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Artists Open Houses is 40 years old this year! Alongside an exceptionally brilliant range of artists’ houses and studios, this May’s festival is a celebration of forty years of Brighton and Hove’s Open Houses movement. It is also a commemoration of its founder Ned Hoskins who, in 1982, created a movement enabling access to art for everyone, by simply opening his Fiveways’ front door and inviting the public inside to view his work. Open House trails now happen all over the country and beyond, but it all began here with one man deciding to remove the invisible barriers that kept people out of art galleries by inviting them in to view art in a domestic setting.

The Artists Open Houses has evolved to be not only the original, but the largest, most respected event of its kind, now encompassing the entire city, reaching out to the surrounding countryside.

For the 40th Anniversary, a series of special exhibitions connect through the theme Towards the Light, taken from a title of one of Ned’s paintings and reflecting his concerns with nature and the natural world. Exhibitions include work of students, emerging artists, neuro-diverse and learning-disabled artists, established AOH artists and some of the earliest members of the Fiveways Artists’ Group; work is shown at Brunswick Square’s Regency Town House and Basement and at Devils Dyke Farm. Accompanying the exhibitions an oral-history film explores the history and legacy of the Artists Open Houses movement.

Over the forty years, Artists Open Houses has become a major arts event that embraces the entire community, encompassing all generations, from school students to residents of a seniors’ centre; from artists just starting out on their careers, to those with national reputations. Visiting artists in their homes and studios, viewing amazing art, meeting the artists and makers, hearing about how the work is made and what inspires its makers, is always a great day out. Many Open Houses offer tea and cake in artists’ gardens. Explore the city and travel out to surrounding villages, meeting the artists, buying new artworks for your home; the Artists Open Houses offer illumination, inspiration and fun!