Whitechapel Gallery is celebrating its 125th anniversary with a bill of exciting exhibitions and events throughout 2026.
The programme includes Multiple Conversations, an exhibition by Turner Prize-winning artist Veronica Ryan from 1 April. Exhibiting at the same time are American artist Senga Nengudi and Argentinian-born, Lisbon-based sculptor Gabriel Chaile, who received the gallery's annual commission.
Exhibitions by Chilean poet Cecilia Vicuña and influential 20th-century Egyptian artist Inji Efflatoun will be on display later in the year.
The gallery has also planned a number of unique events to mark this important milestone. A summer party will take over the gallery building at 77–82 Whitechapel High Street later in the year.
Art Futures - a series of talks supported by Terra Foundation for American Art - will see speakers from around the world discuss the role of arts institutions like the gallery in the modern world, particularly during times of crisis.
Meanwhile Whitechapel Gallery Young Associates, a new mentoring programme launching in the spring, will be open to talented young people in the area aged 18 to 30.
Beyond the gallery, a collaborative cross-venue arts festival, Backyard Biennial, will celebrate the cultural history and identity of London’s East End this summer.
Whitechapel Gallery first opened its doors in 1901 with the mission to bring ‘the finest art of the world to the people of East London’. It was one of the first publicly-funded spaces hosting temporary exhibitions in the city.
The gallery is located in the borough of Tower Hamlets, which at the time - as it is now - was home to large working-class and migrant communities. Like much of the East End, it is also a space where artists, writers, bohemians and academics have settled. It was this rich culture the gallery’s founders - Canon Samuel and Henrietta Barnett - wanted to celebrate.
Over the last 125 years it has showcased the work of some of the most influential artists both in the capital and globally, championing radical movements and ideas. Its early exhibitions included one of ‘Mohammedan’ art, encompassing artworks from Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Morocco and India - the first of its kind in the UK in 1908. In the midst of the tuberculosis epidemic, the gallery put on topical health-related exhibitions in 1909, and in 1918 another exhibition showcased the role of women during the first World War.
In 1939, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica - an anti-war and anti-fascist painting - was put on display at the gallery for the first and only time in the UK. In lieu of an entrance fee, visitors were requested to donate a pair of boots to support the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.
Since then the gallery has played host to the works of legendary artists including Barbara Hepworth, Jackson Pollock, David Hockney, Frida Kahlo, Eva Hesse and Joy Gregory.
It also runs pioneering learning and community outreach programmes all while remaining at the forefront of the global art scene.
The gallery’s director, Gilane Tawadros, said: “It is an honour and a privilege to be leading Whitechapel Gallery at this moment in time. It holds such a unique and important position as a place of artistic experimentation and radical thinking, bridging the local and the global.
“Our 125th anniversary comes at a particularly significant moment in the wider cultural, socio-political and economic landscape. In the face of such widespread division and uncertainty, it seems more important than ever to continue our legacy as a place of connection and principle, reaffirming our founding commitment to our local community while ensuring our ongoing relevance and influence around the world.
“We have always been, and always will be, artist and ideas led, ensuring that we represent urgent and diverse perspectives that offer audiences new ways of thinking, feeling and dreaming.”
Whitechapel Gallery is located at 77–82 Whitechapel High Street. Find out more here.
