The London gallery scene this June will be thriving. Starting with London Gallery Weekend, where over 120 galleries across the capital are taking part with three days of exhibitions, events, and an engaging public programme. See our separate guide here. In addition, the public galleries and museums will be showing some major exhibitions such as Anish Kapoor at the Hayward, Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern and portraits of Marilyn Monroe at the National Portrait Gallery plus the Royal Academy of Arts annual Summer Exhibition.
Marilyn Monroe, by Cecil Beaton, 22 February 1956
Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait
4 June – 6 September 2026
National Portrait Gallery
In celebration of the Hollywood star’s 100th birthday and in association with the Marilyn Monroe estate, Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait will explore the life, career and legacy of Marilyn Monroe through portraits created by some of the greatest photographers and artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Bringing together works by Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty, Marlene Dumas, James Gill, Rosalyn Drexler and Audrey Flack, alongside over 20 era-defining photographers, including Cecil Beaton, Philippe Halsman, Bernard of Hollywood, Andre de Dienes, Eve Arnold, Inge Morath, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Milton Greene, Sam Shaw, Richard Avedon and George Barris, the exhibition will foreground Monroe’s collaborative approach to image making and her creative agency.
£25–27 / £27.50–30 with donation
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The Sun and the Moon, Saatchi Gallery
The Sun and The Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial
5 June – 8 September 2026
Saatchi Gallery
The Sun and The Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial is a major exhibition exploring how the two most powerful phenomena in the sky have inspired creativity, curiosity, and belief throughout human history and across different cultures. Occupying two floors of the Gallery and spanning nine major exhibition spaces, the show presents artworks, installations, and objects that reveal how artists have responded to the Sun and the Moon. The exhibition features the works by established artists, by emerging talent and archival material throughout.
From £13.50
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MC Escher
M C Esher
5 June – 6 September 2026
Somerset House
A major retrospective dedicated to Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher (Maurits Cornelis Escher) is coming to London for the first time this summer.
Bringing together more than 150 original works, the exhibition introduces a new generation of Londoners to the artist whose impossible staircases, shifting perspectives and intricate geometric worlds continue to shape contemporary visual culture.
From £16.50
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Julio Le Parc
11 Jun 2026 – 3 May 2027,
Tate Modern
Colourful and seductive, this immersive exhibition celebrates the visionary work of Julio Le Parc. Featuring his iconic interactive installations, striking sculptures, and large-scale op art paintings, the show spans an extraordinary career from the 1950s to the 2010s. Best known for his pioneering kinetic sculptures, which use light, movement and mirrored surfaces to playfully draw in the viewer, the show also explores the depth and diversity of Le Parc’s talent, revealing him to be a politically engaged artist and highly skilled painter with a passion for colour.
£15
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Chris Ofili, Union Black, 2003, ©Chris Ofili courtesy the artist, David Zwirner and Victoria Miro
Project a Black Planet The Art and Culture of Panafrica
11 Jun – 6 Sep 2026,
Barbican Art Gallery
The term Pan-Africanism refers to a broad spectrum of political and philosophical movements advocating anti-colonial resistance and transnational solidarity amongst peoples of African descent. While it has long been recognised as a galvanising force in 20th-century global history, Project a Black Planet is the first exhibition to consider both its influence on visual art and culture, and the critical role of artists in shaping Pan-African visions. The exhibition presents work produced across Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, North America and Western Europe, from artists including Chris Ofili, Marlene Dumas and Kerry James Marshall. The symbolic site of Panafrica is presented not as a fixed territory but as a conceptual terrain where rupture, dissent, and collective imagination converge in the pursuit of emancipatory futures.
£19
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Constable in Hampstead, Burgh House
John Constable in Hampstead
11th June – 20th September 2026
Burgh House, New End Square, London, NW3 1LT
To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of iconic Suffolk-born artist John Constable, Burgh House is delighted to present John Constable in Hampstead, a new exhibition exploring the artist’s profound connection to Hampstead Heath and the surrounding area where he lived and worked for almost twenty years.
Opening on 11th June, the anniversary of Constable’s birth, John Constable in Hampstead brings together key works from the artist’s Hampstead years, revealing how the area became both a creative inspiration and a refuge from London life. Through rarely seen paintings, mezzotints, portraits, and personal letters, this exhibition traces Constable’s deep engagement with the landscape, weather, and people of Hampstead during a pivotal and deeply personal period in his life.
Free
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Hepworth in Colour, The Courtauld Gallery
Hepworth in Colour,
12 June – 6 September 2026
The Courtauld Gallery
A major new exhibition of one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th Century.
Barbara Hepworth (1903 –1975) is best known for her abstract sculptural forms inspired by nature and the rugged seaside landscapes of Cornwall, where she lived and worked.
This ambitious exhibition will be the first to explore a less familiar aspect of her work, the artist’s lifelong fascination with colour, which she used in highly original and unexpected ways. The exhibition will unite for the first time her early innovative sculptures with colour of the 1940s, displayed alongside the most important drawings from that decade, and will include major examples of her work with colour from the 1950s and 1960s.
£18
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Tsunami, 2018, Anish Kapoor
© Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved, DACS, 2026. Photo: Dave Morgan
Anish Kapoor
16 Jun – 8 Oct 2026,
Hayward Gallery
As a centrepiece of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary programme, this landmark exhibition from Anish Kapoor marks his highly-anticipated return to the space after it was the first public gallery in the UK to host a major survey of his work in 1998. Curated by Ralph Rugoff, the show will span new monumental works that defy the boundaries of sculpture alongside seminal works, offering a series of spectacular encounters with Kapoor’s mind-bending art across the entire gallery and its terraces.
£22
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Summer Exhibition 2026
16 June – 23 August 2026
Royal Academy of Arts
The Royal Academy’s annual Summer Exhibition, the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show, will be in its 258th year. It provides a unique platform for emerging and established artists to showcase their work to an international audience, encompassing a range of media from painting, printmaking and photography to sculpture, architecture and film. It has been held each year without interruption since 1769. Around 1200 works will go on display, the majority of which will be for sale, offering visitors an opportunity to purchase original work. A significant portion of the funds raised continues to support postgraduate students at the RA Schools.
£23.50-£25.50 with donation
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Frida: The Making of an Icon
25 June 2026 – 4 Jan 2027,
Tate Modern
Organised by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in collaboration with Tate Modern. The exhibition is in partnership with Lead Global Supporter, Bank of America. Supported by John J. Studzinski CBE with additional support from Tate Members Discover the extraordinary story of how Frida Kahlo became one of the most influential artists of all time, a cultural phenomenon, and an internationally recognised commercial icon. Frida: The Making of an Icon will showcase works by the artist that introduce her ‘many selves’ – the dedicated wife, the intellectual, the modern artist, and the political activist. Featuring over 130 works, including some of her most well-known paintings, the exhibition will also feature documents, photographs and memorabilia taken from Kahlo’s archives, as well as the work of more than 80 of her contemporaries and artists she inspired from later generations.
£25
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