From the Fine Art Connoisseur November/December 2026 Editor’s Note:
Art Studios: Where the Magic Happens
As this issue of Fine Art Connoisseur conveys, there is much to be excited about in the art world this season. Here’s hoping you will get to see as many of these artworks as possible — and whenever you do, please tell us what you thought. 
One exhibition I’m especially eager to experience is “Magic and Mess: The Artist’s Studio Revealed,” on view in the exquisite London studio house of the painter-sculptor Frederic Leighton (1830–1896). It offers a behind-the-curtain look at 19th-century artists’ studios as places for art-making and as sources of inspiration — sites of both magic and mess. Just as important, these spaces powerfully expressed their occupants’ personalities, ambitions, and creative processes.
The exhibition addresses four themes (Light, The Female Model, The Stove, and The Corner of the Studio), which are explored with 56 paintings, drawings, and photographs. Some of these artists (like Cezanne and Matisse) have always been celebrated, others like Sargent were once forgotten but then restored to prominence, while still others remain in the shadows awaiting rediscovery.
I am particularly pleased that this project was inspired in part by Leighton House’s 2023 acquisition of Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s painting “In My Studio” (1893), which had once been gifted by Alma-Tadema to Leighton but ultimately landed in the renowned collection of Ann and Gordon Getty. This painting was at the heart of a 2017 exhibition I co-curated at Leighton House (with Prof. Liz Prettejohn), so it will be great to see it hanging in glory there again.
It would be a mistake to think the allure of artists’ studios has ended. Just for example, in this issue, please see writer David Masello’s account of visiting the atmospheric Manhattan studio of painter Vincent Xeus. Wisely, Leighton House’s exhibition brings the story up to date with a specially commissioned film that includes shots of the London studio of painter Suzy Murphy (b. 1964).
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“Magic and Mess” was developed in collaboration with the Tavolozza Foundation and the Katrin Bellinger Collection. A distinguished art dealer herself, Bellinger notes, “When I started collecting in the late 1980s, I was fascinated by the mystique of the creative process that is so intrinsic to the artist’s studio. Working with museums like Leighton House allows me to share my passion with others, expand research on the collection, and provoke new and unexpected conversations between the works displayed in the exhibition.” I, for one, look forward to even more showings of her treasure trove.
If you haven’t visited an artist’s studio lately, please do try. Many communities organize open studio days when you can stop by unannounced, with no pressure to buy anything. It’s always a joy, and sometimes great things emerge from those encounters.
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Story prepared for the web by Cherie Dawn Haas, Editor of Fine Art Today
