OUR STORY
One sunny June morning in 2010, Caroline Wiseman was just about to swim in Aldeburgh’s North Sea when, as she walked across the pebbles, she noticed that the South Lookout tower had a new sign on it: TO RENT.
While she swam, her mind dissolved into a reverie - this little tower would be a temple of creativity, for the town, the county, the country, the world!
So Caroline, together with her late partner, Francis Carnwath, sold their London home and bought the little tower on the beach and the handsome blue house which overlooks it. Now was the ideal opportunity for Caroline to continue her exploration into the enigma of creativity, a subject she had been fascinated with for many years.
The newly restored Aldeburgh Beach Lookout (with thanks to Sir Antony Gormley) has a plaque to three people who have been important in its life - Sir Laurens van der Post, David Blix Andren, and Francis Carnwath CBE.
Caroline Wiseman and Francis Canwarth at the Aldeburgh Beach Lookout and Art House
A qualified barrister, Caroline Wiseman founded Caroline Wiseman Modern and Contemporary in 1988. Since then she has been an international art dealer, living and working in both London and New York, where her triplet sons grew up. Ten years ago, she and her partner Francis Carnwath founded the Aldeburgh Beach Lookout in an old Lookout tower on Aldeburgh Beach as a catalyst for challenging ideas. Caroline founded ALIVE in the UNIVERSE in 2019, and with co-curator David Baldry presented projects by 28 artists over 28 days at the Venice Biennale. In 2021, The Angel of the East, lying on Aldeburgh Beach between the Lookout and the sea, was created and named by members of the Arts Club Aldeburgh Beach.
The Art House is like a ‘living, breathing Kettles Yard by the sea’, Telegraph Magazine, 25th May 2013. It exhibits a constantly changing selection of paintings, drawings, sculpture and original prints by important British and international artists.
Over the years Caroline Wiseman Modern and Contemporary has been consultant for many major private collections and museums, including the Musee D'Art Classique a Mougins. It was also voted ‘New Museum of The Year’, in 2011 by Apollo Magazine.