Dulwich Picture Gallery has announced a major solo exhibition of British artist David Shrigley, set to open in 2027, that will place his distinctive line drawings and satirical sculptures alongside 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings from the gallery's permanent collection. The show, running from 25 May to 5 September 2027, marks Shrigley's first solo presentation in a UK public art museum since his 2012 retrospective at the Hayward Gallery.
According to the gallery, Shrigley's new commissions will be hung in direct dialogue with historical works by Jan Steen, Adriaen Brouwer, David Teniers the Younger, Adriaen van Ostade, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Rembrandt van Rijn, drawing out the comic undercurrents that ran through everyday genre painting centuries before Shrigley's own career began.
What will visitors actually see?
The exhibition will pair brand-new, never-before-seen works by Shrigley with original paintings created almost 400 years earlier, some drawn from the gallery's own holdings and others on loan from major UK institutions. Organisers say the aim is to expose how artists across the centuries have used comedy to depict ordinary life, human behaviour and social interaction, treating Shrigley's practice as a modern extension of that same impulse rather than a departure from it.
Helen Hillyard, head of collection and exhibitions at the gallery, framed the pairing as a natural fit rather than a stunt.
We are excited for David Shrigley to bring his unique perspective to Dutch and Flemish masterpieces of the 17th century.
Shrigley – like our historic painters – has an instinct for finding the funny side of everyday life. He is the perfect artist to bring back playfulness to the old masters, and remind us that great art doesn't always need to be serious.
What has Shrigley been working on recently?
Shrigley, a former Turner prize nominee whose practice spans painting, illustration, writing, film and sculpture, remains best known for spare, deadpan line drawings paired with wry captions. His recent large-scale installations include the 2021 Mayfair Tennis Ball Exchange, which filled a gallery space with new tennis balls, and a 2025 show at Stephen Friedman Gallery titled Exhibition of Old Rope, made up of ten tonnes of discarded rope priced at £1m. That show is understood to have been his ninth solo exhibition with Stephen Friedman Gallery, according to Artsy's listing for the exhibition. His official website also lists a project called Pulped Fiction among his current activities, indicating he continues to work in printmaking and publishing alongside gallery installations, according to his official site.
What else is on at Dulwich around the same time?
Dulwich Picture Gallery's own public listings suggest a fuller and slightly different sequence of exhibitions than the Shrigley announcement alone implies. The gallery's website shows a show called Painting Time: Art and Ageing running from 20 January to 10 May 2026, followed by Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography from 28 July to 4 October 2026, and a further exhibition opening on 3 November 2026 and continuing to 7 February 2027, according to the gallery's official what's-on page. This points to a packed year-round programme rather than a single flagship show, a pattern reinforced by the gallery's separate public calendar, according to Dulwich Picture Gallery's calendar listing. The gallery is based on College Road, London SE21 7AD, according to its official website.
What else is in the 2027/28 programme?
The Shrigley show sits within a wider slate of headline exhibitions announced for the gallery's 2027/28 programme. From 2 February to 9 May 2027, the gallery will stage what it describes as the first UK museum exhibition devoted to French artist Jacqueline Marval (1866–1932), bringing together more than 40 paintings and selected lithographs, many never previously exhibited. Marval is believed to have produced one of the earliest female nude self-portraits in the history of painting, and the show will highlight her role in shaping early French Modernism and the Parisian avant garde.
Running earlier, from 21 September to 16 January 2027, A Circle, A Square, A Puzzle will offer the first major UK museum retrospective in more than 30 years of British Pakistani postwar modernist Anwar Jalal Shemza (1928–1985). The exhibition will display more than 80 works, including pieces from Shemza's well-known Blue Blue Jazz (1967), Square Composition (1963) and the Roots series (1977–1984), and is billed by the gallery as offering a fresh reading of an artist whose work crossed cultural boundaries and reshaped diverse artistic traditions. The wider programme also includes new solo commissions from Sahara Longe and Caroline Walker.
What happens next?
Based on the gallery's current public programme, the next clearly scheduled major exhibition slot begins on 3 November 2026 and runs through to 7 February 2027, according to a Dulwich Picture Gallery press announcement, ahead of the Shemza retrospective, the Marval exhibition and finally the Shrigley show opening in May 2027. Ticketing and further curatorial details for the Shrigley exhibition have not yet been released.
Key Facts
- Shrigley's Dulwich exhibition runs from 25 May to 5 September 2027, his first UK public museum solo show since 2012.
- New commissions will hang alongside works by Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Adriaen Brouwer, David Teniers the Younger, Adriaen van Ostade and Pieter Brueghel the Younger.
- Dulwich's own listings show earlier 2026 exhibitions including Painting Time: Art and Ageing and Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography.
- A Jacqueline Marval retrospective (2 Feb–9 May 2027) and an Anwar Jalal Shemza retrospective (21 Sept 2026–16 Jan 2027) are also part of the gallery's upcoming programme.
- Shrigley's most recent major show, Exhibition of Old Rope, was staged at Stephen Friedman Gallery in 2025.
