ARTISTS AND CHELSEA
The presence in Chelsea of many leading artists during
much of the 19th and 20th centuries made up a large part
of Chelsea's renown beyond its borders and its reputation as an artistic and bohemian colony. While artists in
previous centuries were attracted to Chelsea to paint its
riverside and houses, its artistic reputation was created
through its position as one of a handful of places which
saw a concentration of artists' studios when, in the 60
years prior to the First World War, over 1,300 domestic
artists' studios were erected in London as a whole.
Chelsea was favoured because at the time when the
fashion for large and luxuriously fitted studios
flourished, prompted by the rise of professionalism
among artists, it had sites available for building at
reasonable cost, while still being close to the West End
and the picture-buying public. (fn. 1)
TURNER AND THE RIVERSIDE
Chelsea, like other villages around London, always had
its share of artists living there, attracted by its charm and
its cheapness compared with more fashionable areas
near central London. The most famous of these was
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), but the
fame he brought to Chelsea was posthumous, since
hardly anyone knew he was living there. He kept his
house and gallery in Queen Anne Street (St
Marylebone), where he had lived since the end of the
18th century, but when his companion, Mrs Sophia
Booth, moved to London in 1846, they looked for a
house by the river and took a 21-year lease of no. 6
Davis's Place, at the western end of Chelsea's riverside.
Turner spent most of his time there, concealing his
private life from his friends and acquaintances; he was
known in the neighbourhood as Mr or Admiral Booth.
The house, 3-storeyed but only one bay wide, was one of
a row of seven small cottages which stretched westwards
from the King Arms public house. It had a small garden
in front bounded by a low wooden fence, and Turner
had the roof flattened and added a railing to make a
balcony from which he could observe the river. (fn. 2) Their
neighbours included a boat builder and shops selling
beer, wine, and ginger beer, and across the road were
steps down to the Thames foreshore. Turner died at this
house in December 1851; it was later incorporated with
its eastern neighbour into a larger house, now nos
118-119 Cheyne Walk. (fn. 3)
PRE-RAPHAELITES AND OTHERS,
1850-1880
While Joseph Turner was dying in 1851 in secrecy in a
nondescript row at the west end of Cheyne Walk, a
younger generation of artists was finding accommodation farther east. The 22-year-old William Holman
Hunt (1827-1910), one of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was living in 1851 at no. 5 Prospect Place, at the
corner of Lawrence Street, (fn. 4) where he painted 'Light of
the World' in 1854 in his 1st-floor studio facing the
river. (fn. 5) Other artists along Chelsea's riverside in the
1850s and 60s included John Martin, the historical
painter, at no. 4 Lindsey Row (part of Lindsey House) (fn. 6)
from 1849 to 1853, while a better-known occupant of
Lindsey House was James McNeill Whistler, who lived at
no. 101 Cheyne Walk in 1863 and at no. 96 (no. 2
Lindsey Row), also part of Lindsey House, from 1866 to
1878. (fn. 7) At the eastern end of Cheyne Walk, William
Dyce, RA, lived briefly at no. 4 Cheyne Walk 1846-7,
succeeded later by Daniel Maclise, RA, from c. 1861 until
his death in 1870. (fn. 8) Dante Gabriel Rossetti bought the
lease of no. 16, Tudor or Queen's House, in 1862, giving
him a dozen bedrooms and an acre of garden. He invited
several relatives and friends to join him, some of whom
accepted, and for a while his household included his
brother William, and Algernon Swinburne. (fn. 9) Some
friends of Rossetti sought their own accommodation in
Chelsea, among them George Pryce Boyce (d. 1896),
painter of topographical watercolours, who could afford
to commission Philip Webb to design a house for him:
West House was built 1869-70 on the south-east corner
of the rectory grounds at the angle of Glebe Place, with a
view down Cheyne Row to the river, and had an
extended first floor with a studio; the dining room bay
was added in 1876. After Boyce's death the house was
tenanted by James Guthrie and E.A. Walton. Some
garden-studios were also beginning to appear in Glebe
Place: the sculptor Giovanni Fontana built one in 1865
on the east side of Glebe Place, behind King's Road, like
Boyce an early vanguard of the main settlement. On the
whole, artists were drawn to the older and more picturesque Chelsea village and riverside, but Sloane Street
also had a number of artists and sculptors at work during
this period, and in 1863 John Birnie Philip occupied the
kitchen wing of Henry Holland's former mansion, The
Pavilion, to sculpt the 99 figures for the Albert Memorial.
