In a city known for artists repurposing disused spaces into studios, those wishing to glimpse Lorna Simpson‘s former Brooklyn–based home studio now have the chance to see it.
The four-story, 22-foot-wide building located at 208 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood was designed in 2006 by British architect David Adjaye for Simpson and her now ex-husband, the photographer James Casebere.
Pitch Black, as the architect dubbed it, boasts a sleek design with the front featuring black polypropylene panels and the back made almost entirely of glass windows that lead out to more than 800-square-feet of garden space.
Inside, the home features three bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths that previously served as a bedroom and separate studio spaces for the artists across roughly 3,300-square-feet.
Though Simpson relocated a few years ago to a larger commercial space close by, the building has still served as archival and storage space, as well as a spot for hosting and entertaining guests.
Simpson opted to create the space when she couldn’t find one that suited her.
“I could not find something that I liked that felt spacious and that did not feel like a tight traditional townhouse domestic space with limited free-wall space,” Simpson told the New York Times.
“The outdoor space is tranquil day or night,” Simpson added, explaining that the “natural light throughout the building is extraordinary. I could work until the daylight fades.”
While the cost of an artist’s dream might be priceless, the townhouse is currently on the market with the Corcoran Group for a whopping $6.5 million, with annual property taxes coming in at just above $12,000.
The property is situated among Fort Greene Park and other notable art locales like the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and Pratt Institute.
Simpson is known for her alluring and elusive surfaces that form images of Black women in an exploration of gender, race, and culture. She rose to prominence during the 1980s and ’90s with her photography on the same subjects. Her work is currently on view in the exhibition “Source Notes” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through November 2.
This is hardly the first notable artist’s studio to hit the market within recent years. Andy Warhol‘s former New York studio and apartment, where Jean-Michel Basquiat lived and worked from 1983 until his death in 1988, was up for grabs in late 2022 before it was taken over by Atelier Jolie in 2023. In 2021, the Gramercy Park home and studio of Anselm Kiefer, and subsequently Julian Schnabel, also appeared on the market for $10 million.
