Graham Sutherland
dal 9/12/2011 al 17/3/2012
Segnalato da
9/12/2011
Graham Sutherland
Modern Art Oxford, Oxford
An Unfinished World. Over 80 rarely seen works on paper by the British artist from public and private collections across the UK. The exhibition concentrates on Sutherland's early Welsh landscapes from the 1930s, works created during his time as official WWII war artist, and after his return to Pembrokeshire in the 1970s.
curated by George Shaw
This winter, Modern Art Oxford presents a collection of works on paper by British artist, Graham Sutherland. Curated by 2011 Turner Prize nominee, George Shaw, An Unfinished World is a reflective exploration of the lesser-known work of one of the most compelling artists of his generation.
The exhibition concentrates on Sutherland’s early Welsh landscapes from the 1930s, works created during his time as official WWII war artist, and after his return to Pembrokeshire in the 1970s.
Far from traditional studies of landscape and environment, these works not only depict but also exude a world that is as dark as it is magical, as elusive as it is recognisable. Strangely bereft of human life, the works navigate the real and imagined; where country lanes loop into each other, horizon lines fold into foregrounds, and nothing is as it seems.
George Shaw presents these works through the lens of a contemporary painter, describing them as ‘a lament to the passing and changing landscape, a monument to the earth itself’. He adds, ‘the exhibition shows us Sutherland as an artist as much rooted in the past as in the world before him – a world forever unfinished’.
An Unfinished World brings together for the first time over eighty rarely seen works on paper from public and private collections across the UK.
An Unfinished World – the publication to accompany the exhibition includes an introduction by Michael Stanley and texts by George Shaw, Brian Catling, Rachel Flynn and Alexandra Harris.
Talks
George Shaw in conversation with David Fraser Jenkins
Tuesday 13 December, 6pm
George Shaw is joined by David Fraser Jenkins, art historian and curator. As a young curator at National Museum Wales in the 1970s, Jenkins worked with Graham Sutherland to establish the Picton Gallery.
Simon Martin 'Graham Sutherland and the poetry of landscape'
Friday 20 January, 6pm
Simon Martin, Head of Curatorial Services at Pallant House Gallery, explores the close relationship between Graham Sutherland's interest in the imagery of artists such as William Blake and Samuel Palmer, and his own depictions of the landscape that fused modernist abstraction and a poetic sense of place.
George Shaw, Alexandra Harris and Michael Bracewell
Thursday 23 February, 6pm
George Shaw discusses Sutherland's work with the writer Alexandra Harris, and the critic and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell.
Graham Sutherland (b. 1903, London, d. 1980), painter of imaginative landscapes, still life, figure pieces and portraits, abandoned a railway engineering apprenticeship after a year and studied at Goldsmiths College School of Art 1920–5, where he specialised in engraving and etching. Formative influences on his early work were Blake, Samuel Palmer, Turner, Paul Nash and Henry Moore. He exhibited at the N.E.A.C. 1929–33 and with the London Group from 1932 (member 1936–7), experimenting with painting in oils from 1930 until, in 1935, the year after his first visit to Pembrokeshire, he decided to become a painter. As an Official War Artist 1941–4, Sutherland painted scenes of bomb devastation and of work in mines and foundries. He also painted the portrait of Somerset Maugham in 1949, the first of a series, which includes Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill and others. He completed the designs for the Coventry Cathedral tapestry, ‘Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph’, between 1954 and 1957 (installed 1962). He also designed posters, ceramics, book illustrations, and ballet costumes and décor for ‘The Wanderer’ in 1940. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1960.
George Shaw (b. 1966, Coventry, currently lives and works in North Devon) grew up in Tile Hill, a post-war housing estate on the south side of Coventry. He gained a BA from Sheffield Polytechnic in 1992 and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London, in 1998. His solo exhibitions include The Sly and Unseen Day, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead and South London Gallery (2011), Looking for Baz, Shaz, Gaz and Daz, VOID, Derry (2010), Woodsman, Wilkinson Gallery, London (2009), The End of the World, Galerie Hussenot, Paris (2008), Poets Day, Centre d’Art, Contemporain, Geneva (2006), Ash Wednesday, Wilkinson Gallery (2005) and What I Did This Summer, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2003). George Shaw is one of four artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2011. Work by the shortlisted artists will be shown in an exhibition at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, opening on Friday 21 October 2011. The winner will be announced at BALTIC on 5 December 2011.
Exhibition supported by:
Bonhams
Graham Sutherland Exhibition Circle
Image: Dark Hill - Landscape with Hedges and Fields, 1940. Swindon Museum and Art Gallery © Estate of Graham Sutherland
For further information or images please contact
Kayleigh Hellin on 01865 813804 or email kayleigh.hellin@modernartoxford.org.uk
Modern Art Oxford is located in the centre of Oxford with entrances on St Ebbe’s (level access) and Pembroke Street.
Opening hours:
Tuesday and Wednesday 10am – 5pm
Sunday 12pm – 5pm
Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10am – 7pm and the café & bar open until 10pm.
Monday closed
Christmas and New Year Opening Times 2011-12
Saturday 24 December: Galleries & Cafe open until 3pm, Shop open until 4pm
Sunday 25 & Monday 26 December: Closed
Tuesday 27 December: Open 12pm – 5pm (Bank Holiday)
Wednesday 28 December: Open 10am – 5pm
Thursday 29 & Friday 30 December: Open 10am – 6pm
Saturday 31 December: Open 10am – 5pm
Sunday 1 January: Closed
Monday 2 January: Closed (Bank Holiday)
Tuesday 3 January: Open as norma
Admission Free.