Last updated: 24 April 2026
This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author's own and do not constitute professional advice.
Cool Factor
★★★★☆
4 out of 5
Cecily Brown is one of the most successful British painters alive. She's shown at the Met in New York, toured retrospectives across the United States, and regularly sells paintings for millions. Yet somehow, until now, she'd never had a museum show in the city where she was born and raised. Cecily Brown Serpentine South's Picture Making is that belated homecoming. It's free, it's in Kensington Gardens, and it's worth your afternoon. Mostly.
What's on at the Cecily Brown Serpentine exhibition?
Picture Making brings together 32 paintings and 23 drawings spanning more than two decades of Brown's career. The show runs from 27 March to 6 September 2026 at Serpentine South in Kensington Gardens, and entry is completely free. You do need a timed ticket, which you can book online, but walk-ups are also welcome if slots are available.
New works made specifically for this exhibition sit alongside earlier paintings from 2001 onwards. The thread connecting everything is landscape: woodland scenes, tangled foliage, amorous couples half-hidden in undergrowth, and a recurring motif of a fallen log over a stream. In addition, a selection of ink drawings and monotypes takes inspiration from British children's book illustrations. As a result, it's a surprisingly varied show for a single gallery space.
First impressions
Getting to Serpentine South is half the experience. The walk through Kensington Gardens on a spring day is lovely, and arriving at the gallery feels like stumbling on something tucked away rather than queuing for a blockbuster. We visited on a Saturday and it was busy, particularly around the entrance. Despite the crowds, though, there was enough breathing room to stand with each painting properly.
Walking in, you notice the energy first. Brown's canvases practically vibrate with colour and movement. The gallery's natural light does them a huge favour, especially the larger works, which seem to shift and reveal new details the longer you stand with them. It's a space that rewards patience. So take your time.
The new nature walk paintings
The centrepiece of the Cecily Brown Serpentine show is a group of new "nature walk" paintings. Each one revisits the same composition: a fallen log bridging a stream, borrowed from an illustration on a jigsaw puzzle. Brown reworks this image at different scales and in different palettes, pushing it through various degrees of abstraction.
Some critics have found this repetition tiresome. We didn't. Seeing the same motif reworked across canvas after canvas actually builds something. You start to notice how Brown shifts emphasis, pulling figures and foliage in and out of focus with each version. Some are lush and green. Others dissolve into near-total abstraction. Together, they create a cumulative effect that rewards walking back and forth between them.
Brown has described wanting paintings that feel like having a word on the tip of your tongue. That's exactly right. You keep almost seeing something recognisable before it slips back into paint. It's a feeling that grows rather than fades.
The older works
Alongside the new paintings, Picture Making includes earlier works dating back to 2001. The standout, without question, is Couple (2003-04). Two figures entwined in thick woodland, their passion transmitted through every brushstroke. Magenta flowers in the foreground give way to a frenzy of greens and browns that practically pulsate. It's visceral, sensual, and genuinely thrilling to stand in front of.
This painting alone is worth the visit. Several critics have identified it as the strongest work in the show, and it's hard to argue with that. However, the older pieces do more than simply outshine the new ones. They provide context, showing how Brown's relationship with landscape has evolved over two decades. The contrast between the charged eroticism of Couple and the more meditative nature walk paintings is striking, and the show benefits from having both.
The drawings
One of the loveliest surprises in the Cecily Brown Serpentine exhibition is the set of ink drawings inspired by British children's book illustrations. Brown draws on Beatrix Potter, Kathleen Hale's Orlando the Marmalade Cat, and vintage Ladybird titles, reimagining their characters in her own restless, fluid style.
These are charming on the surface but darker underneath. Animals act as stand-ins for human experience, and there's something faintly menacing lurking behind the whimsy. The quality of the ink work is exceptional, too. Loose, confident lines that feel entirely different from the density of the oil paintings. Rather than feeling like a separate show, these drawings work as a counterpoint, lightening the mood between the heavier canvases and offering a different window into how Brown thinks about storytelling and image-making.
The weaker moments
Not every painting here earns its wall space. That's honest and it's fine. A Round Robin (2023-24), a monumental canvas, overwhelms without offering much in return. It's big, busy, and hard to find a way into. Similarly, The Serpentine Picture (2024), an aerial view of the gallery set against a lurid yellow background, feels hastily assembled compared to the more considered works around it.
These weaker pieces don't sink the show, but they do dilute it slightly. In a free exhibition of this scale, though, a few misfires are forgivable. The highlights more than compensate.
