Picker House and Collection: A Late 1960s Home for Art and Design

Picker House is a remarkable late 1960s modernist home specifically designed to accommodate a superb collection of modern and contemporary painting and sculpture. Situated on the outskirts of London, in Kingston upon Thames, it is a rare surviving example of a spacious and progressive late modern house and garden that remains unaltered. Designed by the British modernist architect Kenneth Wood in 1965, it still retains its period interior décor, contemporary furnishings acquired through the then recently established Terence Conran Group, and the distinctive art collection of its owner – including works by Chagall, Frink, Hepworth, Lowry, Rodin and many more – which was an integral part of its conception. Based on previously unpublished material and photographs, this heavily illustrated publication brings together leading researchers in their respective fields who examine in depth every aspect of this unique place.Picker was a New York born cosmetic manufacturer who settled in London in 1936. He made his wealth in the 1960s through Gala Cosmetics, launching his new brands Miners, Outdoor Girl and Mary Quant. This book offers a complete investigation into the architecture and design of Picker House, its interior furnishings and décor, the Japanese inspired landscaped gardens and Picker's significant modern and contemporary art collection of paintings, drawings and prints and sculpture. It concludes with a glimpse of the ongoing life of the collection and of Picker's Fellowship legacy through the recent work of artist Elizabeth Price and designer Ab Rogers, amongst others.

David Falkner is Director of the Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University and curator of a broad program of contemporary art and design projects, including the Stanley Picker Fellowship commissions.


Jonathan Black, Senior Research Fellow in the History of Art and a member of the Visual and Material Culture Research Centre at Kingston University London has published widely on British Modernism.

Dr. Fiona Fisher is a design historian and works as a researcher in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Kingston University, where she is a member of the Modern Interiors Research Centre. Her PhD on the design and modernization of London's late nineteenth century public houses was awarded by Kingston University in 2008. Her current research into the British modernist architect Kenneth Wood was supported by an AHRC Early Career Fellowship in 2011 and 2012.



Fran Lloyd, Professor of Art History and the Director of the Visual and Material Culture Research Centre at Kingston University, has published widely on contemporary visual culture and sculpture studies.

Rebecca Preston a specialist in urban landscape and domestic space in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, is an Associate Researcher in the Modern Interiors Research Centre at Kingston University and an Honorary Research Associate in the History Department at Royal Holloway, University of London.


Penny Sparke is a Professor of Design History and the Director of the Modern Interiors Research Centre at Kingston University, London. She has published widely, and broadcast, on the subject of the modern interior.