The Courtauld Gallery

The Courtauld Gallery occupies the Strand block of Somerset House, the grand eighteenth-century building on the Covent Garden side of the river. It holds one of the UK's greatest art collections, spanning the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, and is especially known for its Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.

The gallery forms part of The Courtauld Institute of Art and reopened after a major renovation. It is often described as a beautiful, human-sized gallery, its scale allowing close attention to individual works rather than the crowds of a larger museum, and The Times has described it as Britain's greatest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. The full collection is searchable online for free.

Impressionist paintings at Somerset House

The collection takes in over 33,000 objects, including paintings, drawings, ceramics and sculpture. Among its best-known works are Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère and Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, alongside Renoir, Cézanne and Gauguin, and temporary exhibitions such as Hepworth in Colour run beside the permanent Impressionist collection. A café and guided tours round out the visit.

What to expect on a visit

The gallery opens daily from 10am to 6pm, with last entry at 5.15pm, and occasionally stays open late for exhibition evenings. Temple and Covent Garden stations are each a short walk, and the Somerset House courtyard and river terrace make a natural pause before or after. It is one of the essential art galleries in Covent Garden, and the National Portrait Gallery at the other end of the Strand pairs well for a day of painting.