The East End's pioneering art gallery, free for over a century, the place that first showed Picasso's Guernica to Britain. Cutting-edge shows, no ticket.
The lowdown
Whitechapel Gallery is free to enter, every day except Monday when it's closed. It's open 11am to 6pm Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and stays open late until 9pm on Thursdays for Gallery Lates. The Whitechapel has been giving the East End free world-class art since 1901, long before the area was fashionable. It made its name showing artists Britain had never seen, and in 1939 it hosted the only UK showing of Picasso's Guernica, brought over to raise money for Spanish refugees.
Today the general admission is still free and the programme is fearless, big international names and emerging artists side by side, spread across a lovely set of gallery spaces behind an Arts and Crafts facade. Some of the bigger ticketed shows cost, but there is always plenty to see for nothing.
It sits right on the seam between the glass towers of the City and the markets of the East End, so it makes a perfect free anchor for a day exploring Brick Lane, Spitalfields and the street art around Shoreditch.
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