Study for 'Homage to Picasso'

'1947 was the year Sutherland moved to the South of France and became acquainted with Picasso. The oil painting for where this is a study measures 12 x 20 inches and was in the collection of Curt Valentin. Sutherland inscribed on the verso of the oil painting 'Homage to Picasso: Free copy after seeing a painting by Picasso and noticing similarity of certain forms to some I have used in Wales' - Alan Freer

This rare and direct acknowledgement of another artist’s inspiration was made at around the time Sutherland was also working on the Vine Pergola paintings and the Palm Palisades. Both these series, together with the slightly earlier Thorn Heads, are among the most clearly Picasso-esque of Sutherland’s oeuvre, and show how close he was to Picasso’s influence, quite literally so since he had begun to shift his focus of operations from the UK to the south of France. Sutherland regarded Picasso’s Guernica as ‘the great picture of the twentieth-century’. He admired the way Picasso could paraphrase appearances in his drawings to make them look more vital and real. He wrote: ‘Only Picasso, however, seemed to have the true idea of metamorphosis, whereby things found a new form through feeling.’ Sutherland learned most from Picasso about the expressive use of form, for colour and use of space he looked to other masters, such as Matisse, and to his own invention. In particular, Sutherland liked the idea of a poetic equivalence of forms. Much later he wrote to Bryan Robertson: ‘If I am anything at all I am a poetic realist.’

A.L.