Art at Sainsbury’s? Well no. The Sainsbury Centre is the art collection of Robert and Lisa Sainsbury. No groceries, just art and a rather fine café. Let me show you my highlights of the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich.
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Highlights of the Sainsbury Centre
For me the highlights of the Sainsbury Centre start outside. With your first glimpse the building. I first saw it from one of the Denys Lansdun walkways lthat meander through the University of East Anglia campus. It was extraordinary. Even now decades later it remains so. Then you step inside, it is a vast space but also somehow intimate. Some of my all time favourite gallery objects live inside.
Norman Foster Architecture
Before we get to the art let’s start with the building. When the Sainsbury Centre opened to the public in 1978 is caused a bit of kerfuffle. It didn’t look like an art gallery, it looked like an aircraft hanger. Back then Norman Foster was a rising star with a couple of innovative office blocks under his belt. The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art was his first major public building.
I remember it opening, it was exciting. Norwich is a fine City, it has many Norman and medieval buildings. The UEA itself is a brutalist masterpiece by Denys Lansdun. I loved, still love, the building both inside and out. Inside it is airy, spacious and calm. Outside it sits next to the angular concrete Lansdun buildings on one side, whilst on the other it somehow merges into the Norfolk countryside.
Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection
Eclectic is the word that I would use for the Sainsbury Centre collection. It has 1,400 objects that span 5,000 years. Robert Sainsbury started to collect art in 1929. When he married Lisa in 1937 the pair continued to amass art. My favourite?
This figure of a walking hippopotamus is the object that I most covet. To hold him in your hand and explore his smooth curves must be wonderful. I would like to keep in my pocket as a talisman. The hippo is Egyptian dating from 1880 BC. He was found in a tomb but his significance is not known. What is known that hippos were a hazard to the early inhabitants of the Nile valley. They destroyed crops, so maybe having a hippo in your tomb would scare off other hippos?
Giacometti, Henry Moore and Francis Bacon were three artist that the Sainsbury’s especially encouraged and collected. The way the work of all three arts are hung makes it seem as if they are in conversation with all the works around them. It is like being at especially wonderful party.
Hugging Henry Moore sculpture at the Sainsbury Centre
You are encouraged to join the party. Not every sculpture is available to hug, just as you wouldn’t hug everyone at a party. Look for the signs. You are invited to recline on a couch, gaze at the Giacometti drawing above you and silently tell it your deepest secrets. Or how about standing in a glass box whilst being gazed at by a group of scuptures.
Ceramics at the Sainsbury Centre
Whilst I might covet the hippo it is the ceramics that I could spend (have spent) hours looking at. These pots were made by Hans Coper. Lord Sainsbury considered them to be sculptures rather than vessels, they are arranged in the way that he chose. I love the way that you can either focus on the pots or on the Norfolk landscape outside.
Lucy Rie was a close friend of both Hans Coper and Lady Sainsbury. She made all kinds of ceramics but it is her buttons that I love. Wouldn’t you just love to have a jacket with these on it? I confess that I have a selection of ceramic buttons. None has ever adorned an item of clothing, their purchase inspired by the Sainsbury Centre collection.
Special Exhibitions at the Sainsbury Centre
Special exhibitions at the Sainsbury Centre are a bit different to other galleries. They have seasons in which big questions are asked. Exhibitions and interventions then ponder those questions
Can the Seas Survive Us?
Is the big question for 2025. Sea levels, acidity and temperature are all rising. Oxygen levels are falling. What can be done?
A World of Water 15 March – 3 August 2025
A look at the relationship between North Sea neighbours Norfolk and The Netherlands. Ancients maps, 16th century archives documenting the archival of skilled textile workers from The Netherlands, water technology old and new. Art and and architecture. This is one of my most looked forward too exhibitions in 2025.
Darwin in Paradise Camp: Yuki Kihara 15 March – 3 August 2025
Yuki Kihara reimagines Paul Gaugin’s Samoan paintings.
Sea Inside 7 June – 26 October 2025
A deep dive beyond the usual depiction of waves and beaches. Down into into the depths of the sea both real and imagined.
Sainsbury Centre Sculpture Trail
The Sainsbury Centre sits in the 350 acre campus of the University of East Anglia. Dotted around the campus is the sculpture trail. Look up and you will see an Antony Gormley figure on the top of one of the buildings. My favourites are the iconic red scale model of Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (now there is a catchy title). Another favourite is Henry Moore’s Draped Reclining Woman viewed from the cafe. You can access the trail for free during daylight hours, just don’t climb on the works.
Sainsbury Centre Café
My long love affair with museum cafés began at the Sainsbury Centre. The food was delicious in 1978 and remains so today. Choose from the more formal Modern Life Cafe or the Terrace for a quick coffee and cake.
Sainsbury Centre and The Avengers
I confess that the Marvel movies are not my favourite genre but quality time was devoted to them when the teens still required a chaperone to visit the cinema. Imagine my excitement when the Sainsbury Centre made an appearance in Avengers: The Age of Ultron. Not just a cameo role either but as the actual Avengers HQ. A role that it reprised in Avengers: Infinity War.
Visiting the Sainsbury Centre Norwich
- Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA, Norwich NR4 7TJ
- Regular buses 22, 25 and 26 run from the centre of Norwich to the UEA campus
- To drive from the centre of Norwich head west down the B1108, Earlham Road and keep an eye open for the brown UEA/Museum signs.
- Parking head for P7 free carpark and get a permit from reception, make sure you put it in the car
- Open: Tuesday – Friday 9am – 6pm, Saturday & Sunday 10am – 5pm
- Admission: Pay What You Can
These are my highlights of the Sainsbury Centre Norwich. It was the first cultural place I visited the Cutural Twin. Even after nearly forty years the Norman Foster Sainsbury Centre is still a building that both excites me and makes me feel very calm and happy.
Do you have a modern building that you love?
I grew up in Norfolk and we visit often for check out my post about what to do in the fine city of Norwich. If you are heading to the coast consider a day crabbing at Wells next the Sea or spotting seals at Horsey Gap. On rainy days head to Museum of Time and Tide at Great Yarmouth or explore the joys of Norfolk of the Beaten Track
