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Graham Sutherland 1903-1980 Self Portrait 1977 Pencil, pen and ink and watercolour 11 x 8 ¾ inches (27.9 x 22.2 cm) Signed with initials PROVENANCE: Bernard Jacobson Gallery; Private Collection. LITERATURE: Ronald Alley, Graham Sutherland, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery 1982 p.147. When Sutherland was given his first great retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery in 1977 he decided to include a self portrait painted specially, the first that he had ever made (other than Study for Self-Portrait at a Casino of 1952). Sutherland said that in it he tried to express the anxiety he felt when he faced a subject for the first time. This work on paper is his first exploration of himself as a subject, burning with intense self scrutiny. It formed the basis for the portrait completed in oils that is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, but it is not really a study. It is a complete work in itself, and possesses an even greater depth of feeling and immediacy than the oil version. |