Sutherland in context: War, art and the commissioning schemes

Aged thirty-six at the outbreak of war, and therefore considered too old for active service, Graham Sutherland was one of along list of artists drawn up by Kenneth Clark as essential to his war art project. As early as August 1940 he had been identified by the WAAC, and required to 'stand by to make pictures of debris and damage made by air raids'. Although reassured by committee secretary E.M. O'Rourke Dickey that 'Our plan has been to leave it more or less to the artists to produce what they think is fair for the fee ... and to get the work done at the pace which suits them best' he was summarily despatched - with a special petrol allowance - to South Wales to begin work for Clark's committee, a five year programme of postings that would expose him to every face of modern war, and more significantly stretch - and at times tax - his artistic imagination.