Bath Artists'Studios

Bath Artists' Studios was founded in 1997 by portrait painter David Cobley, who converted a former Widcombe infants' school into 27 rentable studios. The organisation later outgrew the site and moved in 2003 to its present home, The Old Malthouse on Comfortable Place, off Upper Bristol Road. More than 50 studios now house over 60 painters, sculptors, printmakers and ceramicists working under one roof. The studios operate as a registered charity, keeping rents low enough that early-career artists can afford a permanent working space rather than a shared desk. A public gallery on site runs a changing programme of exhibitions and talks open to visitors, alongside weekly classes in life drawing, watercolour, oils and clay modelling. Open studio weekends let visitors see artists working in situ.