Emmitt Sutton, St. Petersburg. Oil on board, 12 by 18 inches, signed lower left, Emmitt Sutton, 47
Emmett Sutton grew up on the Ohio River in Williamstown, West Virginia, where his father was in the oil business. An uncle taught him to paint. One of his first jobs, late in the 19th century, was painting stage sets for The Cotton Blossom, famed by Edna Ferber’s novel Showboat and Oscar Hammerstein’s Broadway musical. Sutton took up mural painting and traveled Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky doing fresco’s murals in public buildings. In 1939 he took a cruise around the world on a freighter, painting as he traveled. He moved to St. Petersburg in 1941 opening a year-round studio at 245 3rd Avenue North. From an old English family, with an artist in every generation, Sutton was president of the Art Club of St. Petersburg and an officer in the Florida Federation of Art. Born: New Jersey. Education: With Bernard Mahler; Daniel E. Sutton (an uncle); Frederic Wernicke. Membership: Florida Federation of Art, treasurer 1950-51; Art Club of St. Petersburg, president; Florida Gulf Coast Artists Group; Clearwater Art Club. Exhibits: Art Club of St. Petersburg, April 1942, 1st prize, The Military Academy; Florida Gulf Coast Artists Group, nationwide circuit, Miami to Wisconsin, Newark, San Francisco, Syracuse, 1944; Clearwater Art Museum, 10th Annual Exhibit, March 1944, Presidents 2nd prize, Solstice; Art Club of St. Petersburg, November 1944, Sunny Afternoon in Winter; Florida Federation of Art, 19th Annual Exhibition, Miami Beach, December 1945, Santa Fe Trail; Clearwater Art Museum, February 1947, 3rd prize, popular, Grazing Sheep in Idaho; Art Club of St. Petersburg, January 1949; Art Club of St. Petersburg, March 1949, 31st Annual, Navajo Indian with Sheep; Art Club of St. Petersburg, Christmas Exhibit, December 1950; Miami Beach, one man show, 1954; Daytona Beach Art Club, Daytona Beach Art Center, January 1950; Art Club of St. Petersburg, Members’ Spring Exhibition, March 1953, oil, Old Red Bridge in Winter; St. Petersburg WMCA, May 1953, 40 oil paintings; Pinellas County Fair, February 1954, article of merit award; Clearwater Art Group, Contemporary Arts Gallery, Pinellas Park, 1954; Contemporary Arts Gallery, Pinellas Park, with Helen B. Smith, February- March 1956, fifty paintings; Art Club of St. Petersburg, Members’ Jury Show, January 1957, Mountain Monarch. Born: Stillwater, New Jersey. Directory: Listed in the St. Petersburg City Directory, 1951, 1956, 1957, as an artist with a studio at 245, 3rd Avenue North.
