Ann Sutton


Ann Sutton, MBE is a British artist, author, educator and broadcaster. She gained international recognition as an innovative textile artist and designer from the 1950s and has continued to develop her making and research in other media to the present day. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1991, and a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art and a Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts, both in 2005.

Early life and education

Ann Sutton was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, on 16 May 1935. She attended local schools, including the Orme Girls’ School, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, winning several art prizes. She moved to Pontypool, Monmouthshire in 1947 and from 1951-1956 studied at the Cardiff College of Art, where she gained a National Diploma in Design.

Teaching career

Graduating from art college, Sutton became a full-time lecturer in weave at the West Sussex College of Art, Worthing from 1956 until 1963, while also returning as Visitor, Cardiff College of Art and working as a student and then tutor at the Glamorgan Summer School at Barry, South Wales. As her own studio work progressed, she combined this with part-time teaching at the Croydon College of Art and the North Oxfordshire School of Art, Banbury. In 1990 Sutton became a part-time lecturer in woven and embroidered textiles at the Royal College of Art, and has also served widely as an external assessor at both BA and MA levels at many universities and colleges, including the Royal College of Art. In 2005 Ann Sutton was made both a Visiting Professor by the University of the Arts, London, and Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art.

Studio career

Banbury

In 1964, Sutton married furniture designer and maker John Makepeace, and together they converted Farnborough Barn, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, into living and workshop space where they initially combined their careers. Makepeace employed craftsmen and trained apprentices on site; Sutton pioneered the use of local home workers, working to her original designs.
In 1970 she won joint 1st prize in the Sculpture ’70 Welsh Arts Council Competition, while in the same year the Victoria and Albert Museum commissioned and purchased 16 prints on paper and aluminium for the solo show: Textile Images on Paper. In 1974 she designed a "logical colour scheme" for a new quadrangle at Keble College, University of Oxford, with the architects Ahrends, Burton & Koralek.

Parnham House

Together with her then-husband John Makepeace, Ann Sutton bought the 16th century, Grade I listed Parnham House near Beaminster, Dorset, which was to become their new home, workshops and studios, combined with a new residential training college for craftsmen. In 1977 it opened as the Parnham Trust School for Craftsmen in Wood; early students included furniture designer and retailer David Linley, now the Second Earl of Snowdon. Sutton combined developing Parnham with her own work. From 1970 to 1988 she served on the committee of the Contemporary Arts Society, becoming a buyer of painting, sculpture and craft for the society in 1983. When her marriage to Makepeace ended in 1978, Sutton left Parnham to set up on her own in West Sussex. They were formally divorced in 1983.

West Sussex

In 1980, the newly-single Sutton bought and began to renovate a semi-derelict, former Cooperative shop in Tarrant Street, Arundel. This became both her new living and studio space. It was from here that in that same year she wrote and presented the five-part BBC television series "The Craft of the Weaver", together with the accompanying book. During the 1980s, Sutton became an early adopter of new technology, and especially the use of computer-aided looms, which she pioneered. In 1985 she had a large solo exhibition at the Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Sweden and from 1989-90 was a member of UK Government steering group “PerCent for Art”. Sutton initiated what is claimed to be the world's first walking ‘Gallery Trail’, as part of the Arundel Festival, beginning in 1989. It continues annually today. Consultancies and public service also continued, including the award-winning refurbishment of the Southampton Art Gallery. Sutton founded “Sight Specific”, an agency for applied artists' commissions ; was a member of the Southern Arts Regional Arts Board ; and held a consultancy with the Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester. In 2003 Sutton won first prize in the BPIF Fine Book Binding Awards and was also lead artist on the first phase of The Point arts centre development at Eastleigh, Hampshire, Hampshire, with phase two following in 2010. 2004 saw Ann Sutton's solo retrospective exhibition by invitation of the Crafts Council, in London and touring, and in 2005 she founded Site Editions, and was made the third Artist Patron of the Contemporary Art Society.

Clearing the decks

In 2010, Ann Sutton removed all the looms from her studio; a radical step for someone who had made an international reputation as a weaver and textile artist. While she had previously pioneered the use of computer-aided looms, she now got rid of them completely. This heralded a new phase of visual research and making, in which she worked increasingly in paint, drawing, and progressing to what she calls “spatial drawing.” Her initial work was shown in a solo exhibition: “Counterpoint”, curated by Gill Hedley at the Patrick Heide Contemporary Art gallery in London. More new work was unveiled at her invited solo exhibition within “Collect” at the Saatchi Galleries, London in 2015. Increasingly, her studio research and making involved new material combinations, and getting still further away from traditional ideas of support. In 2016 she was shown at “Taste” at Artgenève, and in 2016-17 her solo exhibition “On The Grid” toured UK public galleries, including Gallery Oldham, Lancashire, The Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, and in 2018 at the Winchester Gallery, University of Southampton. In 2017 Ann Sutton gave the Fielding Talk under the title “Rebel with a Cause” for the Crafts Council, at St Martin in the Fields, London. In 2018 her work was included in “The Most Real Thing: Contemporary Textiles and Sculpture” at the , Hampshire, England, who now represent her as an artist.
Ann Sutton's work is included in public collections in the UK and worldwide including the Victoria and Albert Museum, City of Leeds Museums, National Museum of Wales, and the Crafts Council.

Travel, awards and international work

Ann Sutton has travelled extensively as part of her work, often in connection with awards, teaching and consultancies. Highlights include a Royal Society of Arts scholarship for travel and research in Nigeria and Morocco ; chairing the Fibre Programme: World Crafts Council conference, Mexico ; chairing the “Miniature Textile” convention, University of Athens, Georgia, ; a lecture tour of Australia on behalf of the Australian Crafts Council and the British Council ; a lecture tour of U.S.A. and Canada including the Rhode Island Institute of Design ; International judge: Fashion Fabric Design contest, Tokyo ; keynote address: Weavers Guild of America, “Convergence 94”, Minneapolis, Minnesota ; member of the Examining Committee: Textile School, Rhode Island School of Design,. Sutton's design work for industry includes Heal's, Dunn's and Liberty ; Crown Wallcoverings ; work on ‘The Wales Collection’ for The Wales Craft Council/Welsh Woolen Association ; and collections for Early's of Witney. In 1989-90, Sutton designed two collections each year with Junichi Arai, Japan, and has undertaken freelance commissions with companies including Ralph Lauren. From 1985, she has been an enthusiastic passenger on container ships and has circled the world four times.

Ann Sutton Foundation

In 1999, she set up the Ann Sutton Foundation, which was housed in premises which Sutton bought and renovated adjacent to her Arundel studio and home. She had long held that talented young woven textile artists needed a period of guided transition between graduate study and the working world. Consequently, the Foundation set out to provide not only advanced tuition and research, but also the vocational training that would enable them to become professionally self-supporting. The Foundation, supported by the Arts Council, was established as a registered charity with a board of trustees.
Fellowships were awarded competitively for graduates under the age of 29 and in financial need. An early relationship with the Royal College of Art was established and accommodation was provided in addition to a stipend, tuition and studio space. Early fellows included Margot Selby and Laura Thomas. Increasingly, however, art colleges themselves began to adopt aspects of the Ann Sutton Foundation model, and this combined with the high costs and increasing difficulty of attracting philanthropy for the Foundation, which was formally dissolved ten years later, in 2009.

Publications