The Box announces ambitious exhibition programme for 2026

20th November 2025

The Box Plymouth has unveiled its 2026 exhibition programme today, featuring a timely reassessment of Beryl Cook's artistic legacy, significant loans including Joshua Reynolds' Portrait of Mai, and a diverse range of contemporary responses to themes including identity, emotion, and social justice.

Spring 2026

Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy
24 January – 31 May 2026

Marking 100 years since her birth, this landmark exhibition will present the most extensive display of Beryl Cook's work to date, featuring more than 80 works including iconic paintings and rarely seen treasures from The Box’s art collection, private lenders and the Cook family archives. 2026 also marks 50 years since the 1976 Sunday Times feature that launched Cook's career following her first exhibition at Plymouth Arts Centre in 1975.

Though her colourful paintings and their associated merchandise made her beloved by millions, critics consistently dismissed her work as mere kitsch. Pride and Joy argues for a radical reassessment. Through subjects such as drag queens, working-class women at bingo halls, plus-size bodies celebrating their physicality and LGBTQ+ nightlife, Cook documented communities and identities that were actively marginalised with genuine affection, technical mastery and unflinching honesty. Her work from the 1970s to 2000s captures working-class joy, body positivity, and queer culture with a sophistication that's only now being fully recognised.

The exhibition will be organised into four sections: Identity and Representation; Chronicles of Everyday Life; Process and Practice (including rarely seen sculptures and textile work); and Influences and Impact. A related display in The Box’s Active Archives gallery will delve into Cook’s archive material even further.

Meanwhile, a fully illustrated book and bespoke merchandise will be available from The Box’s shop. KARST will also present Discord and Harmony, an exhibition of contemporary British artists whose work shares Cook's radically generous approach to representing everyday life (24 January-18 April 2026).

Due to overwhelming demand The Box has introduced free tickets for the exhibition so everyone who visits can enjoy it in comfort. Walk-ups will be available but during busy periods booking a ticketed time slot is recommended. Tickets are available to book now. They can also be booked in person in The Box’s onsite shop.

Journeys with Mai
14 February – 14 June 2026

A journey of discovery across four gallery spaces, this ambitious exhibition will reexamine what is widely considered to be Plympton-born Sir Joshua Reynolds’ finest painting, exploring ideas of power and perception and building a picture of early encounters between Europeans and South Pacific Island peoples from a range of perspectives.

Touring for the first time since it was saved by the nation, Portrait of Mai will take centre stage alongside historic paintings, prints, objects and archival material from The Box’s collections plus an amazing array of loans. The work was jointly acquired by The Getty and National Portrait Gallery in 2023, and this exhibition will be the last chance for people to view it before it travels to America.

Formerly known as 'Omai' in England, Mai (c.1753-1779) was a native of Ra'iātea (now French Polynesia). He travelled to and from England as part of Captain James Cook's second and third voyages in 1772-‍1775 and 1776-‍1779. Both departed from Plymouth and included local men as part of the ships’ companies. The most notable of these was Tobias Furneaux who brought Mai to Britain where he was hosted by the botanist Joseph Banks from 1774-1776.

Journeys with Mai will also include New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana's In Pursuit of Venus [infected] – the first time it’s been shown outside of London in the UK. Using 21st century digital technologies to animate a historic 19th century French wallpaper, this monumental video work will enable audiences to explore the complexities of cultural identity further. A series of drawings on loan from the British Library by Tupaia, another native of Ra‘iātea, will present early cultural encounters and Pacific Island peoples from a different perspective. A new soundscape by Tahitian artist Hinatea Columbani’s will bring the sights, sounds of Tahiti to life, and provide a bridge across the 250 years that have passed since Mai visited Plymouth.

Expedition into a Volcano, a new commission by Devon-based artist Mohini Chandra, will respond directly to the exhibition themes, considering the exotic landscape suggested in Reynolds’ Portrait of Mai and how notions of a pacific ‘paradise’ have entered a collective consciousness over the last 250 years. Using film from The Box’s archives combined with contemporary footage shot around Mount Edgcumbe in nearby Cornwall, the work will explore the economic, environmental and cultural damage of colonialism.

