"Thorn trees, spring", 1967

In his artistic beginnings, Sutherland concentrated on creating prints. He did not begin to paint in earnest until he was in his 30s, after the print market had collapsed due to the Great Depression. His main motifs were natural forms, which he abstracted, giving his works an appearance which attracted the attention of the surrealists. In 1936 he was invited to participate in the International Surrealist Exhibition in London. Sutherland had been to Pembrokeshire for the first time in 1934. Its landscape was a great inspiration for the artist and remained a recurring motif far into the 1940s. The present work was created in 1967, at which time he returned to Pembrokeshire for the first time in twenty years. From then on he again worked in the region regularly until his death in 1980.