Donald Sultan is known for his bold, industrial take on traditional still life, and his poppy series is a perfect example. Using materials like tar, vinyl, and flocking on surfaces such as Masonite or museum board, Sultan transforms delicate flowers into powerful graphic forms. His poppy works often feature rich colors—like deep red, black, or blue—set against stark, minimalist backgrounds, giving them a striking, almost abstract quality. Through this contrast, Sultan explores themes of beauty, impermanence, and resilience.
Born in 1951 in Asheville, North Carolina, Donald Sultan is one of the leading American contemporary still life artists. Sultan received his BFA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. While he self-proclaimed abstract artist, Sultan’s work is often linked to the New Image Movement in the 1970s through his neo-impressionist style.
Donald Sultan’s work is renowned for its unique blend of industrial materials and organic forms, a hallmark of his signature style. He often employs unconventional mediums such as tar, spackle, and linoleum, creating surfaces that are richly textured and tactile. His compositions typically feature bold, simplified shapes with sharp contrasts—most famously depicting flowers, fruits, and everyday objects. Sultan’s approach distills these subjects to their essential forms, transforming them into powerful, monumental images that evoke both fragility and strength.
Sultan describes his work as first and foremost abstract. “heavy structure, holding fragile meaning,” in his words, with the ability to “turn you off and turn you on at the same time.” Sultan’s work incorporates geometric and organic forms with a formal purity that is both subtle and monumental. His images are weighty, with equal emphasis on both negative and positive areas, as described as studies in contrast. He renders objects with intense sensuality and fleshiness through a labor-intensive and unique method.
In pieces like Poppies Series, the vibrant blooms, outlined in thick, black contours, command attention while the background’s industrial texture emphasizes their ephemeral beauty. This juxtaposition reflects Sultan’s fascination with the duality of life—where the delicate, and the durable coexist. His works are meditative, capturing the essence of his subjects with a striking graphic quality that feels both timeless and contemporary.
Over the decades, Sultan has exhibited in well known museums and galleries worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., Tate Gallery in London. His works are included in numerous public and private collections, and he remains a significant figure in contemporary art.
