37. Graham Sutherland
(1903-1980)
Number Forty-Nine

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Sutherland, Number Forty-Nine

Number Forty-Nine

Etching, 1924, Tassi 14, Man 22 iii/iii (presumably; Man gives no description of states), 176 x 249 mm. Superb impression on grey laid paper with the watermark Charles I and a Shield, with full margins, signed in pencil and inscribed with the title, in flawless condition. The total edition of all states was eighty impressions. Sutherland, who later developed into a very different artist indeed, began in the British Pastoral tradition established originally by Blake, Palmer and Calvert. Together with several other, then virtually unknown artists, he established a kind of neo-Romantic art that, though employing etching as a medium, somehow stood apart from the then-flourishing etching revival movement. It is fascinating to follow the development of his work as a print maker: by 1929, it shows a conscious distortion of forms; by 1932, he has clearly joined “Modern Art.” Whatever one may think of his later work, the early etchings form a precious and individual legacy in themselves.