Bill Sutton

Painted in 1944, this small canvas exemplifies the traditional style of painting that was taught at the Canterbury College School of Art in Christchurch in the 1930s, just before World War II, when Bill Sutton was a student there. Based on an English and European painting tradition, the ‘academic’ approach combined the French ‘plein air’ school (Corot through to early Monet) with the restrained palette and sober observation of painters like John Constable, J. S. Cotman and Walter Sickert.