Major new exhibition coming to Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery next week

The exhibition starting on Saturday, May 16, is said to be a place for “honest conversation and genuine connection”

A major new exhibition is heading to Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery this month. Gender Stories, which explores identity and self-expression, spans centuries of history through oil paintings, etchings, ceramics, textiles, sculpture and video.

The show brings together works by Grayson Perry, David Hockney, James Tissot and Antonia Showering, alongside photography by Catherine Opie and Zanele Muholi. It also features new films by Ebun Sodipo and Ree Bradley, as well as personal artefacts ranging from a Suffragette teapot to a Liverpool LGBTQ+ football scarf.

Charlotte Keenan, head of Walker Art Gallery, said: “Everyone has a lived experience of gender, and this exhibition creates space for visitors to reflect on their own while hearing from others. Working with communities across Liverpool has been central to bringing Gender Stories to the Walker, and we hope it will be a place for honest conversation and genuine connection.”

Gender Stories was developed by Bristol Museums, Brighton & Hove Museums and National Museums Liverpool, and draws on collections and community voices from all three cities. In Liverpool, the curatorial team worked with a number of local organisations to bring new perspectives and personal stories into the show.

Historical works include a watercolour by Sarah Biffin, a celebrated miniaturist who was born without arms and painted using her mouth. Sarah won a medal from the Society of Arts, took commissions from the Royal Family, and spent her final years in Liverpool, where she is buried in St James’s Cemetery.

Among the personal objects on display is a linen smock worn by the artist Gluck in 1930s London. Born Hannah Gluckstein in 1895, Gluck adopted a single, gender-neutral name and insisted on “no prefix, suffix or quotes”.

They rejected gendered titles such as Mr or Miss, dressed in menswear, and had their hair cut at a gentlemen’s barber on Bond Street. In 1936 Gluck painted Medallion, an iconic double portrait of themselves and their lover Nesta Obermer, which later became one of the most widely reproduced images of a same-sex relationship in British art.

The smock, on loan from Brighton & Hove Museums, is shown alongside a 2023 photograph by Jenny Lewis made in response to Gluck’s life. Also on display is a ceramic teapot bearing the emblem of the Women’s Social and Political Union in the Suffragette colours of purple, white and green.

The teapot was designed by Sylvia Pankhurst in 1909, part of a set originally produced as campaign merchandise by Williamsons of Longton, Staffordshire. It is a reminder that arguments about gender have been fought through everyday objects as well as art and politics.

Contemporary works featured in the exhibition include Ree Bradley’s 16mm film and drawings The Mind is a Group Muscle, in which a group of men take part in body-based therapies including breathwork and dance movement psychotherapy to open up questions about masculinity and mental health.

London-based artist Ebun Sodipo’s film “So, what are you doing here?” centres on trans experience. The exhibition also features content from National Museums Liverpool’s What Artists Wear video series, including an episode with Sister Sister from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK on identity, drag and fashion.

Catherine Opie’s photograph The Gang (1990), from the Walker’s own collection, captures a group of the artist’s friends in Los Angeles – part of the queer community she has spent her career documenting with warmth and dignity.

Grayson Perry’s vase Difficult Background (2001) depicts 1950s children playing with gendered toys, while David Hockney’s etching The 7 Stone Weakling (1961–3) takes on body image and masculinity. Zanele Muholi’s Miss Lesbian VII, Amsterdam (2009), also from the Walker’s collection, is part of their series addressing beauty, race and the Black gaze.

Gender Stories opens at Walker Art Gallery on May 16, 2026 and runs until August 31, 2026.