WORKS by Dutch and Flemish Old Masters, pioneering women artists, and contemporary creatives all featuring in a wide-ranging exhibition programme at Compton Verney next year.
From rarely seen drawings by Bruegel and Rembrandt, to the visionary textile works of Elizabeth Allen and a major new exhibition on Enid Marx, the 2026 season at the country house art gallery near Wellesbourne offers audiences a journey through both familiar, and overlooked, stories in art.
Visit www.comptonverney.org.uk for full details.
Modern Masterpieces: Paintings from the Barber Institute of Fine Arts (until September 6) – features six paintings by towering figures of modern art, including Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, with subjects that range from the domestic activities of a family eating dinner together, to the tangible, back-aching toil of digging heavy soil.
Bruegel to Rembrandt: Drawing Life, Sketching Wonder (March 14 to June 28) – an exhibition of Dutch and Flemish masterpiece drawings from the collection of Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium – most of which have never been seen in the UK before.
The exhibition consists of drawings from across the 16th and 17th centuries by 50 artists including world-renowned masters such as Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Jacob Jordaens , Hendrick Avercamp, Jacob van Ruisdael and Peter Paul Rubens.
The drawings will be complemented by important loans of paintings, prints and drawings from other UK collections including the National Gallery, the Royal Collection Trust, the Ashmolean, Dulwich Picture Gallery and Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Troublemakers and Prophets: Elizabeth Allen and other visionary artists (March 28 to August 30) – the first contemporary exhibition of work by the late textile artist. The show marks the 60th anniversary of her debut exhibition at the age of 82, at the Crane Kalman Gallery.
Following eviction from her cottage, Allen, who was also known as Queen, spent her later life living in poverty in a hut located near Biggin Hill, Kent, largely isolated from the rest of the world. Queen’s work responds to stories she heard on the radio, as well as the Bible and Apocryphal books, from which she derived divine calculations and images.
This exhibition puts 12 of Queen’s works in conversation with over 15 other modern and contemporary artists, including the first showing of a new film commission by Grace Ndiritu, and works by artists such as Helen Chadwick, Penny Slinger and Suzanne Treister stitching-together diverse themes and subjects.
Enid Marx (July 18 to January 3, 2027) – this major exhibition will be the first ever to highlight the importance of Marx as a textile designer and showcase the influence of her community on the development of modern British design in the 20th century.
Marx is arguably best known as the designer of woven London Underground (Tube) seat moquette fabric and as an illustrator of children’s books. However, she was also an extensive producer of hand block-printed textiles and later designs for fabrics woven for the public.
From a sample of lace taken from her mother’s wedding dress, a block-printed pattern and dress made for Lambert, to plush Tube seat upholstery, the exhibition will be the first to present Marx’s life as a cultural history of the period through her fabrics.
Raqib Shaw (September 19 to February 2027) – Shaw’s paintings are defined by an innovative and distinctive technique of drawing enamel with porcupine quills, through which he constructs intricately layered compositions that move between meditative calm and dynamic intensity. The exhibition will include many works which have not been exhibited in this country before.
Nancy Cadogan: The Lost Trees (October 2 to November 22) – The British American artist explores the deep emotional and environmental significance of trees as living landmarks in our lives. From iconic oaks and pears to unnamed local trees, each painting serves as a memorial to those lost, and a celebration of the role trees play in shaping memory, identity, and place.
Yulia Mahr: Residuals (Autumn 2026) – An installation tied inextricably to Compton Verney, and specifically the former cemetery which once served as a burial ground. This new work, part of Mahr’s ongoing creative partnership with Compton Verney, responds to the site and the unseen within the landscape bringing the past into the present. The piece is made up of a quiet assembly of life-sized and anonymous figures.
