Martyn Thompson’s Sydney Apartment

After spending around two decades in New York, artist, photographer and designer Martyn Thompson returned to Sydney in 2021. He settled into an apartment at Birtley Towers, an Art Deco building in Elizabeth Bay designed by architect Emil Sodersten. Photographed by Josh Robenstone, the home reflects Thompson’s approach to interiors: personal, layered and shaped by the objects, materials and colours he surrounds himself with.

Thompson’s career has moved between fashion photography, interiors, textiles and object design. Rather than treating these as separate disciplines, he draws connections between them, bringing the same attention to colour, texture and composition to his home as he does to his photographs and designs.

One of the apartment’s defining features is a checkerboard pattern painted by hand across the walls in beige and creamy white. The geometric motif creates a strong visual structure, but its effect is softened by plants, artworks and furniture gathered throughout the rooms. It is not a strictly ordered interior; the pattern provides a backdrop for objects with different histories and personalities.

The motif appears again in a warm-toned checked wallpaper, printed from a photograph of one of Thompson’s own paintings. This translation from painting to photography to wallpaper reflects the way he develops ideas across different mediums. The pattern becomes more than decoration, connecting the apartment to his wider work with photographic imagery and surface design.

The rooms bring together pieces from different periods and places. In the living room, a vintage mirror sits alongside a 1920s portrait, a carved Baule stool from the Ivory Coast and a Turkish rug made from wool and silk. Thompson’s own ceramic vessel and upholstery textiles appear among these collected objects, making it difficult to separate his personal collection from the things he has created himself.

Textiles play an important role throughout the apartment. Jacquard fabrics designed by Thompson cover the sofa and ottomans, while vintage stools, a 1970s table and Murano glass pendants introduce different forms, materials and finishes. The result is an interior built through contrast rather than a single style. Some pieces are carefully designed, others carry the marks of age and use, and their differences give the rooms their character.

Thompson’s route into photography began after he opened a boutique in Sydney and started photographing clothes. He moved to Paris in 1988 and then London in 1991, where his work expanded into food and interiors photography. His photographs have since appeared in publications including British Vogue, W and Architectural Digest, alongside campaigns for brands such as Ralph Lauren, Hermès, Tiffany and Gucci.

His interest in interiors also led to collaborations with British editor Ilse Crawford on The Sensual Home (2000) and Home is Where the Heart Is (2005). He later published his own books, Interiors (2011) and Working Space (2013). Alongside photography, he developed collections of fabrics, wallpaper, ceramics and rugs, often drawing on motifs and details found in his images. This movement between photography and physical objects is central to his approach: an image can become a textile, a pattern can become a surface, and an idea can take on a new form through materials.

Thompson has described his style as “sophisticated Bohemian,” with an emphasis on handmade objects, colour, texture and the character that comes with age. His Sydney apartment brings these interests together in a space that feels collected over time rather than assembled according to a fixed plan. The furnishings are not simply arranged to match; their value lies in their individual qualities and in the relationships that develop between them.

Robenstone’s photographs capture these details through the apartment’s changing light, patterned walls and carefully placed objects. The images offer a view of a home that also functions as an extension of Thompson’s creative life, where photography, design and collecting meet in everyday surroundings. As Thompson has put it, the apartment has gradually “settled into what it’s meant to be.”