First solo show of David Shrigley's work in a UK public art museum since 2012, with new commissions responding to Dutch and Flemish 17th-century painting.
David Shrigley is taking over Dulwich Picture Gallery from 25 May to 5 September 2027. It's his first solo show in a UK public art museum since his 2012 retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, and it's built around a specific conversation: Shrigley's new work hanging alongside Dutch and Flemish painting from the 17th century.
If you're not familiar, Shrigley is a contemporary British artist and Turner Prize nominee, best known for those distinctive, wobbly line drawings and the dry, playful humour that usually carries them. He doesn't just draw, though; he paints, illustrates, writes, makes films and sculpts, so there's a fair bit of ground he covers. This exhibition is his first major museum show in the UK in over a decade, and it's part of the Gallery's 2027 programme of landmark exhibitions.
The whole thing is a bit of a pairing. Shrigley's new commissions are hung next to masterpieces by Jan Steen, Adriaen Brouwer, David Teniers the Younger, Adriaen van Ostade, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Rembrandt van Rijn. The idea is to show how humour has been used across the centuries to observe everyday life, human behaviour and social interaction — the same things Shrigley still turns his eye to today. Seeing his line drawings alongside these Old Masters lets you trace that thread from the 1600s right up to the present.
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It's co-curated by the Gallery's Head of Collection, Helen Hillyard, and curator Dr Lucy West. The show runs from 25 May to 5 September 2027 at Dulwich Picture Gallery, so you've got the whole summer to fit it in.
