Arts clubs: the art world’s best kept secret—and not just for artists, dealers and curators – The Art Newspaper

They are the arts world’s best-kept secret—a network of clubs in cities around the world designed to make artists’ lives easier and more fun, putting them in touch with one another and with patrons, as well as providing exhibition space and keeping art in the public eye, via talks and events.

From London to Dublin, New York to Boston, Glasgow to Edinburgh (and yes, there is a bigger distance between those two cities than you might have thought—historically, you were either part of one scene or the other, but not both), arts clubs are havens for artists, with tentacles stretching far into the wider community.

The National Arts Club in New York, founded in 1898, is a grand establishment, with a Tiffany-style stained-glass ceiling: it is comprised of two townhouses that once belonged to 19th-century New York governor Samuel Tilden and a 14-storey connecting tower with artists’ studios and residential accommodation, in Gramercy Park, Manhattan, and it has four separate gallery spaces, open regular hours to all visitors, entirely free of charge.

“We’re the best-kept secret of the New York arts scene,” says Scott Drevnig, the club’s executive director. “Art-world insiders certainly know we’re here—but what’s less well known is that the general public can come to see exhibitions here, and we have an entire programme of lectures on art, all without charge.” While the club is, like all arts clubs, primarily a social club serving its members’ interests, its lively programme brings famous artists into the reach of ordinary New Yorkers—and unusually, in that city, all for free. Joan Jonas spoke there during her retrospective at MoMA last year. And artists are honoured annually, enhancing their status in the wider community: architect Frida Escobedo was awarded the medal of honour for 2024, and April Gornik and Eric Fischl, a couple who are both painters, and founders of The Church in Sag Harbour, New York, were similarly honoured last month.

In London the Chelsea Arts Club, founded in 1890 and frequented in the day by the likes of Augustus John and John Singer Sargent, is today a meeting-place of contemporary artists and others who work in the art world.

Connection to artistic life

The London club is not an upmarket, polished members’ club: the city has had an epidemic of openings of these over the last few years, with many of them buy-your-way-in places, where the emphasis is on being seen. You cannot buy your way into the Chelsea Arts Club. There is a membership fee, but to be accepted as a member, you have to be proposed and seconded by existing members, and 75% of members are visual or performing artists, while most of the remaining members are connected to artistic life and enterprise in some way. And far from being seen, a major objective here is not to be seen. The digital device ban is fierce, and there is a culture that “what goes on in the club, stays in the club”.

Geoffrey Matthews, club secretary, says the raison d’etre of the place, from the start, has been about giving artists space to share ideas and experiences. “Artists are a tribe, and they want to be with other people like them,” he says. “The founders, and the members through the years, have curated the culture of the place by curating the membership.”

So what is the culture? “I’d say there’s a strong disregard for convention. It’s not about ascribing importance to wealth, gender or position in society. There’s a deeply Bohemian spirit here.”

At the Chelsea club, keeping art at the centre of the community has a visual dimension: at Christmas and again in the summer, the outer walls are adorned with murals, usually colourful and striking, and created by club members.

Inside, a bar offers regular jazz and other musical sessions, and there is a busy programme of talks, often about artists, as well as a dining room serving excellent food (including a lower-cost “artist’s menu”), bedrooms for out-of-town members, and exhibition spaces.

It seems to be easier to run clubs in some cities than others: while both the Chelsea and Manhattan clubs are pretty much full, with around 4,000 and 2,000 members respectively, the Glasgow Art Club has a tougher time. “We’ve got 400 members but I’d love to see double that,” says Robert Ferguson, its president. Set up in 1867, Glasgow’s now most famous artist of the period, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, was blackballed. Is that something the club now regrets? “He was a difficult character,” says Ferguson. Mackintosh did, however, design many of the features of the club’s interiors, including a striking gallery frieze. Like its counterparts in other cities, the Glasgow club was created from townhouses, and includes exhibition spaces.

Among the contributions Glasgow Art Club made to the arts scene was the provision of a space where artists and patrons could meet easily—in Victorian Glasgow, suddenly-wealthy merchants were often in need of art for their collections. Today that is still one of the roles arts clubs fulfil—as well as giving artists and their guests a place to let their hair down and exchange ideas with others whose values they closely share.