"Leighton House was built as an artist's studio and residence for the painter Frederic Leighton from 1866 to 1895, and is famous for its orientalist decorations on the ground floor. It was then acquired by the council 30 years after Leightone died, but as the contents had all been sold off, and Victorian artists were exceptionally unfashionable at the time, it opened as a community centre for arts and music."
"Thanks to a good collection of archive photos, the exhibition shows how the building was adapted and changed over the decades, often stripping away fussy Victoriana until, eventually, in the 1980s, tastes changed back again. The exhibition shows how the 1960s fittings were replaced with 1860s fittings and the building restored to its original(ish) scheme, and then the 2008-10 expansion that created the museum that exists today."
Leighton House was built as an artist's studio and residence for Frederic Leighton between 1866 and 1895, featuring notable orientalist ground-floor decorations. The council acquired the building thirty years after Leighton's death; its contents had been sold and Victorian artists were out of fashion, so the house opened as a community centre for arts and music. Archive photographs document decades of alteration, removal of Victorian fittings, and a reversal of tastes in the 1980s that reinstated earlier fittings. A 2008–10 expansion created the current museum. Contemporary Middle East and North Africa photographs and replicas of lost objects are also on display; three exhibitions run until 1 March 2026, with the history exhibition free.
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