Sutherland escaped the austerity of Post War Britain to work in The South of France. In the process he became a truly international artist meeting and being compared to Matisse and Picasso and introducing a range of wholly un-English subjects to his art.
This is the period when Sutherland is closest to Francis Bacon. The two artists enjoyed gambling trips to Monte Carlo and it can be seen that in association with Lucian Freud (also a friend of Sutherland’s ) they were at the heart of the avant -Garde in British art.
The South of France may have replaced Pembrokeshire in the artist’s affections but his new exotic matter is painted in the same manner as the Thorn paintings which had pre-ceded them. Principal among these new themes are the Palm Palisade pictures where the artist emphasises the barbed branches of the trees, which are now set against backgrounds of striking undifferentiated colour.The intensity of the colour and the encrusted impasto also re-calls Van Gogh and in letters of the period Sutherland writes that while painting in Provence he felt a kinship with Van Gogh.
Sutherland’s painting also enjoyed new dynamic representation at this period. In England he showed at the recently established Hanover Gallery while in America he exhibited at Curt Valentin’s Bucholz Gallery confirming his recently acquired international reputation.
There is a very similar composition to the present work dated 1947, formerly in the collection of Burton Tremaine, and now in The National Gallery of Art, Washington.