Get a glimpse into the world of an artist with these studios

An artist’s studio is a space where new ideas take form and masterworks are brought to life. On one hand, the studio is a practical place for making art, populated by tools of the trade; on the other, it represents an echo chamber of the artist’s unique imagination. The appeal of going behind the scenes is the opportunity to gain intimate insights into their personal life and creative process. From Mexico to Northern Ireland, you can explore the artists’ studios below in more detail, along with many others from around the world, on Bloomberg Connects.

Widely recognized as one of the most important British artists of the 20th century, Henry Moore (1898–1986) was a pioneer of the modernist movement in sculpture who produced more than 10,000 artworks during his lifetime. Inspired by the human body and natural forms, Moore often explored themes of the mother and child, the reclining figure, and organic forms.

The artist’s legacy is preserved at the Henry Moore Studios & Gardens in Perry Green, Hertfordshire, UK. Here, over 60 acres of gardens showcase the artist’s world-famous sculptures against the landscape where they were created. Six studios illuminate Moore’s creative processes, and his family home reveals the collection of artworks and curiosities that inspired him.

Previously based in London, Moore left the city for the countryside in 1940 after his home and studio were damaged during a WWII bombing. His move to Perry Green was originally intended to be temporary, but the artist ended up living there with his wife, Irina, for the remainder of his life. They gradually developed the farm outbuildings into studios, and the vegetable patches became gardens for displaying sculptures. Each of the six studios across the property reveals a different element of Moore’s working practice, including printmaking, carving, drawing, and the creation of plaster maquettes. 

Moore gifted his estate to the Henry Moore Foundation in 1977, and his house and grounds are now open to the public from April through October each year. It houses one of the most extensive single-artist archives in the world, providing unparalleled insight into Moore’s life and work.

The F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Studio celebrates the life and work of the Irish surrealist sculptor Frederick Edward McWilliam (1909–1992), in his birthplace of Banbridge, Northern Ireland. A contemporary and friend of Henry Moore, McWilliam made his name in Britain as one of the foremost sculptors of his generation.

The artist spent much of his working life in London, but he recalled the formative influence of his childhood in Banbridge surrounded by “craftsmanship in action” and “people making things with their hands.” When he died in 1992, his family donated his studio to the state in lieu of inheritance tax, the first time an artist’s studio had been accepted in this manner. Banbridge District Council became custodians of the donation and oversaw the recreation of McWilliam’s London studio within a sculpture garden, which opened in 2008. 

The Sculpture Garden was designed to capture the spirit of the garden and studio at McWilliam’s home in Holland Park, London. Enclosed by hedges, the garden provides a sequence of backdrops to view his sculptures on their granite plinths. The studio is a near-replica of McWilliam’s workshop, so visitors can follow the various stages of his creative process. Several of his personal items, including coats and a pair of slippers, suggest the artist’s presence in the annex next to his studio. As his grandson Jasper noted, “All that is missing is the smell and the wood shavings on the floor.”

The gallery holds a permanent collection of McWilliam’s work, ranging from preparatory sketches to lithographs and finished sculptures. These include several bronzes from his renowned ‘Women of Belfast’ series, which the artist began in 1971 in response to the escalation of violence in Northern Ireland.

The Hepworth Wakefield

The famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) is renowned for the intensely personal nature of her work, in which she laid bare her pain, passion, and psyche to the viewer. The artist often drew upon her immediate surroundings for inspiration, which makes it all the more poignant to visit the Museo Frida Kahlo – La Casa Azul, the vibrantly painted “blue house” in Mexico City, where she lived most of her life.

Initially acquired as the family home in 1904 by Kahlo’s father, a professional photographer, La Casa Azul later housed the artist and her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera. Together, they decorated the dining room with Mexican folk art from different stages of the republic, resulting in an eclectic and colorful celebration of their culture. The couple shared a studio onsite, which they designed and built with the Mexican architect Juan O’Gorman and populated with hundreds of books that informed their practices. The house also became a meeting point for artists and intellectuals, including the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova.

La Casa Azul preserves and transmits Kahlo’s creative universe, the place where she worked surrounded by the visual wealth of brightly painted furniture, oil paintings, pre-Columbian sculptures, cardboard cutouts, and ceramics. The crutches, corsets, and medicines bear witness to the physical ailments she referenced in her works, while the varied collection of toys, textiles, and accessories show that she treasured beautiful objects around her. These personal items are displayed alongside the artist’s early drawings and late paintings, providing a comprehensive window into Kahlo’s world.

The Burchfield Homestead Society was established in 1993 to promote the work of American painter Charles E. Burchfield (1893–1967) and preserve the house where he lived until early adulthood. Best known for his watercolor paintings depicting scenes from nature and everyday life, Burchfield transformed the world around him into transcendental landscapes animated by emotion.

His childhood home, its garden, the town of Salem, and the woodlands that surrounded it in the early 1900s incubated Burchfield’s thinking and inspired his art throughout his life. “The key to understanding his fascination with humble houses as subjects of watercolors may lie within his boyhood home,” according to founding executive director Richard Wootten. 

The Society spent six years fundraising and renovating the Homestead to return it to its original state. These renovations led to an exciting discovery: family caricatures drawn by a teenaged Fred Burchfield and his siblings were found on the underlying plaster after layers of old wallpaper were removed. These would have been made when the family house was enlarged in 1910. After this date, Burchfield’s bedroom took on the atmosphere of an art studio, as his mother had a skylight cut into the roof to allow him more natural light for painting. 

The family garden was restored in 1996 by a group of volunteers, who transformed the muddy parking lot into the fantastical garden of Burchfield’s childhood. The artist had described a combination of annuals and perennials “mingled together in pleasing confusion,” along with vegetables, wildflowers under the grape arbor and corn and sunflowers along the back fence. In restoring the space to its former glory, plants were selected based on Burchfield’s journals and sourced from nearby gardens or local woodlands. In 2021, it was designated a pollinator garden demonstration site as part of BeeCity USA Salem.

With access to unique content including interviews, videos and behind-the-scenes tours, learn more about these artists’ lives, works and studios on Bloomberg Connects.