CLAUDIUS - Suffolk’s Roman Emperor, A Celebration of Portraiture, Life Drawing & the Figure in the Landscape.

The 2018 Spring Festival Exhibition takes inspiration from the bronze head of Emperor Claudius found in the River Alde in 1907 at Rendham village, two miles upstream of White House Farm. It is regarded as one of England’s earliest examples of portraiture. 

The Exhibition explores portraiture and the representation of the figure in sculpture, drawing, prints, paintings and photography. Sculpture ranges from classical portraits and studies in bronze, plaster and steel to more personal interpretations of the figure and the figure in the landscape made in bronze and wood. Central to the exhibition are  three monumental busts in plaster and bronze by Laurence Edwards, presented in the farm’s hay barn. 

Works on paper, board and canvas that depict the figure are heralded by a magnificent new self-portrait by Maggi Hambling. Implicit within the exhibition theme is the movement of people through the land. In Suffolk, this has included Paleolithic and Neolithic humans, Belgic Celts, Romans and Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and more recently refugees seeking safety and new lives. A series of drawings by Gideon Summerfield and photographs by Enri Canaj touch upon this reality in the contemporary world.