In early 2016, paintings by Suffolk-born Thomas Gainsborough were sent to Holland in an exchange of artwork with Dutch museum Rijksmuseum Twenthe.

Ipswich Museum lent three Gainsborough’s from their own collections, and Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury lent 30.

In return for the Gainsborough loan, the Rijksmuseum Twenthe lent the work of nine Dutch landscape artists who are said to have influenced Gainsborough, for display in Sudbury.

To find out more about this Dutch exchange, and to see the works, visit Gainsborough’s House.

Explore the rest of Ipswich Museum’s collection (and make a trip to Gainsborough’s House, too!). Plan a trip with Visit Suffolk.

If The Shoe Fits was a special event to celebrate Norwich Fashion Week 2016. The Museum of Norwich partnered with Van Dal, the last shoemaker in the city and the largest traditional ladies shoe manufacturer in the UK, to host an evening of fashion where past and present collided!

Once upon a time, the Norwich shoe trade was the largest industry in Norwich. At its peak, there were 26 shoe factories which employed 12,000 people across our Fine City. Today, only one major manufacturer continues to produce shoes in Norwich; The Florida group, known to us as Van Dal.

The public were invited to explore the museum galleries, where they were able to discover installations of live mannequins, styled by the Fabulous Miss K, modelling the newest Van Dal designs against the museum’s heritage backdrop. Curators were also on hand to showcase shoes from the museum’s extensive collection which were not on display at the time.

See the extensive calendar of events at Norfolk Museums.

Plan a trip to the city with Visit Norwich.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe landed in Norwich in 2014, when the University of East Anglia’s Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts doubled for the Avengers Training Ground at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The art gallery and museum appear towards the end of the blockbusting film, with filming taking place inside and outside, including by the lake.

Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson and Elizabeth Olsen were some of the stars who flew in for the shoot, with director Joss Whedon having visited earlier in the year for a recce.

And with at least two more Avengers films in the pipeline, who knows? The grounds of the Sainsbury Centre may grace the silver screen once again in the near future.

You can find out more about the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, including current exhibitions, here.

While you’re there, visit the rest of the city with Visit Norwich.

Image: Glenn Wood/Flickr

Every year, Norwich Cathedral host a special series of events as part of its Science Festival. Each edition of the festival takes on a different theme; for example, 2016’s festival aimed to explore the relationship between science and faith, two areas of study that are often thought of as completely separate.

Coinciding with British Science Week, the festival offers a number of special exhibitions, talks and services, for budding scientists of all ages!

To find out more about the Science Festival, and other events taking place, visit Norwich Cathedral.

The cathedral has a series of year round events and exhibitions. Plan a trip to explore with Visit Norwich.

In March 2016, a brand new Gravelot exhibition at Gainsborough’s House drew upon the impressive body of work in the house’s permanent collection.

Hubert-François Bourguignon, better known as Gravelot, was one of the most influential designers of the eighteenth century. Born in Paris in 1699, he studied in Rome before returning to the French capital and working under the painter François Boucher. In 1732 he emigrated to London, where he remained until 1745. During this period he played a central role in introducing Rococo style into British art and design.

While living in London Gravelot provided his services as a drawing-master; his pupils included the young Thomas Gainsborough, who arrived in the city as a thirteen-year-old apprentice in 1740. Gravelot also became deeply involved in the St. Martin’s Lane Academy, organised by William Hogarth and frequented by some of London’s leading artists. It was here that the Frenchman met many of his future collaborators.

This exhibition showcased his extraordinary versatility as a draughtsman, which the eighteenth century commentator on art George Vertue described as ‘a great and fruitful genius for designs’. The prints and drawings that featured in the display demonstrated Gravelot’s ability to operate across a variety of categories, producing work for a wide array of media: from book illustrations, graphic satire and printed ephemera, to snuff boxes, walking canes, silverware, medals and other forms of material culture. They also revealed the diverse sources from which Gravelot derived inspiration: from contemporary life and politics, to the natural world, historical narratives and classical literature.

The widespread distribution of these kinds of objects not only allowed Gravelot to gain fame among the British public, but also allowed his work to exert a profound and lasting impact on the development of eighteenth century British visual culture.

For more information visit Gainsborough’s House.

Explore the house, and the surrounding town of Sudbury with Visit Suffolk.

