She gained international recognition as an innovative textile artist and designer from the 1950s and has continued to develop her making and research in other media to the present day.
[7] In 1964, Sutton married furniture designer and maker John Makepeace, and together they converted Farnborough Barn, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, into living and workshop space where they initially combined their careers.
Makepeace employed craftsmen and trained apprentices on site; Sutton pioneered the use of local homeworkers, working to her original designs.
[12] In 1974 she designed a "logical colour scheme" for a new quadrangle at Keble College, University of Oxford, with the architects Ahrends, Burton & Koralek.
[13] Together with her then-husband John Makepeace, Sutton bought the 16th-century, Grade I listed Parnham House near Beaminster, Dorset, which was to become their new home, workshops and studios, combined with a new residential training college for craftsmen.
In 1977 it opened as the Parnham Trust School for Craftsmen in Wood; early students included furniture designer and retailer David Linley, now the Second Earl of Snowdon.
[22][7][23] In 2010, Ann Sutton removed all the looms from her studio; a radical step for someone who had made an international reputation as a weaver and textile artist.
[24] Her initial work was shown in a solo exhibition: "Counterpoint", curated by Gill Hedley at the Patrick Heide Contemporary Art gallery in London.
[26] In 2018 her work was included in "The Most Real Thing: Contemporary Textiles and Sculpture" at the NewArtCentre, Roche Court, Wiltshire, England, who now represent her as an artist.
In 1989-90, Sutton designed two collections each year with Junichi Arai, Japan, and has undertaken freelance commissions with companies including Ralph Lauren (1990 to present).
She had long held that talented young woven textile artists needed a period of guided transition between graduate study and the working world.