Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pretentious.

1901		Academy 16 Mar. 221: The Kensington is its title; it is broad in the page, handsomely printed, and decidedly Art-y. It will contain criticisms of painting, music, and the drama.
1919		J. Buchan Mr Standfast (1930) 466: You won’t live in an old manor like this, but among gimcrack little ‘arty’ houses.
1951		Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 144: The arty types were all over America, sucking up its blood.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 181: The more effeminate or ‘arty’ chorus-boy fairies.
1991		in J. Breslin Damon Runyon (1992) 298: Harry Cohn [...] had called it ‘arty dreck.’.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 73: Keva and James got themselves a floor in the sprawling Ivanhoe Road manse in arty Sefton Park.