What Happens to Artists' Studios After They Die?

Dalí's home and studio are open for public tours in Cadaqués (Catalunya), Spain. Worth a visit. The museum in Figueres is … okay. If you're a fan, go instead to the Dalí museum in Saint Petersburg, Florida. It's amazing and has many of his large-format masterworks, including Hallucinogenic Toreador.

I totally recommend Miró studio if you ever visit Mallorca, Spain. https://miromallorca.com/en/ Well kept, super interesting and yet easy to miss for the average holiday-maker

Background: A client is a locally-famous artist (e.g. her portraits hang in multiple mansions and institutions around town). She turns 88 this year. A few years ago, I remodeled her former art studio, which she utilized from 1972 until 1994 [she then moved into a larger studio] — her typewriter was still at the same desk, with paint smears of decades ago still smeared upon. The new studio she established, in 1995, is an even more cluttered array of "art-iste" — also abandoned.

What happened to her previous two art studios? Ignored by all-but-time, these thousands of sqft have largely been left to rot away, decaying back into the forest which surrounds her estate. She is too cheap/thrifty to air condition these spaces (even as a multi-millionaire — penny-wise, pound-foolish), so termites and mice have pretty much "taken care of" her art studio.

And all-the-while, I watch as her husband continues enabling her hoarding, hatred, and hubris. The saddest part to me (beyond this artist allowing her own work to rot away) is that her mansion has a 1000sqft library (full-wall bookcasing) — which she also refuses to air condition (this is in a humid sub-tropical rainforest climate) — allowing all these 20th Century authors to rot among her own apathies.

Clifton Pugh's Dunmoochin (original) is part of national heritage now, and still used as an artists retreat as part of the Dunmoochin Foundation in outer Melbourne.

  Dunmoochin is historically significant as the home and studio of the internationally famous artist, Clifton Pugh, three times Archibald Prize winner and founder of the Dunmoochin Artist's Community. The property exemplifies the values and robust way of life of the artistic community that settled in this area in the 1950s. 

* https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/55217

* https://dunmoochin.org/

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifton_Pugh

Albert Namatjira's "studio" was the entirety of the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia .. that's still there much as he saw it last, albeit more encroached by white ants.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Namatjira#/media/File:W...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Namatjira

It's so cool to see this pop up on Hacker News. And also a very cool / smart-seeming trend that could maybe play a role in a more utopian atomized art world. Whatever that means?

My favorite classic suggestion down this rabbit hole that they probably mention (pay walled) is Francis Bacon's full-insano-mode preserved studio. I didn't really get his work until I saw his studio. Fun fact they literally used a painting of his to design the chest-burster in Alien? (I just learned that somehow)

https://www.francis-bacon.com/artworks/studio

http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2015/02/ridley-inspire...

Far away from NYC we (on the internet) got to watch this happen in near real time after Grant Imahara's tragic death. I can't quite put the feeling into words.

Most of them are probably destined to be part of a comprehensive collection -- of dust :\

Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) had part of his studio recreated in the modern art Gallery in Edinburgh.

* https://www.nationalgalleries.org/exhibition/paolozzi-studio

Margaret Olley (1923-2011) had part of her studio recreated in the Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre, Murwillumbah.

* https://gallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au/visit/margaret-olley-art-ce...

Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) has most of her studio converted to a museum but with works in progress in plaster and stone workshops left as-is in situ at the Barbara Hepworth Museum in St Ives, Cornwall.

* https://wearecornwall.com/listings/barbara-hepworth-museum-a...

From memory they share one thing: They're pretty messy. Margaret Olley's is maybe the worst, she kept still life tableaux for decades, painted them many times. It's nice to see the work reflected on the wall and see the still life as-is.

Georgia O’Keeffe's Home & Studio exists in many ways as she left it and takes public visitors in Abiquiú, New Mexico

https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/

Some Australian artist studios open to the public in Sydney:

Brett Whitley https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/visit/brett-whiteley-studi...

May Gibbs https://www.maygibbs.com.au