Many of the 43 lots for sale at at The Mall Galleries, London, on April 28, showed her as a keen spotter of emerging talent.
In 1974-75 Sutton shared a Craft Advisory Committee touring exhibition with the jeweller Gunilla Treen (b.1949), one of the first artist jewellers to experiment with plastic.
Sold for £300 (plus 26% buyer’s premium) was a suite of three acrylic, mother of pearl, lapis lazuli, malachite and white metal brooches.
Made in 1973, Treen had been happy to swap them for a knitted jacket. “The set was designed to be worn together, and I loved it for the way it moved and changed according to the way it was pinned. I had just been exploring machine knitting and had made a jacket which suited Gunilla well. We swapped.”
Collingwood work
Three bracelets and a ring by Peter Collingwood, £420 at Lyon & Turnbull.
Fellow textile artist Peter Collingwood (1922-2008) was represented by a group of three bracelets and a ring made from steel yarn, fibre and wool. These had been a gifted from Collingwood after Sutton gave him some newly invented steel yarn from Japanese designer Junichi Arai.
Collingwood subsequently used the same yarn to create a huge micro gauze hanging in Arai’s hometown of Kiryu. Estimated at £300-500, these sold online at £420.
