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Best Free Exhibitions in London
You can still get cultured whilst saving some cash in London. Whether it’s wandering through art galleries, getting snap happy at photography exhibitions or admiring a quirky installation, here are our pick of the best free exhibitions in London. There are so many great museums and galleries in London, which means there are some incredible shows to see, from interactive exhibitions and art installations, to photography collections and immersive experiences.
London is blessed with world-class galleries and museums, with free entry to many of them, including Tate Modern, Tate Britain, the V&A, the Design Museum, the Science Museum, the British Museum, the Wellcome Collection, and the Natural History Museum, being totally free. That means you can check out incredible permanent collections, covering everything from fossils to Old Masters, without paying a penny. And if you’ve done all the big hitters, many smaller, independent art galleries in London also operate free entry, so you might just stumble across the next big thing at one of these free art exhibitions.
Keep your eyes peeled as you wander around the city’s different neighbourhoods too as there’s also of lot of public art to explore for free across London. Canary Wharf boasts an impressive collection of artworks, which is actually the largest free to visit public art exhibition in the UK with pieces by Camille Walala, Henry Moore, Ottotto and Helaine Blumenfeld.
Each year City of London works with artists and partners to curate a new trail of artworks that forms the annual sculpture park, Sculpture in the City. And you can’t miss Frieze Sculpture, where Regent’s Park is filled with installations each autumn to coincide with the annual Frieze London art fair. Current free faves include an exhibition dedicated to the music and musicians of Croydon and a display that showcases the history of communities led by the Abbess and nuns from c.666AD to the early 16th Century near Barking Abbey at the area’s brand new Women’s Museum.
So whether you’re looking for exhibitions today, exhibitions this weekend or you want to stay on top of all upcoming art exhibitions, we’ve got you covered.
David Hockney Is Showing at Serpentine For the First Time
12th March - 23rd August 2026
Serpentine North Gallery, W Carriage Dr, London W2 2AR
David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, opening at Serpentine North, is the artist’s first exhibition at the gallery. The show will feature new works from Hockney – five still lifes and five portraits of people in his close circle – all sharing a similar frontal composition and a recurring gingham tablecloth motif. The gallery will also display Hockney’s ‘A Year in Normandie’, a ninety-metre-long frieze inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the changing of the seasons at his former studio in the French region. Working on his iPad, Hockney produced over a hundred images during the first Covid lockdown in 2020, recording the changes in light and weather during the spring. As lockdown lifted and the seasons shifted, he continued to digitally capture the whole cycle of the year, showcasing the ways that art and technology can come together and highlighting the beauty in the everyday. The whole digital print will be shown in the North Gallery, with a large-scale printed mural highlighting a scene from the spring cycle being presented in the garden.
See Portraits by Catherine Opie at the National Portrait Gallery
5th March - 31st May 2026
National Portrait Gallery, Saint Martin's Place, London
The National Portrait Gallery is hosting the first major museum exhibition of American artist Catherine Opie’s work in the UK. Her work explores topics like home, family, intimacy, identity, politics and power structures and over the past 30 years, she’s photographed queer communities, surfers, political crowds, children, high-school footballers, and often herself too. In Catherine Opie: To Be Seen, works from across her career will be displayed, including her first major piece ‘Being and Having’, her Hans Holbein-inspired portraits of LGBTQ+ friends and her Baroque-like portraits of artists.
A Major Schiaparelli Exhibition Is Coming to the V&A
28th March - 1st November 2026
Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL
If you’ve been loving the Schiaparelli designs that Daniel Roseberry has been sending down the catwalk, then you won’t want to miss this – the V&A is hosting the first-ever UK exhibition dedicated to the fashion house is opening at the V&A next spring. Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art will trace the history of the brand, founded by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1927, from its origins to its present-day operation helmed by creative director Daniel Roseberry. The show will explore Schiaparelli’s radical creativity and her connection to the art world through more than 200 objects, including garments, jewellery, accessories, paintings, photographs, furniture and more. The ‘Skeleton’ dress, the ‘Tears’ dress and the hat shaped like an upside-down shoe, all conceived by Schiaparelli in collaboration with Salvador Dali, will be pulled from the V&A’s collection for the exhibition, alongside artworks by Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Man Ray.
