Vanguard Court Studios is at the heart of Camberwell’s creative life. Robert Wainwright reveals the fascinating tale of its creation and its continued artistic importance
It’s easy to miss the entrance to Vanguard Court Studios at 36-38 Peckham Road.
For a start, the small sign above head height leans inward, partly concealed by overhead foliage and an old iron fence. From the road, there is nothing that indicates the treasure inside, down the passageway into a cobbled yard where the street noise gives way to something quieter, more deliberate.
Behind unassuming doors, artists work across a range of disciplines from ceramics and sculpture to textiles, jewellery, painting and photography, not to mention set builders, musicians and even computer programmers.
There about 80 workspaces and studios in this village of creativity, and yet nothing feels rushed. Even the sound of saws and lathes fills the air with a peaceful hum of activity.
There is little emphasis on display, rather the site is defined by process: materials in transition, works mid-creation, and the steady rhythms of making – a working yard rather than a gallery, shaped by function rather than presentation.
It takes vision to create a community like this, but the story of Vanguard is far more complex, and, strangely, its story involves a loss of vision.
A young Polish man named Icek Szwarc had fled his homeland in the 1920s to escape antisemitism,and was working as a tailor in Paris when he decided to travel to London on a day trip. Icekwas so taken by the city that he decided to stayand start a new life.
He and a financial partner eventually started a business making luggage. The Fibre Case Company was immediately successful and in 1929 moved its operation from Ealing to Camberwell, taking over the site from a transport company that had builtsome of London’s first omnibuses.
Two years later, having got married and started a family, Icek applied for naturalisation. He then converted the lease to freehold ownership and Jack Shaw, as he was now known, had formalised his new life.
Although the business prospered, Jack’s personal story had a tragic turn when, still a young man in his thirties, he went blind from suspected glaucoma.
Despite this disability, he carried on in business, eventually with the support of his son David. The business, rebranded as Vanguard Luggage, produced thousands of suitcases over the next six decades, which
became standard issue for British forces, from the Second World War until finally closing production during the recession of the 1980s.
Jack passed away in 1978 and when the luggage company finally closed, David rented various buildings on the site to light industrial companies, but by the mid 1980s much of it had fallen into disrepair.
It was then, in a moment of desperation, that David decided to lease one of the studios to a young sculptor named Cathy de Monchaux, who was fresh out of the Camberwell Arts School. “It was a pragmatic decision,” David’s son Jonathan says. “The truth was that the site was in such poor condition, rotting away, that my father discovered that artists were the only people interested.”
Cathy took over a sprawling second floor space with few walls and fire damage in one corner. She set about finding other young artists to join her and gradually turned it into a series of studios.
“It was quite organic in the way it came together. We even had our own gallery for a while,” Cathy told CQ, reminiscing happily about the early days when she and the others pitted the vagaries of an artistic life against
economic demands and fire regulations.
“David was fantastic. There are many instances in London where artists have colonised an area and increased its value only to be priced out of the area. But David didn’t do that. It was quite heroic in many ways.”
When Cathy was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1998, not only did her personal star rise but so did Vanguard Studios, with artists the calibre of ceramicists Edmund de Waal and Julian Stair and musician Nick Cave renting space.
The Shaw family’s commitment to the arts continues today. The site is run by Jonathan, helped by managing agents Malcolm Martin and Janet Taiwo.
“We are not a charity,” says Jonathan, who owns the site with his sister Joanne. “We need a commercial return, but we have not sought to maximise profit by turning it into a residential development. We like to keep Vanguard as a centre of artistic excellence. There is a wonderful creative buzz here.”
Not only do the Shaws sponsor an annual art prize, in conjunction with Camberwell College of Arts, which gives a young artist access to a studio for a year and a package of support from the college, but they both buy and collect work from artists at the studios: “It’s something we both take great pride in owning.
“We have a history here. Small reminders occur sometimes, like the day recently when I was watching the movie Day of the Jackal and, suddenly, there was a Vanguard case in shot.”
Edmund de Waal has reflected on his early days at Vanguard, a place he describes as “busy, shared energy” where he moved from making what he described as “functional stoneware” to the installations that have defined
his career, for which he was awarded a CBE in 2021.
Many of his students have themselves taken studios, including his first apprentice Chris Keenan, who still produces refined homewares and art compositions from what he calls the yard.
“I can’t believe I’ve been here for 30 years. All the pots I’ve made in my life, apart from a few dozen, have been made right here. It’s a place people settle and stay, partly because there is a realistic attitude, a tolerance if you will, by the owners to artists and what they can afford.
“When I rented my own space it was much bigger than what I needed. David Shaw realised this and said he’d let me have it for half price in the first year while I searched for a studio colleague. It was an incredibly generous thing to do for someone who was just starting out.
“The studios are hugely important for the arts. There is an energy around here, people pursuing creative lives. You come here to work, it’s not a social club, but it’s nice
knowing the people around you.”
Photographer Simon Webb is next door and says the cobblestone driveway and humming activity in and around the studio is part of the experience for his clients, most of whom are celebrities of some type.
“I photographed actress Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks’s wife, the other day and she just absolutely loved its charm,” he says. “Everyone who comes up the yard and into the studio comment on the studios, curious about what it’s all about, and who’s here in the yard. It’s like a little hidden gem.”
Simon moved here 15 years ago. He occupies Studio 7B where a parade of movie stars and musicians pass through each week, helped by his studio manager Venetia Williams, who sums up the reason why the studio interior is more than just a block of pristine white space: “It’s an environment, a space which enables people to be creative, essentially a tool where people come and they go ‘OK, this is what I’m imagining. How do we do this? What have you got that we can do to facilitate what you’re wanting to create?’ That is quite amazing.”
At the other end of the career scale is Luke Chin-Joseph, a 25-year-old Camberwell-born sculptor who is the latest recipient of the Vanguard Prize. Luke is in Studio 9J, which he has rent-free for a year and where he is working on projects with found and repurposed materials and objects, woven into fabricated sculpture.
Luke also has access to workshops at the Camberwell College of Arts, from where he graduated in 2023: “The Vanguard Prize is really important at this point in my career because I’m not at a stage where I can afford a studio and lots of tools,” he says. “It gives me the freedom to explore my art without the worries I would otherwise have.”
It might be easy to miss the entrance, but it is impossible to ignore the impact Vanguard Studios has had on the arts in London and the fabric of Camberwell.
From the Camberwell Quarterly
