THE STUDIO & THE ARCHIVE

Bill Suttles is painting today — in the same mountain studio where decades of work have unfolded. The easel hasn’t changed much, but the rhythm has: more color, more quiet decisions, and a pace that belongs entirely to him.

Directly beneath the studio lives the archive — a body of paintings, drawings, collages, and mixed-media works spanning more than seventy years. Together, studio and archive form a continuum rather than a finished collection: past work informs new work, and new work reveals the logic of what came before.

For more than fifty years, Suttles’ work was placed exclusively through galleries and private collectors. As the archive became increasingly organized here at home, we shifted to sharing pieces directly from the studio. Nothing about the art has changed; only the path it takes to reach its new home.

For established collectors, this preserves continuity and provenance. For new collectors, the direct line from studio to collector opens a moment of access that is rare with a mature body of work.

Pieces released from the archive are not simply “made available” — they are placed. Sometimes with collectors who have followed the work for years, sometimes with people discovering it for the first time. In both cases, the goal is simple and emotional: that the paintings find good homes, where they will be lived with, cared for, and seen.

The broader Suttles archive extends beyond painting. Pat Suttles’ mid-century studio pottery participates in the same continuum — shaped by hand, fired in the 1960s and 70s, and carried forward by the family in the quiet way that studio work often is.

Throughout the year, we’ll continue to organize the archive, release selected works, and share studio notes and reflections along the way. It is an ongoing process — not a sale — and part of the larger Suttles continuum that links studio practice, archive, and the stories that surround them.