Important message for this weekend: All visitors must prebook

The Gift Fair is taking place this weekend from Fri 5 – Sun 7 Dec.

To manage capacity, all visitors, including members and those who are not coming to the fair itself, are required to prebook
If you would like to visit The Gift Fair (visitors and members) tickets can be booked here, including gallery upgrades to see the exhibitions and grounds as well as the fair (members do not need to purchase upgrade)
If you are just wishing to visit the grounds and exhibitions please buy general admission tickets

Whilst the fair is on, our ground floor galleries, which includes our Naples, Northern European, Portraits and Miniatures, and The Women’s Library, as well as the Modern Masterpieces display, will be open for the fair only.
The Shelter of Stories, Commodities, Chinese and Folk Art collections, and the parkland are still available to visit.

We recommend car sharing where possible to help with the capacity of the car park.

Exhibitions

Emma Talbot:

HOW WE LEARN TO LOVE

5 July 2025 - 5 October 2025

a collection of new and recent work that powerfully explored the experience of life; from birth to death.

Wed – Sun: Grounds – 10am-4.30pm, Galleries – 10.30am – 4.30pm
Mon and Tue: Closed, except bank holiday Mondays

Christmas Opening
Christmas Eve: 10am – 4.30pm
Christmas Day and Boxing Day: Closed
Sat 27 and Sun 28 Dec: 10am – 4.30pm
Mon 29 and Tue 30 Dec: Closed
New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day: 10am – 4.30pm

About the
Exhibition

For our 2025 major summer exhibition, award-winning artist Emma Talbot (b.1969) assembled a collection of new and recent work that powerfully explored the experience of life; from birth to death.

Talbot works in a variety of media and this show featured examples of her sculpture, painting, animation, drawing and large-scale paintings on silk – a material she explores for its lightweight and expansive properties, along with the fact that it can also be cut, sewn, patched and shaped. Works such as The Human Experience (Your Birth) (2023) and The Human Experience (Your Death) (2023) presented visual epics which not only chart our shared human experiences, but also the increasing lack of connection to nature and the cycles of life.

At the heart of the exhibition was her epic, new installation The Tragedies (2024), which draws on examples of tragedies, such as that of the Ancient Greek story of Medea – who killed her two sons as an act of revenge. The work is a reflection on the extent of unbelievable acts of aggression that exist in times of confrontation, such as the compulsion to kill to retain control.

The exhibition confronted our shifting relationships with technology, language and communication, exploring how, in new forms and guises they can transform public and political narratives. Ultimately, it invited visitors to reflect on what it is to be human.