by Redazione 18/10/2026
Categories: Contemporary art / Disclaimer
The Courtauld Gallery in London is hosting the first European museum solo exhibition by Salman Toor, a painter born in Lahore and based in New York: 19 paintings explore friendships, love, and cultural tensions, blending personal memory with references to the masters of the past.
The people depicted by Salman Toor (Lahore, 1983) meet in bars, share moments of friendship and love, seek the company of others, or experience loneliness and alienation. They are imaginary figures, yet they spring from the Pakistani artist’s personal experiences and memories; through his painting, he explores the difficulties and desires associated with the possibility of feeling part of a community. In his works, queer lives and those of people navigating different cultures exist in a zone of tension between intimacy and exposure, belonging and alienation: this is the core of the artistic exploration of Salman Toor, a painter born in Lahore, in Pakistan in 1983, who lives and works in New York and to whom the Courtauld Gallery in London is dedicating the exhibition *Salman Toor: Someone Like You*, scheduled from October 2, 2026, to January 10, 2027.
The exhibition brings together 19 of the artist’s best-known and most representative paintings, never before shown in the United Kingdom. This is Toor’s first museum exhibition in Europe and a project focused on human relationships, the desire for closeness, and the difficulties that can accompany the search for a place in the world, both culturally and emotionally. The scenes painted by Toor alternate between moments of togetherness and situations of isolation, while also revealing a humorous element that helps to enrich the portrayal of everyday life.
The artist describes the themes running through his work as follows: his works “depict queer and immigrant lives that navigate different cultures and experience the tension between intimacy and exposure, belonging and alienation. They explore what it means to find a community, but also the daily costs associated with visibility.” The paintings, therefore, engage with the experiences of those who navigate different cultural identities and with the meaning of public visibility, linking the possibility of finding a community with the difficulties that arise from being exposed to the gaze of others.
In Toor’s images, the figures are not portraits of identifiable people, but presences constructed through painting from an autobiographical perspective. The artist draws on shared life experiences, encounters, and moments of solitude to address issues concerning individual experience and relationships with others. The result is a depiction of lives unfolding in diverse social and cultural contexts, in which the desire to be accepted coexists with the risk of exclusion and the difficulty of finding a stable footing.
Although born in Pakistan, Toor was educated in the United States and has built an international career. In 2020–2021, he held his first institutional solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, an exhibition that helped solidify his presence in the contemporary art scene. In 2024, he also participated in the 60th Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition. The London exhibition now marks his first solo project in a European museum.
The choice of the Courtauld Gallery holds particular significance in relation to Toor’s visual training and his relationship with the history of painting: the artist’s work is in fact grounded in an in-depth engagement with the masters of the past, particularly Baroque and 18th-century painting. Toor also has a special connection to the Courtauld, a museum he holds in high regard. His contemporary practice thus engages in a dialogue with a painterly tradition that continues to serve as a reference point for the way he constructs images, figures, and situations.
A significant example of this relationship is *The Bar on East 13th*, a 2019 painting that draws upon and reworks a specific reference from art history: *The Bar at the Folies-Bergère*, painted by Édouard Manet in 1882 and housed at the Courtauld Gallery. The comparison with Manet’s famous painting represents one of the most explicit points of connection between Toor’s work and the London museum’s collection. The reference extends beyond the mere presence of a historical work as a point of reference; it also concerns the way in which the painting of the past can engage with the images and experiences of the present.
Alongside the paintings, the exhibition includes a selection of drawings on view in the Gilbert & Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery: this section offers insight into another aspect of Toor’s practice, highlighting the role of drawing in his creative process and how this activity contributes to the development of his painting. Among the works on view is *Fag Puddle in Vitrine*(2021), acquired by the Courtauld in 2024. The inclusion of the drawings thus allows visitors to complement the narrative dimension of the paintings with a glimpse into the artist’s graphic work, highlighting the relationship between the various techniques within his practice. The selection brings together works that showcase his skill as a draftsman and help viewers understand how this practice informs his approach to painting.
With *Someone Like You*, the Courtauld Gallery spotlights the body of work by one of today’s leading artists—a body of work in which personal relationships become the ground for exploring belonging, identity, and visibility. Although Toor’s scenes are imaginary, they draw on lived experiences and individual memories, addressing the contradictions that can characterize the search for a sense of community. Friendship, love, isolation, and alienation are not presented as separate experiences, but as aspects that can coexist in the characters’ lives.
The exhibition takes place in the Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries at the Courtauld Gallery, from October 2, 2026, to January 10, 2027. Opening hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with last admission at 5:15 p.m. Alongside the 19 paintings, a selection of drawings in the Gilbert & Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery rounds out the exhibition dedicated to Salman Toor’s work.
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| Salman Toor: Queer and Migrant Lives Between Intimacy and Solitude—The First Museum Exhibition in Europe |
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