A view of the Georgian House exterior. The shops on the ground floor are not part of the redevelopment.
Alas: the end of an era at Georgian House in Bury Street, St James’s. On April 8 with a heavy heart the last of the art dealers closed the door on Georgian House for the last time and one of the London art world’s most treasured establishments has gone. It was built in the 1920s for army officers and after had a brief spell in the 1950s housing a raffish gentlemenonly club [the Georgian Pussy Club]. But for at least half a century this red-brick building was the home to art dealers, collectors, eccentrics, entrepreneurs, photographers, art conservators and the occasional retired actress.
Over the decades inhabitants included Sir Jack Baer, Sir Hugh and Lady Leggatt, Jane Abdy, Naji Asfar and Gawain McKinlay, Nicholas Bagshawe, Robert Brandt, Joost van den Bergh, Peter Glidewell, Loyd Grossman, Derek Johns, Max Rutherston, Christopher Davidge and Amrita Jhaveri, Fabian Stein, the late Christopher Wood and us – Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch.
The extraordinary range of expertise covered all areas of the art world, from ancient classical civilizations, China, Egypt, India, Japan and up to the 20th century. There were also jewellery and Old Master paintings, prints and drawings all contained in one building.
Chain-smoking porter
Entering through double doors into an elegant checkerboard marble hall – presided over by the colourful, bibulous and chain-smoking resident porter John Gregory, Georgian House’s guardian of 20 years [see obituary, ATG No 2527] – you might encounter museum curators and directors, such as Marion True from the Getty Museum, Christopher Brown from the Ashmolean and leading lights from the British Museum and V&A, as well as maverick collectors such as George Ortiz and Sam Josefowitz.
The checkerboard entrance hall at Georgian House.
The revered art critic and Francis Bacon scholar David Sylvester might be there, or the painter and jewellery historian Diana Scarisbrick. Min Hogg, the late, great editor of World of Interiors magazine or perhaps the actor Julian Sands and the legendary Paul Simon. Royalty included the Ottomanborn Princess of Berar, wife of the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad, and seasonal princesses from Burdwan and Bikaner and even, on the rare occasion, Princess Alexandria.
You might see paintings crated up waiting to go to Maastricht or Masterpiece or a group of porters standing around a large marble sculpture pondering if it would be wise to send it up in the small, unpredictable cage-like lift.
The doorway to the flats on the upper floors.
But sadly no more. Now, rather like a great ship being decommissioned, the modernisers have moved in and soon it will be just another residential block of flats and a little piece of St James’s history will have disappeared forever.
ATG says: it should be noted that the businesses mentioned above have moved on naturally and many have continued to operate. Forge and Lynch, which moved into Georgian House in 1998, is now dealing from 16 Pall Mall, SW1.
