THE MAKERS | ART & CULTURE | CABANA MAGAZINE

Meet Eric Lansdown, one of the world’s foremost dolls' house and aviary artists whose studio in the south of France is as enchanting as his creations. The craftsman, currently exhibiting at Homo Faber in Venice, works inside the village’s medieval bishop’s hall - an atmospheric space where Roman temples, French châteaux and Napoleonic bridges stand tall.

BY MILA WOLPERT | ART & CULTURE | 27 SEPTEMBER 2024

Eric Lansdown in his studio with an unfinished aviary © Kerry Morgan.

There are few feelings as moving in this world as the experience of wonder. This is how I felt when I came across the work of Eric Lansdown, a San Franciscan artist who builds handmade dolls' houses and aviaries in the South of France. Inspired by antiquity, the Renaissance, and the French Second Empire, Lansdown's grand structures resemble architectural treasures like Paris’ Arc de Triomphe or ancient Roman temples. The magnificence of his craft stems from his ability to capture the beauty and grandeur of European architectural heritage in a smaller scale.

Born into a family of artists in San Francisco, Lansdown’s parents encouraged his creative endeavors and craftsmanship. His father was a decorative painter who worked for wealthy families, painting their homes, holiday retreats, and yachts. His mother, Carole, restored antiques. Lansdown also spent some of his childhood in the American Southwest, where he lived with his aunt, the prolific muralist Edith 'Edie' Hamlin, married to Maynard Dixon, master painter of the Southwest. Lansdown’s current home in Gabian, France, is in part a celebration of his aunt’s legacy, featuring never-before-seen portraits of her by her friend, Ansel Adams.

Lansdown's passion for craft began with a strong connection to wooden boats and sailing ships; from a young age he had an innate feeling that he'd built a Viking ship in a former life. He built impressive boats throughout his childhood, and in the late 1970s even set up his first dolls' house and aviary studio in a once-sunken, resurrected 90-foot fishing boat on the San Francisco waterfront.

He made his first commercial dolls' house in 1973 from a fish box from Chinatown: a small blue and white San Franciscan Victorian house with carved wood, colored glass, and painted details throughout. It soon became clear to him that life as an artist was much more enjoyable than working for a demolition company.

In the late 1970s, journalists began to take notice of Lansdown’s work, and as he developed his pieces were sold by luxury retailers and catalogue companies. Although his work gained attention, business was still challenging and lacked the great artistic pleasure he searched for. Lansdown paused his business and set off on a new path to France in the early 1990s, later to return to his craft in 2014. This is where the heart of this story takes place, in Gabian, France.

Today, Lansdown lives and works in Gabian, a historically significant Roman village in the Occitanie region of the south of France. Coming into Gabian and entering the foothills leading to the Haut-Languedoc Nature Park, one traverses a hill on an ancient Roman line from Pézenas, and passes by the impressive, medieval Château-Abbaye de Cassan when entering the town. The artist’s studio lies in the medieval halls of the local Abescat, or Bishop’s hall, in the ecclesiastic quarter.

Dolls' houses and aviaries at differing stages of completion are dotted around the studio - some upright, others on their side, one suspended on a loft overlooking the space below the five-meter-high ceiling. Depending on where you are, a different antique tile floor lines the ground beneath you. Light pours onto Lansdown’s work-at-hand through grand doors leading out onto a balcony, while on his work table, a five-inch door lies next to a French Second Empire façade, ready to be placed behind one of the miniature wrought-iron balconies. Lansdown’s studio and his art are in conversation with one another, joined by a palpable sense of history.

Like his studio, Lansdown’s world revolves around history and heritage. He takes inspiration from Greek and Roman antiquity, the Renaissance, and the French Second Empire, with an openness for new periods and places. He prepares the designs by referencing his archive, which includes a collection of about 1,500 photographs printed by Monument de France in the 1890s. Many are glass plate Daguerreotype pinhole aperture shots from the mid-1800s. He bases his designs off of these sources, which affords his creations accurate characteristics.

His fine craftsmanship is complemented by his artistic imagination, resulting in dolls' houses and aviaries that stay true to history while allowing for freedom. Striking examples include aviaries from the early 90s called the “Black Chinoiserie Series” and “White Chinoiserie Series,” where the artist takes a style rooted in the 17th and 18th-century European art market and adopts it to decorate a birdcage, rather than a cabinet, commode, or secrétaire. Lansdown took this artistic freedom even farther when he employed gold and black paint, representative of Chinese lacquer decorative arts, on a “Napoleonic Bridge” aviary in the 1980s.

View of Eric Lansdown's Studio in Gabian, a village in the south of France. 

This month, he presented three new French Second Empire dolls' houses at Homo Faber in Venice, a chance for Lansdown to share his specialized skills with a wider audience. Sponsored by Homo Faber and the Swiss Michelangelo Foundation, he also hopes to train young artists and makers to carry on his work in the future.

Ten years after resuming his practice, Lansdown is experiencing a renaissance as he expands his reach through a more serious apprenticeship program and searches for new artistic themes. Among such changes, his studio will retain its nearly 1,000-year historical integrity, following France’s Monument historique protection.

Lansdown reflects on his art practice by comparing it to music: he states that “music is measured, drawn, and written with defining points. It’s recorded in a certain way on paper. However, it is, in fact, an infinite form.”