The Stanley Picker Gallery was established in 1997 with the generous support of the Stanley Picker Trust and the ambitious vision of Professor Bruce Russell, to provide Kingston University with its first purpose-built space for the creation and public presentation of contemporary arts practice. Read more about Stanley Picker and the Stanley Picker Trust here.
The Stanley Picker Gallery has built a reputation for a diverse programme of exhibitions and events that inspire and engage with the variety of creative practices researched and taught within the neighbouring Kingston School of Art. Since 2012 forming part of Arts Council England’s prestigious National Portfolio, the Gallery aims to provide a source of inspiration for University staff, students and its wider constituent communities, from innovative collaborations with other arts organisations and research institutions, to nurturing the creativity of the very youngest of visitors through workshops and other events in partnership with local schools and community groups with our extensive Participation programme.
The Stanley Picker Gallery stages up to four major exhibitions a year, as well as a broad programme of events, workshops, symposia, talks and salons. The Stanley Picker Fellowship programme sits at the heart of the Gallery’s activities. Supported by the Stanley Picker Trust since its inception in 1977, the annual scheme now provides an artist and a designer each with the opportunity to create and present a body of new work at the Stanley Picker Gallery as part of the research culture at Kingston University. Over the last decade Fellows have included artists Oreet Ashery, David Austen, Andy Holden, Laura Grace Ford, Elizabeth Price (Turner Prize Winner 2012) and Nicole Wermers (Turner Prize Nominee 2015). El Ultimo Grito were the very first designers to receive the Fellowship in 2004, with subsequent design recipients including Boudicca, Fabien Cappello, Daniel Eatock, Shelley Fox, Onkar Kular, Julia Lohmann, Ab Rogers and Marloes ten Bhömer. Visit our Fellowships pages for more details.
The Stanley Picker Gallery works regularly with many local partners including the Royal Borough of Kingston, in 2007 initiating Muybridge in Kingston, an on-going research partnership with Kingston Museum to investigate and celebrate their world-class collection of Kingston-born, pioneering photographer and inventor Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904). As from February 2023, alongside a newly curated public display of key Muybridge material at Kingston Museum, the Royal Borough of Kingston’s Muybridge Collection is now archived within Kingston University’s award-winning library building Town House.
The Stanley Picker Gallery Collection consists of works on paper by artists and designers associated with the Gallery’s programme. The collection includes the very first Stanley Picker Fellow Jeremy Henderson (1977) and recipients from throughout the Fellowship’s history including Kate Davis (1986), Matthew Tickle (1989), Sadie Murdoch (1990), Uta Kogelsberger (1995) and Marta Marcé (2000). In 2014 the Gallery launched Stanley Picker Gallery Editions, specially created to directly support our programme of activities and the artists and designers we work with.