Major Contemporary Artists Are Auctioning Works to Raise Money for Palestine
26th March - 9th April 2026
54 Eastcastle Street, London W1W 8DD
Following the Together For Palestine concert last autumn, which raised over £2m for humanitarian organisations, Choose Love is teaming up with Gideon Berger Studio, HOPE93 Gallery and Zayna Al-Saleh to host a fundraising art auction. Rare and exclusive works from major contemporary artists, including Es Devlin, Jeremy Deller, Grayson Perry, Khaled Hourani, and ‘Nablus’ by Nabil Anani, will be open for bids at an online auction from 26th March – 9th April, with an exhibition of the works running across those dates at the HOPE93 Gallery. All profits from the auction will be donated to the Together For Palestine Fund to support emergency relief in Palestine, in the form of food and water, healthcare, shelter, mental health support and the largest orphan care programme in Gaza
Tate Britain Is Hosting the First Major Show on Hurvin Anderson
26th March - 23rd August 2026
Tate Britain, Millbank, London
More than 80 paintings from across Hurvin Anderson’s entire career are going on display at Tate Britain in what will be the first major show on the artist. The youngest of eight and the first to be born in the UK after his family moved to Birmingham from Jamaica in the 1960s, Anderson’s work reflects his experiences of belonging and diaspora. His rich, colourful works often include family members, experiences from his youth and places of significance, like the barbershop, which he sometimes layers as a way of exploring the ideas of memory and tension around cultural heritage.
This Is the First UK Museum Exhibition Focused on Lucian Freud's Works on Paper
12th February - 4th May 2026
National Portrait Gallery, Saint Martin's Place, London
With Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting, the National Portrait Gallery is hosting the UK’s first museum exhibition dedicated to the artist’s works on paper. It explores his lifelong focus on the human face and figure, with pencil, pen, ink, charcoal and etching pieces from the 1930s to the early 21st century on display, some of which are being shown for the first time. A curated group of important paintings will be hung alongside the drawings to highlight the dialogue between his practice on paper and on canvas.
The Hayward Gallery Is Doing a Double Presentation on Chiharu Shiota and Yin Xiuzhen
17th February - 3rd May 2026
Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
The Hayward Gallery is presenting concurrent exhibitions by Chiharu Shiota and Yin Xiuzhen, two artists who use ordinary materials to create monumental works, to explore the way they interweave textiles and found objects into personal reflections on memory, identity and the human condition. Threads of Life by Berlin-based Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is her first major solo exhibition in a London public gallery. She’s displaying immersive woven works on the gallery’s top floor, where huge thread structures engulf objects like beds, chairs and shoes as a way of interrogating ideas about consciousness, memory and existence. These are joined by new large-scale sculptures, drawings and early performance videos. Heart to Heart is the first major survey on Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen, and features large-scale installations made from everyday objects and used clothing to invite us to see the familiar in new ways. As well as sculpture, photography, video and archival performance material, her presentation features a new commission – a large textile installation made from used clothing and shaped like a human heart.
See How Wallace & Gromit Come to Life at This Aardman Exhibition
12th February - 15th November 2026
Young V&A, Cambridge Heath Rd, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PA
Dive into the world of Aardman, the studio responsible for some of the most-loved characters of all time, with the Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends exhibition at the Young V&A. The show, coinciding with the studio’s 50th anniversary, will take you behind the scenes of the animation process, covering development, storyboarding, model making, filming and post-production, exploring how the likes of Morph, Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep come to life. Over 150 items, across sketches, concept art, puppets, props, scripts, and set models, will be on display, including development sketches for Morph; Wallace & Gromit’s motorbike and sidecar from Vengeance Most Fowl; a storyboard for the train chase in The Wrong Trousers; and set pieces from Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!
