Ann
Sutton

News

‘I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it’ - Picasso

 

  • Awarded Worshipful Company of Weavers Silver Medal 2026 for outstanding contribution to the textile industry

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  • Honoured in 2022 by Queen Elizabeth II New Year’s Honours List with the award of the OBE for Ann’s Services to the Arts

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  • Solo exhibition Ann Sutton On From Weaving - A Survey (2021-22) at NewArtCentre, Roche Court can be viewed here

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  • The documentary film about Ann, “My Bones Are Woven” was screened by the British Library, in London, 2022. Speakers included Ann Coxon, then Curator of International Art at Tate Modern. You can watch the trailer below

Film: "My Bones Are Woven" Trailer

Statement

‘There is no path. You make the path by walking'. - Antonio Machado

 

My work often starts with the material and its properties. Once we have played, and are in tune, the material will provide parameters: instructions to the user. Bells ring. There is hardly ever a finished image in mind. That arrives via a merge of material qualities/related numbers. It is always a surprise, and comes from health/honesty. Never in an attempt for 'beauty'. Techniques rarely have names, because I am inventing the way of working to work with the chosen material. I invent them to suit the material.

However, I am deeply committed to the structure of weaving and to enlarging its possibilities.

Some weaves are possible only with handwork. Others are possible only with the help of a computer connected to a digital loom But warp and weft are constant, and usually at right angles to each another.

Where I use colour it is not in any aesthetic way, but as a locator and to differentiate. Sometimes the results are aesthetically interesting, even pleasing, and that may come though healthy relationships of material and concept. If it does then that is a bonus, but it is never an aim.

Areas, spaces colour : all depends on comparison/ identity. I am always searching for new structures and materials.

The narrative is in the making. Nothing is accidental or aesthetic.

Ann Sutton

 

On unqualified freedom: 'I would as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down'. - Robert Frost

 

Work

  • All
  • 1960s
  • 1970s
  • 1980s
  • 1990s
  • 2000s
  • 2010s
  • 2020s

Diminishing Square Thickness

Bristle Box (maquette)

Stocking Series: Crossed Stockings

Loveseat

Square Spectrum Spiral

Bedcover MkII

Diamond 1-11

Woven Knitted Spectrum

Logical Weave Footstool

Bracelet

Colour Change Net

Material Series: Wool Diagonal

Primary Interweave

Double Cloth Permutation II

Spectrum Chequer I

Colour Clues + Purple, Colour Clues + Red

Serial Woven Study: Double Steps

Too Long for It’s Space (Colour)

Going into Series: Cyan Going into Vermillion, Lime Going into Magenta, Green Going into Red

Warm Cool Alternating

Too Long for It’s Space (Black)

Highway

Neck Piece (3/7)

Refuge for Reading

Fold Back

Interwoven Bright Large

Paint in Space: Black and White

Paint in Space: Bright

Paint in Space: Brighter

Double Knots Colour I

Weave Overlap

Weave Interweave 1 (Series of 6)

Curriculum Vitae

Professor Ann Sutton MBE

  • Born: North Staffordshire, England
  • Lives and Works: West Sussex
  • Won: All art prizes at school
  • Failed: Art O-level

1951-56

Cardiff College of Art

1956-63

Full-time lecturer in Weave, West Sussex College of Art, Worthing

1960

Visitor, Cardiff College of Art

1961-68

Student, then tutor, Basic Course (Thubron, Frost, Dalwood etc) and Kenneth Martin, Glamorgan Summer School, Barry

1963-65

Part-time lecturer: Croydon College of Art

1967-74

Part-time lecturer: North Oxfordshire School of Art, Banbury

1968

Guest lecturer, Leeds School of Art (Harry Thubron)

1970

  • Won joint 1st prize: “Sculpture ’70” - Welsh Arts Council Competition
  • V&A purchased and commissioned 16 prints on paper and aluminium for solo show: “Textile Images on Paper”, Victoria & Albert Museum (Circulation Dept)

