Graham Sutherland - The Deposition

John 19: 38–42

Jesus is conveyed schematically, almost abstractly, lying across a tomb. Behind stands the cross at the centre of a gap in a wall. Two strips of linen run in a gentle loop from the ends of the wall, either to, or behind, the cross. Jesus’ body forms a concave arc, lying unsupported on top of the lidless tomb, his legs resting on the tomb’s edge on one side and his shoulders on the other. His head, which is totally abstracted in a featureless semi-circular or semi-spherical form, falls back horizontally. A cloth wrapped around his feet falls in a wide, low loop under his body, secured at one end under his left shoulder. The cool blues and greys of the painting are central to the effect it produces on the viewer, creating an unemotional, calm and detached mood.

Commentary based on A Guide to the Methodist Art Collection.

Born: London, UK, 1903

Died: Hampstead, London, UK, 1980

Early life and education

Graham Vivian Sutherland was born to middle class parents who were both amateur painters. He went to Epsom College, Surrey, but after two years began work as an engineering apprentice. He gave this up to study art at Goldsmiths’ College of Art, London, from 1921 to 1926, specialising in etching. He achieved success early with an exhibition in the Twenty-One Gallery in London in 1924 and election to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in the following year. In 1926, he began teaching engraving at Chelsea School of Art in London.

Life and career

In 1934, during a visit to Pembrokeshire, Sutherland turned his attention from etching to painting, especially landscapes. During World War II he became an official war artist producing evocative scenes of war devastation in Swansea and London and of industrial activity in Cornwall. He became seen as the leader of the ‘neo-romantic’ strain in British painting, inspiring painters such as Keith Vaughan and Lucian Freud.

The first of Sutherland’s religious paintings was the Crucifixion commissioned for St Matthew’s Church, Northampton in 1944-46. Other religious works included The Deposition of 1946 (the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) and the Entombment/Deposition of 1947 which is now in the Methodist Modern Art Collection. Later religious works include the giant tapestry of Christ in Glory in the Teramorph at Coventry Cathedral (1960) and Christ appearing to St Mary Magdalen for Chichester Cathedral (1961). Sutherland converted to Catholicism in 1926 but by the end of his life only attended mass on Easter and Christmas Days.

Sutherland’s particular sensitivity to cruelty is seen in his wartime paintings and in his religious paintings from the 1940s onward, particularly his crucifixions and depositions. In these works, he focused on the horror of crucifixion reflected in his fascination with thorns and blasted trees. These are a recurring motif and they echo photographs of victims of the Nazi concentration camps which had recently been published. In work such as the Deposition/Entombment, Sutherland was influenced by Picasso and probably also by the cool colours, paired-down compositions and poetic frozen moments seen in the metaphysical works of Delvaux and de Chirico.

By the 1960s, Sutherland was probably the best-known twentieth century British painter. He became something of a celebrity in the Post-War period, well known for moving in influential and affluent circles and for occasional disputes with prestigious organisations such as the Tate Gallery. Along with Stanley Spencer, he was the best-known British painter of religious works of the twentieth century.

Sutherland became close to Francis Bacon and was regarded as a leader of the avant-garde. He spent the last ten years of his life in France. He received honours in the UK including admission to the Order of Merit and a DLitt from Oxford. He also received honours in the USA, France, Italy and Germany.

Sutherland exhibited regularly in London and New York, culminating in 1952 with a major show at the Venice Biennale, the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris and in 1953 at the Tate Gallery in London. He had a successful retrospective exhibition in Turin in 1965.

His work is held in many collections including the Arts Council, London; the Imperial War Museum, London; Tate, London; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne, Paris; and MOMA, New York.

Roger Berthaud, ‘Sutherland, Graham Vivian,’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/31737 (accessed 19 September 2024)

David Buckman, Artists in Britain Since 1945: Volume 2 M-Z. Vol. 2 of 2 volumes, (Bristol, Art Dictionaries Ltd, 2006), p.1536. The text is also available on the Art UK website: https://artuk.org/discover/artists/sutherland-graham-vivian-19031980 (accessed 19 September 2024)

Richard Harries, The Image of Christ in Modern Art, (London and New York, Routledge, 2016), p.76-80

Seeing the Spiritual: A Guide to the Methodist Modern Art Collection, (Oxford, Methodist Modern Art Collection, 2018), p.104-105

Rosalind Thuillier, Graham Sutherland: Life, Work, and Ideas, (Cambridge, The Lutterworth Press, 2015)

Roger Wollen, Catalogue of the Methodist Church Collection of Modern Christian Art with an Account of the Collection’s History, (Oxford, The Trustees of the Methodist Collection of Modern Christian Art, 2003), p.139-146