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Albert De Belleroche:
Dorian Gray
Belleroche, Albert de, The Artist’s Garden Glencairn (1913) with stone flowerpot, Hampstead © Private Collection
Three Highgate Arts Foundation, in collaboration with Liss Llewellyn, presents Albert de Belleroche: Dorian Gray,
an exhibition of work by Albert de Belleroche (1864–1944), curated by Alistair Hicks.
The exhibition forms part of the Foundation’s charitable programme dedicated to revisiting artists whose work sits slightly outside the more familiar narratives of British and European modernism. Following Three Highgate’s transition to a registered charity, the Foundation continues its commitment to preserving overlooked artistic legacies and bringing them to wider audiences.
“Becoming a registered charity strengthens our mission at Three Highgate: to protect and share important artistic legacies, and to ensure exhibitions like Albert de Belleroche’s reach the widest possible audience.” — Irina Johnstone, Founder, Three Highgate Arts Foundation.
Though Albert de Belleroche (1864–1944) is remembered as a painter-lithographer of the Parisian Belle Époque, a friend and colleague of Sargent, Helleu and Toulouse-Lautrec, some of his most personal work was made in North London.
Highgate and Hampstead have long been shaped by their artistic and intellectual communities. While Hampstead often claims the cultural crown, Highgate has quietly nurtured its own lineage of thinkers, writers and artists. Albert de Belleroche, or to give him his full name, Count Albert Gustavus de Belleroche, belongs firmly to this shared heritage.
Belleroche, Albert de, Half-length Portrait of a Nude Black Man, 1890's © Private Collection
Born in Swansea to a French Huguenot family whose ancestors fled religious persecution in the seventeenth century, he gravitated early towards the intense, intertwined artistic circles of Paris and London. His friendships with Helleu and Toulouse-Lautrec, and his close, possibly romantic relationship with John Singer Sargent, placed him at the centre of the Belle Époque’s creative hothouse. Sargent’s numerous portraits of Belleroche, sensual, emotionally charged and unusually intimate, suggest an attachment that shaped both men’s artistic lives.
After years in Paris, Belleroche chose to settle in Hampstead. In 1912 he moved with his family to Glencairn, a large, detached house at 46 West End Lane, West Hampstead, sharing studio space with John Singer Sargent during the same period. The house and its garden became a sustained subject. In the Garden, Glencairn (1913) captures the quiet intimacy of domestic life, while L’Atelier, Hampstead (c. 1912), among his finest lithographs, records the studio at the heart of the neighbourhood.
These works offer a rare, locally rooted window into an artist more often associated with Paris and Chelsea, giving a Highgate audience a genuine piece of Northwest London’s artistic heritage: a portraitist of the avant-garde turning his eye, and his lithographic crayon, on his own corner of Hampstead.
Belleroche’s position within the artistic landscape of his time is telling. Though connected to major figures including Sargent, Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas, he remained slightly outside the dominant narratives, moving between oil painting and lithography with unusual independence. By 1904, the Salon d’Automne dedicated an entire room to his work, and critics hailed his lithographs as among the greatest achievements of the medium since its invention.
Yet despite this acclaim, his practice has often been overshadowed by the reputations of those around him. His financial independence allowed him to choose his subjects freely: Japanese wrestler Taro Miyake, Victorine Meurent, Mata Hari and Cha-U-Kao, figures who themselves hovered at the edges of mainstream cultural history.
Among the literary figures Belleroche encountered in Paris were Émile Zola, Oscar Wilde and George Moore. Anecdotal evidence even suggests that Wilde drew on Belleroche for the character of Dorian Gray. The possibility that Belleroche may have inspired one of literature’s most intriguing characters adds another layer to his story, a figure of beauty, ambiguity and artistic intensity.
The exhibition also includes portraits of both his wife, Julie Visseaux, and one of his mistresses, revealing something of the complexity of his personal world.
