The famed editor-in-chief of US Vogue, Anna Wintour, probably doesn’t spend many Mondays in rural, windy East Anglia. But yesterday (29 February) she accompanied her friend, the fashion designer and sculptor Nicole Farhi, to the Gainsborough House Museum in Sudbury to unveil Farhi’s portrait bust of the artist Thomas Gainsborough. Wintour funded the bronze, as part of what director Mark Bills called a “sizeable donation” towards the planned multi-million pound extension of this modest museum (other donors include fashionista Vivienne Westwood, artist Grayson Perry, gastronome Loyd Grossman and the historian Simon Schama). Farhi, who has been sculpting for 30 years and full time for the past five, was approached to make the bust last year following her exhibition at London’s Bowman Sculpture gallery in 2014. Ten casts of the portrait will be created to raise further funds for the museum development. Meanwhile, an artist’s cast is on view at Hignell Gallery in Mayfair until the end of March.
