Art Supply Store in Charing Cross: Cass Art London

For artists, students, and urban sketchers looking for an art supply store near me in the West End, Cass Art at 13 Charing Cross Road is an iconic landmark. Positioned just off Trafalgar Square and directly opposite the National Portrait Gallery, this energetic shop occupies a site where artists' colorists have traded continuously since 1898. Mark Cass took over the historic location in 1984, establishing the flagship store and launching his influential campaign to fill the town with artists. Today, that original storefront remains the beating heart of Cass Art's network across the capital.

Generations of art students have walked through its distinctive wooden portal on Charing Cross Road, greeted by floor-to-ceiling displays of pigment markers, canvas pads, and watercolour palettes arranged with immaculate clarity. It is the premier West End hub where Londoners top up their daily creative provisions.

The store regularly hosts in-store demonstrations by contemporary illustrators, providing a dynamic social hub for the capital's drawing community.

Cass Art is celebrated for curating professional materials at student-friendly prices, partnering directly with Europe's top manufacturers. For plein-air landscape and urban drawing, a Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolour compact set of 14 half pans costs £49.95, housed in a durable plastic case with integrated mixing wells, water bottle clip, and a travel pocket brush. The pans feature pure pigments ground with traditional gum arabic, delivering bright washes that re-wet instantly in the field.

Drawing enthusiasts will find complete ranges of artist graphite and coloured pencils arranged in open sample drawers. A tin of 24 Faber-Castell Polychromos artist coloured pencils costs £36.50, offering break-resistant leads with rich oil-based cores that layer smoothly without wax bloom. For quick tonal studies, a Derwent Graphic soft sketching pencil tin of 12 assorted grades costs £14.95, covering 9B through H for expressive mark-making on fine cartridge paper.

The pencil displays include testing pads where visitors can try different lead softnesses and paper grains before committing to a purchase. Refill sticks and single pencil replacements are neatly filed by numerical color code along the counter wall, making it easy to replace favourite shades without repurchasing complete boxed tins. You can also pick up kneaded putty erasers, paper blending stumps, and brass pencil sharpeners right beside the cashier.

Charcoal sticks from Willow Charcoal and compressed charcoal blocks from Conté à Paris provide dark velvety blacks for life drawing classes at nearby Central Saint Martins and Prince's Foundation.

A cornerstone of the shop's popularity is its proprietary line of paper pads, developed in collaboration with premier British paper mills. A Cass Art jumbo gummed sketchbook pad in A4 size featuring 130gsm cartridge paper costs £4.95, containing 50 acid-free sheets that accept graphite, charcoal, pen, and light washes without bleeding or buckling under normal studio handling.

Illustrators and street artists can browse the rainbow wall of Japanese acrylic markers, where each nib size is displayed for testing on paper pads. A POSCA PC-5M medium bullet tip marker in black costs £3.25, flowing smoothly with opaque, water-resistant pigment that adheres to paper, wood, glass, and canvas. The basement floor houses lightweight studio easels, portfolio folders, and large-format canvas multi-packs.

For watercolorists traveling light, the shop offers water-brush pens with self-contained barrel reservoirs, folding metal palettes, and microfibre blotting cloths designed to pack neatly into a compact urban sketching kit. Every product is evaluated for practical field performance, allowing artists to set up an impromptu studio on the steps of nearby Trafalgar Square.

Cutting mats, stainless steel safety rulers, masking fluids, and scalpel handles line the craft section, providing all the physical tools required for precision model making and paper sculpture.

Cass Art maintains deep ties to London's major art academies, providing student and tutor discounts with valid identification. Art scholars from Central Saint Martins, the Royal Academy Schools, and the Slade frequently gather here between lectures to pick up essential studio stock. The company's ongoing mission to support art education includes regular workshops, artist talks, and local community exhibitions.

The shop's proximity to Trafalgar Square makes it uniquely stimulating for practicing painters. You can study Rembrandt, Turner, and Cezanne inside the National Gallery, walk across the road to purchase identical paint pigments and hog bristle brushes at Cass Art, and immediately begin applying those classical techniques to your own work. It turns an academic museum visit into an active studio workshop, bridging high art history with tangible material practice.

Cass Art Charing Cross is located at 13 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EP. The shop maintains extended opening hours, welcoming visitors Monday to Saturday from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, and Sunday from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Charing Cross underground and rail station is a two-minute walk away, while Leicester Square station on the Northern and Piccadilly lines is just around the corner.

Because of its extended evening hours, artists can stop by after work or museum visits without rushing. The staff provide knowledgeable, cheerful guidance whether you need advice on priming an unbleached linen board or selecting an archival fixative spray for soft charcoal sketches. It remains one of London's most vital creative resources right in the cultural core of the city, keeping London artists thoroughly equipped.

Gift cards, online click-and-collect fulfillment, and express courier options for oversized folios ensure that busy London painters never miss an exhibition deadline. It stands as an approachable, democratic bridge between fine art tradition and contemporary urban creation.