ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a solid foundation for understanding the changing status of women artists, the nature of shopping and the space of art in this unique neighbourhood. This knowledge can be deepened when one considers how changes in the production and consumption of luxury goods, especially art, along with the feminisation of the West End, contributed to a wide array of cultural transformations. This chapter examines how the West End of London became a unique urban experience for female artists and consumers of art as they experienced and participated in the intricacies of the producing, exhibiting, selling and buying of a time-honoured item of status and luxury-fine art. The role of gender, specifically the role of women as consumers and producers of art, provided new opportunities for women to participate in the art community and the larger network of the urban environment in which it was embedded.
