Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery Announces Next Year's Programme
Exhibitions include work from Paula Rego, Sean Scully and South Asian diaspora
Jasmir Creed - Circus of Faces
October 8, 2026
Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery has unveiled its 2027 exhibition programme, bringing together landmark shows by internationally acclaimed artists and presenting, for the first time in the UK, a major exhibition of figurative painting by women artists from the South Asian diaspora. The season will run across the historic house and contemporary gallery spaces designed by Sir John Soane, offering one of the most ambitious years of programming yet at the Ealing cultural landmark.
In addition, the already announced Peter Blake: In the Studio will run until 28 February 2027.
Many Stories
6 May – 8 August 2027
Opening the season is Many Stories, the first major UK exhibition dedicated to figurative painting by women artists from the South Asian diaspora. Featuring works by 17 artists — including Faiza Butt, Jai Chuhan, Jasmir Creed and Naira Mushtaq — the exhibition brings together emerging and established practitioners whose work spans portraiture, landscape, the body and painterly experimentation.
Drawing on both Western and South Asian traditions, Many Stories explores three central themes: Identity and Migration; Body and Women Painting Women; and Navigating the Public and Private. The exhibition highlights difference as much as connection, tracing how artists across generations and geographies articulate their experiences and aesthetic concerns.
The show also addresses the longstanding under-representation of South Asian British women in the visual arts, presenting their work at scale at a moment of renewed interest in figurative painting and broader narratives of British art. Delivered in partnership with Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham, and Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the exhibition will be accompanied by a new publication and public programme.
Paula Rego: Nursery Rhymes
6 May – 8 August 2027
Running concurrently with Many Stories, Pitzhanger will present Paula Rego’s celebrated Nursery Rhymes (1989) series. Created during an intense period of work in which Rego reimagined 25 traditional English nursery rhymes, the prints transform familiar tales — from Little Miss Muffet to Humpty Dumpty — into psychologically charged scenes where innocence and menace coexist.
The series was inspired by Rego’s experience reading English storybooks to her grandchild, echoing the fables told to her in childhood in Portugal. Exhibited in the former bedrooms of Soane’s country house, the works highlight Rego’s lifelong fascination with folklore, literature and the stories passed between generations.
Paula Rego's version of Little Miss Muffet
Sean Scully: Nature Never Sleeps
September 2027 – January 2028
For autumn, Pitzhanger will host a major exhibition of large-scale paintings, works on paper, writing and sculpture by Sean Scully. Known for his expressive abstract works of layered stripes and blocks, the Irish-born, New York-based artist has in recent years returned to figuration and the natural world.
Central to the exhibition will be Scully’s Tree of Life (2026) series, inspired by the transformation of his studio grounds in Tappan, New York, where he replaced a car park with a thriving ecosystem of plants, birds and trees. The works respond to nature at a time when the effects of climate change have become increasingly visible.
Sean Scully’s Tree of Life (2026)
Also featured will be Scully’s Madonna Triptych (2018/2019), marking his return to figuration after five decades. The paintings depict his son Oisin as one of the central figures, set against the luminous beach landscape of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.
Rebecca Lyons, Director of Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, said the 2027 season reflects the site’s historic role as a place of artistic innovation.
“Pitzhanger was a site of radical architecture and a convening place for contemporary artists at the time of Sir John Soane. This year ahead brings the very best of modern and contemporary art in Britain to Ealing: from Peter Blake to Paula Rego, to the many stories of women artists from the South Asian diaspora, and bold painterly works by Sean Scully across both abstract and figurative traditions. We warmly welcome all of our audiences, local to international, to enjoy the historic house, garden and parkland setting and this stellar programme of world-renowned artists.”
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