Houses As Art

The house and the home are a recurring theme in art and this page explores the varying representations we have found.

Houses As Sculpture[edit]

A celebration of art projects where the house is both the subject and the canvas.

'House With Windows'. An intricate folly in the Canadian forest by Richard Greaves
'House' Rachel Whiteread 1993 - Wennington Green, East London
Casa Sperimentale (experimental house) 1969 Fregeme, Italy. Architect Giuseppe Perugini’s Brutalist exploration of ideas pertaining to form and space.
A fairytale-inspired Essex holiday home by architecture studio FAT and artist #GraysonPerry. It serves as a 'shrine' to the fictional character Julie Cope created by Perry. It was commissioned for philosopher & critic Alain de Botton's Living Architecture programme.
The Upside Down House is just one of a series of installations of concept houses that explore this strange perspective on housing.
'Fifth Ward Jam' - an art project by Dan Havel and Dean Ruck in Houston, Texas
'Transitional Object (PsychoBarn)' - British artist Cornelia Parker's 2016 recreation of the house from Psycho on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
The Red House Pavillion, A collaboration by architects Clancy Moore, TAKA, Steve Larkin and Hall McKnight at King’s Cross built For the 2015 London Festival of Architecture
The ‘Lego Dots’ Concept House, an installation at Kings Cross by artist Camille Walala.
The 'Neverwas Haul' - a three-story, self-propelled mobile art vehicle built to resemble a Victorian house on wheels
'The Headington Shark' (proper name Untitled 1986) a rooftop sculpture In Headington, Oxford, depicting a shark embedded head-first in the roof of a house.
'XXX' by Steve Messum at Mellerstain House, Scottish Borders installed as part of the @ArchiFringe
'Fat House' Vienna 2003 An "obese house" by Austrian sculptor Erwin Wurm - created as a commentary on middle-class consumer culture.
'Ferryside’ In Cornwall, Home To Daphne Du Maurier, 2017 from a series by Su Blackwell in which she re-created the homes of well-known women writers with pages from their novels-here 'Rebecca'
Rowena Brown’s ceramic sculpture is concerned with the affects of human disruption and environmental damage on architectural spaces
‘Bridging Home, London’ by Korean artist Do Ho Suh, commissioned by Art Night and Sculpture in the City,
Artist #DoHoSuh's 'Home within home within home within home within home' - an immersive, sculptural space constructed from draped silk. It explores his life through multiple perspectives via his homes in Korea and US

Houses In Painting[edit]

While there are many beautiful paintings which contain images of houses and homes as backdrop or context, the focus of this section of the wiki is on houses that are the subject or inspiration for the painting.

'House in the Ward' Lawren Harris. c.1920.
'Adelaide Road, Hampstead, London' by Henry Silk of The 'East London Group'
'Harold Gilman's House at Letchworth' 1912 by Spencer Gore from his series of paintings of Letchworth
Cookham Rise by Stanley Spencer 1938
‘Essex Housing Estate’ by artist Edward Bawden 1954
'Shepherd's Cottage' Eric Ravilious 1934
'House By The River' by Max Clarenbach 1904
'The House Of Guardaboschi' Gustav Klimt 1912
'Early Sunday Morning' Edward Hopper 1930
'Farringdon Road' Cecil Osborne 1930
'Crow Wood' 2015 by self taught British artist John Caple
'Windows' by Egon Schiller 1918
The Backs of Houses, Harley Street by Algernon Cecil Newton 1925 (@MuseumofLondon).
‘House On The Water’ by Paul Klee
’Wet Roofs’ Harry Bush 1954
"Old Houses, Bath' by Charles Glinner 1927 in a private collection
'A Southern Town' Charles Rennie Macintosh, 1924 painted on his trip, with wife Margaret, at the end of his life to the Languedoc-Roussilon area of France.
Greenway, Devon. By Julian Barrow 1999. Home of Agatha Christie and used as a location in Poirot
A Country House by Moonlight - Wilfred Jenkins (1857-1936)
'No title' Ben Grasso 2011
'Bayswater' by Noel Spencer, 1960
Shooters Hill by artist Michael Cox 2018
'Red House' by Paul Klee. Abstract impressionism from 1929
'Roofs, Washington Square' Edward Hopper 1926
Halstead Road in Snow by Eric Ravilious 1935 (Private Collection). Sheepcot House, Castle Hedingham, Essex.
Laurie Simmons. Walking House. 1989, printed 1997. From the series "Walking Objects." The Baltimore Museum of Art:

Houses Of Colour[edit]

This section of the wiki focuses on the use of colour for abstract artistic intent (as opposed to creative use of colour for decorative purposes which is covered in Multi-Coloured Homes

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-amazing-art-on-these-communist-era-houses-was-a-rebellion-back-then/

http://offbeathome.com/2011/07/weird-house-colors

Houses With Surface Decoration[edit]

In each of these beautiful examples the home has become a blank canvas for an artists creative inspiration.

Danielle Jacqui, Pont-de-l'Etoile, France mirror & ceramic fragments, tiles, paintings all attached to a village house near Marseille.
The intricately embellished earthen homes in the village of Tiébélé, Burkina Faso (photo by Rita Willaert)
Courtyard Of The Elements This house in Dresden, Germany plays music when it rains.
'Casa Batlló, Barcelona by Antoni Gaudi Remodelled from an older house in 1904 and known locally as the 'House of Bones'
' The Treatment Rooms' a mosaic covered art collective house in Chiswick West London
THe ' Egyptian House', Penzance, Cornwall built in 1835 in a style that was in fashion after Napoleon's campaign in Egypt in 1798
Castle House, Bridgewater 1851 - not strictly art but one of the earliest surviving examples of the use of Victorian prefabricated concrete and constructional post-tensioning.
Hundertwasser Haus, Vienna Austria. Created by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser In 1984.
Rabbit mural on a house in Porto, Portugal. Photo courtesy of @KatieGallagher
Tiruvannamalai is a city in Tamil Nadu, with houses featuring bright clashing colours and geometric shapes.
'Villa Namazee' Tehran by architect Gil Ponti
‘Inside Out’ Mural At 53 Derby Street, Rochdale by artist Walter Kershaw 1977