I lived in london for 10 years and in those 10 years I studied Fine art at Middlesex university for 3 years and now consider myself an artist.
London has an amazing collection of different galleries that show many different types and styles of art. I will start with my favourites, the ones I used to go to frequently when I was living there.
The Tate modern is one of the largest modern art galleries in England and it is situated on the south bank of the river Thames opposite St. Paul’s cathedral. It has a large permanent collection that is free to view which spans the past 150 years or so of modern art such as a collection of the Surrealist period from the 1920s which I love going to see.
It has many other permanent exhibitions too but I always found myself wandering through the galleries enjoying works from Magritte, Dali and Ernst for example.
The Tate modern also has guest exhibitions where you have to pay to enter the exhibition. These exhibitions are usually large collections from very famous artists and are curated especially for the Tate Modern.
One of my favourites was a retrospective from a German painter called Gerhard Richter. I went to see the exhibition of his work in 2011 and it had his work from all the different styles and periods of his life. I must have spent well over an hour in there. I loved it.
There is another gallery called Tate in london and that is called the Tate Britain. It is located on the north bank of the river Thames opposite MI5 (British secret service) and close to the Vauxhall tower.
This gallery is more dedicated to art from the past 200 years in its permanent collections from periods such as the Pre Raphaelites. It also has some of the oldest portrait paintings in its collection.
The Tate Britain also has guest exhibitions that you have to pay for to enter and has a permanent exhibition space for one of Great Britain’s finest painters, JMW Turner who was born in the 1800’s and is one of my favourite artists.
Next up are two galleries that are joined in the same building but have different entrances and that is the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery on Trafalgar Square.
This was always one of my favourite places to go as they have in their permanent collections the sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh, a massive collection of Impressionist paintings and many other collections of classical styles of paintings from the 1700s and 1800s.
Connected to the National Gallery is the National portrait gallery which houses only portraits. The gallery has portraits of kings and queens, famous people and more contemporary portraits where fame or status isn’t necessary to have a portrait done.
Finally I will talk about more contemporary galleries in london which have exhibitions of artists who are living and working today either in london or from other countries. To find contemporary art you can go to the White Cube gallery by London Bridge station or go to Shoreditch in East London where you will find many small galleries showing a variety of different artists who work in different styles.