Anne Desmet RA is an artist who specialises in wood engravings, linocuts and collages. Significantly she is only the third wood
engraver ever to be elected to the membership of the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in its 250-year history.
This exhibition at Gainsborough’s House brings together selected highlights from her Italian prints with the addition of some new works including a sequence of special wood engravings created this year to raise funds for the Gainsborough’s House capital project.
Many of the works in this exhibition are for sale along with a special limited edition version of the facsimile sketchbook presented in its own cloth-bound box with a related limited edition wood engraving created, printed and signed by the artist.
Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) was born in Sudbury and baptised at the Independent Meeting-House in Friars Street on 14 May 1727, the fifth son and ninth child of John and Mary Gainsborough. In 1958, Gainsborough’s House Society was formed to purchase the house and establish it as a centre for Thomas Gainsborough. The Museum opened to the public in 1961 and has remained open for over 50 years. The beautiful historic garden at the heart of Gainsborough’s House is maintained by a devoted body of volunteers, who garden exclusively with plants that were available in Gainsborough’s lifetime.
Gainsborough’s House Society , Charity No. 1170048 and Company Limited by Guarantee No. 10413978