Carol Sutton

Carol Lorraine Sutton (3 September 1945 – 26 February 2025) was a multidisciplinary artist born in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. who was living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was a painter whose works on canvas and paper have been shown in 32 solo exhibits as well as being included in 94 group shows. Her work, which ranged from complete abstraction to the use of organic and architectural images, relates to the formalist ideas of Clement Greenberg and was noted for its use of color. Some of her paintings have been related to ontology.

Early life and education The daughter of Robert William Sutton, a designer and manufacturer of marine instruments and Nancy Chester Sustare, artist and homemaker, Carol spent her first six years living in a log cabin high on the sand dunes of Chesapeake Bay overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. She won a blue ribbon for her art in the Junior Section at the Sears-Allstate Tidewater Arts Festival. She received two Virginia Museum Fellowships along with a Gold Key and Art Achievement Award and a scholarship to attend the 'School of Visual Arts' in New York City. where her professors introduced her to the work of Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. In 1969 she graduated with a Masters of Fine Art degree.

Early career In 1967, when Sutton was twenty-two, her work entered the Jacob Kainen Collection, of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art with a portfolio of sixteen serigraphs titled The Artist As A Young Woman - Picabia. Thinking that her artistic goals and the materials she used were similar to those of Eva Hesse, Will Insley, Sutton's professor at UNCG, introduced the two women in 1969 in his New York City loft. That year a large scale sculpture she created was purchased by 'Weatherspoon Art Gallery' of Greensboro, N.C.

Working on large sculpture in the isolation of her studio in Greensboro, North Carolina Sutton was offered a solo show of these works at The O.K. Harris Gallery in New York. However, she instead moved to Canada and married the sculptor André Fauteux with whom she had two children, Viva-Laura Sutton-Fauteux (1980-2016) and Yale Sutton-Fauteux.

While working in Canada, Sutton was awarded Ontario Arts Council grants in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, and 1979. In 1978 Sutton held her first New York one-woman show at the William Edward O'Reilly Gallery. Her art has been linked by critics to the art movement called Lyrical Abstraction which is related to the tradition of Color Field Painting. Her smaller paper works often took on unusual structural forms and had widely extended edges, sometimes cut in wave shapes. She became known in the 1970s for her "fan" paintings and for her long horizontal pictures.

Sutton was encouraged by critic Michael Fried whom she met in 1986 at Triangle Artist Workshop. In 1987 Sutton was invited to participate in the Triangle Art Workshop in Barcelona, her third Triangle workshop. Two years later a Canada Council Grant allowed her to again travel to Europe to photograph and study ironwork throughout Spain and France. The experience resulted in a series of paintings titled 'The Spirit Balcony Paintings'. Roald Nasgaard, in Abstract Painting in Canada, writes of the artist: "Always a fluid and luscious painter of great gusto, comfortable with intimacy as well as the grand scale."

Major group exhibitions 1968 Gallery of Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, now called South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art - SECCA' -The Curator and Director then was Ted Potter: sculpture. Title: 'Five Pink Polyethylene Plastic Bags. 1985 "The MBA (Boston) Hines Contemporary Art Collection", University Place at Harvard Square, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. 1987 "V.I.P..........A Selection of Very Important Painters celebrating their work of the 80's", Gallery One, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 29 November to 17 December, (paintings by: Stanley Boxer, Joseph Drapell, Friedel Dzubas, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Doug Haynes, David Hockney, Katja Jacobs, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, Frank Stella, and Carol Sutton) 1998, -"Abstraction Now", Selected by Karen Wilkin-, place: Gallery One, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Featuring paintings by: Ann Clarke, Michele Drouin, Katja Jacobs, Harold Feist, Joseph Drapell, Douglas Haynes, Bill Kort, Bobby Tamo, Alice Teichert, and Carol Sutton. Lecture given by Karen Wilkin. Painting included was: 'Salient Balcony', 1990 1999/2000 - 'Abstraction- A Curator's Choice', The Art Gallery of Algoma, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. "Guest curator, Christiane Becker, was born in Cologne, Germany - Becker arrived at a list of five abstract painters: Joseph Drapell; Harold Feist; Paul Fournier; Carol Sutton; and, Jean McEwen." 2003, Grand Re-Opening Saturday April 12, 2003 - The Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge, United Kingdom, has loaned two paintings, Virginia Greens (1981) and Floral Tops (1986), 2007, The Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts, 10 Year Celebration & Art Auction Benefit, New Berlin, NY 2009, Bright Colours, Big Canvas: Jack Bush', at Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, by Alicia Boutilier | Curator of Canadian Historical Art. Includes artists: David Bolduc, Paul Fournier, Milly Ristvedt, Alex Cameron, Dan Solomon, and K.M. Graham and Carol Sutton, with the painting: Mint Julep Nude. 1978