The homecoming story
What makes this show feel significant beyond the paintings themselves is the backstory. Brown was born and raised in London. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, graduating in 1993. But when she left for New York the following year, the London art world was dominated by the YBAs: Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, and their contemporaries, whose installation-heavy, headline-grabbing work couldn't have been further from Brown's commitment to painting.
She felt alienated from her peers. Inspired by painters like Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, Brown was born a generation too late to join their ranks and a generation too early for the market's renewed appetite for painting. So she left. Over three decades in New York, she became one of the highest-selling living female painters in the world, showed at the Met, and toured major retrospectives across the US. Meanwhile, her London exhibition history reads like a footnote: Modern Art Oxford in 2005, the Whitworth in Manchester in 2017, and Blenheim Palace in 2020.
This is her first London museum show. It arrived weeks after David Hockney opened at Serpentine North to considerably more fanfare. The contrast is telling. Hockney's show across the park at Serpentine North got the headlines. Brown's deserves them too.
Value for money
Free. That single word changes the entire equation. When a London gallery charges £20 or more for a ticketed show, you expect every work to justify the price of admission. Here, there's no barrier. You can wander in during a walk through Kensington Gardens, spend 45 minutes with the paintings, and leave without having spent a penny.
For context, the Schiaparelli exhibition at the V&A costs £22, and the Tracey Emin show at Tate Modern is £23. The Cecily Brown Serpentine exhibition is free, housed in a beautiful Grade II listed pavilion, and surrounded by one of London's best parks. Combine it with a coffee at the Serpentine cafe, a stroll across the bridge, and the Hockney show at Serpentine North (also free) for a full afternoon that costs nothing.
That's an extraordinarily good deal for two major exhibitions by two major British painters.
The verdict
The Cecily Brown Serpentine exhibition is a genuinely rewarding show. Couple alone would be worth the trip, and the nature walk paintings grow on you the more time you spend with them. The drawings are a delight. There are weaker moments, but they don't define the experience.
More importantly, this show feels like it matters beyond the gallery walls. London has been slow to recognise one of its own. Brown left because the city's art scene had no room for a painter of her ambition, and it took over 30 years for a London museum to give her a proper platform. Picture Making won't change that overnight, but it's a start.
Cool Factor
★★★★☆
4 out of 5
Overall, a solid 4/5 Stone cold. The Cecily Brown Serpentine show impressed us with the cumulative power of the nature walk paintings, the breathtaking energy of Couple, and the unexpected charm of the children's book drawings. It didn't quite hit Ice cold because a handful of the larger canvases feel overwrought, and The Serpentine Picture falls short of its ambition. But for a free show by a major international painter in one of London's most beautiful settings, this is properly worth your time. Go for Brown, stay for the park, and walk across to Hockney while you're at it.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Cecily Brown Serpentine exhibition free?
Yes. Entry to Picture Making at Serpentine South is completely free. You can pre-book a timed ticket on the Serpentine website, which is recommended as slots do sell out. However, walk-ups are also welcome and you may just need to queue briefly.
How long do you need at Cecily Brown Picture Making?
Around 45 minutes to an hour is enough to see everything at a comfortable pace. If you want to really sit with the paintings and revisit your favourites, allow up to 90 minutes. The gallery is not enormous, so even a shorter visit feels worthwhile.
Is the Cecily Brown Serpentine show worth seeing?
We think so. It's a strong collection of paintings and drawings by one of the most acclaimed living British artists. The fact that it's free makes the decision even easier. If you have any interest in contemporary painting, it's well worth the trip to Kensington Gardens.
What is the Cecily Brown exhibition about?
Picture Making explores landscape as a subject across Brown's career. New works focus on a recurring nature walk motif (a log fallen over a stream), while earlier paintings tackle themes of desire, the body, and the blurred line between abstraction and figuration. A set of ink drawings inspired by children's book illustrations adds another layer entirely.
Can you see Cecily Brown and David Hockney on the same day?
Absolutely. Serpentine South (Brown) and Serpentine North (Hockney) are a five-minute walk apart across the Serpentine Bridge. Both exhibitions are free. Hockney runs until 23 August 2026 and Brown runs until 6 September 2026, so you have until August to catch both. It's one of the best free double bills in London right now.
Who is Cecily Brown?
Cecily Brown is a British painter born in London in 1969. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art before moving to New York in 1994, where she has lived and worked for over 30 years. Known for her vigorous brushwork and dynamic compositions that shift between abstraction and figuration, Brown is one of the highest-selling living female painters. Her work has been shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Dallas Museum of Art, and institutions across Europe.
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