David Shrigley London exhibition will find the funny side of old masters

Dulwich Picture Gallery show to feature British artist’s work hung next to paintings by Dutch and Flemish greats

The contemporary UK artist David Shrigley will apply his trademark arch humour and distinctive artistic practice “in dialogue” with old masters of Dutch and Flemish painting in a major new solo exhibition in London.

The celebrated visual artist will explore the 17th-century paintings with his own new works “responding to” and hung alongside original masterpieces by artists including Jan Steen, Adriaen Brouwer, David Teniers the Younger, Adriaen van Ostade, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Rembrandt van Rijn.

The exhibition, opening at the Dulwich Picture Gallery next year , will be his first solo exhibition in a public art museum in the UK since his 2012 retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, and will bring his work into conversation with one of the most significant collections of Dutch and Flemish historical paintings in Britain, the gallery said.

It will present a series of brand-new, never-before-seen commissions alongside works created almost 400 years apart, and “explore the comedic side of historic painting, presenting how artists through the ages have used humour to observe everyday life, human behaviour and social interaction”, the gallery said. Key works from the gallery’s collection will be shown with loans from major UK institutions.

Helen Hillyard, head of collection and exhibitions at the gallery, said: “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.”

Shrigley, a past Turner prize nominee, painter, illustrator, writer, film-maker and sculptor, is famed for his distinct line drawings along with his playful and humorous subject matter.

His most recent installations have included the 2021 Mayfair Tennis Ball Exchange, where the gallery was filled with new tennis balls, and the 2025 installation at the Stephen Friedman gallery entitled Exhibition of Old Rope, consisting of 10 tons of used and discarded rope with a £1m price tag.

The Shrigley exhibition, which will run from 25 May to 5 September 2027, is one of the headline exhibitions at the Dulwich Picture Gallery whose 2027/28 programme includes what is understood to be the first UK museum exhibition devoted to the pioneering French artist Jacqueline Marval (1866–1932).

Marval is believed to have created one of the earliest female nude self-portraits in the history of painting. The exhibition (2 February to 9 May 2027) will bring together than 40 paintings and selected lithographs, many of which have never before been exhibited, to highlight her vital contribution to early French Modernism and her innovative representations of women and the female form, which helped to define the Parisian avant garde.

A major retrospective will celebrate the pioneering British Pakistani postwar modernist Anwar Jalal Shemza (1928-1985) in the first UK major museum exhibition in more than 30 years. A Circle, A Square, A Puzzle (21 September to 16 January 2027) will show more than 80 works by the artist famous for Blue Blue Jazz (1967), SquareComposition (1963) and the Roots series (1977 to 1984). It will offer “a fresh appraisal of a pioneering artist whose work transcended cultural boundaries and transformed diverse artistic traditions across art forms and geographies”, the gallery said.

Other landmark exhibitions in the programme include solo displays featuring new commissions by Sahara Longe and Caroline Walker.