In an article, 'Thoughts on Painting' published in The Listener'(Sepetmebr 1951), Sutherland described the origins of thorns in his work as coming about as a result of the commission to paint a crucifixion for St Matthew’s Church in Northampton; ‘I went into the country. For the first time I started to notice thorn bushes, and the structure of thorns as they pierced the air … As the thorns rearranged themselves they became, whilst still retaining their own pricking, space-encompassing life, something else ...

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