Bio of the Artist

Bill Suttles 

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Award-winning artist Bill Suttles leads an idyllic life: he and wife Pat, also an artist, live on a mountaintop in North Georgia overlooking the small college town of Young Harris, with an art studio in a picturesque old barn just steps from their chalet. 

Suttles has maintained a fascination with art from early childhood, when his father worked as a sales executive, moving the family frequently within the Midwest region. As a youngster, Suttles developed a love for comic strips and for N.C Wyeth’s pirate illustrations. Growing up against the backdrop of World War II, the talented boy enjoyed drawing German airplanes and battle scenes. He became serious about art during his high school years in Chicago, where an art teacher encouraged him in his craft. Still in high school when the family moved to Kansas City, he frequented the museum at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  “I still vividly remember a painting of John Brown by regional artist John Steuart Curry,” Suttles recalls. 

While finishing his senior year at Boys High in Atlanta, Suttles took some drawing courses at the High Museum.  Next, he enrolled in Chicago’s American Academy, where he graduated with an academic art education in 1949.  “It was during this time,” he says, “that I began to think of art not just as a vocation, but as a calling.” 

Suttles got his first professional job with Coca-Cola’s Art Department in Atlanta, working as an illustrator.  After several years, he began freelancing.  He met Pat Noland, an attractive art director at an agency next door to Suttles’ studio. They were married in 1954 and began raising a family shortly afterward; son Todd was born in 1955. Suttles continued freelancing for thirteen years, then took a job with B.B.D. & O. ad agencey when they opened an office in Atlanta. All during this time he continued his "personal painting" following his artist's spirit; working in oils, watercolors, pastels, and drawings during different phases.

After thirty succesful years with B.B.D. & O., Suttles completely gave up his commercial work.  He now produces his vibrant works in gouache, pastel and oil; drawing on the surrounding mountains and on other travel destinations for inspiration.  Suttles has a genius for capturing the light and the feel of places, and the attitude of people he paints or draws.  His studio is full of finished drawings, paintings, and works in progress.  

Suttles has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout the southeast, has exhibited in almost all local galleries over the span of his career including Abstein's Gallery, Trinity Gallery, Spuell Art Center and many more. He currently is aligned with several galleries in the lower appalachian regions including North Georgia.  In addition he periodically instructs on his respected pastel techniques. Suttles has been interviewed on television and was featured twice in the prestigious Pastel Journal, in 1999 and again in 2001. His work has been collected in many well respected privately collections across the U.S. and Europe, including those of the U.S. Consulate in Beijing, China, and Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia and several Atlanta banks.
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The following interview with Mr. Suttles took place at his home on December 11, 2005.
 Questions were asked by interviewer Kathleen Craft Boehmig. 

KB: You’ve worked in several different media, particularly in oils, gouache and pastel. What’s your favorite? 

SUTTLES: Right now, pastel, because it’s akin to drawing.  I keep sketchbooks, and  pastel is a progression from that.  You can downplay or incorporate its linear quality or the vibrancy of color in your work.

KB: How many pieces have you produced; and on average, how many works do you typically have in progress?

SUTTLES: I’ve sold over three hundred works to private and corporate collectors.  I usually have two or three pieces underway in the studio, but the plein-air paintings are done on the spot, with no prior planning, and are usually done at one go.

KB: What do you hope that people see in your work?

SUTTLES: I hope my work triggers some sort of recognition.  I want people to be moved in some way, to see something I’ve seen, and feel that they’ve seen it in the same way, so that it becomes significant to them.

 KB: What do you consider the highlights of your career so far?

SUTTLES: My shows at Brenau College and Mercer University.

 KB: Do you have favorite pieces?

SUTTLES: My works resulting from our trip to Provence, France several years ago; also some pieces inspired by the surrounding mountains here in north Georgia and Tennessee.  Something about the air, or whatever provides the intensity and the inspiration…for me, these paintings clearly evoke the memories of those places.

 KB:  What’s it like, as a recognized artist, to be married to another artist? It must be wonderful.

SUTTLES: It is.  Pat understands my work and is quite an excellent artist in her own right.  She’s a bit more expressionistic than I am and is taking drawing courses at Young Harris.  We attend open studios together one evening each week.   We’ve had some funny experiences, too: once we were sitting in a field painting together, and some cows took an interest in us.  They came right up to where we’d been working, nosed around our things, and smashed my glasses.  

KB: What’s another hobby you and your wife share?

SUTTLES: Travel.  It heightens your awareness and makes things register more strongly. Pat and I travel to places we’d like to draw or paint, like Provence, or to nearby areas in the mountains.  We just spent a week in Tennessee—a place called Lieper’s Fork near the Natchez Trace, where we did lots of plein-air drawing and painting.   

KB: Which artists among your contemporaries do you particularly admire?

SUTTLES: Wolf Kahn, for his unique investigation of color as applied to the modern landscape.  Fairfield Porter, for his ability to see things as they are—not in an idealized, arranged way.  Also, working in pastel, Albert Handell and Desmond O’Hagan. 

KB: Do you have any regrets?

SUTTLES: Only that I didn’t solve my artistic dilemmas sooner. At some point in their working lives, many illustrators make a decision to give up commercial work and devote themselves to their own work, expressing what is important to them.  I only wish I had done this earlier. 

KB: What are your hopes for the future?

SUTTLES: I’d like to pursue more plein-air painting, especially in the mountains.  It’s a whole different discipline.  As an artist, I just want to devote myself to my passion.  It’s an emotional release.  I’ll never retire. 

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Suttles will next participate in a show in November, 2007 at the Burton Gallery at Lake Burton, Georgia

Bill Suttles is an award-winning member of the prestigious Southeastern Pastel Society