Meet the Dickinsons – the siblings reframing English country-house style

“Art is made to be enjoyed, lingered over and talked about,” says art dealer Milo Dickinson. “We’re trying to create an atmosphere where people can experience the work without the hushed reverence you might feel in a museum.” To this end, the new exhibition at the eponymous gallery Milo runs with his father brings together a triumvirate of family talent, marking the first time the Dickinson siblings – artist Phoebe, 39, interior designer Octavia, 37, and Milo, 34, managing director of the gallery – have joined forces. Their vision: to transform it into an enticing interior resembling drawing rooms typical of an English country house. 

Phoebe Dickinson: Great Houses and Gardens of England (8 to 23 November) brings together close to 60 still lives, landscapes and figures in interiors (from £2,900) – from historic homes both seen and unseen, such as Wiltshire’s Iford Manor Estate, to the Dickinson’s own family home, Wortley House, a 17th-century manor house in Gloucestershire. It is both a celebration of Britain’s rural estates and a painterly study of the English decorative style. 

But the series is also intended as an insight into how these interiors are lived in now. Marina Lambton is painted feet-up in the green drawing room at Biddick Hall, Durham; her sister Rose Cholmondeley in repose, book in hand, at Houghton Hall in Norfolk (a house that features no fewer than eight times).

It was in 2017, while Phoebe was painting the Cholmondeley children in William Kent’s Palladian interior, the great Stone Hall, that the idea for the exhibition began to unfurl. “Every time I went into these incredible houses for portrait sittings I kept seeing other corners of the rooms I wanted to paint,” says Phoebe, who trained at the Charles H Cecil Studios in Florence, London Fine Art Studios and the Royal Drawing School. “I’d continually get an itch to create less formal paintings. It became more about the rooms than the people.” 

For the Dickinson trio, these homes are united by a tangible comfort. “The English country-house style is about linking together different generations. Retaining the best taste of the past and updating it,” says Milo. “It’s about a marriage of different objects and styles to create a coherent whole that feels natural and comfortable. Walk into these rooms and you never quite know what you’re going to see.” It’s this sense of history, eclecticism and surprise that Octavia hopes to conjure in the exhibition’s mises en scène, through her own eponymous collection of fabrics and wallpapers. 

It’s a novel direction for the gallery established 30 years ago by their father, the art dealer Simon Dickinson. Set in an imposing stone-fronted, second empire-style building on Jermyn Street, the gallery is known for its connoisseurship in paintings and sculpture, spanning the early Renaissance to modern British – from Botticelli to Henry Moore. Yet there’s a synchronicity between the siblings’ respective realms of art and interiors, and the notion of collaborating has been percolating for years. “Our businesses are so intertwined,” says Phoebe. “We’re constantly calling one another for advice and opinions.” 

I want it to feel like you’re stepping into a country house in the middle of London

Alongside Phoebe’s large-scale artworks, the main gallery will be dressed with antiques, furniture and objets sourced by Octavia. Decorative lamps and ceramics sit on marble-topped console tables alongside artefacts including a handpainted Ban Chiang vase and a pair of wrought-iron fire dogs, all available for purchase. “I want it to feel like you’re stepping into a country house in the middle of London,” she says. “Everything is displayed as it would be in our own homes.”

Octavia has clad a 1900s Chesterfield sofa in her floral Edie print; an 1870 oak-framed armchair in the azure-toned Albie textile; and a series of the gallery’s Victorian dining chairs in the full sweep of her woven Detmar (named after the artist Detmar Blow). It’s also an opportunity for the designer to showcase her latest prints, which include a debut wallpaper, Marina. This silhouetted fern pattern, which draws on an old French watercolour and comes in a matching textile, embellishes a curvaceous dividing screen.

The inevitable barrage of WhatsApps, texts and emails between the siblings pre-show has been marked by constructive honesty, and the expectation of a swift (read: immediate) response – something inherited from their father. The sole point of contention in realising the show was Octavia’s choice of palette – in particular the colour purple. “I wanted to go for a dark, strong purple that feels rich and comforting,” says the designer, who admits it’s a tone that’s hard to nail. After much back and forth they finally settled on Tyrian by Edward Bulmer; known as the “purple of the ancients”, it chimes with the regal atmosphere of the space. “Purple is the colour of Roman emperors; imperial purple has connotations of grandeur and history and art,” says Milo. 

For Phoebe, the project feels like coming full circle. Her first solo exhibition was held at the old Talisman antique shop in Parsons Green back in 2008. Her favourite galleries are those such as New York’s Frick Collection and London’s Wallace Collection. “It allows people to envisage the paintings in their own spaces,” she says. “I’ve always preferred galleries that feel more like homes.” 

phoebedickinson.com; octaviadickinson.com; simondickinson.com