A deeply personal exhibition by Gilbert & George will open this May at Gilbert & George Centre, bringing together rarely seen works alongside a moving tribute to their longtime friend George Crompton.
Our George Crompton, WORLDS and WINDOWS by Gilbert & George, spans decades of the duo’s practice, weaving together large-scale picture works, postcard-based compositions and new reflections on friendship, memory and the city.
At its emotional core are two works created during the pandemic: CROMPTON STREET and NUMBER TWELVE. Presented together for the first time, the works feature Crompton — a daily presence in the artists’ lives for more than 30 years — as he moves through London alongside the artists. Unlike most of Gilbert & George’s work, these images introduce a real individual into their visual language.
“We never had friends in our pictures normally,”
the artists note.
Crompton, who experienced homelessness and lived in supported accommodation in North London, became a familiar figure in the artists’ Spitalfields studio. His daily visits, observations and responses formed part of their working rhythm. As the artists recall:
“He used to come to the (Gilbert & George) Centre a lot and see the shows, and if you asked him about it, he would give a comment, and that’s the best critic you need.”
CROMPTON STREET, shown publicly for the first time, and NUMBER TWELVE — last exhibited at the Hayward Gallery — now stand together as a portrait of friendship and a record of a changed city. In NUMBER TWELVE, Crompton appears twice, replicated by the artists “to make two Georges, like us”.
Alongside these works, the exhibition revisits WORLDS and WINDOWS (1989), a major body of postcard-based compositions not shown since 1990. Constructed from found imagery collected in India and the UK — from Bollywood and Hollywood actors to monuments, jewels and landscapes — the works transform everyday printed matter into kaleidoscopic picture structures.
The compositions follow a recurring format of “the person, the detail, and the world,” building layered images that move between intimacy and spectacle. For Gilbert & George, these postcards functioned as “ubiquitous mirrors of people, things, and places familiar to the widest possible audience.” Art historian Robert Rosenblum described them as visions of “heaven versus earth,” while the artists themselves suggest their ambiguous tone: “They’re so religious that religious people would not like some of them. Right?”
Also included is THE URETHRA POSTCARD ART (2009), the largest group the duo has ever produced, comprising 564 works. Arranged into seven thematic groupings, the works combine tourist postcards with telephone box flyers and calling cards gathered across London, forming dense visual grids that map both the city and its margins.
The structure of these works — continuous rectangles punctuated by a central image — draws on symbolic systems while also echoing the logic of accumulation and repetition. As the artists describe it:
“It’s a human heart. But as a sculpture.”
Seen together, these bodies of work trace Gilbert & George’s long-standing engagement with the urban environment — its people, its systems, and those who exist beyond its accepted norms. In this exhibition, that broader social landscape is anchored by the figure of Crompton, whose presence threads through the show as both subject and memory.
“The most famous Crompton in history is, not surprisingly, the author of the Just William books (Richmal Crompton). The other Crompton, our George, was a little bit like the character in the book. Naughty but nice. He’s living on in the pictures.”
Bringing together archival works, monumental postcard compositions and newly resonant images, Our George Crompton, WORLDS and WINDOWS by Gilbert & George offers both a retrospective lens and an intimate act of remembrance — positioning art as a space where lives, friendships, and cities continue to be held.
The exhibition opens 1st May 2026 and runs until 2027 at the gilbertandgeorgecentre.org
About the artist
The inspiration and subject of the art of Gilbert & George is modern life, frequently addressing themes from social issues and taboos to artistic conventions. Gilbert & George take their places in the visionary landscape of their art both as participants and witnesses. The vision of Gilbert & George is committed to raw realism, but it is also deeply romantic, finding heightened or disturbed emotion in ordinary things. In every picture or ‘Living Sculpture’, Gilbert & George convey images of the modern world with great intensity and contradiction. This precisely balanced paradox encourages the viewer to question life and art within themselves and others.
About
St Mungo’s is a leading homelessness charity with national influence. Their services include Outreach teams, emergency accommodation, longer-term accommodation, and skills and training programmes. The charity works in partnership with local authorities, health colleagues and communities to end homelessness and rebuild lives. Last year, St Mungo’s supported approximately 26,000 people who were homeless, or at risk of homelessness, through 138 services. They support almost 2,000 people every night. mungos.org
