Party at No 43
Founders of new interior design studio Atelier LK Lisa Jones and Ruby Kean (image: Richard Round Turner)
Lisa Jones has lived on the same road in Hackney, London, but never knew what lay behind the faded pink facade and funky bas relief front door of No 43.
When the house’s owner died and it went on the market, Jones discovered that it was the long time home of the late artist Ron Hitchins, the Poplar-born child of Chinese-Lithuanian immigrants, a flamenco-dancing, party-throwing sculptor who gave away his art for favours rather than pursue fame in galleries, and who covered his home in handmade ceramic tiles that he bisque fired (naked, to beat the heat) in a kiln in the basement.
Jones bought No 43 (for slightly more that the £1,000 and 1 shilling that Hitchins is reputed to have paid, Disegno imagines) and eventually plans to live there herself, with a studio for Atelier LK, the interior design studio she co-founded, in the back garden. Most people didn’t get around to writing that great novel or perfecting their sourdough during the pandemic, but Jones – founder of midcentury design specialists A Good Chair – and her co-conspirator Ruby Kean managed to begin a whole new creative endeavour over the past 18 months.
The kitchen of No 43 with ceramics by Dea Domus and brushes by Grain & Knot.
Kean, a London-born, New York-based artist and interior designer, and Jones founded Atelier LK in March 2020, as most of the world entered lockdown. “We were working on some very small projects, just cooking away together in a loose and playful way,” says Kean. “Then we conceived of the idea for an exhibition in December and it’s been developing from there.” The pair drew up a hit list of 36 artists and designers and, when restrictions were eased, took them on a tour of the house to give them a sense of the house’s unique character. The majority of the pieces in the exhibition were custom made for the project. “It wasn't a long lead-time to get an exhibition together,” adds Jones. “Every single person we worked with has been phenomenal with the tight time frame.”
Unfortunately the walls of No 43 can’t talk, but every nook and cranny now tells a story. “We've tried to be very sensitive to each room in the house,” explains Kean. A portrait of Hitchins hangs in the front hallway, watching over the exhibition. Brightly patterned paper still covers walls, and even the ceilings in some rooms. The cosy kitchen and Hitchins’ first-floor flamenco studio are still clad in the tongue and groove Hitchins put in. “I love the old wood parquet floors that he laid himself in the living room so that he could dance flamenco at his parties on a hardwood surface,” says Jones. The house’s exterior facade is still painted a defiant pink – when the council complained, Hitchins told them that if they wanted it repainted they’d have to do it themselves.
Inside, the exhibition is laid out like a – now exceptionally glamorous – house. The whitewashed living room is filled with art and furniture, including a custom table by ERJ Barnes with one mirrored leg and one of scalloped plaster supporting a slab of gorgeous marble, whose rippling green and pink veins look like an ink drawing on watercolour. Nick Metzler’s paper lanterns shaped like little houses hang from the ceiling.
In the kitchen, there are gaps left where the sculptural fibreglass panels that covered the boiler cupboard and a golden splashback formed of small golden tiles made by Hitchins have been packed off to London’s V&A Museum. So Atelier LK has filled the shelves with a cornucopia of spiky ceramics by Dea Domus. Brushes hand-carved from foraged wood by Grain & Knot hang against the wood-clad walls.
A divan on rockers by ERJ Barnes sits in the old flamenco studio.
Up the staircase – no bannisters, despite Hitchins living in the house into his 90s – Jones and Kean have honoured the free-flowing spirit of the owner’s homebrew dance studio with a rocking divan by ERJ Barnes shaped like a half moon and dancerly vessels made from paper pulp by Ben Branagan. A curious four-legged candelabra, like something escaped from a gothic Beauty and the Beast, was cast from beeswax by Joel Tomlin. The wax melts away during the making to leave ghostly imprints of honeycomb in the candelabra’s surface. From the window you can see the raised rocky platform Hitchins built for outdoor performances, where Atelier LK have placed three colourful fibreglass sculptures by Christabel MacGreevy that appear poised in a riotous dance next to a massive felled homage to Babara Hepworth, left by Hitchins.
An upstairs room has been turned into the ultimate work-from-home office with a comma-shaped desk by Fred Rigby that was created to frame splashes of pink paint Hitchins left on the walls like particularly artistic colour samples. The furniture maker came in and drew paper silhouettes on the floor to get the desktop just right. Next door, Atelier LK has converted the bedroom with built-in wardrobes into a dressing room. Hitchins’ grand four-poster bed covered with tiles – and the miniature version he made for his cat, Doggy – has been removed to make room for a daybed by Charlotte Perriand. Atelier LK stuffed the closets with garments by House of Gorgeousity, the prank camp fashion label that grew out of designer Teagan William’s jerryrigging a top out of a basic tea towel for a sweaty summer picnic.
A portrait of Ron Hitchins hangs by the front door of the house-turned-exhibition space.
Wandering around No 43 really brought home (pun most definitely intended) to me how joyful it is to see design objects displayed in a real, lived-in house instead of a sterile gallery or an overly conceptual display at a fair. “It’s such a joy for artists, seeing [their work] in a totally approachable setting,” agrees Kean. “Everything in this space can be purchased,” she adds. “We want everyone to be able to come and feel that they can visualise it in their own space and take it home with them.” Never mind taking it home, I’d happily move in.
Words India Block
Images Richard Round Turner