The Biggest Ever Tracey Emin Exhibition Has Come to Tate Modern
27th February - 30th August 2026
Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG
Tracey Emin: A Second Life, the biggest show of Emin’s career, will look back over her 40-year career. Over 90 works will be on display, including paintings, videos, neons, sculptures and textiles, showcasing the way she uses art and the female body to explore love, passion, trauma and healing. Many pieces connected to Margate, where she now lives and has free studio-based art school, will feature in the exhibition, alongside works that address her experience of sexual assault and abortion. Her quilt ‘The Last of the Gold’, emblazoned with an ‘A to Z of abortion’ will be displayed publicly for the first time. Her seminal installations, ‘Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made’ and the Turner-Prize nominated ‘My Bed’, act as a bridge from Emin’s first life to her post-illness and surgery second life. This second life is represented with her large-scale paintings, and pieces that explore her experiences of cancer, surgery and disability, including her 2024 bronze sculpture ‘Ascension’ and a new documentary showing the stoma she now lives with.
Discover the Reality Behind the Myth of the Samurai
3rd February - 4th May 2026
British Museum, Great Russell Street, London
The British Museum is staging a major exhibition on samurai, exploring how the myth and image of the Japanese warrior was created over the past 1000 years. Around 280 objects will be on display, including a suit of samurai armour, woodblock prints, paintings, clothing, and ceramics. These chartin how the role and perception of the samurai evolved, from a medieval warrior class to an elite social class that included women in the 17th century to the myth of bushido and the code of patriotism and self-sacrifice in the 19th century. Contemporary fashion, manga, TV and video game pieces showcase the samurai’s enduring legacy, from the battlefields of Japan to global pop culture.
This Is the First Ever Exhibition Dedicated to the Seascapes of Georges Seurat
13th February - 17th May 2026
Courtauld Gallery, Strand, London
The Courtauld is hosting the first ever exhibition focused on the seascapes of Georges Seurat and the first one on the French artist in the UK in almost 30 years. Seurat and the Sea will explore the evolution of his distinctive Neo-Impressionist technique (using small dots of colour to render shapes and light) through the motif of the sea. Paintings, sketches and drawings made by Seurat during five summers between 1885 and 1890 that he spent on the northern coast of France will be on display, offering a counterpoint to his better known Parisian works.
Queer Britain Is Relaunching With Displays on Queer Print and BFI Flare
4th February - 3rd May 2026
2 Granary Square, London N1C 4BH
Queer Britain, the UK’s only museum dedicated to LGBTQ+ history is relaunching this February with new displays across the collections gallery telling stories of queer life, love, protest and artistry. The museum is also hosting two special exhibitions this spring. The first is Queer Print, which features magazines, flyers, posters and zines that show how LGBTQ+ people told stories and organised through radical and alternative print cultures in a pre-digital age. The second is 40 Years of BFI Flare, which includes a display of posters that chart the themes and identities that have defined BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival over its forty year history.
Nan Goldin's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency Is Going on Show
13th January - 21st March 2026
17-19 Davies Street, London W1K 3DE
Gagosian is kicking off 2026 by presenting Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency in its entirety, to coincide with the photobook’s 40th anniversary. The exhibition will be the first time that all 126 images from the book have been shown in the UK. Created between 1973 and 1986, the photobook, which Goldin described at the time as “the diary I let people read”, is an exploration of gender, intimacy and power, and as well as becoming a defining document of downtown New York at the time, it helped popularise a more candid and personal style of photography.
The British Museum Is Hosting a Major Exhibition on Hawai'i
15th January - 25th May 2026
British Museum, Great Russell St, London WC1B 3DG
To mark 200 years since King Kamehameha II (Liholiho) and Queen Kamāmalu travelled from Hawaiʻi to London (the first Hawaiian monarchs ever to visit the UK), the British Museum is hosting the Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans exhibition. The show brings that journey and the cultural exchange between the two nations, to life, through a range of objects not seen in the UK before. Two royal treasures – a red feathered cloak gifted by King Kamehameha to King George III (which has not been publicly displayed since 1900) and the letter in which he petitioned the British Crown – reunited for the first time since the 1800s form the heart of the exhibition.
