Artwork Information

From 1940 to 1945 Sutherland was employed as an Official War Artist to make depictions of bomb damage in South Wales and London. Like Picasso and Colin McCahon, Sutherland uses the burning candle to symbolise hope at a time of devastation. While the innovations that sprang from the Modern School of Paris had a direct influence on many artists working in England, their work was never derivative, instead responding to the particular forms and objects found in the English landscape.