Gainsborough's House, Sudbury, Suffolk
Thomas Ganisborough is one of Britain's most famous artists, renowned for his portraits and landscapes. He was born in the Suffolk market town of Sudbury in 1727 and the house of his birth, Gainsborough's House, has been a museum since 1961.
It should be the perfect place to view Gainsborough's paintings and find out about his life and work. Unfortunately, a recent restoration has resulted in poor lighting and interpretation, which lets down an interesting subject and collection.
Gainsborough's House is actually several buildings: the main house, two cottages and a coach house that houses a printworks. They are situated on two sides of a garden whose central feature is a wonderful mulberry tree.
Visitors access the house not through the main entrance on Gainsborough Street, but via one of the two cottages, which open onto a side alley. The cottages have been knocked through to form a reception, shop and cafe.
At first, going in through a side entrance seems rather disappointing: the street elevation of the house has such a grand appearance, and it would be fun to enter as Gainsborough would have done. But, entering through the side enables visitors to see the full extent of the grounds, a view not afforded from the main building.
The main house is accessed through the garden. From here, visitors can peer into the printworks and see the different parts of the 'house'. House is a bit of a misnomer, as it has had so many alterations and additions.
It started life as two houses in traditional Suffolk style that were joined under a common roof in about 1520. Gainsborough's father added the brick facade that gives the street elevation its elegant appearance and there were further additions at the rear in the 1790s.
Visitors enter the building through the 1790s extensions, which house the temporary exhibition space at ground-floor level. These spaces are light and airy, but once you step through a door into the old part of the house, the feel changes to a more enclosed environment. It even smells different.
In some areas, the restoration of the building has been allowed to reveal the house's structure by exposing beams and, in one place, a section of wattle and daub. However, it is not easy to make sense of the house and the structure as there is very little information to hand.
For example, the leaflet given out at reception states that 'the door nearest the front of the building is the most important feature, although it may not be in its original position'. But why is it the most important feature and why wouldn't it be in its original position?
A wonderful collection of Gainsborough's paintings hangs throughout the house, but their presentation is hindered by poor lighting. For example, above a fireplace in one of the upstairs rooms there is a self-portrait of Gainsborough that is spotlit so that it positively glows.
But the other paintings in the room are dark and consequently difficult to see. When I visited, some rooms had paintings in darkness because the lightbulbs were blown, which is easy enough to fix.
But in many rooms, especially those with larger canvasses, the light isn't able to illuminate the whole picture, leaving sections of each painting in relative darkness. This is a shame because visitors should be able to see the paintings clearly.
In the older part of the house, the rooms have been dressed with furniture. Irritatingly, the chairs have lengths of string across the arms to prevent visitors from sitting on them. There is no interpretation for the chairs, although they don't seem to be from the same period as the house. So it isn't clear why they are so significant that visitors wanting to take time to view the pictures can't sit on them.
In fact, there is no interpretation of the rooms, making it difficult for visitors to judge whether this is a realistic presentation of the house.
Three pieces of furniture are the exceptions: upstairs, there is a tallboy on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum and an ornate Dutch two-drawer table given to the museum in the 1970s.
Although the labels say these pieces are from the 1760s - after Gainsborough's time at the house - there is nothing to say whether they are typical of the furniture the Gainsborough family would have had. The third piece of furniture to be labelled is both the most exciting and the most disappointing.
n a room on the ground floor, there is what looks like a mahogany bureau. The keen-eyed visitor will spot a label on the wall just below the top of the bureau that says it is a studio cabinet used by Gainsborough to store and mix paint. Apparently, under the lid there is a stone slab for mixing, and the drawers are divided to store paints.
But guess what? The bureau is closed. Here, in Gainsborough's House, among a wonderful collection of his paintings, is one of the tools he used - and visitors can't see it. What a shame.
And here we get to the crux of the matter: interpretation. In the November issue of Museums Journal, the museum's director, Diane Perkins, acknowledged that the house needs interpretation. She was not wrong. The restoration may be wonderful, but it makes no sense if visitors cannot fully understand the house, its history, Gainsborough's life or anything about his paintings.
It is even difficult to know exactly what the restoration project entailed, as there is no information about it. It isn't even just poor labelling; the leaflet has scant information; the website is little more informative; and even the attendants were unsure of information about the artefacts on display when I visited.
Perkins regards interpretation as stage three of the restoration process. She has excellent material to work with and there is a lot of potential, so making the house and collection accessible should be relatively simple. Let's hope that this next stage starts quickly.
Rachel Souhami is a freelance curator and a lecturer in science communication at Imperial College London
Project data
Cost: £1.1m (phase one £300,000, phase two £800,000)
Main funders: Heritage Lottery Fund £417,000, trusts, foundations, individuals and fundraising
Exhibition design: In-house
Architect: Alan Cox
Thomas Ganisborough is one of Britain's most famous artists, renowned for his portraits and landscapes. He was born in the Suffolk market town of Sudbury in 1727 and the house of his birth, Gainsborough's House, has been a museum since 1961.
