Masterpieces: Finding connections across time in East Anglia

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David Ecclestone sees the unique and stunning artefacts from across the centuries at ‘Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia’

The artefacts currently on show at Norwich’s Sainsbury Centre are mouth-wateringly lovely.  The impulse for the exhibition was Neil MacGregor’s series A History of the World in a Hundred objects; this show is a history of East Anglia in rather more.  In the catalogue, the editor, Ian Collins constructs a broadly historical account that introduces the objects in an entertaining narrative, lavishly supplemented by comprehensive illustrations.  A Palaeolithic hand axe from around 700,000 BC is the first item and Antony Gormley’s Shrive VIII from 2010 is the most recent.  In the stark elemental simplicity of its cast-iron blocks, the Gormley almost brings us back to the beginning.

But, in the exhibition itself, the items are treated thematically, seeking connections across time.  The hand axe for example becomes the starting point for a look at the group of small sculptures fashioned from beach pebbles by members of the Happisburgh Group – Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and John Skeaping.

Appropriately, much is made of the richness of archaeological finds in the eastern region.  If you are able to tear your eyes away from the group of three gold torcs (from three different sites), the blank eyes of the Emperor Claudius (or just possibly Nero) stare back at you.  Dated AD 43–99, this bronze was found in the River Alde at Rendham, Suffolk in 1907.  Adjacent to it is a ragged, substantial piece of bronze that represents a fragment of a horse’s leg. This alloy has the same low lead content as the head and both are hollow cast.  It seems that we have two fragments of an equestrian statue of the Emperor, even though the leg was found some 60 kilometres away at Ashill, central Norfolk.  The statue had been in the Roman capital at Colchester and was destroyed in the Boudican sack of the town.  If these fragments were carried off as trophies by Boudicca’s followers and later discarded, is there a hope that a horse’s head will one day emerge from the mud of another riverbed?

Another theme is ‘dressing up’, again spanning large tracts of time and bringing us to the 20th century.  Next to each other, we have a full-length portrait of Sybil Cholmondley, dated 1922, when the painter John Singer Sargent had long since retired but presumably could not resist this opportunity to paint such a beautiful and significant figure; and, beside it, the dress itself by Jean-Charles Worth.  Dramatic black velvet is set off by gold silk voile and by the stylish flourish of red lapels that start high behind the head and taper down to join at the waist, artfully echoed by the red flower that the subject holds casually in her right hand.  Both these items are from private collectors; the sources of the items in the exhibition, both private and public, are wide-ranging and prestigious, testimony to the vision and determination of the curator (Ian Collins) and director (Paul Greenhalgh) and the willingness of so many individuals and institutions to make this show a success. 

This is an exhibition where the narratives set up by the adjacencies of unlikely objects fascinates, while the objects themselves delight.  And they have been allowed, as though by inadvertence, to overflow into other areas of the Sainsbury Centre.  If, sated culturally, you wish to satisfy baser needs, you can walk to the other end of Norman Foster’s building (recently listed by English Heritage) to the Modern Life Cafe.  There you will find the 1970 Team Lotus Type 72 Formula One racing car with its distinctive gold and black paintwork.  So many issues and implications here to contemplate over your quiche and salad.

This is a Landmark exhibition is for both the Sainsbury Centre and the University of East Anglia.  For the Centre, it marks a major refurbishment of the exhibition area to provide a very large articulated space of galleries for mounting major exhibitions, and for the UEA it marks the 50th anniversary of its foundation.  By celebrating the art of East Anglia, it succeeds on both counts and provides a wonderful visual and cultural feast.

Having told you how successful the show is, I now need to lay out my one serious gripe: parking.  The amount of dedicated parking for the gallery is laughably inadequate for a venue that is some considerably way out of the city centre. So the visitor has to cast around in the University car parks, which themselves often overflow.  The show is seen as a way to increase visitor numbers to the Sainsbury Centre by increasing its prominence.  There is a danger that those visitors from further afield will simply drive away in frustration.

There is so much on show that it takes nearly 300 pages of catalogue to account for it.  I have barely touched the surface, so do go and see it for yourself.  You could just be lucky with the parking.

‘Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia’ is at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

14 September 2013 – 24 February 2014

Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia edited by Ian Collins is published by East Publishing, Norwich