We are delighted to announce our programme of exhibitions and displays for 2027.
2027 EXHIBITIONS
Paula Rego: Dog Woman
5 February – 23 May 2027
This will be the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to the groundbreaking series of pastels created by Paula Rego (1935-2022) between 1994-95. Among the artist’s most striking, sensual and unsettling works, the large-scale Dog Woman pastels revolutionised the way in which women are represented. They also cemented Rego’s reputation as one of the most radical and influential artists of our time.
The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Turner and the Landscape Generation. Journeys in Watercolour
18 June – 5 September 2027
This exhibition explores the work of four ground-breaking British artists. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), John Constable (1776-1837), Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) were part of a pioneering generation who transformed British art and the practice of landscape watercolour.
Featuring masterpieces from the Courtauld Gallery alongside loans from major UK collections, the exhibition will trace journeys taken by these four artists – such as Turner’s travels in Switzerland and Germany, Cotman’s tour of Yorkshire, Constable’s trips to the Lake District, and journeys made by Girtin, Turner and Cotman across Wales. The exhibition will chart how these artists placed landscape at the heart of their practice and made it the focus of British art.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Ghost Ranch
1 October 2027 – 30 January 2028
This is the first exhibition devoted to the remarkable landscapes produced by the celebrated American artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) at and around her home and studio at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. These works, created over two decades from the mid 1930s to 1950s, form one of the most significant and original groups of landscape paintings of the 20th century, which transcend the conventions of the genre. Almost two dozen works will make up the exhibition, most of which have never been shown in the UK.
2027 DISPLAYS
Drawing in the Age of Bruegel: New Discoveries
5 February – 16 May 2027
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery
This display from the Courtauld’s collection brings together an exceptional selection of drawings by Flemish artists of the 16th and early 17th centuries, revealing the extraordinary creativity, technical skill and observational power that shaped one of Europe’s most influential artistic periods. Among this group of artists, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/27–1569) stands as a pivotal figure in the evolution of the landscape tradition. His drawings are renowned for their sweeping panoramas and elevated viewpoints, while his scenes of daily life present the world as both keenly observed and imaginatively ordered.
Paula Rego: Pendle Witches
5 February – 23 May 2027
Project Space
The display focuses on a suite of etchings and aquatint prints titled Pendle Witches, which Paula Rego (1935–2022) executed in 1996, inspired by poems by the writer Blake Morrison (b. 1950). Morrison’s poems blend private, domestic themes and everyday situations with references to major events, including disquieting murder cases and ecological threats. At the time of the making of the Pendle Witches series, Rego and Morrison were close friends, as Morrison has said, ‘because we were exploring similar issues in our work – grief, violence, misogyny, sexuality, the knowingness or otherwise of children’. Yet, far from being illustrations of Morrison’s poems, Rego drew inspiration from them to create her own stories.
Rubens: The Master and his Circle
26 May – 12 September 2027
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) presided over one of the most dynamic artistic workshops of 17th century Europe, with drawing at the centre of his practice. For Rubens, draughtsmanship was a way of thinking: rapid pen sketches capture the first stirrings of complex compositional scenes, while chalk studies reveal his research into anatomical studies and his mastery of light and volume.
Rubens’s prolific output, international reputation and dynamic technical skills influenced many artists who learnt directly from the master or were inspired by him. Selected from the Courtauld’s collection, this display will showcase some of their works, including drawings by Anthony van Dyck, Jacques Jordaens and Abraham van Diepenbeeck. Together, these drawings illuminate a creative community defined by exchange, experimentation and the continual reworking of ideas that helped shape Baroque art across Europe.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Photographs at Ghost Ranch
1 October 2027 – 30 January 2028
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery
This display will present around 20 photographs of Georgia O’Keeffe at her New Mexico home, drawn from photoshoots commissioned by Life Magazine from the famed photographers Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) and John Loengard (1934-2020) in 1948 and 1966, respectively. Featuring previously unpublished photographs and rare colour images, the display will give visitors an added sense of the extraordinary, vast landscapes around Ghost Ranch and of O’Keeffe’s life there, while offering insights into how her image was presented and marketed.
Vanessa Bell: A Rediscovery
October 2027 – February 2028
Project Space
An important new addition to the Courtauld’s leading collection of art by the Bloomsbury Group will go on display in October 2027. Previously unknown and not seen in public in over a century, this pair of painted wooden panels, attributed to Vanessa Bell (1879 – 1961), was made at the Omega Workshops in London between 1913 and 1916.
Originally the doors of a wardrobe, the panels feature two stylised female figures wearing the style of dresses sold at the Omega from the middle of 1915. Acquired the year the Omega Workshops closed in 1919, they have remained in the same family ever since and have been generously donated to the Courtauld, where they have undergone a major conservation project.
Courtauld Commission 2026: Ella Walker
From 3 September 2026
The John Browne Entrance Hall and Ticketing Hall
Artist Ella Walker (b.1993) has created two new site-specific commissions for The John Browne Entrance Hall and the Ticketing Hall of the Courtauld Gallery, which are free to visit.
Walker’s monumental canvases, The Studio and Verdaccio Wall, draw on iconography, costume and poses observed in Gothic sculpture and Renaissance painting, as well as popular culture, to conjure scenes that flicker mysteriously across time periods. Walker’s work revels in the interplay between drawing and painting, with graphite often left visible and paint used to produce delicate lines. Her paintings possess a matt, chalky quality that is evocative of fresco – a type of wall and ceiling painting made on wet plaster.
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.
MA Curating exhibition
18 June – 28 September 2027
Project Space
A new exhibition curated by the Courtauld Institute’s MA Curating students will open at the Courtauld Gallery in summer 2027.
