Image: Families in the gardens at Dulwich Picture Gallery, the image used by the gallery to promote its August Family Festival. Courtesy of Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
Dulwich Picture Gallery will hold its August Family Festival on Sunday 30 August 2026 from 10am to 4pm at 14 Gallery Road in south London. Entry to the festival is free, with several ticketed sessions, and the gallery invites families to "experiment, have fun and explore" across hands-on art activities, workshops and garden-based discovery.
The day's programme, as listed by the gallery, combines drop-in and bookable elements. The ArtPlay Pavilion, created by HoLD Art Collective and reimagining paintings from the collection as an interactive environment, runs from 9am to 4pm at £9 with concessions. 'Wild Life Drawing: Rescue Animals', a drawing session with rescued animals for children aged five and over accompanied by an adult, runs in two blocks, 11am to 1pm and 2pm to 4pm, at £60 per family for one adult and one child, with additional children at £30. 'Mini Animators', led by the author Josephine Seblon and the illustrator Robert Sae-Heng, is offered at 11am, 12pm and 1pm for £9 per child with concessions; children make flip books in a workshop inspired by a 1950s American street scene, echoing the gallery's exhibition 'Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography', on show from 28 July to 4 October 2026. Face painting by Glitterbox is a drop-in at £9 from 11am to 3pm, and a free Garden Trail created by Lucy Grainge runs from 10am to 4pm. The gallery states that its summer events programme was made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, which also supported the transformation of its gardens.
The festival sits within a wider summer family schedule announced in the gallery's family newsletter. Mini Explorers, for children under eight and their adults, ran on Tuesday 25 August; the monthly New Parents ArtPlay Session, held on the last Thursday of the month, fell on 27 August; and Creative Tales, a storytelling session for under-fives with Rosie Tells Tales in the ArtPlay Pavilion, took place on Friday 28 August, with further dates on 26 September and 31 October. Drew Colby's Mr Shadow puppet show was staged earlier in the holidays, on Sunday 16 August. Mini Masterpieces, a painting session for young children, continues on the first Friday of the month, including 3 October.
The gallery is also promoting an ArtPlay Club membership at an introductory price of £32, which provides five ArtPlay visits for the price of four and 10 per cent off collection and family events, with ArtPlay sessions priced at £8 during the summer holidays. Standing prices published on the gallery's what's-on pages put collection admission at £10 for adults, with concessions, and the museum is open Tuesday to Sunday. A separate range of tactile products designed and hand-sewn by HoLD Art Collective, the team behind the Pavilion interior, is being sold through the gallery shop in small batches.
