http://www.scva.ac.uk/masterpieces/
I wasn't quite prepared for the scope of it, spanning the whole of history looking for the roles played in all walks of life by the area and people of East Anglia . While I can imagine some visitors being disatisfied with the obvious thin spreading of such a wide remit, I enjoyed it perhaps because it was a reminder of many people I had already heard of, a visual ticklist of all the talents of the region.
It was encouraging how many female artists were included, with one of Olive Edis's photos on the gallery guide. Olive served as a war artist in World War One, and was famous for portrait photography and autochrome photos. She took many photos of Norfolk fisherman, including the one on the guide and in the exhibition
.But the first work you can't help but notice is the grand piece by Ana Maria Pacheco, an operatic arrangement of people on a boat, The Longest Journey (seen here in another space). I've already experienced a whole barn full of her work near to where I lived in Iken. Pacheco was Head of Fine Art at Norwich Art School for 1985 to 1989, and the boat she used for this piece was from Wroxham.
Downstairs, in the first room and last room there are a couple of Marys!
Going back to the 17th Century, Mary Beale was a portraitist heavily influenced by Peter Lily. She was born in Barrow, Suffolk; her self-portrait is included in the exhibition.Mary Newcombe's art was inspired by the small farms she lived on in the Waveney valley; she is seen as a visionary artist who first trained as a scientist and drew birds at Flatford Mill Field Studies Centre.A couple of her very fine detailed paintings feature
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/mary-newcomb/paintings/slideshow#/5I was already familiar with Elizabeth Frink's work, but according to the exhibition, her fascination for winged men, falling figures and birds originated from her childhood in Suffolk during the war years when she witnessed planes that had crashed there.
Another favourite of mine, Barbara Hepworth, was also featured: I have already seen an exhibition about the visits in the 1930s to Happisburgh in Norfolk by Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore, around the time of the beginning of Hepworth's relationship with Nicholson.
Another person connected with Nicholson and the St Ives group was Margaret Mellis, who from 1976 until her death in 2009 lived in Southwold, collecting driftwood from the beach there for her constructions, one of which is featured. I met her a couple of times while working in a gallery, and was very impressed with her enthusiam and joie de vivre, not realising who she was until I happened to see her on a tv programme.
In Kathleen Hale's Orlando books, the Iona a beached ship at Aldeburgh becomes the marmalade cat's holiday home; in the exhibition there is also a Lowry painting of the same wreck. In the exhibition it points out that Hale was Augustus John's secretary; she also became friends with Vanessa Bell (a painter and sister of Virginia Woolf).
The exhibition finishes tomorrow with a talk by Maggi Hambling, one of whose North Sea paintings is featured.
Hambling is perhaps best known for her sculpture Scallop, a tribute to Benjamin Britten on Aldeburgh Beach
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