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A Victorian artists’ colourman where raw pigment is still sold by the jar.
Free
Cornelissen feels less like an art shop than the surviving workshop of a nineteenth-century colourman. Founded in 1855 by Belgian lithographer Louis Cornelissen, it spent more than a century on Great Queen Street before moving around the corner to Great Russell Street in 1988, taking its old Victorian fittings with it. The black shelves are still packed with glass jars of loose pigment — lapis, malachite, madder, ochres and earths — alongside oils, brushes, papers, gilding materials, gums and resins.
It has supplied generations of artists. Walter Sickert was a regular customer; Cornelissen made canvas for Rex Whistler’s Tate restaurant murals, supplied Peter Lanyon with pigments and unprimed linen, and sold the type of Belgian canvas used by Lucian Freud. Cornelissen “rose madder” pigment was found in Francis Bacon’s studio after his death. Derek Jarman remembered visiting in the 1960s and seeing jars of pigment “glinting like jewels in the semi-dark”.
The remarkable thing is that it remains a working specialist shop rather than a preserved curiosity. You can walk in with no artistic expertise at all and buy the same raw pigments, brushes and traditional materials sought out by professional painters. Even if you have no intention of making anything, it is one of London’s most beautiful surviving specialist shops.
| Monday | 09:30 – 18:00 |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | 09:30 – 18:00 |
| Wednesday | 09:30 – 18:00 |
| Thursday | 09:30 – 18:00 |
| Friday | 09:30 – 18:00 |
| Saturday | 09:30 – 18:00 |
| Sunday | Closed |
Hours from the page that lists them, checked 6 September 2026.
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.