Celebrating 300 years of Thomas Gainsborough  

Next year the National Centre for the artist Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) at Gainsborough’s House, in Sudbury, will mark his tercentenary with a landmark exhibition at his birthplace entitled “Gainsborough at Home”.

The exhibition, which is to run from May 14 to October 31, will celebrate Gainsborough’s extraordinary artistic achievements with an emphasis on Suffolk—the landscapes and portraits he made in his home county and the profound influence Suffolk exerted on his art throughout his life.

It will, however, encompass the full arc of his career and artistic development. 

Staged in award-winning new galleries, the exhibition will bring together over 90 paintings, prints and drawings by one of Britain’s most influential artists. 

It will be complemented by further displays of his artwork, personal artefacts in the adjoining house where he was born and contemporary responses by artists Claire Partington and Daniel & Clara.

Highlights of the exhibition will be the iconic paintings, Mr and Mrs Andrews (c. 1750) and Cornard Wood (1748), kindly lent by the National Gallery, London.

Both capture the woods and fields surrounding Sudbury just visible from the top floor of the museum. It will be the first time they have been publicly exhibited in the Gainsborough’s hometown.   

The National Gallery have also agreed to lend Portrait of the Artist with his Wife and Daughter (c. 1748), and the Painter’s Daughters with Cat (c. 1760-61).

Further key loans have been secured from Tate Britain, the Royal Collection Trust, The National Galleries of Scotland, the Ashmolean Museum, Kenwood House, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Colchester + Ipswich Museums, Waddesdon Manor and a number of significant private collections. 

“Gainsborough at Home” is an unprecedented opportunity to see a large-scale exhibition of Gainsborough’s work at his birthplace, surrounded by the historic market town and countryside that inspired him. 

It will be accompanied by a full programme of activities and events and happen in tandem with a major Gainsborough exhibition at Tate Britain.

Further details about the season will be announced in the autumn. 

Calvin Winner, the director of Gainsborough’s House, said “Thomas Gainsborough is a much-loved artist whose paintings are rightly celebrated across the globe.

“His great innovation was to paint his own Suffolk landscapes rather than idealised classical scenes.

“Gainsborough was therefore a pioneer of the landscape art tradition in Britain. His second great innovation was to paint portraits of people as they wanted to be seen rather than in some invented classical pose.

“We are delighted to mark the 300th anniversary with a landmark exhibition, here at the birthplace of this great British artist.”