Dean Street Townhouse

There's a new permanent show on at the Dean Street Townhouse (69 Dean Street) in Soho which opens to the public on Wednesday November 25.

The place has got some decent Soho history - initially the Townhouse's 18th Century building was a printing press for publisher Novello. In the 1920s, it housed the notorious Gargoyle club, a haunt for people like Noel Coward, Sigfried Sassoon, Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, John Minton and Graham Greene. Matisse created parts of the red and glass interiors, and his painting 'The Red Studio' hung on its walls. In the 1970s, a goth bar (The Batcave) moved in, earning the space a cult following, yet another following (with overlap) came in its next incarnation as a men's sauna and massage parlour. In the 1980s it hosted the nightclub Gossips.

The collection (themed around the allures of Soho) is on permanent display on the ground floor and includes such eminences of the art world as Andrzej Klimowski, Peter Blake, Tracey Emin, Noble and Webster, Gavin Turk, Fiona Banner, Paul Noble, Damien Hirst, Jamie Hewlett, Jose Parla, Keith Tyson, Mark Titchner as well as lots of younger folk including Neal Fox and myself. Drop by and have a little cocktail or a nibble, I'm told the food is exquisite.