National Gallery exhibitions 2023

Issued November 2022

Winslow Homer: Force of Nature
Until 8 January 2023

The first in-depth exhibition in the UK of the art of Winslow Homer (1836–1910), one of the most celebrated and admired American painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is taking place at the National Gallery until 8 January 2023.

This exhibition, which displays around fifty paintings and watercolours from public and private collections, spanning over forty years of the artist’s career presents an opportunity for visitors this side of the Atlantic to discover an artist who, although a household name in America, is not as well known in Europe. There is no painting by Homer in a UK public collection. The exhibition is organised by the National Gallery, London, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

The Credit Suisse Exhibition Lucian Freud: New Perspectives
Until 22 January 2023

The National Gallery stages a landmark exhibition to mark the centenary of the birth of the great 20th-century artist Lucian Freud (1922–2011.) This first major survey of his paintings for 10 years brings together a large selection of his most important works from across seven decades – spanning early works such as 'Girl with Roses' (British Council Collection) from the 1940s; to 'Reflection with Two Children (Self-Portrait)' (Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid) in the 1960s and right through to his famous late works. It includes more than sixty loans from museums and major private collections around the world including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate; the British Council Collection; London and the Arts Council Collection, London.

A devoted connoisseur of European painting and regular visitor since his earliest days in London, Lucian Freud had a close association with the National Gallery. ‘I use the gallery as if it were a doctor,’ Freud told the journalist Michael Kimmelman. The exhibition is organised by the National Gallery and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

Discover Manet & Eva Gonzalès
Until 15 January 2023

'Discover Manet & Eva Gonzalès' at the National Gallery is the first UK exhibition devised around the portrait of Eva Gonzalès (1870) by Édouard Manet (1832–1883). The painting, acquired by Hugh Lane, was by the early 20th century considered to be the most famous modern French painting in the UK and Ireland. This is the first in a new series of ‘Discover’ exhibitions to be staged in the National Gallery’s Sunley Room to explore well-known paintings in the collection through a contemporary lens.

The exhibition takes Manet’s portrait of Eva Gonzalès (1849–1883), as its focus, with the aim of presenting fresh perspectives on women artists and their artistic practice in 19th-century Paris and more broadly. The free exhibition includes works by Eva Gonzalès, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Stevens and Laura Knight. Exhibition organised by the National Gallery and the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.

Turner on Tour
Until 19 February 2023

Two ground-breaking pictures by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) return to the UK for the first time in over 100 years, as part of a focused new National Gallery exhibition. Generously lent for the first time by The Frick Collection in New York, the two oil paintings are on display at the Gallery in the 'Turner on Tour' exhibition this winter. 'Harbour of Dieppe: Changement de Domicile' and 'Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet-Boat: Evening', painted in the mid-1820s, have not been seen in the UK since 1911. They were exhibited in New York in 1914 at the Knoedler Gallery, and subsequently acquired the same year by the American industrialist Henry Clay Frick. They have remained in the United States ever since.

Nalini Malani: My Reality is Different - National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship with Art Fund
2 March – 11 June 2023
Press View: 28 February 2023

New video animations featuring famous paintings in the National Gallery and the Holburne Museum, Bath, have been created by Nalini Malani, the first artist to receive the National Gallery’s Contemporary Fellowship, supported by Art Fund. The project is the culmination of Malani’s selection in 2020 as the first artist to receive the National Gallery’s Contemporary Fellowship, supported by Art Fund. The two-year research and production programme has allowed Malani to work in close collaboration with specialists from both the National Gallery and the Holburne Museum in Bath to study the institutions and their collections, with the aim to create a new artwork.

The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance
16 March – 11 June 2023
Press View: 14 March 2023

'The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance' will open in the National Gallery in spring 2023. This exhibition will cast an unexpected light on one of the most famous, but perhaps also most misunderstood, paintings in the Gallery’s Collection, An Old Woman (about 1513) by Quinten Massys (1465/6–1530). At the core of the exhibition will be the exceptional reunion of 'An Old Woman' with her male pendant, 'An Old Man' (about 1513), on rare loan from a private collection in New York. The two works have only been displayed together once in their history, in the 'Renaissance Faces' exhibition held 15 years ago at the National Gallery. Through a small selection of works in a variety of media, the exhibition will examine the ways in which older women were depicted during the Renaissance. 'An Old Woman' is being conserved for the occasion, revealing the full extent of its outstanding execution.

