The Arts Club

The Arts Club is a private members' club at 40 Dover Street in Mayfair, London, founded in 1863 and originally sited at 17 Hanover Square. Its nineteenth-century membership included Millais, Whistler, Kipling, Monet, Rodin and Degas. The present clubhouse is an eighteenth-century townhouse that was bombed in the Blitz and rebuilt. The club runs a rotating exhibition programme and a permanent collection, live music, several restaurants and bars (a Mediterranean brasserie, the Japanese restaurant Kyubi, the Ofelia members' lounge, the late bar Leo's and the Oscuro cigar lounge), guest bedrooms, and a Lanserhof wellness facility on site. Membership is sold in four published categories: full membership for applicants aged 33 and over, a spouse or partner rate, a young membership for applicants under 33, and an add-on subscription giving London members full access to The Arts Club Dubai, which opened in December 2020. The club also runs a Mini Members programme for members' children and maintains reciprocal arrangements with clubs overseas.

آلية العمل

Members use a single Mayfair clubhouse that operates from morning until the early hours, with dining rooms, bars, a gallery, event spaces and hotel rooms. Prospective members submit an enquiry through the club's website; the club asks international applicants to apply to the outpost nearest their primary residence. Subscriptions run annually and a one-off "member assessment fee" is charged on joining for full and young members.

العضو النموذجي

Historically artists, writers and collectors; the current roll is reported to include figures from art, entertainment and business. The club publishes no occupational or wealth criteria.

The Arts Club is unusual among Mayfair clubs in publishing its full rate card, which makes cost comparison straightforward: £3,200 a year plus a £1,600 assessment fee for a full member, against £1,500 plus £500 for members under 33. What it does not publish is anything about selection: no proposer or seconder rule, no committee description, no waiting-list statement, no member count. The arts framing is genuine (a collection, exhibitions, a president drawn from the art world) but the club is not a working or business club: there is no co-working offer and no stated professional criterion. The Dubai outpost is sold as an add-on rather than a reciprocal, which suits members who travel to the UAE and is of little value to anyone else.

تحليل تحريري بقلم Peer Group Guide editors. إنه مفصول عن السجل أعلاه ويأتي بعد السياسة التحريرية.