National Portrait Gallery to stage Catherine Opie’s first UK museum retrospective
- maxwell museums
- 25 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Catherine Opie: To Be Seen will be the very first museum exhibition in the UK dedicated to the celebrated American photographer Catherine Opie. It will open at the National Portrait Gallery in London from 05 March to 31 May 2026, in what the artist says is an “incredible honour.”
Opie’s work documents human culture and, and it redefines portraiture. Her striking captures probe the complex questions of who we are and how we present ourselves.
Visitors to this London exhibition can expect to see over 80 photographs by Ohio-born Opie, across studio portraiture, LGBTQ+ portraiture, environmental studies, and documentary photography. Collectively these works will explore themes of social, political and individual identity, and they span the entirety of Opie’s groundbreaking 30-year career.
Catherine Opie has worked closely with the exhibition’s curators to bring the show to life. “I would like to thank the National Portrait Gallery for this incredible honor of presenting my work in London,” Opie said in a statement.
She added that she hopes “the audience will leave the exhibition with a broader understanding of what portraiture can achieve” and that “everyone begins to understand identity through being seen.”
What to expect inside Catherine Opie: To Be Seen
A major highlight of Opie’s retrospective exhibition will be her first major work, Being and Having (1991), which presents portraits of her LGBTQ+ friends in the style of the great 16th-century court painter Hans Holbein.
Opie’s photographs of artist friends in the Baroque style will also be shown.
The final room in the show will be “crowded” according to curators, deliberately filled with many works drawn from the series High School Football (2007-09) and Surfers (2003) which explore themes of constructed community and masculinity.
Opie is also going to turn the spotlight on the National Portrait Gallery itself, exploring its influence on those who visit and what its role in national identity is. That’s why visitors will also be encouraged to explore the gallery’s permanent collection displays too, where Opie will have made seven new and dramatic interventions.
On announcing the exhibition, National Portrait Gallery Director Victoria Siddall said that “Cathy’s portraits are a timely reflection on the power of representation and the importance of being seen.
“I’m so grateful to her for her trust, her collaboration and generosity of spirit and for co-curating this exhibition with such great sensitivity alongside Clare Freestone. We are really proud to bring this important exhibition to audiences in the UK.”
Tickets to the Catherine Opie exhibition
You can already pre-book your tickets to Catherine Opie: To Be Seen. Standard adult tickets are £19.50 — although as always, National Portrait Gallery members will get in for free. And for entry on Saturdays from 17:30 to 20:00 it is ‘pay what you can.’
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If you can’t make it to London during its run however, you will get a second chance. The exhibition will tour to the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, opening there on 8 August and running until November 2026.
Catherine Opie exhibition book
For such a landmark exhibition, there is of course an accompanying exhibition catalogue.
The Catherine Opie: To Be Seen book has also been created in collaboration with the artist, and it features 120 images of Opie’s work. That’s 50% more than what's seen in the exhibition, so it’s the perfect publication for Opie fans. It’ll be published in March 2026 but you can pre-order for £38 here.
This major photography exhibition is part of a very strong line-up of 2026 exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery. Opie’s show will run alongside a hugely anticipated exhibition of Lucian Freud’s drawings and works on paper. Then in the summer, the spotlight turns to one of the greatest film icons of all time, as the portraits of Marilyn Monroe go on show.