depict the subject as a revered, 'international symbol.'

Sittings were done during the summer of 1954 at Chartwell, country home of the Churchill's, and the Churchill family was much charmed by the artist with a close friendship developing. However, when the portrait was unveiled in November, 1954, Churchill "took an instant loathing to it. He felt he had been betrayed by the artist, whom he had liked and with whom he felt at ease" because, according to Churchill's wife, Clementine, "it was a cruel and gross travesty of Winston, showing all the ravages of time and revealing nothing of the warmth and humanity of his nature." (Soames, 589) Because it caused Winston such dismay, his wife had it destroyed several years after it was painting. However, photographs of it survived, and because it was modernist work, many critics defended it because of its realism and the fact that Sutherland disregarded his subject as self perceived and instead, painted the aging man he saw before him.

Graham Sutherland was born in Streatham, studied at Epsom College, Surrey, and Goldsmiths College, at the University of London. He worked as an engineer at the Midland Railway Works at Derby before studying engraving at Goldsmiths College from 1921 to 1926. In 1927 he married Kathleen Barry.

During World War II, he served as an official artist and stayed primarily in England, depicting scenes of bomb damage, mining and industry.

From 1926, when he converted to Catholicism, he was deeply religious for the remainder of his life, and his convictions were often reflected in his artwork. He purchased a villa at Menton in the south of France, and spent much of his post war existence there.

There were major retrospective shows of Sutherland's artwork at the Tate Gallery in 1982, France in 1998, and the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2005.

Works by Sutherland are held in collections and museums worldwide including, the Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, Kirklees Museums and Art Gallery, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Manchester Art Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Northampton Museums and Art Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, Southampton City Art Gallery, The Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art, Tenby Museum and Art Gallery, The Fitzwilliam Museum and The Priseman Seabrook Collection. See less