The restaurant 192 just over the road there is really a media place people in design, journalists and film people who live in this area use all the local restaurants and pubs. It's better than Covent Garden, partly because this is where we live and it's a focal point for the whole area. "This street ," muses Chris, "just this 200 yards of it, we actually gave 19 points out of 20. Their Special Photographers Co., housed in a pristine, stunning building on Kensington Park Road (which runs parallel to Portobello, just one block south), opened last September. They wanted a location where they could take their time making a case for buying fine photography without needing an enormous turnover. Catherine Turner and Chris Kewbank act as agents for specialist photographers. The two-story premises offer framing, post cards, posters and books on photography on the top (street) floor, with the gray-carpeted downstairs acting as a gallery for one-person or theme-oriented shows.Ĭommitment, enthusiasm for art and sense of community is a philosophy shared by all the gallery owners. "I want the art to speak, not the price," says Markusson.
They started in a renovated dairy on Portobello Road, where they still carry on their publishing business. Just half a block down the road, just off Portobello on Goldborne Road, Gayle Markusson and Jayne Diggory have set up their photography gallery, Portfolio. For my 15 artists, it's exciting to be seen by a diverse audience." "People come in and say, 'What's that? How can it be pottery if it has holes in it and won't hold water?' One of the responsibilities of a gallery is showing work and that means educating the public as well as exhibiting to its more knowledgeable members. Relocating the gallery from Covent Garden last June has given Orient more affordable space and has enhanced his clientele. Unlike New York's SoHo, with which the area is prematurely being compared, every one of Portobello Road's gallery owners lives in this mixed neighborhood, creating a nostalgic, "living-over-the-shop" atmosphere.Īnatol Orient, who claims to have the only art ceramic gallery in Britain, has lived here ever since his move from Chicago 16 years ago. committed to something visual, something esthetic." A person coming here to look for antiques is already. Everyone knows the address, knows where Portobello Road is. I woke up one night and thought, 'No, I'm not mad. "No market research, just a spontaneous decision. "The reason we're here is totally back to front," O'Day says.
ARTFUL LODGERS CODE
In this unfashionable area, there's no subtle pressure for proper dress code or for tiptoeing through sanctified space to inspect a Work of Art. They talk about what they see and discuss it," says Pru O'Day. It's open and really very un-English in a way, very cosmopolitan. Once occupied by a butcher, the spacious Anderson O'Day gallery is next door to the throbbing record shop of "Danny the King." "Everybody feels they can come in: the stall holders, the kids.
ARTFUL LODGERS WINDOWS
Most of the premises have enticing picture windows on the street, clean white walls, track lighting and gray carpeting, a natural ambiance for straightforward viewing. The focus of the galleries varies enormously, from photographs to ceramic art to the work of young, unknown artists. More recently, Canadians and Stateside arrivals have bought into the more gentrified, grander, southern end of Portobello Road, boosting property prices.
The area has long been one of London's creative melting pots: West Indians and Portuguese, Spaniards and Yugoslavs mingle easily with British yuppies, poets, musicians and artists.
The integration of contemporary art galleries into the neighborhood is a natural, harmonious progression. After World War II, antique dealers moved in (closely followed by bargain-hunters), setting up their silver and jewelry, furniture and glassware in shops, spilling over on Saturdays into the famous, pedestrian-only street. More than 100 years ago, Portobello Road was a marketplace for gypsy horse traders. This enterprise, begun just two years ago, has now become an alternative to the elitism of London's traditional West End art market. There will be 15 of them operating by the end of the year. We go for very strong images," says Kitty Bowler, who, with her husband Joshua, owns the gallery, one of the eight buoyant members of the new Portobello Road contemporary art scene. "We have a definite style in our gallery. It recently sold to an English banker for The wheels and side mirrors are in place and the lights are on. When the hood is raised, a spotless, mirrored cavity fitted with glasses and liquor bottles reveals an idiosyncratic bar.
The gutted front end of a 1955 black Mercedes hangs on the wall four feet above cross-hatched aluminum flooring in the Crucial Gallery.
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