City’s art centre marks Lowry’s anniversary this year.
Milton Keynes’ central art gallery will present three major exhibitions this year by artists whose work encapsulates the spirit of the 20th century.
MK Gallery usually has three main presentations a year and, for 2026, will include the largest solo exhibition in 40 years of British painter Euan Uglow, an exploration of iconic French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue’s use of colour and the biggest career survey of L. S. Lowry in five decades to mark the 50th anniversary of his death.
Visitors to MK Gallery will have the chance to enjoy Uglow’s obsessive painting from life, Lartigue’s ground-breaking experiments with the photographic image and the full range of Lowry’s subjects and techniques.
Euan Uglow: An Arc from the Eye
Saturday 14th February – Sunday 31st May
Landmark exhibition brings together over 70 paintings and drawings by Euan Uglow and includes nudes, still lifes and landscapes, many seen in public for the first time in many years. Renowned for his methodical systems, Uglow was meticulous in painting from life and often took months, sometimes years, to complete nudes and still life paintings in his studio. The artist also painted landscape scenes of Europe in the summer, many of which will be exhibited at MK Gallery in 2026.
Jacques Henri Lartigue: Life in Colour
Saturday 20th June – Sunday 4th October
Best known for his black and white scenes of Parisian society, Jacques Henri Lartigue was a pioneer of what later became known as street photography. Lartigue captured an age of innovation in the early 20th century on camera, documenting car racing, aviation and early tourist resorts on camera. This exhibition – the first in the UK for 10 years – focuses on a rarely seen aspect of Lartigue’s work and explores his lifelong experimentation with colour. It brings together more than 150 prints, photographs and unique works.
L. S. Lowry
24th October – 28th February 2027
Fifty years after the death of Laurence Stephen Lowry in 1976, this will be the much-loved painter’s first major exhibition in over a decade. In addition to his well-known scenes of industrial life, this significant overview explores the full breadth of Lowry’s subject matter, including portraits, seascapes, early academic studies and enigmatic later works recalling Surrealism. Lowry’s career ran alongside huge changes in British society, with much of the industrial landscape he depicted closed, cleared and replaced during his lifetime.
Entry to MK Gallery, in Midsummer Boulevard, costs £11.50, but there are concessions for Jobseekers, students and disabled visitors. Milton Keynes residents can enter for £1 on Tuesdays and there’s a ‘Pay What You Can’ scheme on Sundays.
