Ipswich

Tuesday

Olivia Potts

All aboard for Paisley: a trip round unloved Britain

From our UK edition

‘Most people who have been to Crewe station have never been to Crewe.’ In a moment of serendipity, my train pulls into Crewe station at the exact moment I turn the page to begin the chapter ‘Changing Tracks’ in Chris Moss’s new travelogue Where Tourists Seldom Tread. In his Guardian column ‘Postcards from Britain’, Moss visits and reconsiders ‘improbable, bypassed and unloved’ destinations, such as Warrington, Gateshead, Paisley, Clacton-on-Sea – and Crewe, which my train from London has reached after no small delay. Moss is right, of course: I have travelled through Crewe more times than I have eaten disappointing Upper Crust baguettes, but I have never actually been into the town.

Tuesday

Alec Marsh

‘You’ve never seen Constable like this’: The Hay Wain reviewed

From our UK edition

Generally speaking, I’m against moving major artworks from galleries in large cities to the provinces, where there are fewer people to see them. But there are exceptions. This summer bears witness to one such exception – the decision by the National Gallery to loan John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ to Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich as part of an exhibition celebrating the 250th anniversary of the artist’s birth.  Because whatever you think you know of ‘The Hay Wain’ – one of Britain’s best known and beloved oil paintings – you’ll have never seen it like this before.

Thursday

Richard Morris

Museums: open up your vaults!

From our UK edition

At any one time eighty per cent of the art owned by Britain’s many museums and public art galleries will find itself hidden away in storage. And once it is, it can stay there for years. Yet in these vaults are a wealth of treasures. It’s why I recently launched ‘Everyone’s Art’, which has a simple premise: to get these works out of the storeroom and into community centres, libraries, churches, village halls and schools, so their makers, and what they made, can finally be celebrated. Consider Henry Bright, a friend of the critic, writer and painter John Ruskin. Ruskin paid for Bright to accompany Turner on many of his sketching expeditions, where he was encouraged to paint what he saw.