Lake District Christmas shoppers will have the chance to buy everything they need this year in Grasmere.
The Heaton Cooper Studio offers a Christmas shopping experience which is free from crowds and canned carols. In the bright and elegant galleries can be found ideas, inspiration and gifts for friends and family which are distinctive, unusual and beautifully designed.
Art predominates as this is the gallery of Lakeland’s most well-loved landscape painters, and the prints – or even originals – by Alfred and William Heaton Cooper have been treasured gifts for generations. But the beauty of their work permeates all the items on sale, from tiny Chinese white ceramic brush holders to huge framed masterpieces. The collection echoes the mantra of William Morris, to have “nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”.
The “useful” includes painting and activity books for children alongside calligraphy sets, watercolours and brushes, and exquisite cedarwood pencils with silver plated caps. Exclusive to the UK are the Henri Roche pastels, hand-made in Paris by the family which supplied Degas, Whistler and other leading artists.
There are distinctive hanging photo frames, candle holders, ceramics, jewellery, and a family of enchanting wire-sculpted reindeer, along with greetings cards and a small collection of antiquarian books.
The studio is open daily from 9am till 5.30 pm.
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