Kathleen Frances ('Katharine') Sutherland (née Barry); Graham Sutherland

1 portrait of Graham Sutherland

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Kathleen Frances ('Katharine') Sutherland (née Barry); Graham Sutherland

by Ida Kar
2 1/4 inch square film negative, 1954
Purchased, 1999
Photographs Collection
NPG x125696

Sittersback to top

Artistback to top

  • Ida Kar (1908-1974), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 1567 portraits, Sitter in 137 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Graham Sutherland and his wife photographed in their home. Over the fireplace stand studies from Sutherland's series of 'Thorn Trees' and 'Thorn Heads' (Images which developed indirectly out of his preoccupation with the Crucifixion). Writing to Ida Kar from La Villa Blanche in Menton, France in 1959, Katharine Sutherland commented, 'You certainly know how to get the best out of people and well remember liking the (photographs) you took of us better than anyone else's!'

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Freestone, Clare (appreciation) Wright, Karen (appreciation), Ida Kar Bohemian Photographer, 2011 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 10 March to 19 June 2011), p. 69 Read entry

    Graham Sutherland studied at Goldsmith's College of Art (1921-6) and worked mainly as an engraver until 1930. In 1927, while teaching at Chelsea School of Art, he married Kathleen Barry, a fashion student. Sutherland made his reputation as a painter of Romantic abstract landscapes, and in 1938, with the patronage of Sir Kenneth Clark, he presented his first one-man show. From 1940 Sutherland was employed as an official artist in the Second World War, as part of the War Artists' Scheme. In the 1940s and 1950s he painted many acclaimed portraits, including those of Somerset Maugham (1949) and Sir Winston Churchill (1954). The latter was controversially destroyed on Lady Churchill's orders. Kar photographed the Sutherlands, an intensely close couple, in their home, the White House, in Trottiscliffe, Kent. Over the fireplace stand studies from Sutherland's series of Thorn Trees and Thorn Heads, images that developed from his preoccupation with the Crucifixion. Writing to Ida Kar from La Villa Blanche in Menton in France in 1959, Kathleen Sutherland commented, 'You certainly know how to get the best out of people and we'll remember liking the [photographs] you took of us better than anyone else's!'

Placesback to top

Events of 1954back to top

Current affairs

Roger Bannister runs the four-minute mile. Bannister was the first man to achieve the 'miracle mile', a feat that was thought by some to be impossible, beating his rival, the Australian John Landy, to the record. Bannister went on to a career as a distinguished neurologist.
Food rationing ends in Britain.

Art and science

J.R.R. Tolkien publishes the first two parts of the Lord of the Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Tolkien was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature and drew on his scholarly interests in history, language and mythology to create the fictional land of Middle Earth where the books are set.
Williams Golding publishes, Lord of the Flies.

International

The South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) is established in Bangkok. This international defence organisation was established as part of the 'containment' policy of limiting the influence of communism. SEATO was, however, found to be ineffective as the member organisations failed to agree on combined action; it was disbanded in 1977.

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