.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Along with Sir Colin and Kenneth Clark, one of Sutherland's earliest collectors was Peter Watson, who funded and helped to edit the journal, Horizon. An illustration of Green Tree Form: Interior of woods was used to accompany Sutherland's essay 'Welsh Sketch Book' which took the form of an open letter to Sir Colin. In this letter Sutherland wrote about the influence that his experiences of Welsh landscape had had on his work (see note to lot 24). This piece of writing demonstrates the fascination that Sutherland felt for the Pembrokeshire landscape, which, when he first visited the area in 1934 spoke to him in a 'foreign tongue'.
It was within this landscape that Sutherland was to find the 'motifs' that he would draw and paint a number of times. He wrote, 'These and other things have delighted me. The twisted gorse on the cliff edge ... twigs, like snakes, lying on the path, heath fires, gorse burnt and blackened after fire, a tin school in an exuberant landscape, the high overhanging hedges by the steep roads which pinch the setting sun, mantling clouds against a black sky and the thunder, the flowers and the damp hollows, the farmer galloping on his horse down the estuary, the deep green valleys and the rounded hills and the whole structure, simple and complex' (Horizon, V, April 1942, pp. 225-35).
Green Tree Form: Interior of woods shares the same motif with two oils of similar title, Green Tree Form, 1940 (British Council), and Green Tree Form: Interior of woods, 1940 (Tate, London) (fig. 1). The form itself resembles the central figure in Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, circa 1944 (Tate, London) (fig. 2).
Martin Hammer comments on the two artists, 'The direction of influence is somewhat less clear in the case of Francis Bacon, who became a close friend of Sutherland's during the latter part of the war. Between 1944 and 1946 there seems to have been a good deal of give and take between the work of the two artists. The interplay between ambiguous, metamorphic forms and flat orange backdrops, as well as a technical combination of oil and pastel on board, are among the striking common denominators between pictures the two men produced in 1944' (see Exhibition catalogue, Graham Sutherland, Landscapes, War Scenes, Portraits 1924-1950, London, 2005, p. 33).
The present work is a key piece in Sutherland's development as a painter and its importance is partly demonstrated by the number of exhibitions worldwide in which it has been included. Roger Berthoud comments on Sutherland's second solo show as a painter, 'Prices in general ranged from ten to forty guineas, though the Tate paid fifty guineas for Green Tree Form, its first Sutherland; Colin Anderson bought the second large gouache study for this for a mere fifteen guineas. So frequently has the latter since been exhibited that its reverse side is scarcely visible through the stickers of exhibitions all over the world' (op. cit., p. 98).
It was within this landscape that Sutherland was to find the 'motifs' that he would draw and paint a number of times. He wrote, 'These and other things have delighted me. The twisted gorse on the cliff edge ... twigs, like snakes, lying on the path, heath fires, gorse burnt and blackened after fire, a tin school in an exuberant landscape, the high overhanging hedges by the steep roads which pinch the setting sun, mantling clouds against a black sky and the thunder, the flowers and the damp hollows, the farmer galloping on his horse down the estuary, the deep green valleys and the rounded hills and the whole structure, simple and complex' (Horizon, V, April 1942, pp. 225-35).
Green Tree Form: Interior of woods shares the same motif with two oils of similar title, Green Tree Form, 1940 (British Council), and Green Tree Form: Interior of woods, 1940 (Tate, London) (fig. 1). The form itself resembles the central figure in Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, circa 1944 (Tate, London) (fig. 2).
Martin Hammer comments on the two artists, 'The direction of influence is somewhat less clear in the case of Francis Bacon, who became a close friend of Sutherland's during the latter part of the war. Between 1944 and 1946 there seems to have been a good deal of give and take between the work of the two artists. The interplay between ambiguous, metamorphic forms and flat orange backdrops, as well as a technical combination of oil and pastel on board, are among the striking common denominators between pictures the two men produced in 1944' (see Exhibition catalogue, Graham Sutherland, Landscapes, War Scenes, Portraits 1924-1950, London, 2005, p. 33).
The present work is a key piece in Sutherland's development as a painter and its importance is partly demonstrated by the number of exhibitions worldwide in which it has been included. Roger Berthoud comments on Sutherland's second solo show as a painter, 'Prices in general ranged from ten to forty guineas, though the Tate paid fifty guineas for Green Tree Form, its first Sutherland; Colin Anderson bought the second large gouache study for this for a mere fifteen guineas. So frequently has the latter since been exhibited that its reverse side is scarcely visible through the stickers of exhibitions all over the world' (op. cit., p. 98).