From 13th February to 17th May 2026, The Courtauld Gallery turns its focus to the shoreline. The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Seurat and the Sea is the first exhibition ever devoted to the seascapes of Georges Seurat, and the first UK show dedicated to the artist in almost three decades.
Best known for pioneering Neo-Impressionism — building images from tiny, vibrating dots of pure colour — Seurat is often associated with Parisian leisure scenes and bourgeois stillness. Here, the city falls away. In its place: open skies, harbour walls, tidal flats and long horizons.
Bringing together 26 works — paintings, oil sketches and drawings — the exhibition reunites the largest group of Seurat’s coastal scenes ever assembled. Made during five summer trips to northern France between 1885 and 1890, these works chart the development of his radical technique through salt air and shifting light. A particular highlight is the complete series painted at Port-en-Bessin (1888) and Gravelines (1890), shown together for the first time.
Seurat’s career was short — he died at just 31 — and his body of work is correspondingly small. That makes exhibitions like this rare. Yet over those brief years, he painted more views of the Channel coast than any other subject. In Grandcamp, Honfleur, Le Crotoy and beyond, he found not spectacle but space: expanses of light largely emptied of figures. These are contemplative works, stripped back and luminous, where sea and sky become laboratories for perception.
For Seurat, the coast was a reset. He spoke of wanting “to cleanse one’s eyes of the days spent in the studio” and to translate bright light “in all its nuances.” The sea offered clarity — both optical and conceptual.
Loans arrive from major institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, Musée d’Orsay, Tate, and the National Gallery, among many others, underscoring the significance of the moment.
Following the record-breaking success of its recent Impressionist blockbusters — including Monet and London — The Courtauld extends Friday opening hours to 8pm throughout the run, recognising what this exhibition represents: a rare chance to see Seurat not as myth or movement-maker, but as a painter alone with light and water.
A return to the coast. A return to looking.
The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Seurat and the Sea, 13th February – 17th May 2026, The Courtauld
The exhibition is accompanied by a beautifully illustrated catalogue that showcases research on Seurat’s seascapes and their importance in his oeuvre.
The exhibition’s Title Supporter is Griffin Catalyst, the civic engagement initiative of Citadel Founder and CEO Kenneth C. Griffin.
After today’s news, read Adrian Searle’s review of the exhibition
