Art exhibitions to see in London in July 2026
After a web of heatwaves in June, we’ve made it to July, with new openings across London that can offer shelter from any pending heatwaves in July. This month includes a first institutional UK show at Chisenhale Gallery by Jasper Marsalis, alongside a new commission at the ICA by Elisa Giardina Papa exploring a vanished volcanic island and its political afterlives. Tate Modern presents Ana Mendieta’s earth-based works and Silueta series, the Royal Academy brings together the intricate paintings of Richard Dadd made during institutional confinement, and Dulwich Picture Gallery explores urban life in America through decades of photography. Here is our guide to the art exhibitions opening in July to be on your radar.
Backyard Biennial: East
The Ropery – The Historic Dockyard Chatham. Image credit Amelia Oakley
#FLODown: Backyard Biennial: East is a free, eight-week summer arts festival taking place from 15 July, initiated by Whitechapel Gallery in collaboration with over 40 local partners across East London. The programme will take place across multiple venues and includes exhibitions, performances, screenings, workshops, walks, residencies and community events, all designed to celebrate the East End’s cultural identity and diverse communities. It highlights East London as a historic centre of migration, creativity, activism and industry, while also exploring its evolving social and ecological landscapes.
Date: 15 July – 6 September 2026. Location: Multiple venues across East London (initiated by Whitechapel Gallery, 77–82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX). Price: Free entry. Click here for full programme of events
Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography
Lewis Hine, Riding the Ball High up on Empire State, c.1930. Courtesy of The Savings Bank Foundation DNB Collection, on deposit at Lillehammer Art Museum
#FLODown: Dulwich Picture Gallery’s summer exhibition surveys a century of American photography through the lens of urban life. Spanning the early 20th century to the 2010s, the show brings together 34 photographers working across cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco. Figures such as Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus, and Garry Winogrand document shifting social conditions, from industrial growth and migration to protest and everyday street life. The exhibition traces how photographers adapted portraiture beyond the studio, using the city itself as both backdrop and subject.
Date: 28 July - 4 October 2026. Location: Dulwich Picture Gallery, College Road, London SE21 7AD. Price: from £16. Concessions available. Book now
Elisa Giardina Papa: She Flickered In and Out of History
Elisa Giardina Papa, She Flickered In and Out of History, 2026. Video installation, 18 minutes, variable dimensions. Still from the video. Courtesy of the artist. The project is supported by the Italian Council program (2024) promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
#FLODown: The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) will present She Flickered In and Out of History, an exhibition by Elisa Giardina Papa. The mixed-media installation will trace the story of a volcanic island that briefly emerged in the Mediterranean between Tunisia and Sicily in 1831, before disappearing just a few months later. Different countries argued over who had control of it while it existed. The exhibition uses video, sculpture and images to tell this story and think about what happens when places appear and disappear like this. It also connects the story to ideas about history, power and how events are recorded or forgotten over time.
Date: 17 July – 6 September 2026, Location: Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), The Mall, St. James’s, London SW1Y 5AH. Price: from £7. Concessions available. Book now
Jasper Marsalis: Still Life
Jasper Marsalis, research image, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London in partnership with Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis. Courtesy of the artist.
#FLODown: Chisenhale Gallery will open the first institutional exhibition in the UK by Jasper Marsalis, Still Life. The exhibition will feature a large-scale audiovisual installation that reworks public broadcast signals and live digital feeds to explore how images and sounds are transmitted and how attention is shaped by technology. A central screen will show live streams from unsecured internet cameras placed in natural landscapes around the world, capturing changing light and weather in real time. Alongside this, four electrostatic speakers will process FM radio signals, converting transmission frequencies into shifting tones of sound. Together, these elements reflect on broadcast systems as constant, immersive presences, where each moment is unique and continuously unfolding.
