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

This work is a study for an oil painting that Sutherland painted after visiting Venice and had seen the reliefs on the façade of the Ospedale di San Marco. In a film of 1969 he explained, 'I am specially fascinated by the panels of the lions with the false perspective of trompe l'oeil, and I sometimes feel a little bit like Cézanne with regard to Poussin ... I must have been influenced by these two panels when I painted two pictures of animals in space, in a particular space: one was a prisoner ...' (see exhibition catalogue, Sutherland, London, Tate, 1982, p. 150).