Changing Spaces: art, politics, and identity in the home studios of the Suffrage Atelier

The Suffrage Atelier was an artists' group formed to produce propaganda for the women's suffrage campaign. Its headquarters were located in a series of artists' London homes between 1909 and 1914. This article explores how Atelier artists used these and other domestic spaces for a broad range of social, artistic, and political practices. It examines how dwellings were altered and decorated, how they were used for exhibitions and performance, as well as for propaganda production and suffrage lectures. Throughout, the article considers the interplay between the Atelier's practices, its creative and feminist identities, and domestic space. Gender histories have produced a wealth of scholarship on women's diverse practices at home, examining how these challenged bourgeois notions that separated domestic space from the public realm of work and politics. This article sets the Atelier's home studios within these debates.