Live Auction 759520th Century British Art
Graham Sutherland, O.M. (1903-1980)
Lot 23

Graham Sutherland, O.M. (1903-1980)

Trompe d'un Moustique

Closed6 June 2008

Price Realised

GBP 27,500

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Graham Sutherland, O.M. (1903-1980)
Trompe d'un Moustique
signed and dated 'Sutherland 62' (upper left), signed again, inscribed and dated three times 'TROMPE/D'UN/MOUSTIQUE/24.V.62/Sutherland 6.VI.62/7.VI.62' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
39 x 31½ in. (99 x 80 cm.)

with Marlborough Fine Art, London.
with Sanluca Galleria d'Arte, Bologna.

Specialist note

During the early 1960s Sutherland painted a range of insect pictures, such as Bees, 1963 (private collection) and Mantis, 1963 (Galleria Il Fauno, Turin). As with the present work - in which he has focussed on the mosquito's proboscis or 'trunk' - he enlarges the insect's features and in doing so it takes on a mechanized appearance. The 1962 painting Machine against Black Background (Otto Preminger Collection) reinforces this, and the object depicted in this has been described as 'a hybrid machine-cum-plant form' (R. Alley, exhibition catalogue, Graham Sutherland, London, Tate Gallery, 1982, p. 148).