Lubaina Himid. | Photo © Adama Jalloh
A key figure in the British Black Arts Movement, Lubaina Himid will be the third Black artist in a row to represent the UK at the Venice Biennale
THE BRITISH COUNCIL announced Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid (b. 1954) will represent Great Britain at the 61st Venice Biennale and stage a solo exhibition of new work in the British Pavilion in 2026. Himid is the third Black artist in a row commissioned to represent the UK at the renowned international art exhibition, following Sonia Boyce in 2022 and John Akomfrah in 2024.
An artist and educator, Himid celebrates Black representation and explores themes across race, history, memory, and identity. She is particularly concerned with the contributions of Black women artists, overlooked Black figures in Western history, and the institutional invisibility of the African diaspora.
In the announcement, Emma Dexter, Director Visual Arts and the British Council Collection and Commissioner of the British Pavilion said: “Himid pushes the boundaries of painting practice through sound and sculptural installation, incorporating new materials, textures, narratives and formats in her work. Combining a radical optimism with social critique, she will transform the Pavilion with her vibrant, articulate and spatially dynamic artworks. Himid’s exhibitions take the visitor on an exploratory journey, which is why it’s so exciting to imagine how she will use the enfilade of six spaces in the British Pavilion. We are truly delighted to be working with Lubaina Himid on the British Council commission for 2026.”
Born in Zanzibar, Himid grew up in the UK. Today, she lives and works in Preston. The British painter has been active for nearly half a century. “Lubaina Himid,” her first solo show in China, is currently on view at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, (Jan. 18-April 27, 2025). The exhibition opportunity accompanied the Maria Lassnig Prize that went to Himid in 2023. Himid received the The Contemporary Austin’s 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize, which included an exhibition at the Texas museum last year. A major survey of the artist opened at Tate Modern in 2021. In 2019, “Lubaina Himid: Work From Underneath” at the New Museum in New York, was her first solo museum exhibition in the United States.
“Combining a radical optimism with social critique, she will transform the Pavilion with her vibrant, articulate and spatially dynamic artworks.”
— Emma Dexter, Director Visual Arts, British Council
LUBAINA HIMID, “Posture Master,” 2023 (acrylic on canvas, 96 x 72 inches / 244 x 183 cm). | © Lubaina Himid, Collection of Baltimore Museum of Art
Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire, Himid came to prominence in the 1980s as a key figure in the British Black Arts Movement. With Black artists shut out of mainstream exhibition spaces, she created opportunities to showcase her own work, as well as those of other artists, particularly other Black women. These efforts in the 1980s and 90s included “Five Black Women” (1983) at the Africa Centre, “Black Woman Time Now” at Battersea Arts Centre (1983), and “The Thin Black Line” (1985) at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), which featured young Black and Asian women artists. All three shows were curated by Himid in London.
In recent years, Himid has gained greater influence. In 2017, she won the Turner Prize becoming the first Black woman to win the UK’s most prestigious art prize and also the oldest. She was 63 at the time. This summer, the artist is revisiting one of her groundbreaking group exhibitions. “Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985-2025” (June 24-Sept. 7, 2025) at ICA London will feature the original artists who participated in “The Thin Black Line”—including Himid—and display new commissions along with works produced over the past 40 years.
The announcement that Himid will represent the UK in Venice next year, follows the selection of Boyce and Akomfrah. In 2003, Chris Ofili was the first Black artist to represent the UK with a solo show in the British Pavilion. Steve McQueen was chosen for 2009. In 2019, American-born, London-based curator Zoé Whitley became the first African American curator to organize a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale when she curated a solo show of Cathy Wilkes in the British Pavilion.
Himid’s 2026 participation coincides with the tenure of Koyo Kouoh, chief curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa. In December, Kouoh, was appointed artistic director of the forthcoming Venice Biennale. She is first Black woman and second African-born curator to organize the exhibition its 130-year history. The biennale is open from April to November 2026.
“I laughed out loud with both disbelief and pleasure when I found out about this wonderful invitation to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2026,” Himid said when she accepted the commission. “It is such a great honor and at the same time a brilliant and exciting opportunity to make something particularly special, which resonates with multiple audiences, communicates with complex histories and looks to a more collaborative future.” CT
FIND MORE about Lubaina Himid on her website, Instagram, and the galleries Hollybush Gardens in London and Greene Naftali in New York
LUBAINA HIMID, “Venetian Maps: Shoemakers,” 1997 (acrylic on canvas). | Courtesy of Hollybush Gardens, London and Greene Naftali, New York © Lubaina Himid
BOOKSHELF
“Lubaina Himid: Workshop Manual” is the first major monograph of the artist. The fully illustrated volume features writings by Himid and curators Zoe Whitley, Helen Legg, Courtney J. Martin, and Emma Ridgway. “Lubaina Himid: Work from Underneath” documents the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States at the New Museum in New York. Also consider “Lubaina Himid: Her Art and Creativity” by Michael Wellen and “Inside the invisible: Memorialising Slavery and Freedom in the Life and Works of Lubaina Himid” by Celeste-Marie Bernier, Alan Rice, Lubaina Himid CBE, and Hannah Durkin, which provides a theoretical assessment of the artist’s work. Her latest volume, “Lubaina Himid: Make Do and Mend,” is published to accompany her solo exhibition for The Contemporary Austin’s 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize. The book explores her creative process for two new bodies of work: “a suite of 10 Strategy Paintings depicting Black men and women seated around tables invested in problem-solving the dynamics of power, and 64 sculptural plank paintings, entitled Aunties, that formally evoke East African funerary objects and Postminimalism, as they pay tribute to the relationships between women.”
