Enfilade

Wednesday at YCBA:

Shadows in Nature: Renowned Painter Sean Scully on

the Enduring Legacy of John Constable

Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 28 October 2026, 5pm

John Constable, Hampstead Heath Looking towards Harrow, 1821, oil on paper laid on canvas, 26 × 31 cm (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1976.7.103).

In this special conversation, acclaimed British painter Sean Scully will join Martina Droth, Paul Mellon Director of the YCBA, to reflect on Constable’s work and legacy while also offering insights and reflections into his own artistic practice. The YCBA’s exhibition John Constable: The Landscape Reimagined is on view now through July 2027. It is the only major US exhibition of this seminal British landscape artist on the occasion of his 250th birthday.

Renowned painter Sean Scully moved to Hampstead, UK, in 2021—more than two hundred years after Constable, who moved there in 1819. For two years, to get to his studio each day, Scully walked across the same expanse of Hampstead Heath that became such an important subject in Constable’s art. In Constable, the Dublin-born Scully recognizes a kindred artistic spirit. Fostered under the same dark, wet light, theirs is a shared sense of materiality, with a color sense that is often tonal. The horizon lines of land, sea, and sky are an enduring theme for both—and it is through their mutual interest in nature, in particular the shadows in nature, that their work evokes emotion.

This event will be held in the second-floor galleries, home to John Constable: The Landscape Reimagined. It is free to attend and open to all; no registration required. Seating is limited. Before the talk, please join us for a special curator tour of the exhibition at 4pm.