After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art
25 March – 13 August 2023
Press View: 22 March 2023

 A ground-breaking new exhibition of over a hundred paintings and sculptures by artists such as Cézanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Claudel, Sonia Delaunay and Kollwitz will open at the National Gallery next year. 'After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art' (25 March – 13 August 2023), will include some of the most important works of art created between 1886 and around 1914. While celebrating Paris as the international artistic capital, 'After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art' will also be one of the first exhibitions to focus on the exciting and often revolutionary artistic developments across other European cities during this period. Important loans come to the exhibition from institutions and private collections worldwide including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Art Institute of Chicago; Musée Rodin, Paris; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Museu nacional d’arte de Catalunya, Barcelona; Tate; and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut.

Saint Francis of Assisi
6 May – 30 July 2023
Press View: 4 May 2023

The first major art exhibition in the UK to explore the life and legacy of Saint Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), one of history’s most inspirational and revered figures, will be staged at the National Gallery. The exhibition presents the art and imagery of Saint Francis from the 13th century to today and examines how his spiritual radicalism, his commitment to the poor, his love of God and nature, as well as his striving for peace between enemies and openness to dialogue with other religions, make him a figure of enormous relevance to our times. Saint Francis of Assisi brings together paintings from across the National Gallery’s collection – by Sassetta, Botticelli, and Zurbarán -  with international loans, including Caravaggio’s 'Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy' (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, about 1595), Josefa de Óbidos’s, 'Saint Francis and Saint Clare adoring the Christ Child in a Manger' (Lisbon, Private collection, 1647), as well as works by Stanley Spencer, Antony Gormley, and Arte Povera artist, Giuseppe Penone. The exhibition will include a new commission from Richard Long (b.1945).

Take One Picture
13 July – 15 October 2023

In 2023, the National Gallery will showcase artworks by primary school children from across the UK in the 28th annual 'Take One Picture' exhibition. Each year the Gallery invites primary schools nationwide to focus on one of its paintings and respond creatively to its themes and subject matter, historical context, or composition. The programme aims to put art at the centre of children’s learning across the curriculum, inspiring a lifelong connection with artists’ work, museums and galleries. This year’s chosen painting is A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas, by 18th-century French painter Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714–1789). 'Take One Picture' is generously supported by Columbia Threadneedle Foundation.

Paula Rego: Crivelli's Garden
20 July – 29 October 2023
Press View: 18 July 2023

 More than 30 years after Dame Paula Rego (1935–2022), the National Gallery’s first Associate Artist (1990–92), was commissioned to create a painting for the Sainsbury Wing Dining Room, a new exhibition will explore the relationship of Rego’s work titled 'Crivelli’s Garden' to the 15th-century altarpiece that inspired it. The exhibition, which had long been planned to mark this anniversary, will unite the two monumental artworks in the Gallery’s collection for the first time – inviting visitors to draw out direct comparisons – and will also show how members of National Gallery staff found their way into Dame Paula’s work.

Céline Condorelli: Artist in Residence
13 September 2023 – 7 January 2024
Press View: 13 September 2023

Céline Condorelli, a French-Italian artist who lives and works in London, is the National Gallery’s new Artist in Residence for 2023. Condorelli is the third Artist in Residence to be chosen since the launch of the Gallery’s new Modern and Contemporary Programme, following the first appointment of Rosalind Nashashibi in 2019 and Ali Cherri in 2021. The award is a collaboration with the Contemporary Art Society, while the UK Partner Museum for this residency is the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter (RAMM). Céline Condorelli’s work addresses the boundaries between public and private, art and function, work and leisure, in order to reimagine what culture and society can be, and the role of artists within them. Often using forms of architecture, design, or sculptural objects, Condorelli’s installations make interventions to the way that people navigate or use a space, whether that is in the context of a museum or gallery, or a children’s playground, a public garden or an artist’s studio.

The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Frans Hals
30 September 2023 – 21 January 2024
Press View: 27 September

This exhibition, the first major retrospective of Hals in more than thirty years, means a new generation can discover why he deserves his place as one of the greatest painters in Western art. Some fifty of Hals’s finest works will be brought together, including the exceptional, first-ever loan of his most famous picture, 'The Laughing Cavalier' (1624), from the Wallace Collection. From small works to large group portraits, genre scenes, and marriage portraits reunited for the first time from international collections, visitors will see the very best of his life’s work. Exhibition organised by the National Gallery and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam with the special collaboration of the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem.

Notes to editors

The National Gallery is one of the greatest art galleries in the world. Founded by Parliament in 1824, the Gallery houses the nation’s collection of paintings in the Western European tradition from the late 13th to the early 20th century. The collection includes works by Bellini, Cézanne, Degas, Leonardo, Monet, Raphael, Rembrandt, Renoir, Rubens, Titian, Turner, Van Dyck, Van Gogh and Velázquez. The Gallery’s key objectives are to enhance the collection, care for the collection and provide the best possible access to visitors. Admission free. 

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