Jon Sutton papers

Jon Sutton was born October 15, 1927, in Sacramento, California. In 1930, his parents divorced, and Sutton spent much of his childhood moving around California – nearly every year. By the end of the second World War, Sutton was living in San Francisco, California, where he attended Galileo High School and was a member of the Mill Valley Masquers. After graduating high school in 1947, Sutton supported himself by working at some of the more prominent San Francisco hotels, and in commercial lithography.

Sutton was drafted into the armed forces during the Korean War. During his first year, he worked as an artist-illustrator; by his second year, he had begun work as a photographer for the 151st Engineer Combat Battalion in Korea. After his honorable discharge in 1952, Sutton returned to San Francisco and continued to work as a lithographer while attending San Francisco State College where he studied Music Composition. In 1955, Sutton moved to Boston to pursue his studies at Boston University and the Boston Architectural Center. While in school, he worked part time as a lithographer, interior designer, and fabric designer. Sutton returned to San Francisco in 1958, where he worked as an art director, composer, and film editor for Studio 16 Films, until opening his own custom fabric printing plant in 1961.

Sutton taught Fabric Printing at Marin Junior College for a year in the early 1960’s, and taught music at the Marin Country Day School and Marin Academy High School in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. In 1975, Sutton moved to Eugene, Oregon and worked in Wolf Creek, Oregon. In 1975 he met and married Ella Evers-Meinardi of Holland. In 1976, Sutton received a Bachelor of the Arts degree in Music from the Honor’s College of the University of Oregon.

Sutton worked as was a musician and a composer throughout his life. The Eugene Ballet Company performed his ballet "Pinocchio," and the Very Little Theatre staged his musical melodrama "East of the Rockies." His major work, an oratorio based on the writings of Martin Luther King Jr., had its premiere at the Hult Center in 1988. In addition to his work as a composer, lithographer, art director, and fabric designer, Sutton created 200 watercolor drawings and 30 wall hangings; a book of poetry related to his composition, The Seasons; 12 assemblages, one of which became a record cover for RCA Victor; and patented a line of collapsible furniture. Sutton also sang with the Eugene Concert Choir, and the choir of Central Presbyterian Church.

Jon Sutton passed away August 19, 2004 of lung disease. After his passing, the Eugene Concert Choir and Oregon Mozart Players performed his cantata, “The Family of Man,” in a memorial concert on January 22, 2005.