Graham Sutherland’s first discovery of the south of France in 1947 transformed his painting. Sally Moss, an authority on the artist’s work, recalls her visits to Sutherland’s modernist pad, set in the hills off the coast at Menton.
It was 1993, and I was standing in Graham Sutherland's deserted and forlorn studio in the South of France as the sun filtered through the dusty wall of glass. Beyond the terrace, invaded now by convolvulus, the acres of overgrown garden rolled away and, in the distance, the mediterranean and Menton. Beside me Madame Ferrari, the Sutherland's housekeeper, was quietly weeping recalling the kindness of her employers. In the slightly eerie and gloomy stillness she cried out - "Madame Moss, regarde une salamandre" as a green shape scuttled across the floor in front of us. I had seen drawings of salamanders in Sutherland's sketchbooks. Momentarily it seemed like he was somehow present - and as I moved to console Madame her Alsatian dog gently grabbed my foot in its jaws!
Sketchbook page, salamander, pen & ink and wash, Private collection, © The Estate of Graham Sutherland
I first visited the house after I was appointed curator of the Graham Sutherland Gallery at Picton Castle in Pembrokeshire in 1990. The gallery, Sutherland’s brainchild, had been opened by a Trust in 1976 but Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales had taken over management from the Graham and Kathleen Sutherland Foundation in 1989. Its assets were transferred to the museum in a Deed of Gift, a unique collection of drawings, designs, prints, sketchbooks, paintings, artefacts, objets trouvée, books, furniture, textiles and personal memorabilia – Sutherland’s original bequest to establish the gallery and added to over the years.
Giorgio Soavi, Graham Sutherland at La Villa Blanche, © Estate of Giorgio Soavi, from The World of Graham Sutherland, 1973 © Albra Editrice Turin
After visiting Pembrokeshire in 1934, Sutherland became ‘hooked and obsessed’, stating on many occasions that it was here that he learnt to be a painter. It is no surprise then that the first pictures that formed his bequest were small gouaches of Welsh ‘landscapes’ – the early images that he felt too ‘valuable’ to sell. And as he was to confirm throughout his life – ‘I rarely paint landscapes as such. My things are part of the landscape – yes – but in the main I am interested in isolated phenomena: things seen to be taken out of their context, out of their normal contiguity.’
Large Vine Pergola, 1948, signed and dated 1947, oil on canvas, British Council Collection, © The Estate of Graham Sutherland
Painting trips with Kathleen, mainly in the St Davids peninsula, continued several times a year until 1947 – the year they first discovered the South of France. The warmth, dryness, intensity of light and brilliance of colour of this new landscape were intoxicating and he became equally ‘hooked and obsessed’, not returning to Pembrokeshire for twenty years! He finally realised why artists like Matisse used colour with such vibrance and confidence. Here were fresh hunting grounds for objets trouvée, including dried river beds. Exotic ‘motifs’ like palm palisades, fountains, vine pergolas with cactus, banana plants, datura flowers and bougainvillea, replacing the thorns, twisted tree roots and rocky outcrops of west Wales. His signature green was overwhelmed by pinks, yellows and sharp primary colours – even though he consistently denied this arguing that ‘people have tried to link my high colours with the South of France. It is an error: colour is emotional and can transform – it can express certain moods …’
Untitled (Miner emerging from a stope – annotated by Sutherland), 1942, pen & ink and wash, Private Collection, © The Estate of Graham Sutherland
So much happened in that first year. The journalist and Labour MP Tom Driberg took Sutherland to see Picasso making ceramics at Vallauris. Their paths had first crossed in 1936 when chosen to exhibit in the first International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries (not that Sutherland ever described himself as a surrealist). They struck up a lasting friendship, sharing many influential friends and with Picasso organising a birthday party when he knew Sutherland would be in France. Sutherland thought that Picasso had ‘changed the face of art’ and admired him for the manner and sheer output of his work combined with his thoughts about life and politics.
His respect was further cemented when Guernica toured the UK in 1938. The bombing of the town by the Nazis in 1937 was a wake-up call for the rest of Europe and an indication of what was to come when Britain declared war on Germany in 1939. Sutherland was 36 and wanted to make a positive contribution to the War effort. Chelsea School of Art, where he had been teaching with Henry Moore, closed and they applied to learn munition gauge making. But Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery at the time, had become a friend and patron and encouraged them to produce work for the War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC). Clark made the final selection - subjects and places that he felt were sympathetic to Sutherland's preoccupations.