1974

Initiated first International Exhibition of Miniature Textiles, London and Lausanne

1974

Logical colour scheme for Keble College, Oxford. Architects: Ahrends, Burton & Koralek

1977-88

On Contemporary Art Society committee

1979

Offered two-year residency: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

1983

  • Buyer (paintings/sculpture) for Contemporary Art Society
  • Buyer of Craft for CAS

1983-present

Buyer of art for private clients

1988-90

Member of Government Steering Group “PerCent for Art”

1989

Initiated the internationally first walking “Gallery Trail”, Arundel Festival (50 temporary art galleries)

1990

Consultant: Public Art: Southampton Art Gallery refurb (National Award)

1990-94

Trustee: Oxford Artists Group: Chiltern Sculpture Trail

1991

Awarded Member of the Order of the British Empire (M.B.E.)

1992-95

Board Member: Southern Arts (Regional Arts Board)

1993

Partner, in the West, of Junichi Arai, Japan

1993/1994

Project Manager, Winchester Cathedral 900th Anniversary: New Textiles Project, including Issey Miyake and 14 British artists

1994/95/96

Judge for International Textile Competition, Tokyo, Japan

1996

Consultant: Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester (new gallery: advising, commissioning, buying art)

2000

Instigated The Ann Sutton Foundation for post-graduate business studies

2003

  • National 1st prize: Fine Book Binding Award: BPIF Book Awards
  • Lead Artist at The Point Eastleigh Borough Council(Architects Burrell Foley Fischer) Phase 1

2005

  • Founded Site Editions (editions of sculpture for gardens)
  • Created Professor by the University of the Arts, London 2005
  • Created Senior Fellow: Royal College of Art 2005
  • Created third Artist Patron: Contemporary Art Society 2005 (with Anthony Caro, Bridget Riley)

2010

Lead Artist at The Point, Eastleigh Phase 2

2010-present

  • Studio research: painting, leading to drawing, leading to spatial drawing>
  • Studio research: material combinations, based on the mesh

2016

Represented by Taste at Art Genevre

2017

Gave the Fielding Talk “Rebel with a Cause” for the Crafts Council, at St Martin in the Fields, London (invited)

2021

Four works purchased by Tate for inclusion in their permanent collection


Solo Exhibitions

1969

Ann Sutton: Textiles, British Crafts Centre, London

1970

Textile Images on Paper, V&A

1975

Ann Sutton: Textiles, British Crafts Centre, London

1979

Work in Progress, Crafts Council, London and tour

1984

Ann Sutton Textiles, Anatol Orient Gallery, London

1985

Ann Sutton Textiles, Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Sweden (Southern Arts and British Council)

1986

Ann Sutton Textiles, Borås Textilmuseet, Borås, Sweden

1986

Ann Sutton, Konstfackskolan, Stockholm, Sweden

1987

Ann Sutton Textiles, Carmarthen Library and touring Wales

1995

No Cheating, Serial Woven Studies, Southern Arts Touring Exhibition Service

1997

Ann Sutton, Näyttely Exhibition, Helsinki

2014

Counterpoint, Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London

2016-17

On the Grid, touring exhibition, Gallery Oldham and The Potteries Museum, Stoke on Trent

2018

Looking Through, The Winchester Gallery, Winchester

2021-22

On From Weaving - A Survey, NewArtCentre, Roche Court


Group Exhibitions

1962

Seven Artists, Hove Museum, Sussex

1963

Designer Craftsman ’63, Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry

1970

Beutlich, Collingwood and Sutton, Dennis Croneen Gallery, Sydney, Australia

1973

Hand and Machine, Design Centre, Brussels, Belgium

1973

The Craftsman’s Art (Crafts Council), V&A

1974/78/80

1st, 3rd and 4th International Exhibitions of Miniature Textiles, British Crafts Centre, London and world tour

