12/10/2026 - 17/12/2026
The Robert Cripps Gallery’s autumn exhibition explores the lives and labour of East Anglian farm workers around the First World War through the haunting work of Harry Becker (1865–1928). Misery and Beauty: Harry Becker and East Anglian Farm Labour around the Great War.
Curated by art historian and biographer Ian Collins, the exhibition places Becker’s evocative depictions of rural life alongside vintage farm implements and artefacts on loan from the Food Museum in Stowmarket. A harvesting sequence from Peter Hall’s 1974 film Akenfield will play on a continuous loop, while recordings of birdsong recreate something of the soundscape of East Anglia before the widespread mechanisation of farming.