The Courtauld

The Courtauld World-famous Gallery and international centre for the teaching, research and enjoyment of art history Look deeper, see further.
(1894)

Explore art across centuries and from around the globe.


31/05/2026

Rachel Jones (b. 1991) is celebrated for her monumental canvases and bold use of colour. Working in pastel and oil stick, she creates large-scale abstract compositions in a kaleidoscope of rich colours and gestural marks.

Her two side-specific commissions for the Courtauld Gallery’s ticketing and entrance halls continue the artist’s dialogue with works in the Courtauld’s world-leading collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art 🎨

Jones described Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889) in The Courtauld’s collection as her favourite and most inspiring work in a London public collection, calling it ‘the epitome of how to use colour, texture and a sense of self to create an image’.

📍 On display until 31 August 2026
🎟️ Free, no ticket required

Coming soon - Studio Prints: An Artists’ Workshop 🖌️Discover the world of Dorothea Wight and Marc Balakjian’s London Pri...
30/05/2026

Coming soon - Studio Prints: An Artists’ Workshop 🖌️

Discover the world of Dorothea Wight and Marc Balakjian’s London Printmaking Studio.

This display of prints by artists including Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Paula Rego celebrates the little-known story of the lively printmaking workshop established in London in 1968 by Dorothea Wight (1944-2013), who was later joined in 1974 by her future husband Marc Balakjian (1938-2017).

What had begun as a private workshop, created by Wight so that she could print her own works after leaving the Slade School of Art, soon transformed into a dynamic meeting place for artists, establishing Studio Prints as a legendary London printmaking workshop.

⏰ 6 June - 13 September 2026
📍 Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery
🎟️ Included with Gallery Entry. Book now - https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-studio-prints-artists-workshop/

📷 Lucian Freud (1922-2011) Reclining Figure, 1993, The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) © The Lucian Freud Archive / Bridgeman Images

Changes are afoot in the Bloomsbury Room - Vanessa Bell's Study of Duncan Grant (1944) is now on display in our gallery ...
27/05/2026

Changes are afoot in the Bloomsbury Room - Vanessa Bell's Study of Duncan Grant (1944) is now on display in our gallery devoted to the art of the Bloomsbury Group.

Bell produced this portrait sketch of painter and designer Duncan Grant almost 40 years after the pair first met and embarked on a lifelong creative partnership. It is a preparatory study for a known painting that shows Grant and Bell's husband seated in the Garden Room of their sussex hhome, Charleston. The rapid, loose brushwork suggests that it was made from life 🖌️

Though dating from Bell's later, naturalistic, period, the work recalls her earlier experimentation with abstraction ad colour in the daring yellow dashes on Grant's shoulder and in the blocky strokes that construct his cheek and temple.

Book your visit to the Courtuald Gallery today: https://courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/

📷Vanessa Bell (1879-1961), Study of Duncan Grant, 1944, oil paint and watercolour on wove paper. Courtauld Gallery, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust). Gift of Minta Collins, 2024, in gratitude for inspiring teaching at Courtauld Institute of Art. © Estate of Vanessa Bell. All rights reserved, DACS 2024

Calling all year 12 students!If you're interested in studying art history, join our Seminar Sessions series this June to...
27/05/2026

Calling all year 12 students!

If you're interested in studying art history, join our Seminar Sessions series this June to learn and discover Art History through live discussions with fellow art historians from across the UK.

Led by expert educators at the Courtauld, these sessions encourage discussion, close looking, and critical thinking, helping students build confidence and deepen their understanding of artworks.

Session One: Identity. Tuesday 9 June
Session Two: Materials. Wednesday 10 June
Session Three: Portraiture. Thursday 11 June

Sessions run from 17:30 – 18:45

All session are run online via MS Teams. Students must be able to attend all three sessions.

Students will be required to interact during the seminar using a microphone and camera.

Open to Year 12 students in a state funded UK school, college or sixth form. Free to attend.

Register now: https://courtauld.ac.uk/take-part/schools/young-people/seminar-sessions/

Brush up on your French Art History this summer ☀️Book your place now for our Summer School course Rococo to Revolution:...
26/05/2026

Brush up on your French Art History this summer ☀️

Book your place now for our Summer School course Rococo to Revolution: Histories of French Art, 1660-1789.

Join us to examine the ever-changing roles of French art during the turbulent eighteenth century, from the later years and death of Louis XIV to the Revolution of 1789. You'll get the chance to consider the role that French art played in forming identities and tastes across the world, from the court of Qing China to Senegal, India, and the Caribbean; from shaping desirable aristocratic luxury to envisaging radical futures.

Our Short Courses are for anyone interested in art and art history, presenting up-to-date art-historical thinking, often drawing on our lecturers' current research, and taught mostly in small groups to facilitate discussion.

