Ian Collins
“Two years ago I started thinking about 50 objects that might represent the rich culture and heritage of the region for an exhibition marking both the 50th anniversary of the University of East Anglia and the unveiling of Foster and Partners’ refurbished galleries at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.
We’ve ended up with 277 very different pieces that tell remarkable stories of a place in creative and dangerous times.
Norfolk and Suffolk still account for an amazing amount of treasure trove each year and two of our pieces are fragments of an equestrian statue of Claudius, which was originally snatched by Boudica and the Iceni tribe when they ransacked Colchester in AD60.
The Roman emperor’s head was fished out of the River Alde by an Edwardian lad, while a piece of a horse’s hock – found to have an exact copper alloy match – came to light in 1979.
As the Sainsbury collection is built on the art of juxtaposition, I similarly wanted to put objects together that while looking eclectic at first glance slowly reveal connections that overcome differences of time and place, culture and media.
The Masterpieces exhibition opens with a flint handaxe which dates from around 700,000BC, making it evidence of the oldest human settlement in north-west Europe.
It was found in 2000 on Norfolk’s Happisburgh beach and stands alongside an ironstone pebble that Henry Moore picked up in 1930 from the same stretch of sand and carved into a reclining figure.
David Des Granges’ painting of the Saltonstall family takes pride of place in the gallery of faces from the region’s history. It’s so enormous that approaching it is like entering the bedchamber itself. The rug is slightly rucked up and you feel as though you should reach out and straighten it.
The six people are all in their own private dramas and are not talking to – or even acknowledging – each other. It seems as though the woman you can see in bed may have given birth to a baby who is being held by what might be a nurse. The husband and two older children have come to see the event but they hardly exude joy.
But what we are actually witnessing is the first Lady Saltonstall on her deathbed; her husband, Sir Richard Saltonstall, has brought their children to say goodbye. Seated by the bed is, in fact, Sir Richard’s second wife, holding the first of their children who is dressed in a grand christening robe.
So we have birth, marriage and death all in one massive, mysterious scene of immense opulence.
It contrasts with a tiny Renaissance jewel displayed nearby, an unbelievably poignant Holbein miniature portrait of the tiny third Duke of Suffolk, who died of sweating sickness in 1551.”
Ian Collins is a Norwich-born writer, curator and collector
Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia runs until 24 February 2014
