The leafy suburb of Belsize Park has seen a veritable rash of new Blue Plaques recently (OK, two…) celebrating the great and good of the art and design world that made it their home. Marilyn Greene tells us more.

On 9 July (exactly 84 years after they opened) the great nephew of Walter Gropius unveiled an exciting new blue plaque on the Isokon flats in Belsize Park commemorating three amazing designers from the Bauhaus school in Germany and I was fortunate enough to be invited along.

Walter Gropius originally founded the Bauhaus school in 1919 in Weimar (it later moved to Dessau and then to Berlin).  Marcel Breuer and Lásló Moholy-Nagy were both Hungarians by birth; Breuer was initially a student at the School before becoming the director of its furniture workshop in 1924 whilst Moholy-Nagy was a photographer and graphic designer.

The school was unique in combing craftsmanship with bold modernist designs often made from the latest materials available.  It was known for its political radicalism, hence being a target of the Nazis, so it was a wise move for the artists to leave and come to the U.K.

The three all came to live in the Isokon flats in the 1930s when they first escaped Nazi Europe and before moving on to the USA. Gropius gave artistic direction to the Pritchards who owned the flats; Breuer designed the famous Isokon bar in the flats and much of the radical lightweight furniture; whilst Moholy-Nagy contributed to designing the advertising which helped sell the flats (and also Breuer’s Isokon Long Chair).

There is currently an exhibition on Moholy-Nagy in the Isokon Gallery and you can see examples of Breuer’s designs there too (the Gallery is open weekends only and my Modernist Hampstead Walk concludes there).

But this summer has also seen another famous artist honoured with a blue plaque, Richard Wynne Nevinson.

Nevinson was a British artist best known for his art around the period of the First World War.  He was born in Hampstead and the house in Downside Crescent, which now honours him with a plaque, was his family home from when he was a toddler.

He was one of a group of Brilliant artists who studied together at the Slade School of Art Between 1908-1910.  His peers included Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash (briefly) and Mark Gertler as well as Sydney Carline and Dora Carrington.

This group of friends had passionate friendships and relationships and spent much time in Hampstead often socialising at the artistic Carline and Nevinson households.

Nevinson became famous for his First World War paintings initially executed in a Vorticist style which depicted speed and movement and was inspired by Cubism.  As the War continued, he reverted to a realist depiction of war which was equally criticised. This group of artists were deeply affected by the war and their own relationships and many of them died considerably young.

Marilyn’s Modernist Hampstead architecture walk on 11 August concludes at the Isokon flats where the plaque can be viewed and the designers importance to Modernism discussed.

You will also discover the homes and studios of the Slade artists and discuss their loves, likes and anxieties on Marilyn’s new Hampstead and the Slade School of Art walk on 22 August.

Booking details for both are on Marilyn’s walks page.