North East cultural highlights for 2026
South Shields Museum & Art Gallery
The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour. Monet: In the Presence of Nature | 17 January – 25 March 2026 | free entry
South Shields Museum & Art Gallery has been selected as one of just four partners to host the National Gallery’s Masterpiece Tour, a three-year transformative opportunity to bring world-class art to the North East.
From 17 January 2026, the museum will exhibit Monet’s masterpiece, The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil (1872), which has only left the National Gallery once in the past 20 years.
The painting will be displayed in the museum's art gallery space, complemented by works from North East Museums’ collections, and artworks co-created by young people, teachers, and local organisations.
The exhibition will focus on the power of art and nature, exploring themes of calm, retreat, and resilience.
Laing Art Gallery
Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Poetry | 17 October 2026 – 13 February 2027 | admission charges apply
Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Poetry will be the first major exhibition to explore the connection between Pre-Raphaelite art and poetry in depth.
This innovative exhibition will visually demonstrate the interconnections between fine and decorative art and the written word. It will be structured around the literary sources: from the early poetry of Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer to Romantic poets such as John Keats; the Victorian visions of Alfred Tennyson to the poetry of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, Christina Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and William Morris. Case studies focusing on specific poets and poems will enable the juxtaposition of different art forms made across the period from the late 1840s to the early twentieth century.
The exhibition will re-interpret two of the Laing Art Gallery’s best-loved paintings, Isabella and the Pot of Basil by William Holman Hunt and Laus Veneris by Edward Burne-Jones, in relation to their poetic subject matter. With key loans from public and private collections, it presents a rare opportunity to show these internationally significant paintings within the wider context of the art and poetry of the Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements.
Paintings and drawings by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Ford Madox Brown, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, and Arthur Hughes will be greatly enhanced by an emphasis on women artists and poets including Elizabeth Siddal, Kate Bunce, and Julia Margaret Cameron.
The exhibition also includes fine and decorative art in a range of media including embroidery, metalwork, stained glass, tapestry, illuminated manuscripts, and books in addition to paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published by the Laing Art Gallery.
Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2025 and Exploring Identity | 28 March – 5 September 2026 | admission charges apply
This spring and summer, visitors will have the chance to chart the history of portrait painting from the 16th century to the present day in two complementary exhibitions containing some of the finest historic, modern, and contemporary portraits.
The Laing Art Gallery will show the National Portrait Gallery’s celebrated painting competition, the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2025, now in its 43rd year. The exhibition will be shown alongside Exploring Identity, a portraiture exhibition curated from North East Museums’ art collections that provides historical context to the Portrait Award.
The Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2025 features 46 portraits selected for display by a panel of judges and explores themes of cultural heritage, companionship, sexuality, illness, conflict, and grief. Highlights from the exhibition include a striking self-portrait by artist Moira Cameron, who has been named the winner, Michelle Liu’s portrait, Kofi, winner of the Young Artist Award, and the second and third prize winners are Cliff, Outreach Worker by Tim Benson and Memories by Martyn Harris.
Exploring Identity brings together some of the finest portraits from the Laing, Shipley, and Hatton Gallery collections. Highlights from the collections include works by Francis Bacon, Christina Robertson, Frederic Leighton, John Lavery, Harold Knight, and Arthur Hughes. Also represented are some of the North East’s most famous artists including Norman Cornish, Robert Jobling, and Harry Thubron.
In this exhibition, portraits are so much more than just a physical likeness of a person—they are an embodiment of who that person is, their personal experiences, and their hopes for the future.
Sublime Landscapes | 20 December 2025 – 5 December 2026 | free entry
Sublime Landscapes features landscape watercolours and prints from the Laing Art Gallery’s collection responding to the potential for landscape art to be awe-inspiring. Visitors will encounter dramatic waterfalls, epic ruins, stormy seas, and subterranean worlds through the eyes of artists working between the eighteenth century – when the concept of the ‘sublime’ first gained prominence within landscape art – and the present day.
The artists on display include John Robert Cozens, Mary Elizabeth Bennett, Francis Towne, David Cox, John Martin, Charles Napier Hemy, Edna Clarke Hall, Graham Sutherland, and Dennis Creffield.
The exhibition also presents the first opportunity to see three new acquisitions presented by the Contemporary Art Society in 2024-5: Totes Meer by Christiane Baumgartner, and Broken Terrain and Reynisdrangar by Emma Stibbon. The acquisitions were selected both due to their resonance with the historic watercolours collection and with the aim of building the gallery’s holdings of contemporary works on paper by women artists.
Sublime Landscapes is a free exhibition shown in the Barbour Watercolour Gallery.
Miniature Worlds: Little Landscapes from Thomas Bewick to Beatrix Potter | continues until 28 February 2026 | admission charges apply
Miniature Worlds: Little Landscapes from Thomas Bewick to Beatrix Potter explores the intricate beauty of small-scale landscapes across three centuries of British art. The exhibition has a particular focus on vignette format illustrations and the changing relationship between text, illustration, and publishing.
Highlights of the exhibition include seven highly detailed watercolours by JMW Turner, whose 250th birthday is being celebrated this year, a dramatic and diminutive drawing by John Martin, and nine intricate watercolours by Beatrix Potter.
The exhibition includes over 130 objects, 90 of which are loans from other UK collections.
