Catherine Opie show
London's National Portrait Gallery opened Catherine Opie's 'To Be Seen,' assembling more than 80 works that use portraiture to interrogate visibility, resistance and belonging — the show includes 'Flipper, Tanya, Chloe & Harriet, San Francisco, California, 1995' (positive-magazine.com).
Catherine Opie: To Be Seen runs at the National Portrait Gallery in London from 5 March to 31 May 2026 and is billed as the artist’s first major museum exhibition in the United Kingdom. (npg.org.uk) The presentation places Opie’s portraits alongside the Gallery’s permanent collection and includes site-specific “interventions” installed within the NPG’s collection galleries. (npg.org.uk) A newly commissioned family portrait of Sir Elton John and David Furnish by Catherine Opie was unveiled to coincide with the exhibition and is sited in Room 30, the Mary Weston Gallery. (npg.org.uk) The programme explicitly foregrounds landmark works from Opie’s career, including the early project Being and Having (1991) and photographs from the Domestic series (1995–1998), which the Gallery cites as formative to her practice. (npg.org.uk 1) (npg.org.uk 2) NPG says the exhibition was realised in close collaboration with Opie and was announced as part of the Gallery’s 2026 season alongside other major shows such as Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting. (npg.org.uk) (artdaily.com) After London, the presentation is scheduled to travel to the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, where it will be on view from 8 August to 1 November 2026 according to gallery exhibition listings. (regenprojects.com)
