Philip Sutton RA

Colours Through Life

A major selling exhibition of paintings from a lifetime including new work and historic posters

Philip Sutton RA’s paintings can be seen below and may still be available. Any enquiries please email gallery@sladersyard.co.uk or telephone us on 01308 459511.

20 November 2021 until 15 January 2022

Please scroll down to see Philip Sutton’s posters.

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1. Summertime in Manorbier 1990 182 x 183 cm 71.5 x 72″ £57,000

2. A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1998 193 x 127cm £51,000

3. The Trees are Flying. They Taste the Spring 2010 193 x 127cm oil on canvas £51,000

4. Pembrokeshire Woods with Rooks 1993 176 x 143cm £51,000

5. Falmouth, a Windy Day 1983 153 x 153cm £49,000

6. Dragonflies are About 2011 182 x 121.5cm £47,000

7. Oh Summer Days, Oh Summer Days! 2007 163 x 137cm £47,000

9. Midsummer 1994 102 x 127cm £27,000

10. The House in Manorbier 2001 114 x 116cm £27,000

11. The Painter’s House is a Dream 2015 93 x 118cm £25,000

12. Swann’s Way 2019 118 x 93cm £25,000

13. The Clown from Manorbier 1991 108 x 108cm £25,000

15. Miss Dazzling 2000-2012 105 x 100.5cm £25,000

16. This Little World of Painting 2013 104 x 104cm £25,000

17. A Cool Breeze in Manorbier 1993 93 x 108cm £23,000

18. Jackdaws in Spring 1997 99.5 x 100cm £23,000

19. A Dream within a Dream 2009-13 108 x 93cm £23,000

20. A Midsummer Dream 2013 93 x 93cm £21,000

21. A Sight to make an Old Man Young – Suzanne 1999 93 x 93cm £21,000

22. Love These Flowers 2007 93 x 80cm £19,000

23. The Sea Waves Unnumbered Laughter 2001 80 x 93cm £19,000

24. When Skies are Gentle 2008 80 x 93cm £19,000

25. I can See All the Birds are Flown! 2006 93 x 78cm £19,000

26. Sunlight 2019 93.5 x 80cm £19,000

27. The Tablecloth from India 1986-99 81 x 87.5cm £19,000

28. The Studio 2019-2020 94 x 80cm £19,000

30. A Portrait of a Nobody 2008 80 x 92.5cm £19,000

31. Upon the Winds with Lightness 2008 89 x 89cm £19,000

32. Now I can See the Moon! 2007 80 x 93cm £19,000

33. Irish Sea from Manorbier 1991-98 84 x 84cm £19,000

34. Alexandra (Falmouth) Manorbier 1975-97 77 x 77cm £17,000

35. The Wind did Kiss the Flowers 2019 78 x 78cm £17,000

36. Early Morning 2015 78 x 78cm £17,000

37. Manorbier Sunset 2005 68 x 81cm £15,500

38. A Blue Sky of Spring 2006 67.5 x 78cm £15,500

39. Music of Spring 2008 80 x 67cm £15,500

40. Tulips, Buds of May 2018 69 x 69cm £15,500

41. All Things Bright and Beautiful! 2001 63 x 76cm £15,500

42. Heather’s Meadow 2010 77.5 x 67.5cm £15,500

43. The Setting of the Sun 2008 57 x 70cm £15,500

44. Little Skrinkle 2005 57 x 78cm SOLD

45. Harbour Cottage Garden 2019 67.5 x 67.5cm £15,500

46. As Dreams are Made on 2020 77.5 x 67.5cm £15,500

47. All the World’s a Stage 2020 63.5 x 63.5cm £14,000

48. The Flowers with Music 2013 64 x 64cm £14,000

49. The Dog in Battersea Park 1986 47 x 58cm £13,000

50. Vaneeta 1991 58 x 58cm £13,000

51. Trees That Whisper 2008 63 x 51cm £13,000

52. Summer is Coming! 2008 64 x 46cm SOLD

54. The Sounds of Morning Dew! 1991 55 x 40.5cm £12,000

55. Imagination 1989 47.5 x 47cm £12,000

56. Heather’s Flowers 2007 43 x 37cm £11,000

Fully illustrated 40 page exhibition catalogue available for £10 plus £2 p&p (within UK) 

Philip Sutton’s exuberant paintings  express the poetry he sees all around him.  At the age of 93, he still paints and draws every day as he has throughout his life. His work is full of bright colour, painted with a freedom and clarity reminiscent of Matisse but entirely his own. His treatment of his varied subject matter is full of wonder, sometimes combined with humour. As The Times critic John Russell Taylor wrote, ‘All you need to understand and appreciate Philip Sutton is a lively eye and open mind. You do not have to make your way painfully towards him: his art will welcome you with open arms.’

