Painter and printmaker.  Graham Sutherland was born in London, he studied engraving at Goldsmith’s College of Art. It was not until 1930 or thereabouts that he began to paint, supporting himself by designing posters for Shell-Mex and London Transport amongst others. In 1934 he made  his first visit to Pembrokeshire (now Dyfed) in Wales and the landscape became an endless source of inspiration. After the war Sutherland visited the South of France, where he met Picasso and Matisse.  In 1952 his work was shown at the Venice Biennale and in 1955 at the São Paulo Bienal.  A major retrospective was held in 1998 at the Musée Picasso, Antibes.Sutherland was commissioned to design the huge tapestry of Christ in Glory,  installed in Coventry Cathedral in 1962.  He was frequently commissioned to paint portraits: Sutherland’s portrait of Winston

Churchill was so loathed by Clementine Churchill, (Churchill’s wife) she destroyed it. Sutherland was awarded the Order of Merit in 1960 and named as a Commandeur des Artes et des Lettres in 1973. Sutherland died on 17 February 1980 in London.

During the Second World War Sutherland had been an appointed an official war artist recording bomb damage in London, Cardiff and France, and the limestone quarries in Derbyshire. Shortly after, he made a return visit to Wales painting the coastal landscape near St David’s.  The group of works he produced, including Estuary with Rocks, explore the shape of the land, conveying the emergence of the half-human, half-organic figures from the rise and fall of the hills and valleys.

Palm Leaves was painted following his first visit to France in 1947 Sutherland began to use more brilliant colours and developed a preoccupation with Mediterranean motifs such as palm palisades, vine pergolas, cacti and the like.  The palm leaves, with their spiky, fronds, have affinities with the thorn trees he had been painting in England earlier in the decade.

Palm Leaves 1947
Gouache and chalk on paper
32 x 35 cm
Purchased from the Artist October 1949