Pallant House Gallery

11/10/2026

What can the human figure tell us about the world around it?

From celebrity and advertising to social liberation and the threat of nuclear war, artists in the 1950s and 60s found new ways to explore the body as popular culture was transformed by mass-produced imagery.

Pop and the Figure brings together works from Pallant House Gallery’s internationally significant Pop Art collection, including artists such as Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton, Jann Haworth and Colin Self.

In this video, our curator Miriam introduces the exhibition and some of the ideas behind this fascinating moment in British art.

📍 Pop and the Figure
📅 Until Spring 2027

10/10/2026

🎨❤️‍🩹 What happens when we start to think about art as part of our wellbeing, as well as something we experience for culture and enjoyment?

For World Mental Health Day, we’re looking at ‘Creative Health’, an area of growing research exploring the relationship between creativity, health and wellbeing.

Professor Daisy Fancourt’s work is helping to build the evidence around this. In her book Art Cure, she brings together investigations into the ways that engaging with the arts can affect our wellbeing, including findings that suggest regular participation in the arts can lead to improvements in wellbeing.

This is an interesting area of research because it asks us to think differently about what happens when we spend time with creative work. A visit to a gallery, listening to music or taking part in creative activities can give us time away from the demands of everyday life and allow us to focus our attention elsewhere.

That doesn’t mean art should be seen as a treatment for mental health difficulties, or as a substitute for professional care. But there is increasing evidence that creativity can have a meaningful role to play in supporting our wellbeing.

.fancourt

09/10/2026

🍸✍️ Drink and Draw | 15 October

Join us in the Studio for an informal evening of drawing, with a drink from Pallant Café and a selection of still life objects to sketch.

Flowers, fruit and other interesting objects will be available to arrange and draw in your own way. An artist educator will be on hand to offer advice and support, although this is not a taught workshop and no previous drawing experience is needed.

All drawing materials are provided, with background music throughout the session. Drinks and food will also be available from Pallant Café, with drinks purchased in the Café welcome in the Studio.

15 October | 6.30–8pm | £12.50

Book your place: https://pallant.org.uk/whats-on/workshop-drink-and-draw-2/

Join us for a laid-back Studio session where you'll have the chance to sketch and enjoy a drink or two in a friendly and informal environment, supported by one of our experienced artist educators.

08/10/2026

John Robert Cozens’ View over Greenwich was painted in 1791, looking out across the landscape from an elevated position. Cozens combines finely observed drawing with soft, atmospheric washes, creating the hazy, romantic effect associated with the picturesque – an approach to landscape developed by his father, Alexander Cozens.

Look closely and you can pick out the River Thames, sailing vessels and the domes of the Royal Hospital for Seamen. Beyond them, the landscape stretches towards the horizon, with remarkably little of the dense city we would recognise today.

Imagine standing in roughly the same spot now. The river is still there, but the view has been transformed: the working landscape of the Thames has evolved, the surrounding countryside has become part of an enormous urban landscape, and a very different London rises beyond the trees.

Cozens’ watercolour captures a particular moment in Britain’s landscape. More than 230 years later, it also gives us a chance to think about everything that has changed – and what remains.

See View over Greenwich in British Landscapes: A Sense of Place, on display at Pallant House Gallery until 1 November.

🖼️: John Robert Cozens (1752–1797), View Over Greenwich, 1791, Watercolour on paper, Hussey Bequest, Chichester District Council (1985)

06/10/2026

🪑 A familiar piece has returned to Pallant House Gallery.

In 2007, Danish artist Nina Saunders was commissioned to create a site-specific installation for the 18th-century staircase at Pallant House Gallery. Autumn Flowers (2007–09) suspended four enormous upholstered forms above a chair whose swollen, distorted shape appeared to echo the forms hanging above it.

Recently, the chair has returned to the historic house and is currently on display in Room 7.

Saunders is known for transforming familiar, everyday objects into something unexpected. Working with found furniture, she alters and reupholsters it until its original purpose becomes almost unrecognisable – domestic objects become strange, sculptural and surreal.

The chair from Autumn Flowers is a perfect example. Its distended form suggests something living, while its upholstery connects it to the natural world through William Morris’ Autumn Flowers fabric.

The original installation was inspired in part by Saunders’ fascination with the sculptural forms created by swarming bees, bringing together nature, furniture and contemporary sculpture within the historic setting of Pallant House.

