8 October 2025 – 10 May 2026

Explore the artists who revolutionised modern art in Nigeria in the mid-20th century.

Set against the backdrop of cultural and artistic rebellion, Nigerian Modernism celebrates the achievements of Nigerian artists working before and after the decade of national independence from British colonial rule in 1960.

Nigerian Modernism tells the story of artistic networks that spanned Zaria, Ibadan, Lagos, and Enugu, as well as London, Munich, and Paris. Through groups like the Zaria Art Society and Mbari Artists’ and Writers’ Club, they fused Nigerian, African and European techniques and traditions to create vibrant, multidimensional works.

Explore a diverse range of paintings, sculpture, textiles and poetry from over 50 artists including Uzo Egonu, El Anatsui, Ladi Kwali and Ben Enwonwu MBE.

List of artists:

Jonathan Adagogo Green, Tayo Adenaike, Jacob Afolabi, Adebisi Akanji, Justus D. Akeredolu, Jimo Akolo, El Anatsui, Chike C. Aniakor, Abayomi Barber, Georgina Beier, Alexander “Skunder” Boghossian, Jimoh Buraimoh, Avinash Chandra, Nike Davies-Okundaye, Ndidi Dike, Uzo Egonu, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Afi Ekong, Erhabor Emokpae, Ben Enwonwu, Sir Jacob Epstein, Clara Etso Ugbodaga-Ngu, Okpu Eze, Adebisi Fabunmi, Agboola Folarin, Buraimoh Gbadamosi, Sàngódáre Gbádégesin Àjàlá, Yusuf Grillo, Felix Idubor, Solomon Irein Wangboje, Ladi Kwali, Akinola Lasekan, Jacob Lawrence, Valente Malangatana, Naoko Matsubara, Demas Nwoko, Olu Oguibe, Rufus Ogundele, J.D Ojeikere, Emmanuel Okechukwu Odita, Simon Okeke, Uche Okeke, Olowe of Ise, Asiru Olatunde, Lamidi Olonade Fakeye, Oseloka Okwudili Osadebe, Aina Onabolu, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Ben Osawe, Muraina Oyelami, Ru van Rossem, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Gerard Sekoto, Twins Seven Seven, Ahmad Shibrain, F.N. Souza, Ada Udechukwu, Obiora Udechukwu, Etso Clara Ugbodaga-Ngu and Susanne Wenger.

Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting will be the UK’s most comprehensive museum exhibition to focus on the artist’s works on paper, including some works seen on display for the first time.

Lucian Freud (1922-2011) achieved recognition as one of Britain’s foremost figurative painters, celebrated for his clinically raw and intensely observed portraits and nude studies. Freud’s working practice, artistic techniques and processes, alongside his dedication to the genre of portraiture all contribute to his popularity as an artist.

The exhibition explores the artist’s lifelong preoccupation with the human face and figure from the 1930s to the early 21st century, focusing on Freud’s mastery of drawing in all its forms – from pencil, pen, and ink to charcoal and etching. In addition, a carefully selected group of important paintings will reveal the dynamic dialogue between his practice on paper and on canvas.

Ahead of the exhibition in 2026, the National Portrait Gallery has acquired 12 new works from the estate of Lucian Freud. Among these are 8 etchings, including a trial proof, which are the first of their medium by Freud to enter the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection. One of the newly acquired etchings, which depicts the artist’s fashion-designer daughter, Bella Freud, will feature in the new exhibition, alongside archive research and previously unseen materials.

Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting is the first exhibition of Freud’s work at the National Portrait Gallery since the major retrospective Lucian Freud Portraits held in 2012, shortly after his death.

£23-25 / £25.50-27.50 with donation

Open daily: 10.30 – 18.00
Friday & Saturday: 10.30 – 21.00

The Courtauld presents the first ever exhibition dedicated to the seascapes of the French artist Georges Seurat (1859–1891). This major, focused display will be the first devoted to Seurat in the UK in almost 30 years. It will chart the evolution of his radical and distinctive style through the recurring motif of the sea.

The Courtauld holds the largest collection of works by Seurat in the UK. The artist is best known as the creator of the Neo-Impressionist technique, in which shapes and light are rendered by juxtaposing small dots of pure colour. Due to his early death at the age of 31, Seurat has a very small pool of works and exhibitions devoted to him are rare.

The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Seurat and the Sea will bring together 26 paintings, oil sketches and drawings made by Seurat during the five summers he spent on the northern coast of France, between 1885 and 1890. Working in port towns along the English Channel, including Honfleur, Port-en-Bessin and Gravelines, Seurat captured their seascapes, regattas and port activity in his distinctive Neo-Impressionist technique. He sought, in his words, ‘to wash his eyes of the days spent in the studio [in Paris] and to translate in the most faithful manner the bright clarity, in all its nuances’.

These works are an important counterpoint to his Parisian works, which are better known and more widely studied. This exhibition will therefore provide a unique opportunity to reassess an important but often overlooked aspect of Seurat’s career.

