Sunday, January 11, 2026 | By: Todd Suttles
F rance is not all monuments and boulevards. Sometimes it’s a bend in the road, quiet and almost stubbornly slow, where the light settles on old houses and makes them feel newly built for the day. That’s the feeling behind Valley Provence—a simple turn in the lane that suddenly feels like a place you were meant to arrive.
The palette does most of the storytelling here: violets folded into the hills, warm reds and creams in the clustered roofs, and that cool blue-grey road that leads your eye straight into the village. Bill lets the brushwork stay loose and lively, so the scene feels remembered rather than mapped—less about the exact address in Provence and more about the sensation of walking downhill toward evening light and company.
Seen alongside his Appalachian and Georgia paintings, this piece feels like a cousin rather than a postcard. The architecture is European, but the impulse is familiar: a road, a hillside, and the quiet moment just before the day turns. It’s part of a long thread in Bill’s work—landscapes that are really about recognition, the feeling that you’ve been here before even if you haven’t.
From the Archive: Valley Provence grows out of Bill’s European sketchbooks, where quick studies of rooftops, roads, and tree lines became a vocabulary he carried back into the studio for years afterward.
Studio Notes: Oil on panel, painted with broad, energetic strokes and a limited palette that pushes the greens and violets into a soft, atmospheric haze over the valley.
Visit the Suttles Arts online gallery to explore more paintings from the European collection »
Preserving and celebrating the creative continuum of Bill, Pat, and Todd Suttles — a living archive connecting generations through art, story, and digital preservation.
Suttles Arts Estate & Legacy Downsizing Project | Visit www.BillSuttles.com to explore more.
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