Find out more: https://courtauld.ac.uk/short-courses-2026/summer-school/summer-school-on-campus/7-rococo-to-revolution-histories-of-french-art-1660-1789/

📷️ Jean François de Troy, The Declaration of Love, ca.1724, oil on canvas, Bewuest of Mrs Charles Wrightsman, 2019, The Metropolitan Museum, New York. Image: metmuseum.org

Feeling the heat? ☀️Claude Monet wrote of Antibes, in the south of France: “What I bring back from here will be sweetnes...
24/05/2026

Feeling the heat? ☀️

Claude Monet wrote of Antibes, in the south of France: “What I bring back from here will be sweetness itself, white, pink and blue, all enveloped in this magical air”.

Monet spent several months in Antibes in 1888, struggling with the ever-changing weather conditions. Here, he captured the intensity of Mediterranean light, wind and colour by using strongly contrasting colours.

📷 Claude Monet (1840-1926), Antibes, 1888. Courtauld Gallery, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) © Courtauld

You might see some familiar faces in the contributions to this year’s 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di...
22/05/2026

You might see some familiar faces in the contributions to this year’s 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, which runs until 22 November. ⁠
⁠
Titled In Minor Keys and curated by Koyo Kouoh, this year’s Biennale focuses on quiet, everyday, and resilient practices. ⁠
⁠
Professor Mark Hallett, Marit Rausing Director at the Courtauld, said: ⁠
⁠
“At the Courtauld, we believe that scholarship and practice are inseparable, and we are thrilled to see our alumni and colleagues forging some of the most significant conversations in contemporary art at the Venice Biennale. The Courtauld remains as committed as ever to equipping and nurturing the next generation of scholars and practitioners, and it is a privilege to witness our contributions to this year’s Biennale.” ⁠
⁠
If you’re visiting, scroll through to see what not to miss – and follow along as we share more.

We're delighted to announce that artist Ella Walker (b.1993, Manchester, UK) will create two new site-specific commissio...
20/05/2026

We're delighted to announce that artist Ella Walker (b.1993, Manchester, UK) will create two new site-specific commissions for the Courtauld Gallery. Opening 3 September 2026, the new artworks will be presented in The John Browne Entrance Hall and the Ticketing Hall, and will be free to visit.

This is the second Courtauld Commission, a series of annual commissions by contemporary artists for the Courtauld Gallery, which launched in 2025 with new works by artist Rachel Jones.

Ella Walker creates monumental canvases that act like dream-like stages. They are dominated by female figures whose gestures and interactions are both familiar and confounding, eschewing expected behaviour and transcending fixed roles.

"The Courtauld Commission is an opportunity to think deeply about the surface of my paintings, the method of applying pigment to an absorbent ground, a ground that is rich with marble and chalk, and is very absorbent and textured. I hope the colours will glow, have transparency and movement within the collection of particles" – Ella Walker💬

Read more on our website - https://courtauld.ac.uk/news-blogs/2026/ella-walker-courtauld-commission-2026/

"Carving is interrelated masses conveying an emotion; a perfect relationship between the mind and the colour, light and ...
20/05/2026

"Carving is interrelated masses conveying an emotion; a perfect relationship between the mind and the colour, light and weight which is the stone, made by the hand which feels.” - Barbara Hepworth, 1934 💬

Here, in her Cornwall home at Chy-an-Kerris, Hepworth is carving Eidos (1947-48). The title is a Greek term translating as 'form' or 'shape'; appropriately, given this use, the bold yellow colour integrates with the ovoid carving to create contrasting spatial effects.

This summer, explore her pioneering use of colour in The Joseph Hage Aaronson & Bremen Exhibition: Hepworth in Colour, opening on 12 June.

This major exhibition will unite her early innovative sculptures with colour of the 1940s (including Eidos) for the first time. They will be displayed alongside her most important drawings from that decade, and major examples of her work with colour from the 1950s and 1960s.

Be among the first to see it - pre book your tickets today: https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-hepworth-in-colour/

⏰12 June - 6 September 2026
💛 Courtauld Members go free

📷Hepworth carving Eidos at Chy-an-Kerris, c. 1947. Bowness Archive.

Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), Eidos, 1947, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with the assistance of the Samuel E. Wills Bequest to commemorate the retirement of Dr E. Westbrook, Director of Arts for Victoria, 1981 © Bowness. Photo: Predrag Cancar / NGV. Image courtesy National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Address

Somerset House, Strand
London
WC2R0RN

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 6pm
Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Wednesday 10am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 6pm
Friday 10am - 6pm
Saturday 10am - 6pm
Sunday 10am - 6pm

Telephone

+44 (0)20 7848 2526

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Courtauld posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category