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Art and alcohol have always made good bedfellows, but nowhere have they snuggled up so successfully and for so long as in Soho's notorious private drinking den, the Colony Room Club.

Considering that its founder, the formidably camp Muriel Belcher, claimed to know 'fuck all about art', and that it has never been exclusively an artists' club, it is remarkable how, since its inception in 1948, the Colony has attracted so many British artists of renown.

From Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud to Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, successive generations have made their inebriated way up and down the creaking stairs that lead to this small, dark, once, smoke-filled room in Dean Street.

Bacon was given a weekly "salary' of free drinks at the art world watering hole in exchange for bringing in new customers.

And since the club's 50th anniversary in 1998, the rank of members and supporters has been swelled by a stream of thirtysomething British artists with big reputations.