Journeys with Mai is a national partnership project led by the National Portrait Gallery, Bradford District Museums and Galleries, the Fitzwilliam Museum, in collaboration with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge and The Box, Plymouth. The project is generously supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Art Fund and other supporters.

Summer 2026

Works from the Government Art Collection
20 June – 20 September 2026

This exhibition will take a bold, heartfelt journey into the emotional lives of young people from in and around Plymouth. Shaped through a series of conversations and workshops that have taken place over the last 12 months with a diverse group of teenagers and young adults from across the city, the show will feature powerful artworks from the Government Art Collection, including by contemporary British artists such as Alvaro Barrington, Alberta Whittle and Barbara Hepworth. These will be paired with raw, honest reflections from those aged 13-25. To coincide with the exhibition, a Children and Young People's Summer Show will also be on display reflecting the themes of art and emotion. Annual displays of the region’s young talent have taken place at The Box for the last three years and have showcased hundreds of submissions from children, teenagers and young adults from Devon and Cornwall.

Gillian Ayres
4 July – 20 September 2026

This exhibition will consider the extraordinary practice of British artist Gillian Ayres (1930-2018), one of the leading abstract painters and printmakers of her generation. Ayres was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1989, elected to the Royal Academy in 1991, and appointed a CBE in 2011. Her paintings and prints are held by major museums and galleries worldwide including Tate, the British Museum, MoMA New York, the Yale Center for British Art, and the National Gallery of Australia. Although exhibitions were held in Bideford, Exeter and Bath between 2012 and 2014, this will be the first major retrospective of her work in Plymouth: a celebration of the long and prolific career of a fascinating artist who spent many years living in a small village on the North Cornwall/North Devon border.

Autumn 2026

As Plymouth embarks upon a major housing renewal programme, The Box’s autumn season will reflect on issues around housing, healthcare, education, and inequality.

Steve McQueen: Grenfell
24 October 2026 – 24 January 2027

Grenfell by award-winning artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen will travel to Plymouth in autumn 2026 as part of its national tour. This unflinching 'critical exercise in remembrance' was filmed in December 2017 in response to the fire that took place on 14 June 2017 at Grenfell Tower. 72 people died in the tragedy. Filming the tower before it was covered with hoarding, McQueen sought to create a record so that it wouldn’t be forgotten.

The national tour has been made possible with support from the National Lottery through Arts Council England and from Art Fund, organised in collaboration with Tate Liverpool, Tramway and The Common Guild in Glasgow, Chapter in Cardiff, The MAC Belfast, The Box and Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham.

The Way We Live
24 October 2026 – 24 January 2027

This ambitious exhibition will consider the implications of planner Patrick Abercrombie and Plymouth City Engineer and Surveyor James Paton Watson’s A Plan for Plymouth (1943) which outlined ideas for the rebuilding of the city after The Blitz, and Jill Cragie's film The Way We Live (1946) which shows family life in post-war Plymouth. Both address the shared themes of community, inequality, access to housing, education and healthcare and visions for the future. Developed with external curator Beth Hughes, the exhibition will feature contemporary art responses across two galleries, plus additional spaces that will highlight archival collections related to Plymouth’s post-war period and community responses, encouraging audiences to explore issues such as class, social and climate justice.

Victoria Pomery, CEO at The Box said: “Next year’s programme is rich but rooted in place. From a reassessment of Beryl Cook's practice to Mai's extraordinary journey, and young people's emotional lives to the legacy of Grenfell, our 2026 programme is our most ambitious yet and demonstrates what museums can achieve when we work in partnership with national institutions, artists and local communities. The programme reflects The Box's commitment to telling stories that matter – stories that challenge perceptions, celebrate overlooked voices, and connect Plymouth's rich history to contemporary issues.”