Bill's
Story
A portrait of W. A. Sutton
Pat Unger
February 2008
$39.95
252pp, Paperback
240 x 170mm, 12 pp colour & B&W throughout
ISBN 978-1-877257-70-4
Three years after the artist’s death, W. A. Sutton: A Retrospective was held to celebrate the opening of the new glass-bright Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, in 2003. Thousands of visitors to the exhibition were bowled over by Bill Sutton’s artistic skill and his vision of Canterbury.
Bill’s Story goes behind the artist to discover the child, the
student, the tutor, the citizen, the well-mannered bohemian. The book
is derived mainly from Sutton's extensive archives, and from the author’s
personal knowledge of the artist.
We meet his pioneer grandparents,
who hailed from England and Northern Ireland, and his parents and brother
in their modest family home in Sydenham, Christchurch.
Pat Unger portrays an attentive son, a steadfast friend and erudite
academic, a resolute administrator and a multi-skilled professional
artist.
Pat Unger – artist, critic and author – was born in the Waikato. After
moving with her family to Christchurch, she studied graphic design
at Christchurch Polytechnic and fine arts at the University of Canterbury
before becoming a practising artist and art critic.
In 1994 she was
invited by Bill Sutton to collaborate with him in writing W.
A. Sutton: Painter. A rapport was established through discussion on many topics,
including the complexity of teaching creativity, and the joys – or
otherwise – of traditional, modern and post-modern art.
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