The Courtauld

21/10/2026

18/10/2026

The view from the back of a New York taxi cab 🚕

This painting by Salman Toor invites us into the intimate world of a close-knit circle of friends on their way to a night out in New York. Their animated expressions and closeness captures their excitement and anticipation.

Seen through the car window, the moon and the glowing city skyline create a sense of magic and possibility for the night ahead.

See it on display in Salman Toor: Someone Like You, until 10 January 2027.

🎟️ Advance booking highly recommended. Book now - https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-salman-toor-someone-like-you/

💛 Courtauld Members go free

📷 Salman Toor (b.1983), Three Friends in a Cab, 2021, oil on panel, 40.6 x 50.8cm. Private. collection © Salman Toor; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo: Farzad Owrang

17/10/2026

What skills do you need to become a curator?🔬

From interpreting technical examination images, undertaking archival research, slow looking and writing, curatorial work involves an increasingly broad set of skills.

Vittoria is an Assistant Curator of Paintings at the Royal Collection Trust, working with Flemish, Dutch and Italian paintings.

She told us how what she learned studying the MA History of Art Special Option Reinterpreting the Object in 2024 shaped her career in curating: courtauld.ac.uk/news-blogs/2026/how-reinterpreting-the-object-shaped-my-curatorial-career/

16/10/2026

Salman Toor 🤝 the streets of London

We've taken Salman Toor's mesmerising scenes to the streets - have you spotted the posters anywhere?

Salman Toor: Someone Like You, on display at the Courtauld Gallery until 10 January 2027.

🎟️ Advance booking highly recommended. Book now - https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-salman-toor-someone-like-you/
💛 Courtauld Members go free

14/10/2026

Now open: Winifred Gill: A Bloomsbury Pioneer 💃

Discover a gifted artist and a central figure at Roger Fry’s avant-garde Omega Workshops, through works held in the Courtauld’s collection.
⁠
⏰ Until 20 January 2027⁠
🎟️ Included with Gallery Entry. Book now: https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-winifred-gill/
💛 Members go free⁠

📷 Omega Workshops, attributed to Winifred Gill (1891-1981), Toy design - music, 1914-16, graphite, watercolour and opaque watercolour on wove paper. Courtauld Gallery, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) © Bodleian, Oxford

12/10/2026

Reality, vision, or artistic representation?

20th century art is often thought of as a series of radical challenges to tradition, as artists sought out new and ever more vital ways of representing the world.

This striking painting by Belgian Surrealist artist René Magritte epitomises the idea of breaking into new unexpected territory. It depicts a shattered window, the broken pieces of which still bear the fantastical view of the eagle-topped mountain beyond it.

The title, ‘Le Domaine d’Arnheim', is taken from a 19th-century short story by Edgar Allen Poe that tells of land cultivated to a kind of perfection otherwise only attained by landscape painters. In taking up Poe’s themes of the ideal and the real, Magritte was knowingly recasting ideas present throughout Western art history.

See it as part of Modern Painting from the Courtauld and Reuben Collections, on display now in the 20th Century Gallery.

🎟️ Included with Gallery Entry. Find out more at the link in bio⁠
💛 Members go free⁠

📷 René Magritte (1898-1967), Le Domaine d’Arnheim (The Domain of Arnheim), 1949, oil on canvas, 99.7 x 81.3cm. Reuben Collection. © 2026 ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London

10/10/2026

Welcome Week at the Courtauld Institute 🎉

We were delighted to welcome a new cohort to explore the history, curation, conservation and business of art in September. Whether you’re joining us for nine months, three years or more, we hope you’ll enjoy your time with us studying in the heart of London.

Jiyoung, who won our Welcome Week competition, told us, “My first few weeks at the Courtauld Institute have been a happy blur. So much felt unfamiliar at first, but I soon realised how naturally a shared love of art connects people. I’m looking forward to all the moments still to come!”

Thanks to all our students who contributed photos 📷
Kris,
Nhu,
Courtauld Fashion Society,
Marie,
Melissa,
Olivia,
Divjyot,
Jiyoung,

09/10/2026

“Artists have been at the forefront of working with new technologies and art historians have led the way in understanding questions of representation, visual communication, and creativity. The critical and ethical understanding that art and art history can bring to AI is crucial, even as new technologies can make possible new methods of analysis and avenues of thinking.”

Lucy Bradnock, Dean for Research at the Courtauld Institute

We’re pleased to announce that the Courtauld has been awarded a grant that will enable researchers to pursue innovative projects at the intersection of AI and art history.

The Denise Coates Foundation Awards will enable the Courtauld to award research grants totalling £250,000 over five years to cross-disciplinary teams of advanced researchers at the Courtauld and King’s College London.

It builds on the 10-year strategic relationship between our institutions and cements a mutual commitment to path-breaking research that addresses urgent intellectual, cultural and societal challenges.

Read the story: courtauld.ac.uk/news-blogs/2026/courtauld-institute-awarded-major-grant-to-support-innovative-research-in-art-history-and-ai/

09/10/2026

★★★★★ "One of the most sought after painters of his generation" - Time Out
"Sensual, dangerous, joyous" - Financial Times
"Luminous, dreamlike scenes" - British Vogue
"Electrifying pictures" - Guardian

Salman Toor: Someone Like You is the first solo exhibition in Europe of the celebrated New York-based painter Salman Toor (b.1983), whose paintings and drawings explore human interactions and the desire and struggle to experience a sense of belonging, both culturally and emotionally.

Explore some of the artist's most iconic, thought-provoking and at times humorous paintings, never-before-seen in Britain, that represent people in shared moments of friendship and love, as well as experiencing solitude and alientation.

The exhibition is accompanied by a display of Toor's drawings, showcasing his mastery of this medium and the way it informs his practice as a painter.

⏰Until 10 January 2027
🎟️ Book now: https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-salman-toor-someone-like-you/
Courtauld Members go free.

Lead Support from Bukhman Foundation and the Salman Toor Exhibition Circle, with Additional Support from the Ryan Taylor Collection and Simon Nixon. The exhibition media partner is AnotherMan and Dazed.