In 1870 Birnie Philip moved his workshop to a villa in
Manresa Road, and artists were also starting to move
into Upper Church Street: Robert Hannah, the Scots
historical painter, made large additions to no. 153. (fn. 1)
STUDIOS IN TITE STREET AND
ELSEWHERE
The main period in the building of studio-houses, their
styles as idiosyncratic and artistic as their occupants,
began at the end of the 1870s, when sites for building
along the newly-created Chelsea Embankment and Tite
Street became available. (fn. 2) The riverfront property was
too expensive for artists, though no. 7 was designed for
the judge and amateur painter Sir Robert Collier, later 1st
Baron Monkswell, by R. Phené Spiers, architectural
master at the Royal Academy, and also included a flat
with a proper studio for Collier's son John and his wife
Marion Huxley, both professional painters. (fn. 3)
Around the corner in Tite Street, however, artists
dominated. Having had some professional success, in
1877 Whistler took a site in Tite Street, later no. 35,
backing onto the Royal Hospital's grounds, and asked
E.W. Godwin to design a house which included a
teaching atelier. The White House had the teaching
studio within the huge Japanese-inspired gambrel roof,
taller than the stark and asymmetrically composed
façade, and a personal studio in one of the two floors
below. The design proved quite unacceptable to the
MBW, who threatened to withhold the lease unless
changes were made. Parapets were raised, Queen Anne
details in moulded brick added, and approval was
obtained, but financial problems soon led Whistler to
sell the house in 1879. (fn. 4)
Whistler's influence led several of his friends and
admirers to move to Tite Street, (fn. 5) and many also
commissioned Godwin despite the difficulty Whistler
had had in getting the designs accepted. In 1878
Godwin designed Chelsea Lodge for the Hon.
Archibald Stuart-Wortley, on a double site on the west
side of Tite Street at the corner of Dilke Street, with two
sets of principal rooms and studios so that
Stuart-Wortley could share the house with his friend
Carlo Pellegrini, a successful cartoonist who used the
sobriquet Ape. The arrangement soon broke down and
Chelsea Lodge was sold in 1879, to the Hon. Slingsby
Bethell, an amateur painter who retained one of the
studios. Edwin Abbey, RA, who owned the house from
1899 until his death in 1911, may have reunited the
studios and added an extra window; (fn. 6) at a sale of the
house in 1937 it had 2 large studios. (fn. 7) Frank Miles
commissioned Godwin to design Keats House at no.
44, completed in 1880 after the designs of 1878,
considered to be 30 years ahead of their time, were
again unsurprisingly rejected by the MBW, and had to
have additional Queen Anne-style decoration added.
Miles moved there with his friend Oscar Wilde. (fn. 8)
After selling Chelsea Lodge, Stuart-Wortley had a
second house built 1879-80 at no. 29 Tite Street, called
Canwell House, in Queen Anne style with red and yellow
brick; when he left in 1885 the house passed to Mary
Grant, the sculptress, but was later sold to the adjacent
Victoria Hospital. Between White and Canwell houses
were two plots, nos 31-33: in 1880 a studio-house was
built at no. 31 for Frank Dicey, and a block of
studio-flats at no. 33, (fn. 9) both designed by Robert Edis.
John Singer Sargent bought no. 31 in 1901, having lived
in the ground floor flat at no. 33 since c. 1886, and he
knocked through to connect up no. 31 and the flat. Plots
opposite at nos 50 and 52 were bought by Mrs Anna Lea
Merritt and John and Marion Collier: Mrs Merritt was
an widowed American figure painter acquainted with
the Colliers, and they asked Marion's brother-in-law
Frederick Waller to design a pair of studio-houses in
1881-2. Mrs Merritt occupied no. 50 which she called
The Cottage; no. 52 was called More House. (fn. 10)
A few studio-houses were built away from the main
concentration. R. Norman Shaw designed a studiohouse 1882-4 for an irregular site at the corner of
Walton Street and Lennox Gardens Mews for Edward
and Florence Sherard Kennedy, 'Sunday painters' with
private incomes. Called Walton House, it had separate
studios for the couple, and also the Victorian arrangement which allowed models to reach separate changing
rooms unseen. In 1883 J.P. Seddon designed a
studio-house at no. 76 Elm Park Road for Paul Naftel
and his wife and her family, several of whom were
painters of some repute, and nos 74 and 78, also built
c. 1884, were occupied by landscape painters. (fn. 11) In 1879
William Burges designed a pair of garden studios behind
no. 28 Beaufort Street for Louise and Joe Jopling, both
painters. After Joe died suddenly in 1884 Louise let one
studio to Maria Zambaco, sculptress; the studios were
later converted into a Roman Catholic chapel. (fn. 12) In 1892
Mortimer Menpes, Australian-born painter and etcher,
engaged Arthur Mackmurdo to design a five-storeyed
studio-house for him on a site at no. 25 Cadogan
Gardens, for which Menpes obtained a vast quantity of
interior fittings from Japan, (fn. 13) installed by 70 Japanese
craftsmen. (fn. 14)
Figure 44:
No. 127 Old Church Street, adapted for William and Evelyn de Morgan
ARTISTS AT THE VALE AND UPPER CHURCH STREET
Individual artists' houses continued to be built on the
remains of Chelsea Park, the last open ground in Chelsea
to be built over, and the adjoining parts of Upper
Church Street before and after the First World War.
