Helaine Blumenfled: Tree of Life

3 May – 19 October 2025

This summer, sculptures by internationally-acclaimed artist Helaine Blumenfeld OBE (b.1942) will be on view in the gardens and interior of Gainsborough’s House”.

Helaine Blumenfeld: Tree of Life will feature three bronze sculptures in the garden – the first exterior exhibition at the museum in over a decade – as well as a marble in the galleries.

Volare (in foreground), Helaine Blumenfeld, courtesy of Hignell Gallery

This display provides a new and unique context to Blumenfeld’s work, surrounded by the walled garden of naturalistic planting and fruit trees associated with Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88). The exhibition sees Helaine Blumenfeld’s sculptures in dialogue with the poetic sensibility, fluidity of form, and dream-like imagery of Thomas Gainsborough’s art.

Both artists have sought to integrate human and botanic forms in their work to express and observe humanity and the natural world. Gainsborough merged figures in his portraits with the landscape behind them, while Blumenfeld fuses organic, figurative and botanical forms in spiritual sculptures.    

Blumenfeld is one of the most esteemed sculptors working in the UK today. Having trained at the Ecole de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, she now works from studios in Cambridge and Tuscany, creating sculptures in marble, wood and bronze meant for public installation. Her work exits in a tantalising zone between abstraction and figuration, creating impossibly thin, undulating structures through innovative techniques.

Tree of Life: Encounter, Helaine Blumenfeld, courtesy of Hignell Gallery

In the gardens – Tree of Life: Encounter (2018) depicts a plant-like structure, where three strands are joined together at the base but separate and flower in an upwards movement. Originally commissioned by the Woolf Institute with the notion of uniting religions together in peace, the flowering represents hope that is breaching dissonance and chaos. Volare (2015) and Flight (2009) both depict movement with a merging of the physical and spiritual. The essence of the human form is depicted in an aspirational reach upwards, towards the sky and a higher realm of being.

Inside the museum will be Exodus IV (2019), a marble work in part inspired by stories of refugee crossings in the Mediterranean. Made up of several different layers that could be waves crashing against each other or collapsing life jackets, the weight-less feel and organic shapes demonstrates Blumenfeld’s expertise at using physical materials to communicate spiritual ideas.  

Helaine working, photo by Henryk Hetflaisz, courtesy of Hignell Gallery

Helaine Blumenfeld said: “I am thrilled to be showing my sculptures in the splendid gardens and newly renovated visitor facilities of Gainsborough’s House. I have long seen a connection between the spirit inherent in my sculptures and Gainsborough’s luminous and ethereal landscapes which capture the sublime beauty of the countryside.”

Calvin Winner, Director at Gainsborough’s House: “I am delighted to present the first exhibition for some time in our historic garden. I can’t think of a better sculptor to launch this initiative than with Helaine Blumenfeld, OBE, whose sculptures ably complement, rather than compete, with the beauty of the natural world.”  

Emma Boyd, Gainsborough’s House, Keeper of Art and Place: “Where better to experience Blumenfeld’s transcendent sculpted forms than the childhood garden of Thomas Gainsborough, a similarly innovative and poetic artist.”

The exhibition is supported by Hignell Gallery Ltd.