A dedicated AICA member with an acerbic pen has passed away
Gertrud Købke Sutton (8.7.1921 - 29.12. 2020)
The art historian and art critic Gertrud Købke Sutton, who would have turned 100 in July, passed away on the night of 29 December 2020.
Gertrud had a classical education and an exquisite and precise use of language, but she was anything but old-fashioned and took a lively interest in everything new, both in art and in the changeable society which surrounded her. She was also a beautiful human being, who believed that one could always retain a youthful spirit if one was constantly in love with the world. She could easily put things in relief.
She did not tolerate pretentiousness, stupidity or superficiality. She believed one had to make an effort in all walks of life. Despite being born only three years after the end of the First World War, Gertrud was free-spirited and liberated throughout her being, and her dry, sharp sense of humour never deserted her.
Gertrud loved nature, which she observed with great empathy. Outside the windows of the apartment in inner Copenhagen, nest boxes hung, and roses grew on the house wall. Since 1962, she spent the summers at her country house near Bovbjerg in West Jutland. Here she experienced the large and small dramas of nature by just looking out of the window.
Gertrud studied art history at the University of Copenhagen in the 1940s. She set out on her first educational journey in 1947, observing the bombed-out cities of Europe from the window of her wretched railway carriage. In Paris, in February, she stepped out down the Champs-Élysées in freezing temperatures, wrapped up in her in her warm woollen jeans and lambskin coat. The French women, with their bare blue stockinged legs, looked far away from this new, Nordic style icon.
During an art tour she gave in English in 1951 at a museum in Copenhagen, she met the charismatic British art critic Denys Sutton, whom she later married. This led to a number of years alternating between London and Westwood Manor House, near Bath. The English years gave Gertrud her international education. Here she became personally acquainted with many international artists, including Francis Bacon, who was part of the Suttons’ circle. The couple travelled a lot, especially in Italy, and on one of their trips they visited Emil Nolde and his second wife Jolanthe in Seebüll, one winter’s day. When the Suttons were about to move on after dinner, the car was snowed in and they borrowed a shovel from Nolde to dig it free. Back at home in London, they found "Nolde's shovel" in the boot of the car, as a readymade in the best tradition of Marcel Duchamp. Denys Sutton had also been one of the initiators behind the International Association of Art Critics, AICA, which was formed in 1949 under the auspices of UNESCO. This organization came to play an important role in Gertrud Købke Sutton's career, as she chaired the Danish Section and became its sole honorary member, to this day.
After her divorce from Denys Sutton, she returned to Denmark and met her next husband, the mediaeval historian, Tage E. Christiansen. The couple were married in 1961. After working as an art critic at the Danish weekly Weekendavisen from 1978 to 1980, she went on to work as an art critic at the independent daily newspaper Information until 2003. Here she enjoyed a great reputation for her sharp, carefully honed reviews, which were characterized by their thoroughness and deep professional insight.
Gertrud Købke Sutton published a large number of articles for art catalogues, in addition to monographs on the Danish modernist artists Erik Hoppe (1992), Jens Søndergaard (1996) and the modern, Italian still life painter Giorgio Morandi (2002). She also curated exhibitions in art associations and institutions at home and abroad and was one of the initiators behind TICKON - Tranekær International Centre for Art and Nature, on which she published a book in 2012. Art in a natural environment - or Environmental Art - was one of this nature loving art historian’s specialities.
In 2009, Gertrud Købke Sutton received the greatest honour that artists can bestow on an art historian: the N.L. Høyen Medal, in recognition of her significant contribution to art historical research and dissemination.
Gertrud Købke Sutton is survived by her two sons, Caspar and Thøger. All honour to her memory!
In Memorian written by Lisbeth Bonde, longtime friend and colleague, 30 December 2020.