Norwich Fashion Week is a celebration of Norwich’s burgeoning fashion scene. Created in 2010 to celebrate and promote the vibrant scene across the city, it brings together Norwich’s nationally-recognised, independent retail offering (such as Jarrolds and The Lanes) and the city’s thriving student fashion design community.

There’s tons of events taking place across the city all week, including a number of high profile shows at OPEN, focused on vintage, and designer clothing and the latest hair trends.

Outside of the five main shows, there are a number of demos and workshops about a range of different subjects, from hairstyling to makeup techniques.

To explore the full programme, see Norwich Fashion Week.

Plan a trip to Norwich, and see what else is going on with Visit Norwich.

In March 2016, Somewhere In England opened at Eastern Angles as part of a regional tour.

In May 1942, the first Eighth U.S. Army Air Force aeroplanes arrived in East Anglia. With them came thousands of black and white American GIs who, in some places, outnumbered the local population by 50 to 1. This unique moment in history, often referred to as ‘the friendly invasion’, had a huge impact on social and cultural life in the Eastern region and it’s a story that’s in danger of being forgotten.

Nylons, Hershey bars and jitterbugging to Swing Bands in the local village hall all feature in Polly Wiseman’s play, but there was another side to this shared history – a tale of segregation and of rural communities turned upside down. Kids being forced to grow up before their time, friendships forged and then blown apart, and outsiders learning to live amongst the locals.

See what’s on at the moment at Eastern Angles.

Fancy a trip to Suffolk? Let Visit Suffolk give you lots of ideas for things to do while in the area.

Photo: Eastern Angles

Some objects are so important they change our knowledge of human history; one such item is this Lower Palaeolithic handaxe found at Happisburgh in Norfolk by Mike Chambers while walking his dog in 2000. Affectionately known as the Happisburgh Handaxe, it was found in situ in a deposit of silt with only a few millimetres of it showing from the surface, the deposit was dated and shown to be from around 550,000 to 700,000 years old, which pushed back the evidence for human colonisation this far north by at least 100,000 years.

Analysis of pollen in the silt allows us to build a picture of temperate woodland with pine, alder, oak, elm and hornbeam in evidence at the time the handaxe was made.

We explored another significant Happisburgh find in a previous Culture365 post. During 2013 the Happisburgh Footprints were found on a beach dating to around 800,000 years ago, making them the oldest human footprints ever discovered outside of Africa.

Explore a plethora of ancient artefacts at Norwich Castle.

Immerse yourself in the collections, and spend a weekend in the city. Visit Norwich is the perfect place to plan your trip.

Photo: Norfolk Museums Service

In honour of International Women’s Day 2016, Norwich Arts Centre hosted its annual eclectic celebration of women writers and musicians from across the region. Every year, Words and Women is full of short films, readings, music and conversation, with a stellar line-up of artists.

On 2016’s lineup were the incomparable Karen Reilly of the Neutrinos, the mesmerising Sink Ya Teeth and the unique Emily Winng, compered by Guardian award winning stand-up Louisa Theobald and more. Sunday Times Best-Selling and Costa First Book Award winning author Emma Healey also introduced the anthology and writers reading their winning entries.

For more information on Words and Women, visit Norwich Arts Centre.

Plan a trip to a future event at Norwich Arts Centre with Visit Norwich.

In March 2016, Poetic Landscape, a new exhibition at Gainsborough’s House, examined the work of the visionary and innovative painter and printmaker Samuel Palmer who, like Gainsborough drew inspiration from the landscape.

In the 17th and early 18th century, landscape painting in Britain was seen as a lowly form of art. Topographical images of the period, which were often produced by mapmakers and surveyors, were commissioned to document an actual scene or a place rather than to express an artistic vision.

Following on from Gainsborough’s groundbreaking work in the genre, Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) pushed landscape painting in Britain to a new level of creativity. Born 17 years after Gainsborough’s death, Palmer is considered to be one of the greatest British artists of the Romantic period.

This exhibition, which was brought together with the help of Edward Twohig, was a rare opportunity to see a complete collection of Samuel Palmer’s etchings and through his work, learn about the process.

Visit Gainsborough’s House. 

Plan a visit to Sudbury, explore its silk heritage, and stay for the night. Visit Suffolk is the perfect companion to your trip.

Photo: Gainsborough’s House