Three minutes with Emma Boyd, Keeper of Art and Place at Gainsborough’s House
How long have you been a curator 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.
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.
What is the main aim behind the Constable 250 exhibition?
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’.