A £10 million renovation of a Thomas Gainsborough museum includes a painter’s studio and a portrait of the first black voter in Britain. His extension has been added to his Grade I listed childhood house in Sudbury, Suffolk.
The changes, according to museum director Mark Bills, “made it a cultural center in the heart of East Anglia.”
Four new galleries were added as part of the renovation, which Mr. Bills claimed: “fundamentally transformed this historic place.”
Gainsborough, who was born in 1727, was regarded as one of the most accomplished painters of the 18th century. He first relocated to Ipswich in 1752, then to Bath in 1759, where he established himself as a portraitist while also creating landscape paintings.
Although he liked painting landscapes and was a founding member of the Royal Academy in London, his portraits of the Royal Family and other affluent or successful 18th-century figures brought him prominence.
A Gainsborough Gallery has been added to the museum as part of the renovations, and it will house 20 of his portraits and landscapes, some of which are on loan from private and public collections. The Gainsborough Gallery will be lined with Sudbury silk.
With a printing press, easel, anatomical plaster casts, and north-facing windows—which are crucial for painting from life—a reproduction of an 18th-century painting chamber and the print studio have been made.
Other highlights include The Constable Room, where guests can view John Constable’s (1776–1837) landscape paintings that were inspired by the region known as “Constable Country” (downstream on the River Stour from Sudbury).
Additionally, the museum now features a gallery for temporary exhibits where a replica of Gainsborough’s picture of Ignatius Sancho (about 1729–1780) has been placed.
Sancho, who was born on a slave ship bound for the Spanish West Indies, went on to become the first black voter and recipient of a published obituary in Britain.
$5 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund went toward the renovation.
Eilish McGuinness, its chief executive, expressed her “pleasure” that the museum could now “convey the whole narrative of one of our most important British artists.”
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