Adult £18 (£20 with donation)

Daily 10:00 – 18:00 (last entry 17:15)

Chiharu Shiota is best-known for her large-scale installations which engulf ordinary objects – such as shoes, keys, beds, chairs and dresses – within huge web structures made from woollen thread.

The resulting works are immersive and deeply emotive, often drawing from personal experience, which Shiota expands into universal human concerns such as life, death and relationships.

Accompanied by new large-scale sculptures, drawings, early performance videos and photographs, the artist’s signature works are woven from floor-to-ceiling across the Hayward Gallery’s top floor, responding to the gallery’s iconic brutalist architecture in a truly atmospheric presentation.

The exhibition features new iterations of Shiota’s past monumental installations, including During Sleep (2026), which is activated with performances throughout the run of the exhibition.

During Sleep performances are free with a ticket to the exhibition and take place on Saturday 7 March, 11 April & 2 May, 10am – 1pm.

£19

Tue – Fri, 10am – 6pm
Sat, 10am – 8pm
Sun, 10am – 6pm

This exhibition is on display alongside the exhibition Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart.
Each ticket includes entry to both exhibitions.

The first UK retrospective of the groundbreaking Colombian artist, Beatriz González, whose bold work explores the power and impact of the images we encounter every day.

Bringing together over 150 artworks, many showing in the UK for the first time, this major exhibition explores Beatriz González’s influential practice from the 1960s to now.

From her monumental paintings to repurposed furniture, wallpaper and installations, González draws from found images in popular postcards, reproductions of Western art, and newspaper clippings. In her distinctive graphic style and vivid palette, she transforms these images, playfully questioning ideas of taste, critiquing power structures, bearing witness to violence and offering moving reflections on grief, displacement and community.

£19

Tue–Wed 10am–6pm (last entry 5pm)

Thu–Fri 10am–8pm (last entry 7pm)

Sat–Sun 10am–6pm (last entry 5pm)

Bank Holidays 12–6pm (last entry 5pm)

This landmark exhibition traces 40 years of Tracey Emin’s groundbreaking practice, showcasing career-defining sensations alongside works never exhibited before. Through painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation, Emin continues to challenge boundaries, using the female body as a powerful tool to explore passion, pain, and healing.

Dame Tracey Emin is one of the most important contemporary artists of her generation. She was catapulted into the public eye in the 1990s with iconic works like her Turner Prize nominated My Bed, which sparked fierce critical and public debate, challenging what art could be. Emin’s disregard for any separation of the personal and the public, along with her commitment to unapologetic self-expression, came to define a historic moment in British culture and global art history.

Broadening Emin’s story, this exhibition celebrates her raw and confessional approach as she poses profound questions on love, trauma, and autobiography. It also demonstrates her lifelong commitment to painting, showing her recent work as the culmination of the ways she has channelled her life into her art.

£20

Sunday to Thursday 10.00–18.00

Friday to Saturday 10.00–21.00

Catherine Opie: To Be Seen will showcase photographic portraits by the American artist Catherine Opie. The exhibition, curated in collaboration with the artist, will be the first major museum exhibition of her work in the UK.

Opie’s work questions representations of home, intimacy and family, politics, identity and power structures.

Over the past 30 years, Opie has explored and positioned the portrait in numerous contexts and visual formats. Conceptually rigorous and formally executed, her photographs make visible queer communities, mentors and collaborators, children, surfers, high school footballers, political crowds and Opie herself through self-portraiture.

Works featured in the exhibition will span her first major work, Being and Having (1991), her portraits of LGBTQ+ friends inspired by court painter Hans Holbein, through to her Baroque-like portraits of artists. Portraits work in dialogue with one another to create new narratives, challenging viewers to reflect on the figures most commonly portrayed in art and those who go unseen.

In addition to this exhibition, a series of interventions will place Opie’s photographs in dialogue with the permanent Collection, probing further representation in the context of the National Portrait Gallery.

£19.50

Open daily: 10.30 – 18.00
Friday & Saturday: 10.30 – 21.00

One of the most influential artists of our time, David Hockney invites viewers to slow down and notice the extraordinary within the everyday in his first exhibition at Serpentine. Created specifically for this presentation, Hockney’s new paintings extend his lifelong fascination with the act of looking, affirming his belief that simple beauty is worth celebrating.

The exhibition is conceived in close collaboration with the artist and brings Hockney’s celebrated ninety-metre-long frieze A Year in Normandie to London for the first time. Inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, which will be on display at the British Museum in 2026, this monumental work captures the changing seasons at the artist’s former studio in Normandy. In the context of the exhibition at Serpentine, it opens a dialogue with the surrounding nature of Kensington Gardens.

Free but booking required

Tickets for March–May are available now. Tickets for June–August will be released at a later date.

Book Here

Hurvin Anderson’s first major solo show brings together more than 80 of his vibrant paintings, spanning the artist’s entire career, from his days as a student to new, never-before-seen paintings.