Until it was extended The Vale was a shady lane
bordered by three or four houses. Whistler took no. 2 in
1886, where Messrs Ricketts and Shannon later started
the Vale Press. No. 1 was acquired at same time by
William and Evelyn de Morgan after their marriage, and
when on trips abroad they let the cottage with its
painting and craft room to Walter Sickert and his
Chelsea Life School. Sculptor Thomas Stirling Lee built a
studio for himself in the new Vale Avenue in 1910.
In the 1890s several artists also moved into Upper
Church Street. No. 123 on the corner of Elm Park Road
was built in 1894 for Felix Moscheles, and by 1901 the
Chelsea Arts Club had moved into two old villas at nos
143-5. Evelyn and William de Morgan moved to nos
125-7 (nos 8-9 Bolton Place), Upper Church Street,
where two terraced houses were adapted for them in
1909-10. Augustus John occupied Robert Hannah's at
no. 153, until he moved to Mallord Street (below). (fn. 1)
The Vale was extended northwards c. 1909, with
picturesquely grouped neo-Georgian houses along the
west side. Mallord and Mulberry streets were added to
link it with Upper Church Street, and several studios
were built in this group of streets before and after the
First World War. In Mallord Street no. 28 was designed
1913-14 like a Dutch cottage by Robert van t'Hoff for
Augustus John, and Mallord House, designed by Ralph
Knott, was built at the north-east corner in 1911 for
Cecil Hunt. No. 22 Mulberry Walk and no. 113 Old
Church Street were built as a double house with two
studios for John DaCosta, children's portraitist. No. 117
Upper Church Street was designed by Halsey Ricardo in
1914-15, as a wedding present for his daughter Anna
and her husband Charles Maresco Pearce, the painter of
architectural subjects. (fn. 2)
Figure 45:
Mallord House, no. 1 Mallord Street, at corner of Upper Church Street
At Little Chelsea an area on both sides of Fulham
Road also developed an artistic element near the end of
the 19th century. On the Chelsea side, a life class in
Limerston Street had attracted 300 students within 4
years of its establishment in 1872, and later in the 1880s
individuals began seeking artistic provision on the
Gunter estates. Fred Brown, founder of the New English
Art Club (fn. 3) and later Slade Professor, led several artists
from Bolton Studios in Brompton (Kens.) to Netherton
Grove. In due course the fashion for garden-studios
affected the surrounding streets, Gunter Grove in particular. Following the lead of sculptor Alfred Drury, nearly
every other property along its west side had a studio unit
by end of the century. (fn. 4)
In the early 20th century a small group of studiohouses (destroyed in the Second World War) were
designed by C.R. Ashbee in Cheyne Walk, in which he
recreated the serendipitous atmosphere of the lost
Chelsea riverside. He designed no. 37 Cheyne Walk for
himself, his mother and sisters in 1893-4, nos 72-4
Cheyne Walk in 1896-8, nos 72-3 for two clients, and
no. 74, a studio-house as a speculation which he and his
bride moved into. Ashbee also restored and added a
studio to nos 118-19 (no. 119 being Turner's house) for
Max Balfour, and designed studio projects at no. 38
Cheyne Walk in 1898 for the still life painter, Miss Clara
Christian, which had 3 studios in the house and the
entrance to a 4th in the back garden, and no. 39 as a freehold family house speculation. For a few years before her
death in 1906 Miss Christian was joined by (Dame)
Ethel Walker, with whom she had shared studios in
Pembroke Gardens and Tite Street. He also designed no.
75 in 1901-2 for Mrs William Hunt, an art collector, and
no. 71 in 1912-13 for Mrs Adeline Trier, a flower
painter. (fn. 1)
MASS-PRODUCED STUDIOS
More interesting socially than individual studio-houses
were the mass produced studios, usually multiple units,
often of several storeys and built to let. They occurred in
London where the building of individual studio-houses
drew newer or less successful artists to live nearby, so
demand was strong in Chelsea, and by making studios
available to artists of a wider income range it gave
Chelsea the mass of artists that created its artistic profile.
