Charles E. Sutterlin was born in the family home on 722 Beatty Street in Trenton, N.J. on July 9th, 1895. He was the son of Daniel Sutterlin, who worked at a nursery in Trenton and also did landscape gardening on the large estates outside of Trenton. Born and raised in that blue collar town, Charles was the youngest of three children. He left school prior to completing high school. He began working in a factory and joined a union, possibly the metalworkers union.
He was drafted into the Army in the early stages of World War I. While fighting in the Battle of the Argonne Forest, he was seriously injured, the victim of Mustard Gas. As a result of this gassing, he was hospitalized for an unknown period of time with blisters on the lower half of his body.
He subsequently returned to New Jersey and worked in a factory with light machinery. It was said that everyone employed in Trenton worked in a factory. Among other companies, Trenton was the home of Lenox Fine China, where Charles’ brother Dan was a foreman. While working days in a factory job, Sutterlin began the study of art at night.
Charles E. Sutterlin was born in the family home on 722 Beatty Street in Trenton, N.J. on July 9th, 1895. He was the son of Daniel Sutterlin, who worked at a nursery in Trenton and also did landscape gardening on the large estates outside of Trenton. Born and raised in that blue collar town, Charles was the youngest of three children. He left school prior to completing high school. He began working in a factory and joined a union, possibly the metalworkers union.
He was drafted into the Army in the early stages of World War I. While fighting in the Battle of the Argonne Forest, he was seriously injured, the victim of Mustard Gas. As a result of this gassing, he was hospitalized for an unknown period of time with blisters on the lower half of his body.
He subsequently returned to New Jersey and worked in a factory with light machinery. It was said that everyone employed in Trenton worked in a factory. Among other companies, Trenton was the home of Lenox Fine China, where Charles’ brother Dan was a foreman. While working days in a factory job, Sutterlin began the study of art at night.
The Trenton School of Industrial Arts directed its classes toward art connected with the design of fine china. Sutterlin began his study of art there, but probably outgrew its limited offerings. In or about 1925, Sutterlin moved to New York City, where he found employment with McCann Erickson, an advertising agency in Manhattan. By day he designed the catalogues of that era, with sketches not unlike those that can be found on the walls of the Subway fast food franchises. Unbeknownst to anyone, these were the final days of commercial sketching, just prior to the advent of wide-scale commercial photography. Nights found Sutterlin attending the Art Students League of New York.
Sometime later, Sutterlin began his studies with Sigurd Skou. In 1929, Sutterlin and five other students accompanied Skou on a scheduled trip through Europe. They arrived on the coast of France, somewhere near the municipality of Concarneau, a picturesque fishing village. What was noteworthy at this time was the information that Skou did not share with his students. Skou was battling cancer. Shortly after their arrival in France, Skou was dead.
The effect this had on his five students can only be imagined. Three returned to the states. Sutterlin and another decided to carry on to Paris and then Brussels, Belgium to see the sights and paint. They would then finish with a trip to Brugge, Belgium. Brugge is famous for its Middle Age architecture. To build there, strict conformity to the existing architecture was required. At the time, it may have been Europe’s best kept secret. It was in Brugge that Sutterlin painted his “Medieval Daydream.”
Miriam Shannon taught high school in New York City. During the Summer of ’29, she sailed to London with a cousin. Later that summer, she spent six weeks in Paris. Prior to returning for the Fall school year, she decided to take a side trip to Belgium. She ended up seated by the young Sutterlin, who was also on his way to Brugge. How long they spent together is not known, only that Miriam Shannon returned to London, where she set sail on her return trip to America via the White Star line. Charles Sutterlin continued his sojourn through Europe.
Charles returned later that year and sought out his Miriam. They courted for the next five years. During this time, he painted “Miriam Shannon’s Backyard,” which was, in fact, the backyard of her family home in Hollis Hills, now part of New York City. They were married in 1934.
After returning to America, Sutterlin was without work. The stock market crash had put a damper on all commercial activity, especially advertising. He found part-time work at the studio of Raymond Levy. Located near 40th St. and 5th Ave., it was from the patio of this studio that Sutterlin painted his “Manhattan” with the Chrysler Building in clear view. During this time Sutterlin did some painting at home, but more often than not he worked when work was available with the commercial catalogues. He also, on occasion, designed posters, and worked for friends who requested commercial art of one form or another. His hobby was, not surprisingly, photography.
During summers, Miriam was freed of the responsibility of being the prime wage earner. When the schools let out for summer, they would leave for the rugged and beautiful Maine coast where Charles could capture its rugged beauty on canvas. With Bar Harbor, Maine as base camp, he would set out in search of a unique or undiscovered view of Acadia National Park’s coastal solitude. As few others could, he transposed to canvas the thrashing of the breakers as they crashed against that stoic unbending coast. All of this was captured under a mesmerizing sky only a higher power could furnish, for Sutterlin to memorialize, as he did in his breathtaking Sunset At Acadia.
A niece of Sutterlins recalls a trip from her home in Trenton to the Sutterlins family home in Rego Park, Queens. Once there she asked for a recommendation as to what to see in “the City” ie. Manhattan. Among other places, she visited an art gallery where she observed several paintings where the artist’s style and subject matter was remarkably akin to Sutterlin’s. Upon returning to the Sutterlin home that evening she related her “find” to Charles. He explained that the paintings were his, and the artists signature was his brushname. His niece was unable to recall what the brushname was.
World War II brought gas rationing and the end of the Sutterlin’s annual pilgrimages to Maine. Summers were now spent nearby in the splendid pastures of the Hudson River Valley and the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Charles continued to paint and was achieving some degree of notoriety. In spite of his quiet, almost shy demeanor, his paintings had found their way to galleries in the Northeast, and reprints were commercially available (see the advertisement in the artifacts section). His many styles and varied subject matter notwithstanding, Sutterlin’s mastery of color, especially as it related to water, allowed him to succeed in almost any milieu he chose. Thus it was surprising what Leon Hilguera observed.
A family friend and fellow painter, Leon came over to the Sutterlin home for dinner sometime during the 1940’s. He viewed a painting (paintings?) and observed that Sutterlin seemed to be losing his talent for color. The paintings no longer seemed to celebrate color itself. Hilguera noted that they appeared “grayer.” And they did. The world of Charles Sutterlin was turning progressively “grayer.” Still a relatively young man, the lights had started to go out on him. Sutterlin was going blind.
Perhaps it was related to his life threatening encounter with Mustard Gas as a foot soldier, perhaps coincidence. Cataracts had begun to spin themselves across Sutterlin’s windows to the world. Cataract surgery was a less precise science in those days. It is speculated that he had painful, possibly terrifying memories of the doctors he encountered as he lay hospitalized by war so far from his native New Jersey. In any event, surgery was not an option, and this peaceful and gentle man turned his back on his God given talents and the beauty they so uniquely captured.
Sutterlin lived out the latter part of his life at home, alone by day, listening to the occasional Yankee game on the radio, blind to the world he had once so lovingly preserved. He died in July of 1967, days short of his 72 birthday. He is buried in Riverview Cemetery, Trenton, New Jersey. His wife Miriam passed the last 33 years of her life as a widow. She died in Tucson, Arizona in August of the year 2000.