Through colour-drenched landscapes and interiors, Anderson meanders back and forth across the Atlantic, between the UK and the Caribbean. The youngest of eight children, he was the first to be born in the UK after his family left Jamaica for Birmingham in the 1960s. As a result, Anderson’s work reflects on his experiences of belonging and diaspora.

His works often feature family members, experiences from his youth and places of individual and cultural significance like the barbershop. By revisiting elements and sometimes layering one location onto another, he engages with the unreliability of memory and tension around cultural heritage.

Thanks to his profoundly atmospheric use of composition to explore the markers of identity, and his deep-rooted engagement with the traditions of British landscape painting, this exhibition confirms Anderson’s standing as one of the most important contemporary painters of his generation.

£18

Monday to Sunday 10.00–18.00

Known for her vigorous brushwork, vivid colour and dynamic compositions, Cecily Brown presents paintings inspired by Serpentine’s unique location in Kensington Gardens, a site of personal significance to the artist.

Themes of nature and park life have long shaped Brown’s formal explorations. She experiments with scale, colour and recurring motifs, such as amorous couples, woodland scenes, and uncanny nature walks.

New works made specifically for the exhibition are shown alongside a selection of key paintings dating back to 2001, in addition to recent monotypes and drawings. The exhibition gestures to Brown’s early memories of the English landscape, her fascination with children’s book illustrations, and the darker undercurrents of cautionary tales.

Picture Making marks Brown’s first major solo presentation of paintings in a UK institution since her 2005 exhibition at Modern Art Oxford and represents a homecoming for the British artist who has worked in New York for the past thirty years.

Free

Monday 12-6pm, Tuesday-Friday 10am-6pm, Saturday-Sunday 10am-7pm

The UK’s first exhibition on Elsa Schiaparelli spans the 1920s to today, celebrating the innovative designer’s influence. It traces the fashion house’s groundbreaking origins and its evolution under current creative director Daniel Roseberry.

Spanning the late 1920s to today, the exhibition charts the history and impact of one of fashion’s most innovative houses. Drawing on new research, the exhibition places founder Elsa Schiaparelli at the centre of a creative network across Paris, London, and New York, highlighting her role as a pioneering female entrepreneur. The show will trace the house’s remarkable trajectory, from its first, paradigm-shifting garments, through to its present-day incarnation under Creative Director, Daniel Roseberry. Over 200 objects—garments, accessories, jewellery, artworks, perfumes and archival material— will showcase the house’s boundless creativity. Highlights include the V&A’s ‘Skeleton’ and ‘Tears’ dresses, the surreal Shoe hat made with Salvador Dalí, and artworks by Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and Man Ray. Elsa Schiaparelli’s vision transformed ordinary objects into bold statements, and Daniel Roseberry continues that legacy at the original headquarters of 21 Place Vendôme, creating a contemporary oeuvre that continues to shape and inspire global culture today.

Weekdays £28 / Weekend £30

Concessions apply.
Advance booking is recommended

Daily 10.00 – 17.45

Friday 10.00 – 22.00

Victoria Miro presents a major exhibition of drawings and works on paper by Paula Rego (1935–2022).

The most comprehensive exhibition of Rego’s drawings to date, Story Line features works from the 1950s until the artist’s death, shining new light on Rego’s evolving use of line in media from pen and ink to pastel, conté, charcoal and pencil, and how it was driven by her unique approach to storytelling throughout her life. The exhibition is accompanied by a new book written by the artist’s son, Nick Willing.
‘When you write your story… invention comes when you do a drawing. As you are drawing something, it very often turns into something else, and you can go with it. It develops in a completely different way, it’s organic and it’s done with the hand. The hand makes it change and so on.’ – Paula Rego, The White Review, 2011

Paula Rego considered herself first and foremost a ‘drawrer’ (her word). From political protest to personal introspection, activism to domestic power games, subversive humour to challenging family relationships, it was through drawing that she understood herself and the world around her, discovering ways of expressing complex ideas through a single image. As Nick Willing comments, ‘A Rego drawing is never just one thing, but many feelings working together to reveal the truth. They not only helped her understand the world but can also help us understand it too.’

Driven by her distinctive approach to storytelling, this exhibition demonstrates how Rego adapted her line to emphasise the emotional nuance of the stories she told, and how her drawing techniques also reflected her interior emotional narrative. The works reveal the unique development of an artist whose visual storytelling, drawn from a wide variety of sources, spoke directly to us about the essential human traits of desire, loss, violence and power

The works on show vary from intimate drawings which have never been exhibited before to studies for some of Rego’s most recognisable paintings. These are accompanied by notes, letters, sketchbooks, photographs and other archival material from throughout Rego’s life – among myriad rarities is a drawing Rego made when she was nine years old of her grandmother, while the exhibition concludes with works including a drawing she made of her own granddaughter.

Free

Tuesday–Saturday: 10am–6pm