Nearly two decades on, the chair offers a new way to revisit Saunders’ intervention – and a reminder of the Gallery’s long-standing programme of bringing contemporary art into dialogue with its historic interiors.

Come and see Autumn Flowers in Room 7 of our historic house.

🖼️: Nina Saunders (b. 1958), Autumn Flowers (Chair), 2007, Wood frame, upholstered velvet fabric., Commissioned by Pallant House Gallery (2007) (c) Nina Saunders

03/10/2026

For Haroun Hayward, the postwar British artists in Pallant House Gallery’s collection have been an important reference point for his work. Artists including Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and Edward Burra are all part of the story behind Path through Trees – alongside Haroun’s own experience of the Sussex landscape and influences ranging from rave culture and graffiti to South Asian and West African textiles.

The result is a vibrant, contemporary take on the British landscape, where rhythm, colour and texture come together.

Watch Haroun talk about the connections behind the exhibition, then see Path through Trees for yourself. There’s less than a month left before it closes on 1 November.

🎟️ Plan your visit via the link in our bio.

01/10/2026

What happens when you follow in the footsteps of a poet?

For World Poetry Day, discover Tom Hammick: The Making of Poetry, a free exhibition of woodcuts inspired by one of the most significant periods in British poetry.

Created as part of a collaborative project between artist Tom Hammick and author Adam Nicolson, these richly coloured prints take us back to 1797–98, when William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived, walked and wrote among the Quantock Hills in Somerset.

Following in their footsteps, Hammick and Nicolson explored the same landscapes and experiences that inspired the poets. Working with timber sourced from Alfoxden, where the Wordsworths lived, Hammick created woodcuts in response to the poems, places and experiences of the first English Romantics.

Moving between the physical and imagined world, the prints capture the changing atmosphere of the landscape – from moonlight and dawn to snow and summer light.

Tom Hammick: The Making of Poetry is free to visit in our Print Room until 25 October.

🖼️: Tom Hammick (b. 1963), In the Bosom of the Darkest Woods from The Making of Poetry, 2019, Woodcut on paper, Gift from an Anonymous Donor (2025) © Tom Hammick. All rights reserved, DACS 2026

29/09/2026

Soon we will be into the final month of British Landscapes: A Sense of Place... 🌿

Bringing together more than 100 works from across the Pallant House Gallery collection, the exhibition explores the many ways artists have looked at, imagined and responded to the British landscape.

From familiar places transformed by memory and history to landscapes shaped by changing artistic styles, there’s plenty to discover across the exhibition.

If you’ve already visited, we want to know: which artwork was your favourite? 👇

And if you haven’t made it yet, British Landscapes: A Sense of Place is open until 1 November.

Plan your visit via the link in our bio.

28/09/2026

Join us for our next Thursday Late on 15 October, when the Gallery will be open until 8.30pm.

Explore British Landscapes: A Sense of Place and our other exhibitions after hours, with a full evening of things to see and do:
📚 5–6pm – Library Behind the Scenes
✏️ 6–8pm – Drop-in Life Drawing with Wendy Barratt
🎨 6.30–8pm – Drink & Draw Studio Workshop*
🎹 6–8pm – Echoes of Landscape: Piano, Poetry & Song with South Downs Poetry Festival*
🖼️ 7.30–8pm – Guided Tour of the Collection with Curator Miriam O’Connor Perks

Thursday Late admission is £7.50 (£8.50 with Gift Aid) and includes entry to the Gallery, exhibitions and all drop-in activities.

*Tickets for Drink & Draw (£12.50) and Echoes of Landscape (£18 / £16.20 Friends) must be booked separately. Both include free Thursday Late admission.

The Café and Bookshop will also be open throughout the evening.

📅 Thursday 15 October, 5–8.30pm
🎟️ Book via the link in our bio.

26/09/2026

A look back at our Open Day… ✨

Last weekend, Pallant House Gallery was full of creativity, curiosity and plenty of things to get stuck into.

Visitors made leaf letters, tried their hand at still life drawing, explored the collection with our Ways of Looking Bags and family art packs, and found out more about the Gallery’s history and collections through our tours and behind-the-scenes activities.

In the Library, visitors could take a closer look at the work that goes on behind the scenes to care for our collection and archives, while our Gallery Guides shared some of their highlights from the permanent collection.

Thank you to everyone who came along and made it such a brilliant day. 💚

Our next free family Open Day will be in March 2027, so keep an eye out for more information nearer the time.