Biography
Carol Sutton (1945–2025) was a seminal figure in North American abstraction, whose career bridged the formalist concerns of post-painterly modernism with a deeply personal, lyrical sensibility. Born in Virginia and later based in Toronto, Sutton's work reflects a rigorous engagement with color, structure, and gesture, aligning her with the lineage of Color Field painting while charting a distinctly individual course. Her move to Toronto in the early 1970s marked a decisive shift: she immersed herself in Canada’s contemporary art discourse, collaborating with sculptors and composers while attracting critical support from figures including Clement Greenberg, Karen Wilkin, and Michael Fried. Jack Bush’s mentorship and the studio visits of Anthony Caro and Helen Frankenthaler further informed her painterly development during this period.
“A fluid and luscious painter of great gusto, comfortable with intimacy as well as the grand scale.” - Roald Nasgaard, art historian
Carol Sutton’s work has been widely exhibited across North America and internationally, with over 30 solo exhibitions and participation in nearly 100 group shows. In Canada, she showed with prominent galleries such as Theo Waddington Galleries in Montreal and Gallery One in Toronto, while her U.S. exhibitions included a solo presentation at the William Edward O’Reilly Gallery in New York and inclusion in The New Generation: A Curator’s Choice, a touring exhibition organized by the André Emmerich Gallery and curated by Kenworth Moffett of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections, most notably the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which acquired a suite of early serigraphs, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which purchased her painting Alvertie. Additional institutional holdings include the Weatherspoon Art Gallery and several university and corporate collections in Canada and the United States.
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