Helen Christian Sutherland (24 February 1881 – 29 April 1965), married name Helen Denman, was an English art patron and collector.[1]
She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Sutherland, and his only surviving child. She married Richard Denman in 1904; the marriage was annulled in 1913.[1] They had separated in 1909; Denman married May Spencer in 1914.[2]
After her marriage failed, Sutherland began to collect art. Initially she took guidance from Freddy Mayor of the Mayor Gallery. From the mid-1920s she collected mainly from a group of artist friends.[3] In 1929 she took a lease on Rock Hall, Northumberland.[1] She was an early patron of the Ashington Group.
David Jones met Sutherland through Jim Ede;[4] Ben and Winifred Nicholson met her through the artist Constance Lane, in 1925.[1] Through Michael Roberts and his wife Janet Adam Smith, the poet Kathleen Raine was introduced to Sutherland, who fostered her two children with Charles Madge during World War II.[5] [6]
Sutherland was one of Piet Mondrian's early English supporters, buying a picture by 1938.[7] From 1939 she lived at Cockley Moor, near Dockray, Penrith, now in Cumbria, in a house redesigned by Leslie Martin in Modernist style.[8] She left her art collection to Nicolete Gray.[1]