The 12 best art exhibitions coming to London in 2026

Happy New Year, art lovers! January tends to be a pretty quiet month for London’s art scene – what with all the collectors and gallerists off sunning themselves – but it’s the perfect time to get organised for the year ahead.

And what a year it’s gonna be for the city’s gallery-botherers, with blockbuster exhibition after blockbuster exhibition on the way over the next twelve months. There’s monumental sculpture, pointillist landscapes and flashy photography, massive names from Renoir to Hockney, and so many big shows by women that the Guerrilla Girls might have to get a new schtick.

RECOMMENDED: The best theatre shows in London for 2026.

Stay tuned for loads more details on this year’s exhibitions, as many of the smaller commercial galleries are yet to announce their schedules for the coming year. And in the meantime, get this lot in your diary.

The 12 best art exhibitions coming to London in 2026

1. Frida: ‘The Making of An Icon’ at Tate Modern

Featuring more than 130 artworks, including some of Frida Kahlo’s most iconic paintings, the Tate Modern’s mammoth summer exhibition will explore how the Mexican painter became the kind of cultural phenomenon whose monobrowed likeness adorns everything from novelty socks to limited-edition eye shadow pallets. The first major London exhibition on the feminist icon since the V&A’s one in 2018, it promises to be a fascinating exploration of the transformative role of women artists in the 20th century, as well as notions of fandom and the diverse communities who claim Frida as their own.

Tate Modern. Jun 25 2026-Jan 3 2027. More details here.

2. ‘Renoir and Love’ at the National Gallery

Londoners go mad for a bit of French impressionism, so it’s a little surprising that the capital hasn’t hosted an exhibition on one of its leading figures, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, since the National Gallery’s 2007 show on his landscapes nearly 20 years ago. It’s excellent news, then, that the Trafalgar Square institution will once again be hosting a major exhibition dedicated to the master painter next autumn. Renoir and Love will focus on the most significant and prolific years of the artist’s career, from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s, and will bring one of his most celebrated paintings, ‘Bal au Moulin de la Galette’, to the UK for the first time.

The National Gallery. Oct 3 2026-Jan 31 2027. More details here.

3. ‘The 90s’ at Tate Britain

If Tate’s 2025 programme was big on the 80s – thanks to Photographing Britain and Leigh Bowery! – then 2026 is all about The 90s! Tate Britain’s autumn show about British art, fashion, photography and pop culture in the final decade of the last millennium is being curated by none other than Edward Enninful OBE. Expect flashy photography from the likes of Juergen Teller, Nick Knight, David Sims and Corrine Day, iconic looks from Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen, and era-defining artworks by Damien Hirst, Gillian Wearing, and Yinka Shonibare.

Tate Britain. Oct 1 2026-Feb 14 2027. More details here.

4. David Hockney at the Serpentine

Everybody loves David Hockney, so it’s good news that the old geezer can’t seem to stop making art despite pushing 90. The Serpentine’s first ever exhibition on the octogenarian will focus on recent works, including the celebrated ‘Moon Room’, reflecting the painter’s lifelong interest in the lunar cycle, and ‘A Year in Normandy’, a 90-metre-long frieze inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry that shows the change of seasons at the artist’s Normandy studio. 

Serpentine North. March 12-Aug 23. Free. More details here. 

5. Tracey Emin: ‘A Second Life’ at Tate Modern

The Tate kicks off its 2026 programme with a retrospective tracing the 40-year career of Croydon’s finest artistic export. Over 90 pieces will be exibited in the landmark exhibition, including some of the Young British Artist’s most defining works, from her famous neons and her controversial Turner Prize-nominated installation ‘My Bed’, plus some brand new sculptures. Expect plenty of raw, confessional art exploring love, trauma and the female body.

Tate Modern. Feb 26-Aug 31. £20. More details here. 

6. ‘Seurat and the Sea’ at The Courtauld

OG neo-impressionist Georges Seurat spent five summers observing the port towns along the northern coast of France between 1885 and 1890, capturing impressive seascapes, regattas and other oceanic activities. Twenty three of these paintings, oil sketches and drawings are to be showcased at the Courtauld offering a nautical insight into the inventor of pointillism. 

The Courtauld. Feb 13-May 17. £18. More details here.

7. Ana Mendieta at Tate Modern

There’s no knowing what brilliant work Cuban-American multidisciplinary artist Ana Mendieta might still be producing if her career hadn’t been cut tragically short in 1985, when she died at the age of just 36, but it’s doubly unfortunate that the work she did produce is often obscured by conversations about her sculptor husband Carl Andre’s trial for her murder. The Tate Modern is putting the art front and centre this summer in the largest UK exhibition of Mendieta’s work to date, exploring her affinity with the natural world via performance, photography and video art.

Tate Modern. Jul 15-Jan 17 2027. More details here. 

8. Nan Goldin: ‘The Ballad of Sexual Dependency’ at Gagosian

Nan Goldin’s seminal photography series goes on display in full for the first time ever in the UK to mark the 40th anniversary of its publication as a photobook. Featuring 126 photographs shot between 1973 and 1986, it’s an intimate, wistful portrait of Goldin’s downtown NYC community – including pop culture icons like Cookie Mueller and Greer Lankton – shot in the photographer’s signature saturated, moody hues. 

Gagosian Davies Street. Jan 13-Mar 21. Free. More details here.

9. Catherine Opie: ‘To Be Seen’ at the National Portrait Gallery

The Portrait Gallery builds on its brilliant programming in 2025 with the first major UK exhibition on Catherine Opie, the American photographer best known for her stylised, painterly portraits of queer communities. To Be Seen will span the Ohio-born artist’s three-decade career, from her first major series ‘Being and Having’ (1991) to later photographs of children, surfers, high school footballers, political crowds and self-portraits.

National Portrait Gallery. Mar 5-May 31. £19.50. More details here.

10. Anish Kapoor at the Hayward

Anish Kumar’s first major UK exhibition in the UK took place at the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery in 1998. Nearly 30 years later, the internationally acclaimed sculptor’s work is coming back for his largest UK show to date. The exhibition displays recent pieces by Kapoor made with futuristic light-absorbing nanotechnology, as well as works that defined the early part of his career. Prepare to have your senses thrown into chaos by monumental mirror sculptures and a foreboding masses of wax drooping from the ceiling.

The Hayward Gallery. Jun 16-Oct 18. £22. More details here. 

11. Rose Wylie at the Royal Academy

Like a punkier Philip Guston, British painter Rose Wylie takes on films, celebrities and ancient civilisations in her exuberant, brightly coloured paintings. A later-in-life success story, she didn’t take up painting until her fifties, and was in her late seventies when the critics started paying attention. Featuring some of her most celebrated paintings alongside brand new works, this Royal Academy retrospective will hopefully bring the 92 year old’s exuberant, childlike yet wittily observed oeuvre to a wider audience. 

The Royal Academy. Feb 28-Apr 19. £21. More details here. 

12. Beatriz González at the Barbican

Famed for her vibrant, political, pop art-influenced depictions of Colombia during the decade-long civil war known as La Violenca, and known in her native country as ‘la maestra’, Colombian artist Beatriz González gets her first solo UK show at the Barbican this spring. It’ll feature more than 150 artworks made between the 1960s and the present day and spanning painting, sculpture, furniture and monumental printed curtains.

Barbican Art Gallery. Feb 25-May 10. More details here.