National Gallery
Over 2,300 Western European paintings from the 13th to the early 20th century, free to view, filling the north side of Trafalgar Square.
Tate Modern
Britain's national gallery of modern and contemporary art, housed in a converted 1950s power station on the Thames, with a soaring Turbine Hall for large-scale installations.
National Portrait Gallery
Over 250,000 portraits of the people who shaped British history, from Tudor monarchs to contemporary celebrities, in a building reopened after a major 2023 refurbishment.
Courtauld Gallery
A compact, world-class collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces inside Somerset House, from Manet's last major painting to Van Gogh's self-portrait.
Tate Britain
The story of British art from 1500 to today in one riverside neoclassical building — Turner, Constable, the Pre-Raphaelites and Hockney, with far smaller crowds than its Bankside sibling.
Guildhall Art Gallery
The City of London's free art collection above the surprise ruins of a Roman amphitheatre, discovered by archaeologists during the gallery's own construction in 1988.
Serpentine Galleries
Two free contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, best known for commissioning a major new architectural summer pavilion from a different world-class architect each year.