It should be the perfect place to view Gainsborough's paintings and find out about his life and work. Unfortunately, a recent restoration has resulted in poor lighting and interpretation, which lets down an interesting subject and collection.
Gainsborough's House is actually several buildings: the main house, two cottages and a coach house that houses a printworks. They are situated on two sides of a garden whose central feature is a wonderful mulberry tree.
Visitors access the house not through the main entrance on Gainsborough Street, but via one of the two cottages, which open onto a side alley. The cottages have been knocked through to form a reception, shop and cafe.
At first, going in through a side entrance seems rather disappointing: the street elevation of the house has such a grand appearance, and it would be fun to enter as Gainsborough would have done. But, entering through the side enables visitors to see the full extent of the grounds, a view not afforded from the main building.
The main house is accessed through the garden. From here, visitors can peer into the printworks and see the different parts of the 'house'. House is a bit of a misnomer, as it has had so many alterations and additions.
It started life as two houses in traditional Suffolk style that were joined under a common roof in about 1520. Gainsborough's father added the brick facade that gives the street elevation its elegant appearance and there were further additions at the rear in the 1790s.
Visitors enter the building through the 1790s extensions, which house the temporary exhibition space at ground-floor level. These spaces are light and airy, but once you step through a door into the old part of the house, the feel changes to a more enclosed environment. It even smells different.
In some areas, the restoration of the building has been allowed to reveal the house's structure by exposing beams and, in one place, a section of wattle and daub. However, it is not easy to make sense of the house and the structure as there is very little information to hand.
For example, the leaflet given out at reception states that 'the door nearest the front of the building is the most important feature, although it may not be in its original position'. But why is it the most important feature and why wouldn't it be in its original position?
A wonderful collection of Gainsborough's paintings hangs throughout the house, but their presentation is hindered by poor lighting. For example, above a fireplace in one of the upstairs rooms there is a self-portrait of Gainsborough that is spotlit so that it positively glows.
But the other paintings in the room are dark and consequently difficult to see. When I visited, some rooms had paintings in darkness because the lightbulbs were blown, which is easy enough to fix.
But in many rooms, especially those with larger canvasses, the light isn't able to illuminate the whole picture, leaving sections of each painting in relative darkness. This is a shame because visitors should be able to see the paintings clearly.
In the older part of the house, the rooms have been dressed with furniture. Irritatingly, the chairs have lengths of string across the arms to prevent visitors from sitting on them. There is no interpretation for the chairs, although they don't seem to be from the same period as the house. So it isn't clear why they are so significant that visitors wanting to take time to view the pictures can't sit on them.
In fact, there is no interpretation of the rooms, making it difficult for visitors to judge whether this is a realistic presentation of the house.
Three pieces of furniture are the exceptions: upstairs, there is a tallboy on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum and an ornate Dutch two-drawer table given to the museum in the 1970s.
Although the labels say these pieces are from the 1760s - after Gainsborough's time at the house - there is nothing to say whether they are typical of the furniture the Gainsborough family would have had. The third piece of furniture to be labelled is both the most exciting and the most disappointing.
n a room on the ground floor, there is what looks like a mahogany bureau. The keen-eyed visitor will spot a label on the wall just below the top of the bureau that says it is a studio cabinet used by Gainsborough to store and mix paint. Apparently, under the lid there is a stone slab for mixing, and the drawers are divided to store paints.
But guess what? The bureau is closed. Here, in Gainsborough's House, among a wonderful collection of his paintings, is one of the tools he used - and visitors can't see it. What a shame.
And here we get to the crux of the matter: interpretation. In the November issue of Museums Journal, the museum's director, Diane Perkins, acknowledged that the house needs interpretation. She was not wrong. The restoration may be wonderful, but it makes no sense if visitors cannot fully understand the house, its history, Gainsborough's life or anything about his paintings.
It is even difficult to know exactly what the restoration project entailed, as there is no information about it. It isn't even just poor labelling; the leaflet has scant information; the website is little more informative; and even the attendants were unsure of information about the artefacts on display when I visited.
Perkins regards interpretation as stage three of the restoration process. She has excellent material to work with and there is a lot of potential, so making the house and collection accessible should be relatively simple. Let's hope that this next stage starts quickly.
Rachel Souhami is a freelance curator and a lecturer in science communication at Imperial College London
Project data
Cost: £1.1m (phase one £300,000, phase two £800,000)
Main funders: Heritage Lottery Fund £417,000, trusts, foundations, individuals and fundraising
Exhibition design: In-house
Architect: Alan Cox
