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The Photographers' Gallery: Tickets From £12, Opening Hours, Free Fridays and the Winter 2026 Exhibitions

The Photographers' Gallery in London is the UK's first public gallery devoted only to photography, and since 2012 it has filled a converted textile warehouse on Ramillies Street, a minute from Oxford Circus. This winter it has three exhibitions running together until 21 February 2027, led by a 50th anniversary show for William Eggleston. Here is what tickets cost, when it is open, how to get in free and what to see.

What the Photographers' Gallery is

Sue Davies opened the gallery on 14 January 1971 in a converted Lyons tea bar at 8 Great Newport Street, near Leicester Square. It was the first public gallery in Britain given over entirely to photography, and its opening show was The Concerned Photographer, curated by Cornell Capa. Over the following four decades it introduced London audiences to photographers such as Andreas Gursky, Juergen Teller and Sebastião Salgado.

In 2012 it moved to its current home in Soho, a former textiles warehouse remodelled by the Irish architects O'Donnell + Tuomey. The black extension on top of the old brick building holds the galleries; inside there are three exhibition floors, a print sales gallery, a learning studio, a bookshop and a café. It also runs the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, which it set up in 1996 and which is one of the best-known photography awards in Europe.

Tickets and prices

One ticket covers every exhibition on the day. Prices on the gallery's own visit page include an optional £2 donation, and you save by booking online in advance:

On Friday evenings, entry after 5pm is £5, and on the first Friday of each month it is free after 5pm. The gallery says booking is essential for the Friday late slots. Book through the gallery's visit page.

Opening hours and Christmas closing

Last admission is 30 minutes before closing. Over Christmas the gallery closes from Thursday 24 December 2026 to Friday 1 January 2027 inclusive. The gallery itself suggests Thursday evenings, when it stays open until 8pm, as a quieter time to visit.

What's on: winter 2026 to 2027

Three exhibitions opened together on 14 October 2026 and all run until Sunday 21 February 2027.

William Eggleston: All that goes unnoticed

The headline show marks 50 years since William Eggleston's Guide (1976), the exhibition and book that helped make colour photography accepted as art. Eggleston, born in Memphis in 1939, photographed roadside diners, suburban streets and ordinary rooms with a saturated, slightly unsettling eye. The show pairs famous pictures with rarely seen vintage dye-transfer prints and his lesser-known early black-and-white and Brownie camera images from the 1960s and 1970s.

Sanlé Sory: Colour Years

Sanlé Sory, born in 1943 in what is now Burkina Faso, took an estimated million portraits over six decades from his Volta Photo studio in Bobo-Dioulasso. He is best known for black-and-white studio and nightlife pictures from the 1960s and 70s; this is the first time his colour work, begun in the mid-1980s and restored from his own negatives, has been shown together in the UK. Families, couples, traders and musicians fill the walls, alongside Volta Jazz record sleeves featuring his portraits.

Snap Happy! How Children Became Photographers

The family-friendly show traces how children took up the camera, from post-war camera clubs to magazines, manuals, comics and toy cameras aimed at young people. It is curated by Annebella Pollen, Professor of Visual and Material Culture at the University of Brighton. With under 18s free, it is an easy one to bring children to.

Bookshop, café and print sales

You do not need a ticket for the ground-floor café bar or the bookshop, which carries one of London's best ranges of photobooks and magazines. The print sales gallery sells work by established and emerging photographers, and proceeds help fund the public programme. A free digital guide with exhibition notes works on your phone with no download.

Practical tips

• Bags: there is no cloakroom. Large holdalls, backpacks and wheeled cases cannot be stored, and only one small bag per person is allowed in the galleries, worn on your front or side.
• Combine it: Liberty is a short walk east down Great Marlborough Street, and Carnaby Street is just beyond. See our Liberty guide and Carnaby Street guide.
• Budget day: pair a first Friday visit after 5pm with the free things to do in W1.
• Rainy day: it is one of the best indoor options near Oxford Circus; more ideas in things to do in W1 when it rains and museums near Oxford Circus.

More on museums, galleries and days out on the W1 London homepage.