Just as a work of art can inspire a room scheme, so too can interiors inspire art in return. It’s a tradition with a storied past that continues to be carried forward by artists today.
Left: Bathroom, Fifth-floor Front Guest Room, New York © The Enchanting Interiors of Bunny Mellon: Paintings by Snowy Campbell by The Oak Spring Foundation, Rizzoli, 2026; images @ The Family of Alison Campbell Swain, unless otherwise noted.
Artist: Pamela Jaccarino. Left: Homage To Charlotte Moss Right: Christy
Today, a host of contemporary artists follow in their footsteps. As it happens, Moss was an early collector of artist Pamela Jaccarino’s own Bunny Mellon watercolours, with a new series — oil pastels on birchwood — in the works. “Being a design editor for 20 years, I’m drawn to a lot of domestic interiors,” she says, noting that she flips between staying true to a space and tweaking it to her imagination’s content. “I like to make paintings within the paintings or change up patterns,” she says. While art has always been part of Jaccarino’s life, she only just launched her website this January. Having been the founding editor of Luxe magazine and now the creative force behind the tech-savvy DesignShop, she’s been a bit busy — which makes the launch all the more poetic. “There's something almost radical about slowing down and rendering a room by hand, especially at this time when we're all on our screens,” she says. Keep your eyes out for potential shows, perhaps one in New York in the fall, and maybe even in the UK.
Artist: SJ Axelby, Peter Copping’s home in Normandy
Speaking of the UK, British artist SJ Axelby has garnered a cult following for her room portraits since launching her practice during the pandemic. “I started painting interiors in lockdown when I couldn’t visit the places I longed to be in. Inspired by designers on Instagram I began a sketch-a-day project where I painted the rooms that inspired me,” she says. From there, Room Portrait Club began, where she posts a room and invites followers to post their own renderings of it. It’s a delightful way to champion other artists (plus a resource for discovering new talent). Today, Axelby works with top designers, including projects for Peter Copping, Kit Kemp, and Martina Mondadori, to name but a few. Look out for her third book, Seasonal Living, this autumn.
Artist: Lottie Cole. Left: Interior with Bowen's Court House model Right: Bathe Gently & Dream - Virginia Woolf
Also be sure to catch artist Lottie Cole’s upcoming exhibition, My Relation, Elizabeth Bowen, at Long & Ryle gallery in London this summer. The show will feature 25-30 interior paintings, oil on canvas, that are inspired by the lost ancestral home of the 20th century Anglo-Irish writer (who is not actually related to Cole though their lives share intriguing parallels). First inspired to paint interiors by Charleston Farmhouse and Monk’s House, Cole’s exhibitions always follow a theme. We of course love the 'Bathe Gently & Dream' series, featuring bathrooms rendered in watercolour and goucahe. "I was thinking about the rooms where we all spend time. It’s universal,” she says, noting that she doesn’t put people in the pictures lest it blocks the viewer from imagining themselves there. (With the exception of other women artists, whom she regularly features in paintings within the paintings). She also rarely takes commissions. “Most people’s rooms are not as crowded as my paintings. I’m shoving lots of things gently together. It’s about trying to get across the personality of the owner,” she says, rather than a literal illustration.
Artist: Phoebe Dickinson, Girl in the Green Drawing Room
The celebrated portrait artist, Phoebe Dickinson, knows a room’s power to convey personality all too well. On the verge of quitting portraiture — bored by the floating silhouettes against plain backgrounds — she introduced wildly detailed interiors and suddenly her perspective changed. The rooms became as much a character as the people within them. “A person's home can tell you so much about them and the way the family live their life,” she says, calling to mind the way we study historical portraits for clues. “I love looking at a Vermeer painting and seeing what their everyday objects were or how they used delft tiles as a skirting.” While Dickinson is known primarily as a portrait artist, she is keen to paint more interiors. “There is something so calming about interior paintings and some of my favourite pieces that I have collected for my own home are interiors,” she says. She also happens to paint lovely landscapes and hosts workshops at Villa Centinale in Siena.... so that’s another avenue worth exploring!