Sutherland (Graham Vivian)

, , 1930.
Graham Sutherland (1903-1980) studied etching under Frederick Griggs, working in an accomplished style in the pastoral tradition of William Blake and Samuel Palmer. This formed the basis of his early commercial success in the 1920s, selling to both British and American buyers, until the Wall Street Crash of 1929 significantly disrupted the market. However, as this event cast a long shadow over the world, so Sutherland’s work took on a darker, more brooding air, and echoes of the more surreal forms of De Chirico and Nash that paved the way for his later work. This eerie scene of sharply contrasting light depicts the ghoulish shapes of dead tree trunks against a dense living woodland, largely divided by a long fence or wall disappearing into the centre of the composition,.