Leighton House presents Magic and mess: the artist's studio revealed (31 October 2026 – 21 March 2027), exploring the 19th-century artist's studio as a place for artmaking and as a source of inspiration. Featuring works by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse and placed in the heart of Frederic Leighton’s former home and studio, Magic and mess is the final exhibition to mark the museum’s centenary and has been developed in collaboration with the Tavolozza Foundation and the Katrin Bellinger Collection, one of the world's leading collections dedicated to the study of artists at work.

Leighton House, one of the most famous studio-houses of the nineteenth century, provides a uniquely appropriate setting for the exhibition. Magic and mess invites visitors to move between the galleries and the historic house, stepping inside the extraordinary studio and spaces created by Leighton himself, relating them to the images within the exhibition.

Presented across Leighton House’s two exhibition galleries, Magic and mess brings together 56 rarely-seen paintings, drawings and photographs exploring the working environment of the nineteenth-century artist, offering a behind-the-curtain look at the studios where some of the period’s most celebrated works were conceived, whilst uncovering overlooked studios of lesser-known painters in all their messy glory. Paintings and drawings in the museum’s Verey Exhibition Gallery will be explored through four themes: Light, The Female Model, The Stove, and The Corner of the Studio. The Tavolozza Drawings Gallery will contain a remarkable selection of 19th and early 20th century photographs capturing artists at work, including rare views inside the studios of Frederic Leighton, John Singer Sargent and Mariano Fortuny. These photographs offer an intimate documentary record of studios that were both private workplaces and carefully curated public stages.

The exhibition was in part inspired by the museum’s 2023 acquisition of Lawrence Alma- Tadema's In my studio (1893), which was gifted by Alma-Tadema to Leighton and went on display in his Silk Room. This painting serves as a reference point to illustrate the studio not simply as a workplace, but as an expression of the artist's personality, ambitions and creative process. Alongside In my studio, exhibition highlights include Paul Cézanne's The stove in the studio from the National Gallery, London and Henri Matisse's Studio under the eaves from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

A specially commissioned short film accompanies the exhibition, featuring the exhibition's curators, collector Katrin Bellinger and leading art historians exploring why the artist's studio has long fascinated artists, collectors and audiences. Extending this story into the present day, the film also features contemporary artist Suzy Murphy in her Chelsea studio.

Daniel Robbins, Senior Curator at Leighton House, says: “Leighton’s great painting studio was at the heart of his home - the room where life, work and display came together. Magic and Mess places Leighton’s studio in context, encouraging viewers to look again at the space and consider what a studio reveals about the artist who created it.”

Katrin Bellinger, collector, says: “When I started collecting in the late 1980s, I was fascinated by the mystique of the creative process that is so intrinsic to the artist’s studio. Working with museums like Leighton House allows me to share my passion with others, expand research on the collection and provoke new and unexpected conversations between the works displayed in the exhibition.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by Paul Holberton Publishing, with essays by curators James Hall, Anita Sganzerla, Hannah Lund and Daniel Robbins, alongside Rachel Esner, Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Amsterdam.