Image: Richard Saltoun Gallery, London
Richard Saltoun Gallery will present 'The Studio of Felicity Powell' in London from 24 July to 3 October 2026, marking the first exhibition dedicated to the British artist’s work since her death in 2015. The gallery describes the show as a major survey that spans Powell’s career across sculpture, drawing, photography and video, and includes previously unseen material alongside key works from three decades.
The exhibition is being curated in close collaboration with Powell’s widower, artist Ansel Krut. According to the gallery, it builds on earlier institutional presentations that included 'Drawn from the Well' at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 'Medals of Dishonour' at the British Museum, and 'Charmed Life: The Solace of Objects' at the Wellcome Collection. Those projects had already situated Powell within a serious institutional frame, but the new survey gathers that range into a single presentation at Richard Saltoun Gallery, London.
Powell’s practice is presented as one rooted in material experimentation and intimate encounter. The gallery says her work explores selfhood, motherhood, corporeality, and, later in her life, illness and mortality. Sculpture sits at the centre of the survey, with works made from wax, bronze and glass, but the exhibition also highlights the breadth of her approach across media and scale, from small objects to monumental forms.
A significant part of the presentation is devoted to Powell’s medal-making. The gallery notes that in 2000 she won the competition to design the Millennium Medal for the Royal Mint, a commission that opened a new direction in her practice. Drawing on intaglios, coins and Renaissance relief sculpture by artists including Pisanello, Donatello and Arnolfo di Cambio, Powell treated the medal as a sculptural form rather than only as a commemorative object. The work’s scale, weight and tactile character are described as central to its meaning.
The survey also foregrounds Powell’s work on paper, with more than 300 drawings produced across a wide range of materials. The gallery characterises these works as intimate and introspective, marked by delicate lines, smudging, suggestions of form and areas of incompletion. Many feature single female figures that are nude or nearly nude, described in the exhibition text as sensual, self-contained, mysterious, playful and at once archetypal and highly individual.
The show further includes 'Sleight of Hand', a group of seven short videos that Powell compiled, each one minute long and accompanied by music by composer William Basinski. The gallery presents the compilation as part of Powell’s interest in revealing the process of making, turning the act of production into the source of wonder. Recurring motifs such as hands, eyes, tears and trees are said to run throughout the exhibition, along with themes of doubling, mirroring, metamorphosis and transubstantiation.
Richard Saltoun Gallery’s website lists the exhibition as current and forthcoming in London, with a private view on Friday 24 July from 6 to 8pm. The gallery’s London space is at 41 Dover Street.
