Behind a high-ceilinged living room backdropped by Brighton’s view of the English Channel sits a private space with an impressive Regency table. The room has been decorated by the enlightened eyes of British-American gallerist Maureen Paley, one of the first to present contemporary art in London’s East End, at her eponymous gallery opened in 1984. It thrives on the friction between period and modern elements, from the glass chandelier twinned in the overmantle mirror to the art books piled up by the doorway and the wrought-iron garden chairs that humour the otherwise classical decor with whimsical curls.
The lacquered table is an apt extension of Paley herself, who is dressed and styled in black with her signature bouffant, just as she has been pictured for decades. Motivated by the spirit of reinvention surrounding London’s punk scene, she built a career around giving groundbreaking contemporary voices – particularly those of young artists – a seat at the art world table. The immense desk, which could comfortably sit eight, embodies this generosity of space and spirit.
Indeed, Paley’s domain is ever-growing from the gallery’s Bethnal Green roots: in 2017, she opened Morena di Luna in Hove, Studio M in Shoreditch followed in 2020, and in 2025 she opened a new, larger gallery space in the former Wolfgang Tillmans studio in Herald Street. Seeing her private space of work – where panel shutters and pale sea-green curtains create a hushed ambience – is to witness not only the discerning eye of a gallerist but also the quiet passion of a lifelong collector. Someone for whom the smaller things in life (a sticker, a scent, a song) are anything but. A longtime customer and friend of Choosing Keeping, Paley welcomed us to her home to discuss British greeting card culture, working from bed, and the joy of receiving found gifts.
Choosing Keeping: Louisa May Alcott wrote on a very tiny table, which I’ve seen in Concord, Massachusetts; Philip Roth preferred a standing desk. What can you tell us about your own desk furniture and your choice of room?
Maureen Paley: Any surface will do. And I think based on the materials that you’re using for correspondence and writing, those actually guide you as much as the location in which you use them. But my place of choice that I’m sharing with you is a special room where I have a Regency table that is black lacquered. And I love how it offsets a lot of what I’ve chosen to write with and what I send to people. It highlights everything in a very special way and creates an uplifting approach for engaging with it all.
CK: Where are your chairs from?
MP: I found these in London. The chairs are garden furniture that go back to the 1940s. I had the cushions made for the chairs. I often take furniture that is used outside and bring it inside, giving it a completely different interpretation. And I love the shape of them and the way that they appear. It’s almost as if they create, for me, the appearance of a drawing of a chair as much as being a chair to sit in. Because where I live is a seaside place, there’s a sense that everything found in it is more casual in certain ways and a little more imaginative. Not fully furnishing it as you would expect based on its history. The mint green chosen for the carpet and curtains is about the colour of the sea. The 40s have really interested me colour-wise and furnishing-wise. That mixed with Regency and a touch of the 50s is a happy marriage.
CK: What do you do at your desk? Is it more for introspection or for communication?
MP: One of the things that’s happened in the last five years is that I’ve introduced Morena di Luna to Hove and Brighton. It’s quite exciting to show art in this location but then also have a private way of corresponding with people, as being away from London means that there’s an opportunity to send notes and cards to people. I’ve always loved that ritual of corresponding, thanking, responding in writing. And people here do it quite a bit.
CK: I think Britain as a country comes first in terms of most greeting cards sold.
MP: It doesn't surprise me. There’s a desire to communicate, and it’s a more polite and maybe more gentle way than always using the telephone or saying everything verbally to someone. The act of communicating through writing and notes is so special. It’s something I love very much about this culture.
CK: Have you always had a desk or office space at the gallery? Or do you work off-site mostly?
MP: It’s both. I do like working in the gallery at my desk there. And there is now a table that I always had as my desk in the old space, my former Herald Street space, that now is in my office at Studio L in Rochelle School. So it’s a movable feast and a constellation of spaces where I’m often writing at tables rather than desks, which I’ve noticed. They tend to be industrial in feel, or they’re tables that are transformed from being more dining-like to desk-like. And their scale sometimes is a little more generous than a very confined desk. It’s something about giving a sense of generosity of scale to a space.
CK: Do you have a desk routine? Beyond the desk, the furniture, the materials, do you use perfume, music, to generate a mood or enhance your working?
MP: Well, I’m a great collector of scents, both for home and personal use. I think that having a sensual experience in a home is important. Music is essential, as far as I’m concerned. So I’m listening to a lot of music – and it’s a range. I very much enjoy jazz, classical music, popular music, depending on the day. I find it mood-enhancing, mood-lifting, and also atmospheric.
CK: Do you play music on a stereo or on a record player?
