Hockney’s brush with the builders at artists’ studios
THEY ARE the artists’ studios that for the past quarter of a century have sustained David Hockney and provided him with the calm surroundings in which to work. Such is the artist’s affection for Pembroke Studios that Hockney has made them the centrepiece of several of his paintings.
Now plans to redevelop one of the 19th-century studios have roused the ire of the man arguably regarded as Britain’s greatest living painter.
Mr Hockney – the subject of a major retrospective show at Tate Britain in a few weeks – is one of the leading lights in a campaign to stop plans to transform one of the historic buildings next to his own studios in west London.
The artist, who divides his time between Pembroke Studios and his home in Los Angeles, has written to Historic England and his local planning committee urging them to prevent the work going ahead. He maintains that plans by parking and leisure facilities magnate James de Savary to extensively modernise and build an extension to one of the dozen studios “will destroy the architectural unity of the whole”.
Mr Hockney, who owns three of the studios, added: “Pembroke Studios have been at the centre of creativity for London artists for more than a century. It would be a tragedy if we allow anyone to change them externally materially and destroy their historic significance.”
It looks as though Mr Hockney’s powerful intervention, along with that of several other residents, may have had the desired effect. The planning director of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea responded to their pleas by issuing a Building Preservation Notice to stop Mr De Savary from pursuing his planned extension and allowing Historic England six months to decide whether to give the studios listed status, which would prevent any similar work.
But when The Sunday Telegraph visited Pembroke Studios last Thursday it appeared as if work was going ahead on certain aspects of the building, with builders carting materials into the already gutted studio. That has infuriated the close-knit community who have made their homes and work spaces in Pembroke Studios, whose past residents include the legendary ballet dancer Isadora Duncan, the architect Sir Philip Dowson and the sculptor Franta Belsky.
Ariane Braillard, an artist and retired arts administrator, said: “The studios were beautifully designed as an integral whole, and Mr De Savary’s plans to build an extension to one of them will ruin the integrity of the architect’s original vision. We also fear it will open the floodgates to further development of Pembroke Studios and create a precedent for further building work, turning them into a development for the super-rich.”
Such is the appeal of the red brick, gabled development that Mr Hockney has produced several paintings of the interior of his own studios, where he has lived and worked for 25 years.
Mr De Savary said: “I understand that people don’t like change. But this is a freehold without pre-existing listed status that I bought and one of my rights as a freeholder is to undertake permitted development.”