Belleroche, Albert de, Study of a foot, early 1880's
© Private Collection
The exhibition catalogue showcases just under four hundred paintings, drawings and lithographs from key moments in Belleroche’s career. The main room at Three Highgate is devoted to highlights from a collection taken directly from the artist’s studio, a remarkable body of work of museum quality. The second room presents additional pieces available for individual sale, offering collectors a rare opportunity to acquire works by an artist whose lithographs were once praised by Renoir and exhibited alongside the leading figures of European modernism.
Belleroche’s association with North London bridged several decades, contributing to the cultural fabric of Hampstead and, by extension, Highgate. His practice, shifting between painting, lithography and portraiture, reflects a sustained development rather than a series of stylistic breaks. It is a world of visual delight, emotional nuance and technical mastery that deserves to be shared with a wide and appreciative public.
Through its new charitable status, Three Highgate Arts Foundation aims to ensure that artists like Belleroche are not lost to time. Visitors who wish to support this mission can donate directly to the Foundation, helping preserve artistic legacies, fund future exhibitions and maintain Highgate’s place within the wider story of British and European art.
A fully illustrated catalogue, Albert De Belleroche: Works from the Artist’s Studio, published by Liss Llewellyn, accompanies the exhibition.
Notes to Editors, Press and Visitors
Albert De Belleroche: Dorian Gray runs 03 December 2026 – 31 March 2027. The exhibition is open 2 to 6 pm on Thursdays and Saturdays, 12 to 4 pm on Sundays, and by appointment on all other days. For further information, images, and interview requests please contact Three Highgate team at info@threehighgate.com / +44 203 795 7200
About Alistair Hicks
Alistair Hicks is a writer and an art curator. He has concurrently curated at show at the Pera Museum in Istanbul about creation and destruction in the work of Frank Bowling, Francis Bacon and Victor Willing. He recently curated Paula Rego shows at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover, and the Pera Museum and an exhibition ‘Dancing with the Moon: Marcel Dzama’ with a little help from his friend Raymond Pettibon at the Pera Museum. Previously, he was a Senior Curator at Deutsche Bank. Alistair is the author of The Global Art Compass: New Directions in 21st Century Art (2014), Urban Mirrors – Reflections from the Artists of Istanbul (2022), Art Works: British and German Contemporary Art, 1960-2000 (2001), New British Art in the Saatchi Gallery (1989), and The School of London: The Resurgence of Contemporary Painting (1989). He has also written as an art critic and contributor for leading publications, including The Times and Financial Times and The Spectator, Apollo and Frieze magazines, among others.
About Three Highgate Arts Foundation
Three Highgate Arts Foundation is a charitable foundation established to advance the arts and education through exhibitions, film, publishing, residencies, talks and educational programmes. Building on the work of Three Highgate, an independent cultural platform established in Highgate in 2021, the Foundation develops research-led projects connecting modern and contemporary art, film and contemporary thought. Particular emphasis is placed on overlooked artistic legacies, emerging practices and projects that bring new perspectives to art, culture and cultural history. Exhibitions, films and publications are selected for artistic excellence, educational value and alignment with the Foundation’s charitable purposes. Registered Charity Number: 1217940
About Liss Llewellyn
Liss Llewellyn was created in 1991 by Paul Liss and Sacha Llewellyn. Sourcing paintings directly from artists’ estates and private collections, for over 30 years, Liss Llewellyn has offered for sale museum quality works of art by some of the most significant talents of the 20th century. Many of these have been placed in public museums and galleries as well as purchased by some of the greatest private collectors of our day. Our website is designed as both a resource for research and a marketplace. Working in association with museums worldwide, Liss Llewellyn has curated many groundbreaking monographic and thematic exhibitions. Each of these is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, over ten of which have been long-listed for the William MB Berger Prize for Art History, (awarded to Sacha Llewellyn in 2017 for her monograph on Winifred Knights).