Grosvenor Chambers

Grosvenor Chambers, at number 9 Collins Street, Melbourne, contained the first custom-built complex of artists' studios in Australia. The construction costs were almost £6,000 and the building opened in April 1888.[1] The owner was Charles Stewart Paterson (1843-1917). He, in partnership with his brother James, had a high-end decorating business in Melbourne. Their brother was the painter John Ford Paterson who sometimes exhibited with the Heidelberg School artists.

Grosvenor Chambers
Grosvenor Chambers on the right
Grosvenor Chambers
Location within Melbourne
Grosvenor Chambers
Grosvenor Chambers (Australia)
General information
StatusCompleted
Location9 Collins Street, Melbourne
Coordinates37°48′49″S 144°58′25″E

The basement atelier was occupied initially by sculptor Percival Ball. The upper floor consisted of five well-lit artists' studios. [2] The ground floor housed the showroom for the Paterson’s decorative arts business. The middle floor had space for a costumier, fabric showroom and workshop.

Many notable artists rented a studio in the building or exhibited their work there. These include, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton, Percival Ball, Charles Francis Summers, Clara Southern, Jane Sutherland, Charles Conder, E. Phillips Fox, John Longstaff, Girolamo Nerli, Louis Abrahams, Rose Walker, George Lambert, Ola Cohn, Dora Wilson, Max Meldrum, Mirka Mora and Albert Tucker.

Notable photographers, such as Gordon De Lisle and Wolfgang Sievers, had rooms in the building in the 1950s.

Artists continued to rent studios there until the mid-1970s, when all but the facade of the building was demolished to make way for a high-rise office building.[3]

References
  1. Argus, 26 April 1888, p.8
  2. Edquist, Harriet; Grierson, Elizabeth (2008). A Skilled Hand and a Cultivated Mind: A Guide to the Architecture and Art of RMIT University. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing. p. 15. ISBN 9781921166914. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  3. Alex Taylor, Perils of the Studio: Inside the Artistic Affairs of Bohemian Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing & State Library of Victoria: North Melbourne, 2007, ISBN 978-1-74097-149-2
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