Music commissions 1972 AUTOMATIC DUO by David Jaeger and James Montgomery 1973 FANCYE(^ Reference 11) by David Jaeger and Carol Sutton for Organ Toronto, Ontario, Canada and computer synthesized sound, moving sculpture, still sculpture and lights, for New Music Concerts, Concert Hall Organ - Inaugural Concerts, Edward Johnson Building, University of Toronto. Martin Liefhebber drawing of Fancye by Jaeger and Sutton

Painting commissions 1987 THE EYE OF THE OVAL a painting apx. 8 feet by 18 feet for Orlando, Florida, USA Cineplex Odeon Corporation of Sand Lake Seven Cinemas

Collections The Smithsonian Museum of American Art The Museum of Fine Arts Boston The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, or MACBA) The Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge, United Kingdom, The New Hall Art Collection The Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Agnes Etherington Art Centre Kingston, Ontario, Canada Kenworth Moffett The New Generation: A Curator's Choice, exhibition catalogue essay, illustrated, André Emmerich Gallery, New York Karen Wilkin Selections from The Westburne Collection, The Edmonton Art Gallery, catalogue 1982 James Clark The Problem of Fundamental Ontology, Volume III, Limits Book Company, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Published 1973 Terry Fenton Feature Article: Canadians, Carol Sutton, Update, Volume 3, No. 1, January/February 1982, The Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada David Burnett & Marilyn Schiff illustrated, Contemporary Canadian Art, Co-published by Hurtig & Art Gallery of Ontario Walter Darby Bannard- Carol Sutton's New Paintings- The Water Spiral Series, exhibition catalogue essay, Gallery One, Toronto, Ontario, Canada David Burnett Cineplex Odeon The First Ten Years- A Celebration of Contemporary Canadian Art, Donna Lypchuk Carol Sutton: Eye Of The Vortex, The Silhouette-Grill-Balcony Paintings, cover and feature article, Artpost 33, Summer, 1989 Lypchuk, Donna, Exhibition essay 'A Spanner in The Works - Ethos and Spirituality in Abstract Painting' for show at Oakham House, Ryerson University, by Terrance Sulymko Fine Art, November 1990 Reed Publishing Who's Who in American Art, 1990 Sotheby's Important Canadian Art, Auction & exhibition catalogue, 31 May 1990, Toronto, ON International Biographical Centre International Who's Who of Intellectuals, 9th edition, Cambridge, England, Spring 1991 R.R. Bowker Company, American Federation of Arts, Database Publishing Group - Art - 1990 -Who's Who in American Art, 1991–92 Landfield, Ronnie, NewYorkArtWorld.com, The Whitney Museum Ends the American Century, The American Century: Art and Culture - Part 2, 1950 – 2000, The Whitney Museum of American Art, 26 September 1999 – 13 February 2000, by Ronnie Landfield© 1999 McGowan, Alison C (Editor), Who's Who in American Art-2004 Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, (soft-back) Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre,