Spring is starting early at London’s public galleries, with February seeing the launch of several major art exhibitions that will continue until at least May. Artlyst has selected six of the most prominent exhibitions to whet your appetite.
Portrait of a Young Man, 1944 (black crayon & white chalk on paper) © The Lucian Freud Archive. All Rights Reserved 2025 / Bridgeman Images. Private Collection.
Lucian Freud: Drawing Into Painting,
12 February – 4 May 2026
National Portrait Gallery
Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting will explore the artist’s lifelong preoccupation with the human face and figure from the 1930s to the early twenty-first century, focusing on Freud’s mastery of drawing in all its forms – from pencil, pen, and ink to charcoal and etching. In addition, a carefully selected group of important paintings will reveal the dynamic dialogue between his practice on paper and on canvas.
£23.00 / 25.50 with donation
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Georges Seurat, Seascape at Port-au-Bessin, Normandy 1888, National Gallery of Art Washington DC
Seurat and the Sea
13 February – 17 May 2026,
The Courtauld Gallery
The first ever exhibition dedicated to the seascapes of the French artist Georges Seurat (1859–1891). This major, focused display will be the first devoted to Seurat in the UK in almost 30 years. It will chart the evolution of his radical and distinctive style through the recurring motif of the sea.
The Courtauld holds the largest collection of works by Seurat in the UK. The artist is best known as the creator of the Neo-Impressionist technique, in which shapes and light are rendered by juxtaposing small dots of pure colour. Due to his early death at the age of 31, Seurat has a very small pool of works and exhibitions devoted to him are rare.
The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Seurat and the Sea will bring together 27 paintings, oil sketches and drawings made by Seurat during the five summers he spent on the northern coast of France, between 1885 and 1890.
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Chiharu-Shiota, The Key in the Hand, 2015 installation ©DACS London 2025 and Chiharu Shiota
Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life
17 Feb – 3 May 2026,
Hayward Gallery
Following her recent blockbuster exhibition at the Grand Palais, Threads of Life marks Berlin-based Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota’s first major solo exhibition in a London public gallery. The intricate takeover will see the artist weave her signature immersive works from floor to ceiling across the Hayward Gallery’s top floor, accompanied by new large-scale sculptures, drawings, early performance videos and photographs. Best-known for her large-scale installations which engulf ordinary objects – such as shoes, keys, beds, chairs and dresses – within huge structures of woolen thread, Shiota’s work explores the body, memory, consciousness and the fragility of existence, making visible the intangible connections we make throughout life.
£19 along with entry to Yin Xiuzhen
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Beatriz González, Los papagayos (The Parrots) 1987. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, gift of Jorge M Pérez. ©Beatriz González photo: Oriol Tarridas
Beatriz González
25 Feb – 10 May 2026,
Barbican Art Gallery
Bringing together over 150 artworks, many showing in the UK for the first time, this major exhibition explores Beatriz González’s influential practice from the 1960s to now. From her monumental paintings to repurposed furniture, wallpaper and installations, González draws from found images in popular postcards, reproductions of Western art, and newspaper clippings. In her distinctive graphic style and vivid palette, she transforms these images, playfully questioning ideas of taste, critiquing power structures, bearing witness to violence and offering moving reflections on grief, displacement and community.
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Tracey Emin My Bed 1998 © Tracey Emin. Photo credit: Courtesy The Saatchi Gallery, London / Photograph by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Tracey Emin
26 Feb – 31 Aug 2026,
Tate Modern
This landmark exhibition traces 40 years of Emin’s groundbreaking practice, showcasing career-defining sensations alongside works never exhibited before. Through painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation, Emin continues to challenge boundaries, using the female body as a powerful tool to explore passion, pain, and healing. Dame Tracey Emin is one of the most important contemporary artists of her generation. She was catapulted into the public eye in the 1990s with iconic works like her Turner Prize-nominated My Bed, which sparked fierce critical and public debate, challenging what art could be. Emin’s disregard for any separation of the personal and the public, along with her commitment to unapologetic self-expression, came to define a historic moment in British culture and global art history.
£20
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Rose Wylie, Snowwhite (3), with Duster, 2018, Private collection. © Rose Wylie. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner. Photo: Jo Moon Price
Rose Wylie
28 February – 19 April 2026
Royal Academy of Arts (Main Galleries)
In Spring 2026, Rose Wylie OBE RA will take over the Main Galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts with her vibrant figurative paintings and striking drawings. One of the most notable and intriguing artists working in Britain today, this exhibition will be Wylie’s largest survey exhibition ever to take place in the UK. A 21st century painter of contemporary life, her work draws from a diverse range of references that include art history, ancient civilisations, literature, cinema, celebrity culture and current affairs. Visually chronicling the times she has lived through, her large format paintings and works on paper document everything from her experience of the Blitz as a young girl, to more quotidian events such as an exhibition opening or a game of football, and feature a cast of characters that include Nicole Kidman, Elizabeth I and Snow White. This exhibition will bring together some of Wylie’s most iconic pieces with previously unseen and new works.
£21-23
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