CULTURE EDITION
Constable 250 at Gainsborough’s House museum Gainsborough’s House in Suffolk is going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of John Constable’s birth with a rich and vibrant programme of landscape exhibitions beginning next month. Situated in the Stour Valley – which is famously the birthplace and inspiration of Constable and Thomas Gainsborough, two of Britain’s most influential landscape painters – the museum will host an exhibition featuring both of these artists and others alongside two exhibitions of contemporary art, to show that their influence is still felt by artists today. Running from 25 April to 11 October, the main exhibition, called Gainsborough, Turner and Constable, is going to feature more than 40 oil paintings, watercolours and drawings by the three primary artists (mainly from private collections), as well as works by their European forerunners and contemporaries. Key works in the exhibition will include Gainsborough’s Landscape with Cattle, a Young Man Courting a Milkmaid (early 1770s), which has not been exhibited in the UK since 1952; Turner’s large-scale watercolour, Abergavenny Bridge (1799), last on public display in 1799 at the Royal Academy; and (pictured) Constable’s dramatic oil sketch, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (circa 1830s). For more information and opening times, visit gainsborough.org
SELF PORTRAIT Three minutes with Emma Boyd, Keeper of Art and Place at Gainsborough’s House Seven and a half years. I started a year before the museum’s temporary closure for redevelopment in 2019 – it was a privilege to see it through its transformation and I feel even luckier to be a part of this next chapter. What is the thing you love most about it? The Gainsborough Gallery: a green, silk-lined gallery at the heart of the new building (the silk woven in Sudbury), filled with Thomas Gainsborough’s portraits and landscapes, adjoining the house he grew up in. How long have you been a curator at Gainsborough’s House? Who is your favourite artist? It’s in my contract to say Gainsborough, but nonetheless... Gainsborough – for his endless innovation and artistic vision that inspired John Constable, another favourite. What is your favourite medium? Oil paint for its versatility and ability to stand the test of time – oil paintings are surprisingly robust! What is an artwork you get lost in? Any of Gainsborough’s highly evocative and experimental landscape drawings made in the latter half of his career, using a mixture of chalk, graphite, ink wash and possibly even a dash of milk. They feel like a direct window into his mind. To explore how landscape art in Britain flourished in the 18th and early 19th centuries through its three greatest exponents – Gainsborough, Turner and Constable – and their contemporaries. What is your favourite piece in the exhibition? Constable’s six-footer, The Leaping Horse (1825), that is on loan from the Royal Academy and which he accurately described as ‘lively and soothing – calm and exhilarating’. What is the main aim behind the Constable 250 exhibition?
GET READY FOR SEASONAL INSPIRATION Tickets are now available for the Cambridge Literary Festival’s Spring Festival 2026, which will take place from 22 to 26 April. Featuring such distinguished guests as Mary Berry, Greg Doran, Sophie Harman, Sophie Raworth, Zadie Smith, Andrew Miller and Jung Chang, speaking on a range of topics from gardening to essay collections, the line-up is sure to be as exciting and inspirational as ever. To explore the full programme and purchase tickets, visit cambridgeliteraryfestival.com
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