Cecily Brown: Picture Making

27 Mar-6 Sep 2026

Overview

Serpentine is delighted to present Picture Making, an exhibition featuring new and recent works by Cecily Brown, one of the most important painters working today. The exhibition marks a homecoming for the British artist who has lived and worked in New York for the past thirty years. 

Over three decades Brown has gained a reputation for her unique approach to painting, characterised by vigorous brushwork, a vivid sense of colour and dynamic all-over compositions that hold the viewer in an active space of looking.

Picture Making brings together works inspired by Serpentine’s unique location in Kensington Gardens, a site of personal significance to the artist. Themes of nature and park life have long shaped Brown’s formal explorations and, for her exhibition at Serpentine, the artist revisits familiar subjects such as amorous couples, woodland settings and uncanny nature walks.

New works made specifically for the exhibition will be shown alongside a selection of key paintings dating back to 2001 to contextualise the continuities and evolutions that have taken place in Brown’s approach to painting over the past 25 years. In turn, recent monotypes and drawings offer insight into Brown’s broader practice, touching upon her early memories of the English landscape, her interest in children's book illustrations, and the darker sides of nursery rhymes and cautionary tales.

Cecily Brown (b.1969, London, UK) is one of the foremost painters working today. Following instruction from British painter Maggi Hambling, Brown attended the Slade School of Fine Art, London, where she graduated with a BFA in painting in 1993. During her studies, she undertook an exchange programme at the New York Studio School where she found a deep affinity with the city. In 1994, she moved to New York, where she has continued to live and work ever since. 

Recent major solo exhibitions of the artist’s work include Dallas Museum of Art, TX, USA (travelled to Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA, USA, 2025); Museo Novecento & Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy (2023); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA (2023); Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany (2022); Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy (2022); Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, UK (2020); and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (2018).