Landscape near Nice, 1949, signed, mixed media on paper, Graham Sutherland Bequest 1989, Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales, © The Estate of Graham Sutherland
Throughout the War, Sutherland asked to be sent abroad, including to the Russian front. In an interview with Melvyn Bragg on The South Bank Show in 1979, he intimated that Clark refused as he wanted to ensure that some artists survived. But he never lost the feeling of guilt that his life had been spared and some chosen individuals were protected. Also, unknown to him Kathleen had written to Clark, begging him for help as she feared that Graham would ‘not survive in khaki’ – or working on the land. Clark replied apologising for the delay, his Club was shut and her letter went astray – ‘… The idea of going on the land is rubbish. Why does he think he is serving his country better by digging potatoes than by painting the few pictures now being produced in England which have any chance of survival?’ He concluded – ‘It is everyone’s duty to be as happy as possible, & the artist’s duty to go on painting.’
Vine pergolas, c. 1950, mixed media on paper, Graham Sutherland Bequest 1989, Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales, © The Estate of Graham Sutherland
But after the liberation of Paris, Sutherland finally got his wish and in an interview in 1971 he recorded that, ‘When the flying- bombs started I was sent to France. This was in late November 1944. It was the first time I’d been abroad in my life. Before the war I hadn’t been able to afford it, and before that I was living a really insular English Life. When we were children, it was thought by my family too much of an upheaval to travel abroad. I suppose my natural inclination is to resist a thing until eventually I taste it; when I do, I like it the better, perhaps…’
His commission was to record the effects of RAF bombing at a German flying bomb storage depot, in caves usually used for growing mushrooms, at St Leu d'Esserent and in rail marshalling yards at Trappes. Before setting off he was in trouble with the WAAC Finance Division about his expenses claims. Not for the first time, as they were often ‘dubious about his claims for taxis’ or first-class train fares rather than the allowance for third class. But on this occasion his claim for silk pyjamas from Simpsons of Piccadilly for the Paris trip was firmly denied!
Cecil Beaton, Graham Sutherland; Somerset Maugham, 1949, Bromide print, National Portrait Gallery, purchased 1980, © Cecil Beaton Archive/ Condé Nast
He flew to Le Bourget on Saturday 9th December 1944. I came across a log that he kept of his 14 days there in one of his sketchbooks. On arrival – ‘lot of waiting about. Nobody knew anything about me but eventually got in at the Scribe sharing a room with Matthews of the Daily Herald. Hate eating alone. V self-conscious.’ He went to Trappes for a few hours on two afternoons and one brief visit to St Leu d'Esserent. The rest of the time was spent either strolling down the Champs- Élysées; feeling ‘totally lonely and isolated’; going to the cinema; feeling ill – ‘But perked up a bit in the evening over a bottle of Champagne’; staying in bed ‘dosed up with Dr Collis Brownes Chlorodyne’; drinks at the New Officers Club and the theatre to see Le Gentilhomme and from Monday 18th until Friday 22nd trying to get a flight home for Christmas - eventually it had to be a boat from Dieppe. This trip, I would suggest, was not his finest hour!
Somerset Maugham, 1949, signed and dated, oil on canvas Presented by Lady John Hope in 1951, © Tate
Considering how little time he spent at either site he did produce drawings which had the same freedom of mark making that he had developed so successfully in Wales. It is a shame that WAAC only usually acquired ‘finished’ works and not sketchbooks or preparatory drawings. Particularly in Sutherland’s case as his war commissions mirrored his usual way of working – always with a sketchbook at hand, his ‘visual dictionaries’; then transferring to individual drawings in the studio and finally selecting either whole images or amalgamating ‘motifs’ from different drawings for working up as ‘finished’ paintings in oil on board or canvas.
