A house stuck portside along Cazenove road, between other small shops, all cast on a ship seemingly beached on its way to somewhere else. That somewhere else being initially the City of London, where money brewed and ambitions flared. Built in Stoke-Newington in 1878 this domestic dwelling had a carpentry workshop run by the Wright family built in its front garden to supply West End furniture shops. At the end of World War 1, Mrs Wright now a widow and eager to keep her family together, invited her daughter Lillie to open a corsetry shop on the premises: Madame Lillie. It served the family well between 1917 and 1970 before Lillie retired and sold the property to her young artist nephew, Paul David Wright in 1973. 

Memories of an austere grandmother, had not endeared him to the place, but his increasingly handicapped aunt desperately needed to move and he had just got his first commission as a sculptor and was in a position to help. Seeing his misgivings about the house, his brother encouraged him to transform it into four flats to sell and move on. Lillie strongly rejected the idea though and his brother immigrated to Australia leaving the artist with a house too small for his art but too big to be ignored. The artist, determined to have his own workplace then decided to convert the house into a working studio, no matter its size, stripping walls and opening rooms, connecting and reinventing spaces with trapdoors and ladders, digging deep into the basement and extending into the garden. 

That is how Madame Lillie became an art house, a living, breathing work of art in its own right, playing host to multiple art projects spanning a period of almost 50 years. Paul David Wright, lived and worked there between 1974-1994 completing many works, notably his ‘Construction from Life Series’, which involved working with a ‘found body and found mind’ in the form of a Queen’s counsellor, Jonathan Law and the artist’s imagination. The collaboration produced many installations, ‘video events’ and ‘performances’ at Madame Lillie incorporating the artist’s concepts of ‘chance and maximum flexibility’. Other works included his ‘Drawings for the Street’ series, as well as master sculptures for inflatable works used by amongst others; Roger Waters (Pink Floyd, ‘The Wall’ Berlin concert 1989), and the Rolling Stones (‘Urban Jungle’, ‘Voodou Lounge’ early 90s) on their world tours. In 1994, he left Madame Lillie to live and work in France with his family but the house itself continued to be occupied by young artists. 

Today, Madame Lillie continues to thrive as an artist’s house, having experienced the work and presence of over 150 artists, via its activities as an art gallery and artists’ home (initially run by Charlotte Bracegirdle and more recently by Chris Rawcliffe with Pro Numb). Paul David Wright, now returning to Madame Lillie, is currently planning a new set of art projects for the building.

Anne-Catherine Nalletamby