Look Back Over Wes Anderson's Work at the Design Museum
21st November 2025 – 4th May 2026
224, 238 Kensington High Street, Kensington, London W8 6AG
Calling all Wes Anderson fans! The Design Museum is hosting a landmark exhibition on the director, featuring objects from his personal archives that will be displayed in Britain for the first time. Wes Anderson: The Archives will look back over his career, from his early experiments in the 90s to his most recent films, with over 600 objects, including storyboards, sketches, polaroids, puppets, models, costumes, notebooks, props and more, on show. They include a pink model of the Grand Budapest Hotel, the fur coat worn by Gwyneth Paltrow in the The Royal Tenenbaums, the vending machines from Asteroid City, and stop-motion sea creature puppets used in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The exhibition will also include a screening of Anderson’s first short film Bottle Rocket, as well as work-in-progress material and maquettes.
This Exhibition Is a Showcase of Japanese Craft
3rd December 2025 - 10th May 2026
Japan House London, 101-111 Kensington High Street, London W8 5SA
With the Hyakkō: 100+ Makers from Japan exhibition, Japan House London is exploring the country’s rich culture of craft, with more than 2000 works across glass, metal, leather and wood, from 120 makers on display. The exhibition will explore how makers reference tradition in their works whilst also adding their own individual expressions, and how the craft of the everyday has come to be appreciated.
Tate Britain Is Hosting a Major Exhibition on Turner and Constable
27th November 2025 – 12th April 2026
Millbank, London SW1P 4PN
In the 250th year of their births, Tate Britain is hosting a major exhibition on J.M.W. Turner and John Constable, two of Britain’s greatest artists who were born within a year of each other and who used different visions of landscape art to reflect the changing world around them. Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals explores the intertwined lives and legacies of these artistic rivals – critics compared their paintings to a clash of ‘fire and water’ – with over 170 paintings and paper works display, alongside intimate insights from sketchbooks and personal items.
The Moonwalkers: A Journey With Tom Hanks, which tells the story of humankind’s exploration of the moon, is back at Lightroom in King’s Cross. The immersive experience is narrated by the Oscar-winning actor, with an original score by Anne Nikitin. Hanks, who is a big space fan (pretty fitting that he starred in Apollo 13 then) has co-written the script with BAFTA-nominated writer-director Christopher Riley. As well as footage from the previous Apollo missions, the experience features interviews with Hanks and astronauts on the Artemis programme, which is preparing for the return of crewed surface missions to the moon. And all of that is projected using Lightroom’s cutting-edge tech.
Marvel at the Diversity of the Natural World at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition
17th October 2025 - 12th July 2026
Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London
The 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition is being hosted at the Natural History Museum. The display features awarded images selected around from over 60,000 entries and it showcases the beauty and diversity of the natural world. See everything from penguins journeying across an ice shelf to a lion facing down a snake in the Serengeti depicted in the photographs.
Discover the Artists Who Pioneered Nigerian Modernism
8th October 2025 – 10th May 2026
Bankside, London SE1 9TG
Tate Modern is exploring the artists who revolutionised modern art in Nigeria in the mid-20th century with the Nigerian Modernism exhibition. Artists working both before and after the decade of national independence from British rule in 1960, across Zaria, Ibadan, Lagos and Enugu, as well as London, Munich and Paris, are showcased in the exhibition. The work of groups like the Zaria Art Society and Mbari Artists’ and Writers’ Club; the fusion of Nigerian, African and European traditions; and the backdrop of cultural and artistic rebellion will feature in the show, where you’ll be able to see works spanning paintings, sculpture, textiles and poetry from more than 50 artists, including Uzo Egonu, Ladi Kwali, El Anatsui, and Ben Enwonwu MBE.
