LONDON: VISIONARY ARTS IMPRESARIO AND FASHION HISTORIAN/COLLECTOR ROGER K. BURTON IS GONE, BUT HIS INFLUENTIAL LEGACY ENDURES

AS THE FOUNDER/DIRECTOR OF THE HORSE HOSPITAL, AN INDEPENDENT ARTS CENTER, HE CREATED AND NURTURED A HOME FOR AVANT-GARDE, EXPERIMENTAL, AND LABEL-DEFYING ARTISTS

Published on January 11, 2026

In London, the influential artist, fashion historian and collector, and exhibition curator Roger K. Burton died in August of last year at the age of 76. Burton was the founder and director of the Horse Hospital, an independent arts center located in the British capital’s Bloomsbury district, where it became a showcase for avant-garde, underground, and experimental art-makers’ creations in a wide range of genres and media.

The Horse Hospital building in central London’s Bloomsbury district was erected in the late 1790s to serve cab drivers’ sick horses. In 1993, under founder Roger Burton’s direction, the independent, nonprofit arts organization known as the Horse Hospital opened to the public with the exhibition “Vive le Punk!” Photo courtesy of the Horse Hospital’s archive

brutjournal’s London-based artist-correspondent Cathy Ward knew Burton well and exhibited her own works at the Horse Hospital on more than one occasion. Now, looking back on what has been widely recognized as a tremendous loss to London’s and to Europe’s broader artistic community, Cathy offers this personal reminiscence of Burton’s life and appreciation of his legacy.

Cathy Ward reports:

LONDON — Until his death in August 2025, Roger K. Burton worked tirelessly to preserve the Horse Hospital, an 18th-century, brick building in central London, and to nurture the arts institution of the same name he had founded there in 1992, which became his life’s work. Keeping the institution alive as a vibrant arts venue and clothing archive, and protecting its building’s unique historic character from the threat of destructive redevelopment became a real struggle.