London may be the nexus of England’s arts scene, but it is supported by creative networks around the country, few of which are more vibrant than on the southeast coast. Roughly two hours from central London by train or by car, the county of East Sussex, home to the seaside town of Hastings, features an arts center to rival any in the capital, independent galleries and exhibition spaces, and artist-focused organizations committed to supporting emerging talent.
It has also long attracted artists, including some of the biggest names of the 20th century. Here are some of the venues where visitors can engage with art in East Sussex:
Farleys House and Gallery
Among the artists who made their home in East Sussex were the American Surrealist and photographer Lee Miller and the British Surrealist Roland Penrose, a couple whose Georgian farmhouse, known as Farleys, and an adjacent gallery are open to visitors on guided tours on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, April through October.
The two moved to the tiny village of Muddles Green, which is best reached by car, in 1949. Miller, who had chronicled World War II, was “suffering severely from the psychological effects of her wartime experiences,” the couple’s son, Antony Penrose, said by email. “Roland’s intuition told him that if Lee had a quiet place to live in the country it would help her recover.”
“It immediately became a sort of perpetual arts congress and Lee eventually self-recovered from depression and alcohol abuse by reinventing herself as a celebrity chef,” Penrose said.
Those arriving at the house now will find it largely as Miller and Penrose left it. That means riotous interiors unbridled from the farmhouse’s 1800s origins and works by some of the biggest names in 20th-century art, many of whom spent time there.
Penrose, who grew up at Farleys, recalled these visitors. Picasso, he said, “was brilliant with me,” and he described “a particular affection for Man Ray.” Max Ernst “was scary” though “he didn’t mean to be.”
The house is also home to the Lee Miller Archives, which Penrose founded with his late wife, Suzanna, after she discovered a stash of Miller’s work in the attic. He now runs the archive, which is dedicated to cataloging and conserving the work of his parents, alongside his daughter.
Their efforts have been rewarded recently with the opening of a major Lee Miller retrospective at Tate Britain in London that runs through Feb. 15.
“Suzanna and I used to joke that we had turned my parents into a cottage industry,” Penrose said. Now, “that cottage industry is becoming a global entity.”
Farley’s House and Gallery, Muddles Green, Chiddingly; farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk.
De La Warr Pavilion
The De La Warr Pavilion has been a feature of Bexhill-on-Sea since 1935, when the streamlined Modernist structure was built as a public space.
When it reopened as a contemporary arts center in 2005, it resumed its civic function, hosting exhibitions, events and performances. For Joseph Constable, head of exhibitions until Oct. 10 (when he leaves the center to become director of Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway), staying true to the building’s reputation as the “People’s Palace,” as it was known in the 1930s, has been central to his role.
“Our exhibitions program comprises local, national and international voices across five to six exhibitions per year — quite a lot for a regional arts organization,” Constable said by email. “Maintaining this frequency, however, is part of how we foster connections with our frequent visitors from the local community.”
From Saturday, visitors can explore the work of the New York artist Betty Parsons. In her role as a gallerist, Parsons “set in motion the Abstract Expressionist movement in the U.S.,” Constable said, while maintaining “a committed practice as an artist, retreating from the city on the weekends to Long Island and the studio that she had there from the 1960s.”
These dual contexts play into what Constable called the “value of operating outside of the ‘center’ when it comes to the spaces where art can be practiced and encountered”; something he said the De La Warr Pavilion has aimed to enhance.
Marina, Bexhill-on-Sea; dlwp.com.
Flatland Projects
The artist-focused organization Flatland Projects was established in 2018 with the explicit aim of supporting artists on the southeast coast and making art more accessible to local audiences.
“I founded the organization when I first graduated,” Ben Urban, director and co-founder of Flatland Projects, said in a video call, “and I saw that the type of artist that was shown in the coastal setting was often an artist that has — and particularly at that point, been able to capitalize on the fact that property prices were a lot cheaper in these regional settings.”
“That was really reflected in who was shown, what was shown,” he continued. “Flatland really was a way of finding space for the community that I knew existed but didn’t have the space to realize itself.”
In the years since, “everything’s kind of steamrolled massively,” Urban said. Flatland moved along the coast in 2021 from Hastings to Bexhill-on-Sea, a 15-minute walk from the De La Warr Pavilion, and grew in ambition. It features a 1,500-square-meter gallery, a library and residency and permanent studios; its focus is on commissioning artists that have not yet had institutional representation.
Commanding the gallery space until Dec. 13 is a site-specific work by Motunrayo Akinola, who was born in London and spent his childhood in Lagos, Nigeria. A series of cardboard sculptures, the installation explores themes of forgiveness, generational trauma and the continuing dialogue surrounding migration.
The title of the exhibition, “The one about the thing under the bridge,” is a play on “water under the bridge” and the notion of dismissing issues, Akinola said by video call. “This is an old wound that we’re still taking care of,” he added.
Unit 22, Beeching Road, Bexhill-on-Sea; flatlandprojects.com.
The Crown
A pub and community space in Hastings, The Crown is known for its commitment to supporting local; its kitchen serves seafood sourced from the town’s fishing fleet and its bar pours craft beers from nearby breweries.
The Crown also offers its walls to artists in the area and takes no commission on sales. “For 11 years, we have had art exhibited on our walls changing every single month,” Tess Swan, who runs the pub with her husband, Andrew, said by email. “We change our exhibitions once a month and are currently booked up for the next two years with a waiting list after that.”
Through October, The Crown will be exhibiting paintings and prints by Katie Ray in its main rooms and small paintings by Anna Kopach, a Ukrainian artist, in an area Swan calls “the snug.”
64-66 All Saints Street, Hastings; thecrownhastings.co.uk.
Hastings Contemporary
From its jet-black brick exterior to the art it displays, Hastings Contemporary, a two-minute walk from The Crown, is a gallery that is increasingly informed by its setting.
“Unlike any other gallery, even coastal galleries, we are on the actual beach, we’re sitting on the shingle,” Leah Cross, director of programs at Hastings Contemporary, said by video call. “You can’t ignore where you’re situated.”
Three solo exhibitions showing until March 15 speak to the gallery’s ambitions of being both of the area and for it.
“Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet, never long dry” features large-scale works by the Hastings artist Sophie Barber, and marks her first major solo exhibition in her hometown.
Showing alongside Barber are observational works by Michael Landy, and a solo show by Isabel Rock, “a very up-and-coming artist” whose work Cross described as exploring “what the world looks like when humans have ruined it.”
“Showing my work here in Hastings feels very personal,” Barber said by email. “This is the place I started painting; the fishing huts, the birds, the sunsets, all of it filters into the work.”
Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings; hastingscontemporary.org.
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