The market in new paintings is exceptionally skittish. Creative Quarters,[*] an entirely agreeable and pleasingly discursive exhibition at the Museum of London until 15 July, maps the way money - in the form of cheap rents and unpredictable fashions - causes the artist herd to migrate back and forth across an ever-expanding city. Over the centuries cheapness drew the young and ill-fed members of the troop to Soho and Fitzrovia; scenery as well as low rents directed them to Hampstead and Chelsea; in living memory square feet at knock-down prices tempted them to Hoxton (Creative Quarters identifies the studio furthest east before our own time as that of Hans Holbein, who was in Cornhill in 1532). Skint artists, rather surprisingly, usually improve property values, and thus price themselves out of the very districts they have made fashionable. 'Studio flat' - words which try to give bohemian dash to minimal accommodation - was the last legacy of departed painters to the Chelsea streets they made desirable.

LRB 7 June 2001 | PDF Download