Number One, Picker

Across the Atlantic – indeed across the English Channel - it is quite normal to put your family name on the entrance of your house and to use its number alone for postal purposes.  To give the house itself a name like “Green Gables” is a peculiarly English trait.

“Number One, Picker” boldly engraved in stone at the entrance to Stanley Picker’s house in Kingston was in 1968 both a statement of individuality, the antithesis of the typical English reserve that craves anonymity, and the presaging of changes to come in the post-war world. 

Today the house stands as a rare monument to a changing time.

Successive trustees of the Stanley Picker Trust and custodians of the house have taken the utmost care to preserve the house, gallery and garden collections intact, not because Stanley directed that they should – he was not seeking a memorial for himself when he set up the trust – but because they have recognised that they powerfully retain the essence of their generous, affectionate and cultured former owner, and that as such they would one day be important in their own right.

For over forty years the Trust has provided guided tours to visitors and students, trying to maintain a delicate balance between the preservation of such a rare gem and allowing for the house and collection to provide inspiration and energy to visitors interested in art, architecture and design. 

The trustees are stewards of the endowment of the Stanley Picker Trust, which was created to fulfil Stanley’s wish to maintain the house and collection and in addition to nurture young talent and endeavour in the Arts.  The Trust has not only funded the fellowships in fine art and design at Kingston University but also funded the building of the Stanley Picker Gallery at the University’s Knights Park Campus,  to serve Kingston University and the wider community, and provided bursaries to students at many of the country’s leading conservatoires and art schools.