Providence Art Club
Providence’s tightly-knit community of artists and
collectors created this club to congregate, create, and
display art; it is the second oldest art club in the country
after the Salmagundi Club in New York City. Among the
founders was Edward Mitchell Bannister, a celebrated
African American landscape painter. The western-most
of the club’s four buildings is the Fleur-de-Lys Studio
(1885), built by Sydney Burleigh as workspace for
himself and fellow club artists. Designated a National
Historic Landmark, the studio is a masterpiece of Arts
and Crafts architecture with finely rendered detail. On
the street level corner is inscribed the phrase “Fair
among the Fairest.” Not everybody appreciated this
building; H.P. Lovecraft found it so revolting that he set
his horror story “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926) there.
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All efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this website, however it is subject to change. Information is updated in an ongoing manner in partnership with local tourism offices, individual businesses and organizations and via a direct feed from goprovidence.com, discovernewport.org, southcountyri.com and Yelp.com.