Above: Paintings by Philip Sutton RA

Below: Philip Sutton RA Posters (in a separate online gallery)

Please click on an image for details and prices (from £25)

Born in Poole on 20th October 1928, the youngest of four boys, Philip Sutton left school at 14 and worked for three years in a drawing office, waiting for the lunch break so that he could borrow a drawing board and draw. After national service in the RAF, during the Berlin airlift, a grant allowed him to study at the Slade from 1948 – 53.  His contemporaries included Craigie Aitchison, Euan Uglow and Michael Andrews. Philip Sutton admired their work but was quite unlike any of them. He found his own style, struck by the mixture of playfulness and seriousness he found in a book about Henri Matisse, an artist largely ignored at the time. 

His tutor, William Coldstream, recognised him as ‘a gifted, intuitive painter’ and introduced him to the dealers Roland, Browse and Delbanco who sold his first painting to Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten. They continued to exhibit his work in Cork Street for the next twenty-eight years after his first show in 1956. That same year he was invited to become a member of the London Group. At the Slade he met Heather Cooke. They were married in June 1953 and departed immediately to travel and live in Europe for over a year after he graduated funded by three scholarships including the Prix de Rome. After painting all the daylight hours for six months in the South of France he joined Stanley William Hayter who ran the famous Atelier 17 printmaking studio where Sutton learned his unusual woodcutting techniques through observation and experiment. 

Back in London, he took a part-time job teaching etching and lithography at the Slade. Philip and Heather were rescued from living in one room in Kew, with their first son, by Peter Pears who offered them the use of the appropriately named Joy Cottage in Snape, Suffolk. They lived there for three and a half years and had two more children. Sutton developed his bright exuberant style through painting the Suffolk landscape while Heather made radio documentaries and a film. In 1958 they were able to buy a small house in Battersea where they had their fourth child, Rebekah. Sutton painted nudes almost continuously in this period with pale colours and delicate lines. They had many visitors.

Pop Art and the American Expressionists caused turmoil in the art world in 1963 and Philip and Heather Sutton and the four young children headed out of London, to Australia and a year in Fiji, funded by the sales of his paintings. While he was away he became established as one of the British painters who epitomised the exuberant sixties. He returned with a full exhibition of tropical paintings and a film Heather had made about him. Heather took an anthropology degree at London University. In 1969 they bought a house in Falmouth and began to spend part of every year there painting expansive landscapes often including the docklands.

In 1976 Hugh Casson invited Sutton to become an RA and his reputation began to move beyond the art market. This led to commissions including designing a tapestry for Shell, one of two made at West Dean College, a logo for 3i, the rose logo for the Labour party and wall tiles for the restaurant in a bank in Amsterdam. A BBC Arena documentary was made about him and in 1977 a Retrospective of his work was held at the Royal Academy. He also began to paint on ceramic pots. The owner of the famous Fulham Pottery commissioned him to make pots with Jean-Paul Landreau resulting in a successful Cork Street exhibition in 1987. 

He designed stamps for the Post Office, a poster for the London Underground and crockery for the Royal Academy restaurant. A poster and the flag for the RA Summer Exhibition led the film director Sam Wanamaker to ask Sutton to design a poster for his proposed reconstruction of the Globe Theatre. Sutton became inspired by Agincourt, travelling to northern France to imagine the conflict and painting fantastical pictures reminiscent of Uccello. From 1995-97 the painting of the series was filmed in a television documentary ending with the paintings in the foyer of the Globe.  

In 1988 Sutton gave up teaching at the Slade and later they moved to Manorbier in Wales where they lived until 2014, when they moved to Bridport. Heather very sadly died in 2017. Her funeral was held at Sladers Yard during Philip Sutton’s second exhibition here.

This is Philip Sutton RA’s third major solo show at Sladers Yard including over 50 paintings from throughout his lifetime right up to his most recent work. Original edition posters designed by and about Philip Sutton will also be available.

Please contact us on gallery@sladersyard.co.uk with any enquiries about Philip Sutton RA.