Soho Home Editions returns to mark Soho House’s 25th birthday

The second Soho Home Editions collection launches this week exclusively to members to mark 25 years of Soho House. A series of eight limited-edition prints, each contributing artist was tasked with making a piece inspired by their favourite House, with the results ranging from Sue Webster’s Shoreditch ‘spidergram’ to Karin Apollonia Müller’s seascape collage drawing on her memories of Little Beach House Malibu.

‘This time I wanted to make the art very much about the DNA, the history and the ethos of Soho House,’ says head of collections Kate Bryan. ‘It’s our 25th birthday this year, so it felt like a nice moment to have a conversation with the artists and for them to make a work that was a love letter to their favourite House.’

Art has always been part of the Soho House story, from the anarchic early days at 40 Greek Street when artist Sarah Staton left her work on the walls, only to come back months later to find Damien Hirst had bought some, leaving a cash-stuffed envelope behind the bar in payment. Today it’s the largest private art collection of its kind in the world, with over 5,000 works on permanent display to members worldwide.

‘Soho House has a fantastic art-loving audience and artists like to be within that kind of community,’ adds Bryan. ‘It doesn’t matter how much your work sells for, there’s something special about relationships that were formed when you were in your twenties or thirties. Sue Webster, who’s now a museum-level artist, is a good example of that.’

Recent years have seen the introduction of video art, installations and colour, along with specifically curated rooms at Houses around the world. For instance, there’s a room full of works dedicated to the moon landing at White City, while the history of Dutch self-portraiture sets the theme in Amsterdam.

Not sure which Edition to invest in? Here Kate explains why she commissioned the eight artists featured in our second collection.

‘Sue is Shoreditch – she’s been there since the very beginning, her studio is within spitting distance of the House and she used to swim on the rooftop every day. She came up with this fantastic spider diagram which gives you a visual mental map of the area; only Sue could have come up with this very conceptual, witty approach. It’s really an insight into her relationship with that place.’

‘Soho Farmhouse is in Danny’s neck of the woods – he moved to the area a couple of years ago and it became his jumping-off point for creating a community. This work is very graphic, stylised, sexy and typically Danny Augustine in how he creates a duality. And I love how it’s not farm-like.’

‘Little Beach House in Malibu was one of the Houses that could have been quite cliched in imagery because of the beach… but what Karin did was create something that felt like you were seeing the House through veils or transparencies. It’s a House that’s very modernist ¬– made of glass – which she echoed without being too literal. When I look at this piece, it’s as if I’m there looking at the sea, in the sunshine.’

‘George is known for the extremely sexy, isolated, pared-down visual language in his photographs. Typically, he works in LA, but when we saw what he’d been making in Miami, we had to ask him to represent Soho Beach House. His aerial view of the swimming pool is a complete fantasy – you just want to dive into that image.’

‘Rose Blake is one of the younger artists in our collection. She’s got a fantastic vocabulary that sits somewhere in between pop art and illustration. As one of the Ned’s great artist members, she’s executed its skyline beautifully without romanticising it. It’s very much her distinct point of view.’

‘As an artist, Julie is always experimenting. She has a sophisticated punk language which she really brings to bear in this piece about Mayfair. She was an unexpected choice because of this anarchic spirit, but by gently poking fun at what we think Mayfair is, she reveals something entirely different.’

‘Bernat, whose practice includes painting, costume design, performance and video – gave us this joyous, bold depiction of Barcelona. It’s a lovely dance between representing the city for us and creating something as part of his body of work.’

‘When we gave Stephanie the project, instead of asking for photographic imagery of the House for inspiration, she took the floor plan. I like the fact she went back about 10 steps before the House even existed and turned it into a recognisably Asian pattern abstract. It’s a beautiful marriage between that Hong Kong visual language and the infrastructure of what Soho House is.’