1974

Sutton/Treen, touring exhibition, organised by Crafts Council

1975

Architecture and Living, Wohnen Design, Düsseldorf, Germany

1977

Ceramics and Textile: British Cultural Festival, Mehre Shah Gallery, Teheran, Iran and tour organised by the British Council

1977

International Tapestry Triennale (invited British exhibitor), Lodz, Poland

1980

The Craft of the Weaver, British Crafts Centre, London

1980

Contemporary British Crafts, Sotheby’s, London

1981

International Triennale of Tapestries, Central Museum of Textiles, Lodz, Poland

1985

Constructivist Clothing, Oxford Gallery, Oxford (with Diane Hawkins and Caroline Broadhead)

1987

Wall to Wall, Cornerhouse, Manchester and touring (Ann wrote part of the catalogue)

1988

Classics in the Crafts, Crafts Council

1998

The Pleasures of Peace, Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich

2003

Show 5 - Ann Sutton, Retrospective, The Crafts Council

2010

warp+weft, Oriel Myrddin Gallery, Carmarthen

2011

Resonant Colour, Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre, Cwmbran

2011

Sitting and Looking, Somerset House, London

2012

Barry Summer School Exhibition, Art Central Gallery, Barry, South Wales

2012-13

Beauty is the First Test, touring exhibition, Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, The National Centre of Craft and Design, Sleaford, Lincolnshire and Bilston Craft Gallery, Bilston, West Midlands

2015

Tenby Museum and Art Gallery, Tenby

2015

Collect, Saatchi Gallery, London

2016

Taste Contemporary Craft, Artgenéve, Geneva

2018

The Most Real Thing, NewArtCentre, Roche Court

2021

Maker’s Eye: Stories of Craft, Crafts Council, London

2023

Emma Mason British Prints, Eastbourne

2024

Ideas in the Making, Oxford Ceramics Gallery

2025

Second Skin, Sid Motion Gallery, London


Permanent Collections

V & A

Tate

Crafts Council Primary Collection

Crafts Council Handling Collection

Sainsbury’s Centre

Gallery Oldham

Welsh Woollen Museum

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

National Museum of Wales

York Museums Trust

Herbert Art Gallery and Museum

Harris Museum and Art Gallery

Atkinson Art Gallery

Nottingham City Museums and Art Gallery

Hampshire County Art Collection

Lotherton Hall Collection

Williamson Art Gallery and Museum

Portsmouth City Museum and Records Service

Peter Collingwood Collection

The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery

Hove Museum and Art Gallery

Huddersfield Art Gallery

Borås Textilmuseet, Sweden

Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery

Wakefield Art Gallery

Books and TV

Books By Me

 

1975 Tablet Weaving, Ann Sutton and Pat Holtom, Batsford UK
1982 The Craft of the Weaver, Ann Sutton, Peter Collingwood, Geraldine St. Aubyn Hubbard, BBC Publications UK
1982 The Structure of Weaving, Ann Sutton, Hutchinson UK
1984 Tartans, Ann Sutton and Richard Carr, Bellew Publishing UK
1985 British Craft Textiles, Ann Sutton, Wm. Collins & Sons UK
1985 Colour and Weave, Ann Sutton, Bellew Publishing UK, Lark USA
1987 The Textiles of Wales, Ann Sutton, Bellew Publishing UK
1989 Ideas in Weaving, Ann Sutton and Diane Sheehan , USA Batsford UK, Lark USA
1990 Falcot’s Weave Companion, Ann Sutton ( Ed. and foreword ) Anne Satow ( translation), Bellew Publishing UK

Books About Me

 

2004 Ann Sutton, Diane Sheehan USA , Susan Tebby, Lund Humphries UK

TV

 

1980 The Craft of the Weaver, Written and presented by Ann Sutton, 5-part TV series BBC UK

Contact

Ann Sutton is represented by NewArtCentre, Roche Court

 

Email: nac@sculpture.uk.com

 

Instagram: @annsutton.artist