Why the artists of the Holland Park Cricle invested so much in the creation of their homes – and the uses they then put them to.
In the second half of the nineteenth-century an extraordinary group of purpose-built studio-houses were built on the edge of London’s Holland Park. At their centre was the house built by Frederic Leighton from the mid-1860s. With its vast studio and exotic Arab Hall it provided an inspiration to other artists who commissioned houses of their own. Combining domestic accommodation with studio space and space in which to entertain, these houses provide fascinating insights into the wealth, status and taste of successful artists of the period. The lecture explores the houses of the Holland Park Circle to determine why these artists invested so much in the creation of their homes and the uses they then put them to.
THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER
Mr Daniel Robbins
Daniel Robbins is Senior Curator, Museums with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and is responsible for two of London’s most significant house museums: Leighton House and Sambourne House. Formerly with Glasgow Museums, he has organised many exhibitions and contributed to numerous catalogues and publications around nineteenth-century art, architecture and design, including the authorship of the companion guide to Leighton House. He was responsible for leading the award-winning project to restore the historic interiors of the house completed between 2008 and 2010 and for the subsequent £9.6 million refurbishment of two unsympathetic twentieth-century additions made to the museum. Completed in October 2022, the house reopened to great acclaim.
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