"Why does he think he is serving his country better by digging potatoes than by painting the few pictures now bien gproduced in England which have any chance of survival?" - Kenneth Clark writing to Kathleen Sutherland during the Second World War
Probably the most significant result from Sutherland’s stay inParis was that it had given him a desire to explore the South of France – which he fulfilled as soon as he could in 1947, setting in motion influences that would affect the rest of his life. There followed excursions several times a year, always with friends and notably gambling adventures to Monte Carlo with Francis Bacon. Bacon’s letters reflect their friendship at the time, always to ‘Dearest G. and K.’; ending with ‘Hugs and love’ plus news and invitations for trips e.g. to ‘a good bullfight in Arles’ with Picasso! In 1994, when I was at the Graham Sutherland Gallery, I borrowed Bacon’s Study for a Portrait of Van Gogh, VI 1957, from the Arts Council Collection. Hanging next to his friend’s works of the same period it was as if they were having a conversation and the richness of Bacons colour and energetic brush marks were welcome visitors.
Turning Form, 1948, signed and dated 17.10.48, lithograph, edition of 60
Initially staying in hotels at Villefranche, then St Jean Cap Ferrat, Roquebrune, Cap d’Ail and Menton, the Sutherlands were increasingly entertained by a network of wealthy art collectors and critics. All owners of some of the most beautiful villas in the South of France, including Chateau de Castille, home to the cubist art collector and critic Douglas Cooper, a friend and adviser for 20 years. Or La Mauresque on Cap Ferrat, the home of Somerset Maugham. In 1949, tempted by that famous craggy face, Sutherland had observed that if ever he was to paint a portrait, then here was his first sitter – a deal was struck that if he was not happy with the end result, he would keep it and if Maugham didn’t like it, he didn’t have to have it! He made many studies and lithographs ‘fascinated by the folds, pouches and wrinkles … exactly comparable with his feeling for the structural details of natural forms.’ The final portrait was a great critical success and it was said at the time that the most famous writer in the world made Sutherland the most famous artist! It led to more than fifty commissions over the years from some of the most celebrated politicians, industrialists and socialites of the day – and there is a view that it also stimulated a renewed interest in the genre of portraiture.
La Villa Blanche, view of the Tom Wilson building, © Engel and Volkers 2024
The Sutherlands wanted to have a villa of their own. Lord Beaverbrook, art collector and owner of the Daily Express who had done so much to promote Sutherland, was keen to have the couple nearby (he had a villa La Capponcina at Cap d’Ail). ‘The Beaver’ heard that the house built by the Irish designer Eileen Gray for herself in 1932, was for sale and agreed to lend the money to buy the property and for his solicitors to negotiate the sale. Initially reluctant, as he felt it was too remote for Sutherland in the hills above Menton, but in 1955 Kathleen persuaded him otherwise!
Tucked along the roadside on the way to Castellar from Menton – originally called the ‘Bateau Blanc’ as neighbours thought the house looked like a ship, but later changed by Gray to ‘La Tempe a Pailla’. A small ‘maison rural’ was the foundation for Gray’s new house and she bought two adjacent plots, including one across the road with 73 lemon trees and the other with vines. Sadly, the house had been ransacked during the War and much of the furniture designed especially for it destroyed. She returned to renovate it from time to time but in 1953 she decided to sell.
Giorgio Soavi, Photograph of chairs made of vines at La Villa Blanche, © Estate of Giorgio Soavi, from The World of Graham Sutherland, 1973 © Albra Editrice, Turin
Quite small and almost spartan in design, I am not sure that the Sutherlands were enamoured of the modernist style furniture (preferring button back Victorian chairs!) – and one of Gray’s famous cupboards that had survived, was just used as storage for messy paints and brushes. So, in 1969 a young British architect, Tom Wilson, was commissioned by Sutherland to design a larger house, mirroring Gray’s modernist style, away from the road and set into the hillside facing down to the sea. Working closely with Sutherland they created a new – ‘La Villa Blanche’.
Giorgio Soavi, Eileen Gray’s Vanity Closet as paint cupboard in the old studio at La Villa Blanche, © Estate of Giorgio Soavi, from The World of Graham Sutherland, 1973 © Albra Editrice Turin
When I visited in 1993 very little remained inside other than some furniture including a bed rather like an Egyptian barge and some books, objets trouvée and his work table in the studio. A long single width building with glass walls on one side, and you walk through every space to get to the studio at the very end – said to be a ruse to keep visitors at bay! Details such as cast bronze door handles were designed by Sutherland and he commissioned chairs made of vine roots ‘like his paintings in 3D’. Years later he replicated the same soft light and atmosphere of the house for the Graham Sutherland Gallery, with travertine marble floors; just softly plastered walls; no skirting boards and double doors (same handles) that opened out onto one space after another.
