Ten top artist’s homes, homes in museums and museums about homes
Inspired by our newest client Charleston, the former home of painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, here’s my favourite artist’s homes, homes in museums and museums about homes.
Artist’s homes
Kettles Yard
A recent discovery. I could have spent hours inside this tardis-like museum full of perfectly curated artworks and objects. Great cafe too.
Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden
We unknowingly booked a holiday to St Ives in June 2021 at the exact same time as the town hosted a G7 summit. Luckily the world leaders didn’t get in the way of a tremendous visit to Barbara Hepworth’s home and studio. Less fortunately, within minutes of arriving back in London, I got pinged by the NHS Covid app so I spent the next fortnight indoors. Covid aside, along with Charleston, this museum is one of the few homes of a female artist that is open to visitors and for that it should be celebrated.
Prospect Cottage
With its black timber walls and yellow window frames, Derek Jarman’s Dungeness home is iconic. Located in Britain’s only desert and in the shadow of a nuclear power station, Prospect Cottage is worth visiting for the uniquely bleak landscape as well as being the home of an important radical filmmaker.
Henry Moore Studios & Gardens
Thanks to its expansive gardens filled with sculptures, Henry Moore’s Hertfordshire home made for the perfect day trip during one of those lockdown moments when it was allowable to visit outdoor attractions. Laura and Katie went more recently and tell me it’s just as good when there isn’t a global pandemic raging.
Jardin Majorelle
Whenever I see cobalt blue painted walls I’m instantly transported back to Marrakesh and Jardin Majorelle, the garden restored by fashion-designer Yves Saint Laurent. Well worth a holiday to Morocco for this alone.
Homes in museums
James Watts’ Workshop, Science Museum
When engineer James Watt died, the Science Museum (or more likely a precursor to the museum) collected his workshop in its entirety. During the time I worked at the Science Museum, the workshop was hidden away behind closed doors. If you charmed a curator they might unlock the doors for you to look inside. Nowadays it’s on public display in the free galleries to provide inspiration to all.
Robin Hood Gardens façade, V&A East Storehouse
When I first moved to London I took an evening class in the history of London architecture involving a field trip to Robin Hood Gardens, the original “streets in the sky” block of flats. Now no more, the V&A acquired much of an apartment from the brutalist estate. The apartment has been brilliantly recreated, accompanied by projections of oral history testimonies, at V&A East Storehouse.
Museums about homes
Museum of the Home
A former Tangram client and my local museum. It wouldn’t be Christmas without a visit to Museum of the Home’s festive room sets. On a personal note, it’s quite possible that when my forefathers migrated to East London in the early twentieth century they lived in a home much like the 1913 tenement flat on display.
Tenement Museum
No question, my favourite museum. The fact you can only visit this barely-restored building as part of a guided tour makes it all the more special. The Tenement Museum tells stories of migration and community in New York’s Lower East Side with parallels to the history of London’s East End, the place I call home.
Brooklyn Museum
The scale and grandeur of the Period Rooms gallery is remarkable.The various interiors in this quiet corner of the museum feel comfortably similar yet subtly different to British interiors of the same era you might see at Museum of the Home or V&A.
Skansen
Stockholm’s Skansen is the world’s oldest open-air museum, founded in 1891. Skansen is to Sweden what Black Country Living Museum is to Dudley and St Fagans is to Wales, a fascinating collection of historic houses and buildings.
