COLCHESTER.- Colchester + Ipswich Museums’ (CIMS) Constable 250 – a year-long programme of exhibitions, performances and events – concludes with a very special show that showcases artworks made by members of the local community, alongside paintings by seven professional contemporary artists, all of whom have been inspired by John Constable’s legacy and indelible contribution to British painting.

Constable to Contemporary also displays pictures made by the next generation of exciting young talents to be found in the area.

Suffolk Artlink’s Brave Art Groups, for adults with learning disabilities, has developed a new body of mixed media works inspired by the work of Constable, while Community Hub Ipswich (CHIp Studios) has created a youth-led immersive artwork that brings to life the essence of ‘Constable Country’ through the senses. The exhibition offers a final opportunity to reflect on Constable’s continuing relevance.

The exhibition is also an important opportunity to display the largest body of work created by Suffolk Artlink's Brave Artists, a group of learning disabled and neurodivergent artists and creatives. The artists had previously explored Constable's paintings, sketches and drawings and spent time looking at nature through a series of guided workshops. The results are experimentations in printmaking, clay, watercolour, charcoal and textiles.

As a result, each one found their own personal connection to Constable's work and the Suffolk landscape, while reflecting on the area's history, how it has changed over time, and how it compares with life today. Their artworks offer new perspectives and celebrate the lasting impact of Constable's art.

Visitors can also slow down and spend time in Constable: Reimagined, an immersive audio-visual installation featuring a continuously evolving projection in which sound, moving imagery and an oil painting inspired by Constable Country are layered together in ever-changing combinations. While reinterpreting the Suffolk landscape, the work retains recognisable features and motifs from the countryside surrounding Flatford.

Created by Community Hub Ipswich (CHIp Studios) as a youth-led project, the installation explores connections between young people's experiences of their local landscape and those of John Constable. As part of the project, participants collected various items from Flatford and Ipswich town centre. These found objects have been preserved in a series of cast-glass artworks, displayed alongside field notes that record observations, memories and discoveries gathered during the creative process.

Featuring over 100 contributions, Constable to Contemporary represents a dynamic variety of responses to Constable’s landscapes, portraits and drawings. Including a selection of work by contemporary artists, Sarah Milne, Amanda Ansell, Raksha Patel, Ruth Philo, Hannah Wright, Juliet Lockhart and Sasha Constable. Seen together with the community responses all these works demonstrate the enduring influence of Constable’s legacy and invite visitors to make their own creative response.

Indeed, alongside the exciting new work on display, visitors will have the opportunity to see original masterpieces by Constable himself. Undoubted stars of the exhibition will be The Mill Stream, Flatford (c.1814), Farm Cart with Horse in Harness (c.1814), Willy Lott's House, Flatford (1816), View on the Orwell (1806) and A Lime Kiln with Lime Kiln Cottages beyond, beside the River Stour, between Dedham and Stratford St. Mary (c.1815-16).

Alongside The Mill Stream, a set of three sketches of a ferryman will show how Constable, a prolific sketcher, working in pencil, ink, and later in watercolour and oils, developed ideas for the painting, establishing the composition and proportions ready to be transferred to the larger painting using the method of ‘squaring up’. Both sides of the paper were used to rapidly note observations of the boat and figures moving across the water.

Willy Lott’s House was first painted by Constable as early as 1802. The oil sketch on display was likely made on the spot in Flatford, where the cottage still stands, poignantly bearing the date of his uncle David Pike Watts’s death. Together with other sketches, it would later be used as the basis for The Hay Wain (1821).

Constable developed a technique for sketching in oils outside and his small-scale painting, A Lime Kiln with Lime Kiln cottages beyond shows his deep interest in the activity and industry on the banks of the Stour.

Constable to Contemporary launches three weeks after Christchurch Mansion bids farewell to Constable’s iconic masterpiece, The Hay Wain (on loan from The National Gallery, London) which was the centre piece for The Hay Wain: Walking Constable's Landscape. The exhibition attracted record numbers of visitors to the museum. In its first eight weeks, after opening on 11 July, the exhibition attracted 11,219 ticket bookings, with total visits of 15,217 to Christchurch Mansion during the same period.
Emma Roodhouse, the Curator of Constable 250 says: “This exhibition is the culmination of a remarkable year of community engagement with Constable's art. Through the joyful creativity of the Brave Art and CHIP groups and young Suffolk artists, we see that Constable's legacy lives on not only through his paintings, but through the inspiration he continues to spark in others. The exhibition is a celebration of Suffolk landscapes and people and the belief that art should be accessible to everyone. We hope it inspires visitors to explore their own creative response to Constable.”