Great North Museum: Hancock
Treasure: Hidden, Lost, Found | 28 March – 20 September 2026 | free entry
Step into the fascinating world of treasure and see some amazing archaeological finds from across the North of England. Roman coins, Viking Age silver, and a buried stash of Tudor coins will all feature in this glittering new exhibition.
Explore what makes something valuable – culturally, historically, and personally. Who owns the past? What stories do these objects tell? With thought-provoking displays and interactives, there’s something to spark curiosity in visitors of all ages.
Featuring extraordinary finds from the British Museum, National Museum of Scotland, Vindolanda, and the Great North Museum: Hancock, Treasure is your chance to see why buried history matters.
Woodhorn Museum
Northumberland Open Exhibition | 14 February – 10 May 2026 | included with Annual Pass admission
Housed in Woodhorn Museum’s stunning Workshop Galleries, the annual Northumberland Open is the largest exhibition of its type in Northumberland.
The exhibition attracts submissions from artists from across Northumberland and beyond. Works are selected for exhibition by a professional panel of artists and curators who also select an Overall Winner and Highly Commended artworks to be awarded prizes.
During the exhibition run, thousands of visitors vote for the ‘People’s Choice Award’ which is announced at the end of the exhibition.
Northumberland Miners' Picnic | June 2026 | free entry
The annual Northumberland Miners' Picnic will return to Woodhorn Museum.
The Northumberland Miners' Picnic is a jam-packed family day out celebrating our coal mining heritage. Enjoy live music, street theatre, children’s activities and food stalls.
Arbeia, South Shields Roman Fort
After the Fire | 30 March – 27 September 2026 | free entry
Around the year AD 300, a catastrophic fire destroyed many buildings of the fort. The 2026 exhibition explores what was rebuilt over the ruins and examines life at Arbeia during the fourth century, leading up to the end of Roman rule in Britain.
Discovery Museum
Steam to Green: A North East Energy Revolution | continues until September 2026 | free entry
Steam to Green explores the story of energy in the North East with a look back to the industrial revolution, and shines a light forward on the pioneering contributions in green technologies happening now across the North East region.
With hands-on displays, a 'cutaway' electric NISSAN Leaf car, and a family and adult event programme.
Things That Go | summer 2026 | free entry
Get ready to zoom, whoosh, and choo choo! Things That Go is the first exhibition in Discovery Museum’s brand-new temporary gallery and is created for families with children aged under seven.
From boats, buses and bicycles to tractors, trains and planes, explore the exciting world of transport through hands-on play and truckloads of toys. Whether it rolls, flies, or floats, there’s something to spark every little explorer’s imagination.
Learn and play together in this colourful destination for curious kids and their grown-ups.
Discovery Museum, Blandford Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4JA . Free entry, donations welcome
Hatton Gallery
HAPPY! | 14 February 2026 – 9 May 2026 | free entry
HAPPY! is a major exhibition developed in partnership with Jerwood Collection and curated by L-INK, the gallery’s young people’s group.
The Jerwood Collection is a preeminent collection of modern British art, offering the group an unparalleled opportunity to work with a range of major artworks by British Artists.
The exhibition explores how artists become artists, reflecting on different pathways and lived experiences that shape creative practice.
This exhibition will also celebrate the works of young artists at different stages of their arts development, in homage to Victor Pasmore’s 1957 Art Education Exhibition at the Hatton Gallery.
Segedunum Roman Fort
Following the Eagle | 30 March – 3 October 2026 | museum admission applies
The exhibition will showcase rare Roman military diplomas inscribed on bronze, alongside other archaeological artefacts, exploring themes of identity, service, and travel within the Roman army.
Shipley Art Gallery
DesignLab Nation | July – September 2026 | free entry
A display of artwork by secondary school students in partnership with V&A.
DesignLab Nation is a secondary school programme delivered by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).
The programme brings together secondary schools in partnership with regional museums, designers, industries, and the V&A to inspire the next generation of designers, makers, and innovators through in-depth design projects.
Shipley Art Gallery, Prince Consort Road, Gateshead, NE8 4JB. Free entry, donations welcome
Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum
Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering | 10–12 April 2026 | ticketed events
The Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering is an exciting three-day annual festival of street entertainment, indoor events, music, dance, craft, dialect, heritage and traditional fun – held the weekend after Easter in the medieval market town of Morpeth, 14 miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne.
The Chantry hosts some of the musical events and Northumbrian piping competitions.
Stephenson Steam Railway
2026 running season at Stephenson Steam Railway | April – October
In partnership with the North Tyneside Steam Railway Association, Stephenson Steam Railway will offer a programme including regular heritage train rides, family events, gala days, a model railway weekend, a beer festival and much more in 2026.
There is also a free museum open on weekends and during North Tyneside school holidays. See the Stephenson Steam Railway website for more information and programme announcements.
The Late Shows
The Late Shows | Friday 8 and Saturday 9 May 2026 | venues across Newcastle and Gateshead | free entry
The popular annual culture crawl returns, where dozens of museums, galleries, studios and creative venues open their doors after-hours and offer free interactive activities for thousands of people of all ages.
The Late Shows is co-ordinated by North East Museums.
Media contact
Please email: communications@northeastmuseums.org.uk
