15/02/2025 General News
For almost 400 years now, East Anglia has been one of the country’s most important centres for visual arts, writes Daniel Smith.
From the 18th century masters such as Gainsborough and Constable, through the Norwich School luminaries – Crome, Cotman et al - of the 19th century Norwich School and the early 20th century international stars like Munnings and Seago, right up to contemporary artists including Maggie Hambling and Colin Self, our region has for centuries punched above its weight when it comes to painters and sculptors.
It is a place which continues to attract some of the best practitioners to its pure, radiant light, its varied and unspoilt countryside, and its huge, dramatic skies. In addition to the many who were born and brought up in East Anglia are others who were born elsewhere but chose East Anglia as the place where they lived and worked.
East Anglian Art is renowned throughout the world, and in the saleroom that translates to strong demand and healthy prices for works by our region’s foremost painters – both from the past and those still working today.
One of the earliest movements born in our region was the ‘Norwich School’ of Painters, Britain’s first provincial art movement, founded in 1803 by John Crome and Robert Ladbroke. Its first exhibition took place two years later, and annual shows continued until 1833.
It is curious that the Norwich School is not better known outside the county. After all, these artists, along with painters such as John Sell Cotman, Joseph Stannard and his niece Eloise Harriet Stannard, and Henry Bright, were working at the same time as better-known artists, notably John Constable (also in East Anglia) and Joseph Turner.
Incidentally, I highly recommend visiting the current blockbuster exhibition of Turner’s works at Norwich Castle, which runs until 23rd February. Although he wasn’t from this region, the juxtaposition of works by artists such as Constable in the exhibition (and many Norwich School works in the permanent collection) show what a profound influence East Anglian art had even on such an internationally acclaimed master of his day.
If the Norwich School painters’ fame remained largely local, the same cannot be said for two of the region’s artistic titans, Sir Alfred Munnings and Edward Seago.
Munnings was born in 1878 in Mendham in Suffolk, and at the age of 14 was apprenticed to a Norwich printer, designing and drawing advertising posters. In his spare time he attended the Norwich School of Art (now the Norwich University of the Arts), and despite losing the sight in his right eye in an accident in 1898, he continued to paint.
Posted to an equestrian unit during the First World War, he discovered a love of painting horses which would remain with him for the rest of his life. He ended up as president of the Royal Academy of the Arts, and in his later years railed against modernism, claiming that the works of Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso had corrupted art. He died in 1959, and his ashes were interred at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Edward Seago was born in Norwich in 1910, the son of a coal merchant. He attended Norwich School, and was a largely self-taught artist (although he did receive advice from Munnings). At the age of 18 he ran away with the circus, and toured the UK and Europe for several years.
Much like Munnings, it was war which focussed Seago’s artistic mind. With the outbreak of World War Two, he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers and given the job of developing camouflage techniques. After the war he continued to paint in both oils and watercolours: landscapes, seascapes, street scenes, gardens and portraits.
Seago’s biggest patron was the Queen Mother, who owned many of his works. On his death in 1974, Seago instructed that one third of the paintings in his Norwich studio should be destroyed; only around 300 oil paintings remain, although there are substantially more watercolours.
The good news is that East Anglian art is still thriving: late 20th century and early 21st century artists such as Colin Burns, Ian Houston and Jack Cox continued the rich artistic tradition of the region, and many continue to do so.
When works by our local artists go under the hammer, the whole art world pays attention; Keys’ thrice-yearly East Anglian Art Sales have become the most important auctions of such works, and are acknowledged amongst both collectors and dealers as the main event for sourcing East Anglian art.