The Origins of the Land, 1950-51, oil on canvas, commissioned by the Festival of Britain Office in 1950 for the Land of Britain Pavilion, Tate Collection. Presented by ACGB, 1952, © The Estate of Graham Sutherland
La Villa Blanche became Sutherland’s main residence. In the 1960s he had ‘opted’ to become a tax exile and an ‘anstalt’ had been established to manage him and his assets, a complex and rather puzzling arrangement. He became marginalised by his absence even though over the years he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale; was awarded the Order of Merit and many other honours; had major exhibitions in Europe and America; etc. Criticised by some for abandoning the promise of those early Pembrokeshire ‘landscapes’; or being side tracked by society portraiture and seen as a wealthy ‘champagne socialist’. As for me, an art student in the late 1960s, I was far more excited by Rothko and Pop Art!
But nevertheless, he was in demand and was feted in France, Germany and ‘interestingly enough his greatest acclaim in the last decade of his life came from Italy where he was widely collected and admired, his reputation as one of the leading artists of the century was secure and undiminished.’ So, it is not unusual to be walking in an Italian city and see a poster for a major exhibition.
Three Standing Forms in Black, 1953, lithograph, published by Redfern Gallery, printed by Curwen Studio
Inevitably then, much of his ‘finished’ work made in the last decades is in private hands in Europe. Examples crop up in auctions from time to time and there are just a few tantalising examples bought by public collections here. I was privileged to be invited to the home in Italy of his great friend, art collector and film maker the late Pier Paolo Ruggerini, who referred to Sutherland as ‘the genius’. Pier Paolo and Marzia Ruggerini had been buying directly from Sutherland since 1965 and the family holds a famous collection. I stayed in the suite of rooms set aside for Sutherland – the bed in an alcove completely hung with war drawings and the faces of Cornish tin miners gazing down at me!
Photographs of abandoned objets trouvé in the studio at La Villa Blanche, 1983
To think of Sutherland as just part of the wealthy celebrity clique on the French Riviera – does him a disservice. Throughout his life he maintained almost office like hours for solitary walking, looking, drawing, taking photographs, writing and painting. Much of his prodigious output of lithographs were conceived at La Villa Blanche, with an old hand press for experiments andfinal proofs. Even the enormous Origins of the Land, commissioned for the ‘Land’ pavilion at the 1951 Festival of Britain, looks suspiciously like the South of France! The sculptura and slightly foreboding ‘Standing Forms’ that preoccupied him for a time, and which he explained were ‘to catch the essence of the presence of the human figure … by a substitution’, were forged from the imagery all around him.
Sally Moss, photograph, Table on the terrace at La Villa Blanche, 1983
In 2024 I noticed that La Villa Blanche, (‘La Tempe a Pailla’) and 38 acres of land were for sale. It reminded me that Sutherland had once suggested to the Mayor of Menton the idea of establishing a ‘Foundation’ on his property. The city had a famous art festival that Sutherland contributed to by exhibiting and designing posters. He met artists like Matisse and Chagall and during the 1970 festival he noted that ‘… the town gives one room to an artist of renown e.g. Matisse, Braque, Picasso and this year they are showing Dali (alas!) …’ – and Sutherland was featured again last year!
Giorgio Soavi, photograph of the ‘port hole’ window at La Villa Blanche © Estate of Giorgio Soavi, from The World of Graham Sutherland, 1973, © Albra Editrice Turin
Inspired by visits to the Manzu Foundation, Fondation Maeght and the Picasso Museum in Antibes, Sutherland stressed that the ‘Foundation’ would host exhibitions of work by other artists, studios and small houses for artists or writers. The plan did not progress in France, but the opening of the Graham Sutherland Gallery at Picton Castle in Pembrokeshire in 1976 seemed to fulfil Sutherland’s vision – but that is another story!
