Gainsborough museum to host self-portrait display

Chantal Joffe's self-portrait with her daughter Esme called Looking Towards Bexhill is set on the beach at St Leonard’s-on-Sea, Sussex

A collection of self-portraits by "major stars of contemporary art" are to go on display at a museum dedicated to Thomas Gainsborough.

The 18th Century artist was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, and his childhood home reopened after a £10m redevelopment in 2022, with a gallery extension.

The exhibition is a "remarkably generous collaboration" between the Royal Academy of Arts in London and Gainsborough's House, said the museum's executive director Calvin Winner.

Gainsborough was a founding member of the academy and the self-portraits were created by current and recent Royal Academicians.

Most of the self-portraits will be contemporary, but also included will be one by Thomas Gainsborough which he did not complete before he died in 1787

The Royal Academy of Arts was set up in 1768 to raise the status of art and artists and to educate aspiring artists.

It is still run by artists and architects elected by their peers in recognition of their exceptional work.

Gainsborough was a founder member but often quarrelled with the academy, particularly over the hanging of his pictures in the Annual Exhibition.

The Sudbury exhibition will include one of his self-portraits, as well as two by his contemporaries, Nathaniel Hone and Sir Thomas Lawrence.

They will be contrasted with works "by major stars of contemporary art" said the organisers, including Chantal Joffe's 2016 highly personal painting with her daughter Esme.

Another early Royal Academicians who embraced self-portraiture included Matthew Hone, who painted this version in 1768

The 1991 self-portrait by Patrick Procktor, who died in 2003, shows him holding a paintbrush aloft and appearing to think about where to place his next brushstroke.

Mr Winner said: "Artist portraits and more specifically self-portraits always fascinate me, revealing or masking their identity.”

Image of the Artist: Portraits from the Royal Academy opens at Gainsborough's House on 16 November

Calvin Winner described the loans as "a remarkably generous collaboration with the Royal Academy"