Tate Modern is hosting an exhibition on Picasso that showcases his works in a way you haven’t seen before. Theatre Picasso, curated by artist Wu Tsang and author and curator Enrique Fuenteblanca, centres around Picasso’s fascination with performers, the way he borrowed from them to create his persona of Picasso the artist, and his painting ‘The Three Dancers’, which is celebrating its 100th birthday. The pair have turned the exhibition space into a theatre, displaying more than 45 of Picasso’s works across painting, sculpture, textiles and paper pieces, some of which have never been seen in the UK before. There’ll also be an accompanying programme of events alongside the exhibition, including dance and flamenco.
Dive Into the Fashion of Marie Antoinette
20th September 2025 - 22nd March 2026
Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL
The V&A is hosting Marie Antoinette Style, the first ever UK exhibition on the fashionable and ill-fated French queen. As well as showing how she was a fashion icon in her own time, the display will examine Marie Antoinette’s influence on design, fashion, film and decorative arts more than 200 years after she was put to the guillotine. Over 250 objects will be on show, including pieces loaned from the Chateau De Versailles as well as contemporary fashion from the likes of Moschino, Dior, Chanel and Vivienne Westwood, and costumes from Sofia Coppola’s Oscar-winning Marie Antoinette.
Go Inside the Club That Shaped the 80s With This Blitz Exhibition
20th September 2025 – 29th March 2026
224, 238 Kensington High Street, Kensington, London W8 6AG
With the Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s exhibition, the Design Museum is revisiting the iconic Blitz club, which was a launchpad for the careers of its ‘Blitz Kids’, who included Boy George, Spandau Ballet, Sade and Princess Julia, among others. The club has become famous for its impact on 80s music, fashion and design, and the exhibition will explore that influence through garments, drawings, photographs, flyers, magazines, records, instruments and film (curated in collaboration with some of the leading Blitz Kids) – much of which has never been on public display before.
Get Up to Close to the Dinosaurs at This Immersive Exhibition
Until 1st September 2026
12 Lewis Cubitt Walk, London N1C 4DY
Travel back in time to the era of the dinosaurs with Prehistoric Planet: Discovering Dinosaurs at Lightroom in King’s Cross. The immersive exhibition. Produced in collaboration with Apple TV+, the experience features some of the best scenes from the first two seasons of Prehistoric Planet alongside new material, extended CGI scenes and bespoke illustrations. With Lightroom’s state-of-the-art 360-projections, you can see Ammonites, Mosasaurs, Adaltheriums and Tyrannosaurus Rexes like never before as you discover the role they played in shaping our world from 66 million years ago.
Our INSIDERS can get 25% off tickets to the exhibition here.
See How Public Transport in London Has Evolved at This Exhibition
Until spring 2026
London Transport Museum, London WC2E 7BB
With the Then and Now: London’s transport in photographs exhibition, the London Transport Museum is celebrating the 25th anniversary of TfL and showing how public transport in the city has changed over the last 160 years. Historical images from the Museum’s collection are on display alongside newly commissioned images taken by photographer and TfL train driver Anne Maningas, who shot her photographs on a vintage Bronica medium format film camera from the 1990s.
Each year, the City of London works with artists and partners to curate a new trail of artworks that forms the annual sculpture park, Sculpture in the City. This summer marks the 14th edition of the sculpture park and features the work of 11 world-class artists and spans the Square Mile. New pieces, like a cast iron root sculpture by Ai Weiwei, an ink drawing-based piece based on scans of ancient oak trees from Jane and Louise Wilson, and a looping sculpture from Andrew Sabin, will be joining works retained from previous editions of the trail by the likes of Julian Opie, Maya Rose Edwards, and Richard Mackness. The nature of the sculpture park means that it’s 100% free and open 24/7, so you can stroll up and view the art any time you like.