A three-tier, 15-unit block called Trafalgar Studios was
the first of such multiple studios, built in 1878 in
Manresa Road. E.W. Godwin drew up a proposal the
same year for 30 studio-flats for an unspecified site, but
did not find a backer, and for another multi-level
scheme next to the White House in Tite Street, but the
site was sold to Jackson & Graham, furnishers of Oxford
Street, who in 1880 commissioned Robert Edis to design
The Studios at no. 33 Tite Street, which had annual rents
of c. £100. Whistler lived there 1881-5, John Singer
Sargent, Charles Furse, and, later, Augustus John.
Godwin also designed a tower of studio-flats in 1867,
with 4 double-height floors with mezzanines, and a
communal kitchen in the basement, but eventually sold
the site and drawings to Denton, Son & North, who
adapted and built it as Tower House, no. 46 Tite Street,
in 1884-5. (fn. 2)
A number of small studio groups also sprang up just
off King's Road, most probably prompted by the success
of Trafalgar Studios: the builder there converted his own
neighbouring villa into another set, Wentworth Studios
(1885). Later activity remained localized, with the
Manresa Road-Glebe Place area the prime location in
Chelsea. In Glebe Place Conrad Dressler, sculptor, built
the glass shacks of Cedar Studios (1885-6), and three
more groups were built in Glebe Place, at nos 60-1, nos
64-5, and nos 52-9. Nos 60-1, known as Glebe Studios,
were developed 1888-9 by the rector, who gave his son
one of the first tenancies. This interesting development
attracted Walter Sickert, William Rothenstein, and
Ernest Shepard amongst others. (fn. 3) It was during the 1880s
and 1890s that Chelsea secured its international name as
the art centre of London. The presence of artists' studios
led naturally to the teaching of art in Chelsea: although
Whistler did not apparently have much success in Tite
Street, (fn. 4) the Life classes held in Limerston Street and by
Sickert encouraged others hold formal classes in
Chelsea, and Chelsea School of Art, part of the polytechnic, opened in 1895. (fn. 5)
Multiple studios continued to be built there into the
early 20th century, notably the Rossetti (1894) and
King's House (1911) groups, but suitable sites were
becoming scarcer and development more costly. (fn. 6) Nevertheless, in 1921 Chelsea's profile as the artists' centre in
London was confirmed when the population census
noted especially that Chelsea MB had the greatest
concentration of male artists, at 9 per 1000 men; the
next highest was Hampstead with 6 per 1000. (fn. 7) However,
just as artistic endeavour was spreading from experts to
beginners, Chelsea's position as the centre of artistic life
in London was starting to be threatened. At the beginning of the 20th century many artists' studios were gradually acquired for other purposes, and artists were
starting to find it hard to compete financially for property in Chelsea, a situation which became critical in the
second half of the century, as studios were lost to developers and the artists left the area. (fn. 8)
In 1948 the Royal Academy presented a fountain
placed in Sloane Square as a tribute to the great contribution of Chelsea to the artistic life of London. (fn. 9) In the
same year the borough council asked the LCC to
promote legislation enabling it to provide studios for
artists, a unique inclusion in their Act. In 1939 there
were 316 known studios in use, designed and built for
the purpose: of those 47 had been destroyed and 42
made unfit for occupation, and by 1948 many others
were used as private residences; only 76 were in reasonably good repair and used by working artists. (fn. 10) The
LCC's General Powers Act of 1949 specifically conferred
on Chelsea MB powers to build new studios and equip
old ones. By 1953 the first municipal studios were
completed, on the top storey of the Lucan estate in
Lucan Place; they also planned 6 on the Cremorne Estate
at World's End and others in Hortensia Road (3),
Limerston Street (6), and Dovehouse Street (10).
Studios were to be offered to those at head of the council's list of 180 artists needing accommodation. The
recent migration of artists away from Chelsea, mostly
priced out, was of serious local concern, and artists
wrote to The Times urging other councils to follow the
borough's example. (fn. 1)
In 1960 the council's finance committee urged the
council to become modern patrons of the arts, because
private patrons were disappearing. Although the council
had built studios, they had not given much practical
encouragement to artists, as they did not offer subsidies
or reduced rents for the studios; the committee urged
them to introduce an annual subsidy of £500 to be split
between successful applicants. (fn. 2) Despite all attempts,
however, Chelsea continued to lose its artistic element. A
brief resurge in the early 1960s, when several of the
newly fashionable photographers worked in Chelsea,
continued to keep its bohemian reputation alive, but by
the end of the 20th century young artists were congregating east and north-east of the City of London, where
cheap warehouse accommodation was still available.
Few of Chelsea's studio-houses were still inhabited by
artists in 2003, when the Chelsea College of Art and
Design was also about to leave the borough. (fn. 3)