Date: 10 July – 6 September 2026. Location: Chisenhale Gallery, 22 Chisenhale Rd, London E3 5QZ. Price: Free. chisenhale.org.uk
Ana Mendieta
Ana Mendieta Imágen de Yágul, Mexico 1973 © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by DACS
#FLODown: This major exhibition at Tate Modern will revisit the work of Ana Mendieta, bringing together films, sculptures, photographs, and early paintings from across her career. Central to the presentation is the Silueta Series, in which Mendieta used natural materials such as earth, fire, and water to imprint the human form onto the landscape. The exhibition also includes newly restored films and rarely shown works, offering a fuller understanding of her practice and its engagement with themes of displacement, identity, and belonging.
Date: 9 July 2026 - 10 January 2027. Location: Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Price: £18. Concessions available. £5 for Tate Collective (16–25). Book now
Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam
Richard Dadd, The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, 1855-64. Oil on canvas, 54 x 39.4 cm. Tate. Presented by Siegfried Sassoon in memory of his friend and fellow officer Julian Dadd, a great-nephew of the artist, and of his two brothers who gave their lives in the First World War 1963. Photo: Tate.
#FLODown: The Royal Academy of Arts presents a focused look at Richard Dadd’s life and work, bringing together around 60 pieces that trace his artistic development. After early success, Dadd spent much of his life in psychiatric institutions, where he continued to produce highly detailed and imaginative paintings. The exhibition explores both the context of his life and the intricacy of his work, including The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, a painting that has had a lasting cultural influence.
Date: 25 July – 25 October 2026. Location: The Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD. Price: £15. Concessions available. Book now
Waldmüller: Landscapes
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, 'View of the Dachstein from the Sophien-Doppelblick near Ischl', 1835. Belvedere, Vienna
#FLODown: Waldmüller: Landscapes is an exhibition at the National Gallery, dedicated to the Austrian painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793–1865). It brings together his detailed and atmospheric landscape paintings of forests, mountains, lakes and rural scenes across Austria and Sicily. The exhibition highlights his precise brushwork and vivid use of light and colour, which capture both the beauty and imperfections of nature, from ancient trees to rugged terrain. Often compared to the Pre-Raphaelites, Waldmüller’s work encourages slow observation and reflection, offering a sense of calm and immersion in the natural world within the centre of London.
Date: 2 July – 20 September 2026. Location: The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN. Price: Free. nationalgallery.org.uk
Christine Hazell: Different Faces
Christine Hazell, David Hockney, 2025. Image courtesy of the artist.
#FLODown: The first institutional exhibition of Christine Hazell’s drawings will open at Studio Voltaire. The show, Different Faces, presents a new body of work she began at the age of 89 after being encouraged by her daughter to sketch from family photographs, initially as a way to support memory. This practice quickly became a prolific daily activity, resulting in over 200 coloured pencil drawings in under a year. Hazell reinterprets photographs of family, friends, neighbours, artists and public figures such as David Hockney, James Dean and Kate Middleton, transforming them into “different faces” with exaggerated features and altered details. The works are displayed in recycled vintage frames and also include portraits connected to Studio Voltaire’s artistic community
Date: 15 July – 18 October 2026. Location: Studio Voltaire, 1A Nelsons Row, London SW4 7JR. Price: Free. studiovoltaire.org
Clare Woods: Garden Without Seasons
Clare Woods, Under The Dome, 2024. Oil on aluminium, 300 × 200 cm. © Clare Woods. Courtesy the artist and Cristea Roberts Gallery, London.
#FLODown: Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery will open Garden Without Seasons by Clare Woods RA., featuring 29 recent paintings, collages and prints exploring flowers, still life and interior spaces, using fluid oil paint to sit between abstraction and figuration. The works reflect themes of nature, memory, time and impermanence, often drawing on photography and historic still life traditions, while responding to the architecture of the venue itself.
QDate: 29 July – 8 November 2026. Location: Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, Ealing Green, London W5 5EQ. Price: from £15.40 (inc. £1.40 donation). Concessions available. pitzhanger.org.uk.
There’s still a chance to catch some of London’s degree shows. Click here to discover more.
