Jump to content

Helen Sutherland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Helen Christian Sutherland (24 February 1881 – 29 April 1965), married name Helen Denman, was an English art patron and collector.[1]

Life

[edit]

She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Sutherland, and his only surviving child. She married Richard Denman in 1904; the marriage was annulled in 1913.[1] They had separated in 1909; Denman married May Spencer in 1914.[2]

After her marriage failed, Sutherland began to collect art. Initially she took guidance from Freddy Mayor of the Mayor Gallery. From the mid-1920s she collected mainly from a group of artist friends.[3] In 1929 she took a lease on Rock Hall, Northumberland.[1] She was an early patron of the Ashington Group.

David Jones met Sutherland through Jim Ede;[4] Ben and Winifred Nicholson met her through the artist Constance Lane, in 1925.[1] Through Michael Roberts and his wife Janet Adam Smith, the poet Kathleen Raine was introduced to Sutherland, who fostered her two children with Charles Madge during World War II.[5][6]

Sutherland was one of Piet Mondrian's early English supporters, buying a picture by 1938.[7] From 1939 she lived at Cockley Moor, near Dockray, Penrith, now in Cumbria, in a house redesigned by Leslie Martin in Modernist style.[8] She left her art collection to Nicolete Gray.[1]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e Trelogan, Cherrie. "Sutherland, Helen Christian". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40712. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ K. Gildart; D. Howell; N. Kirk (29 April 2016). Dictionary of Labour Biography. Springer. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-230-50018-1.
  3. ^ Spalding, Frances. "Gray, Nicolete Mary". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/66078. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ "Papers of Harold Stanley 'Jim' Ede, archiveshub.ac.uk". Retrieved 19 July 2016.
  5. ^ Kathleen Raine, Essay: Rediscovering the Source, India International Centre Quarterly Vol. 28, No. 4, Special Commemorative Volume: 40 Years — a Look Back (Winter 2001/Spring 2002), pp. 336–346, at p. 345. Published by: India International Centre. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005760
  6. ^ Fletcher, Christopher. "Raine, Kathleen Jessie". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/92258. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  7. ^ Sophie Bowness, Mondrian in London: Letters to Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, The Burlington Magazine Vol. 132, No. 1052 (Nov., 1990), pp. 782–788, at p. 782 note 8. Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/884545
  8. ^ Neal Alexander; David Cooper (15 July 2013). Poetry & Geography: Space & Place in Post-war Poetry. Oxford University Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-1-78138-807-5.