MP: I started off using stereos to play music but I have to confess that now I’ve moved on and listen to many things through my phone, where I’ll stream music and have it connected to compact speakers. I’m not collecting vinyl, though I wish I did. I’m intrigued at how streamlined the way I listen has become.
CK: Would you ever work from bed?
MP: I have. In London I often do but more late at night. [The French author] Colette wrote in bed and would always talk about bed as an important and sensuous place to think about things, do things, communicate and write. I do that together with having an upright, sitting-in-a-chair desk experience. I don’t mind occasionally being a bit horizontal.
CK: Do you have an affinity with any particular pieces of stationery?
MP: I love paper, and I love printed matter. So I’m really intrigued by very specific cards, which often I’ll buy in bulk and give and use so that they become emblematic in association with me. I am completely taken with the swallows and the beautiful stickers that you’ve produced – I have been using them for years. I love adding to and embellishing cards that I’m sending out or presents that I’m wrapping with this little extra bit of decoration. That is something that makes it, for me, very personal and at the same time allows things to look somewhat more enhanced.
CK: You have a very confident and personal sense of style. Is that something that is conscious? Is that something you’ve always had growing up?
MP: I had it from childhood! [Laughs] It’s evolved over the years.
CK: Did you always collect things?
MP: Always. Shrines and collections of things happened very early on in my life. I was known for my collections.
CK: What did you collect?
MP: There were dolls in the first instance. Then I had a whole series of postcards and books. But as you get older, of course, you grow out of certain aspects of your collections and advance with greater knowledge. But definitely whenever it came to any room that I inhabited, creating a shrine was essential.
CK: What do they mean to you? Are they emotional attachments?
MP: They are all acknowledgments of different points in my life and keeping a visual and an open diary of sorts. I’m quite animistic, so everything I’m choosing has a sense of a soul in it that really speaks to me. Surrounding yourself with things that are meaningful to you, putting them in concert with one another, means those things can end up making a statement about you, as much as to others, when you’re contemplating them.
CK: Are you sentimental?
MP: Perhaps I am a bit. When people have given me a stone they found on the beach or something they found in the street but thought I would like, those things mean as much as a bought present. I think that often it’s things that money cannot buy that are most moving and essential. But I like the mixture of the two.
CK: What do you look for in a shop?
MP: I’ve been lucky in my life to find a number of people who run shops that, for me, are much greater than just being a shop – they are the treasure trove that I am looking for. When you meet up in life with someone who is presenting things within the context of a shop or a gallery whose tastes overlap or entwine with your own, it’s magic. So what you’ve selected, what you’ve edited, what you’ve done in the shop speaks to me. That’s a wonderful experience because it means one wants to return and return.
CK: When you shop for gifts or for yourself, what is most important to you? Is it how products are made, where they come from, if they will last?
MP: Well, I really support small shopkeepers. Actually, I don’t like to use the word ‘small’, but things that emanate from one person who’s running a shop in their own idiosyncratic way appeal to me. So there’s a variety of different shops that I return to, support, want to see thrive, and want to make sure continue because I really like what they do. I tend to try and find all these things personally – go choose, pick and see on my own. If I can’t, I'll do it online through that shop as opposed to going elsewhere on the Internet. I do think that keeping a global view but also understanding what’s needed locally and getting a direct connection to what people are offering, to find all manner of things, is really wonderful. I’ve always done it.
Making a point of collecting and supporting shops and people that you feel are making a contribution is essential if you want them to continue. Because how else will you continue? From my point of view, I see that as giving back. If I do well in my business, I want to go and collect art from colleagues. I've been doing that for years and really believe that’s been special and important to do. And I’m not doing it because I ought to; it’s because they have things that I’m very interested in. If you see things you love, if you see things that are meaningful, if you feel positive towards something, you should reward and engage with that.
CK: Are you an impulsive shopper? If you see something, do you think you should just go for it? Or are you more pensive?
MP: It varies. I can be immediately impulsive if I see something that I think is never going to be there again if I don’t get it now. And then other times I will research things. But I can go in and become a complete magpie and just end up wanting to load up and replenish, which I do almost seasonally.
CK: How long have you known about Choosing Keeping? What are things that you like about the shop?
MP: I visited Choosing Keeping in the first year it opened. I remember coming across it and first being drawn to your window and some flowers in a beautiful vase. Then, it was extraordinary to see what you had presented inside. For me to find a shop like it at the time on Columbia Road was a miracle. It was an immediate place that I wanted to revisit to get things from. You were the cusp and the beginning of those things being possible and available in that street. And I remember doing my Sunday pilgrimages to come and get different things. And that then grew. So when you moved, I had to follow you.
Photos by Maria Bell
Portrait of Maureen Paley by Hannah Starkey
