18/04/17
Constable and Brighton
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
8 April – 8 October 2017
When the painter and curator Peter Harrap moved to Brighton in 2010, he had
just finished working on the Royal Academy of Arts’ exhibition No New Thing Under The Sun. A key work that he
had been responsible for including in this exhibition was the sketchy,
expressionist, and quite remarkable for an artist associated with finished
arcadian scenes, Rainstorm over the Sea (c1824-28) by John Constable
(1776-1837). It came as something of a surprise, then, when local history
researcher and new neighbour Shân Lancaster came
knocking at his door to let him in on her supposition that Constable himself has lodged at this very address – then 9 Sober’s Gardens, now
11 Sillwood Road – on a number of his stays in the popular seaside resort: between 1824-28, Constable regularly returned with family, in an attempt to aid his ailing wife’s health
(she was suffering from tuberculosis).
Intrigued, Harrap joined Lancaster
on a mission to prove that this had indeed been Constable’s address. After much
trawling through local directories, property deeds and Constable family
correspondence of the period, they came across an uncatalogued letter in the
Tate Archive addressed to Mrs Constable at this very address. In 2013, Richard
Constable, the great-great-grandson of the artist, unveiled a blue plaque on
the house. Sadly, having died in 2015, he is no longer around to enjoy this
enlightening, thoroughly researched and scholarly significant exhibition co-curated by
Harrap, showcasing more than 60 sketches, drawings and paintings made by
Constable during those years, many in the “painting room” he created at Sober’s
Gardens – now Harrap’s own studio – at the time doubling up as a bedroom for
the cook, Mrs Inskip.
Read the full review here
Image:
John Constable
Seascape Study: Boat and Stormy Sky
c1824-28
Oil on paper laid on board
18.50 x 15.50 cm
Given by Isabel Constable, 1888
Photograph © Royal Academy of Arts, London
Photograph: John Hammond