London · East End
Whitechapel Gallery
The gallery that showed Guernica to Britain in 1939 and still opens the door for nothing
A programme that reliably shows an artist a decade before the big museums do
Founded in 1901 to bring art to the East End, the Whitechapel has spent more than a century being early: Picasso's Guernica on its British tour in 1939, the first UK shows for Rothko, Pollock and Frida Kahlo, and a run of first institutional exhibitions that reads like a list of who mattered next.
It has no permanent collection, which is its advantage. The programme changes completely several times a year, admission is usually free, and the building extended into the old library next door without losing the scale that makes the shows readable.
The detail
Good to know
- Founded
- 1901
- Admission
- Usually free
- First UK shows
- Rothko, Pollock, Kahlo, Guernica in 1939
- Late night
- Thursday until 21:00
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