Wolfgang Tillmans: Works from the Collection of James Barron

Lower Gallery
January 13 - February 28, 2026

Exhibition Catalogue

"Mr. Tillmans’s photographs are both documentary and diaristic, romantic and realistic, widely aware yet focused, and always demonstrating the physical ways and means of the medium."

Roberta Smith

“I was first introduced to the work of Wolfgang Tillmans by my cousin Ellen Cantor, an artist who lived in London. She brought me to a small exhibition of his work in an obscure location in a remote area of London. I was immediately struck by Tillmans’ artistic voice and the installation of his works, which was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Some photos were taped to the wall, others were pinned, and some were framed.

Soon after, I bought my first Tillmans photograph, and also began placing them in the homes of my clients. The works in this exhibition have been on the walls of my own home, and it’s a joy to share them with our audience. Each represents an aspect of his work. Combined, they give a feeling of the power and breadth of his photography.”

James Barron

They [the Freischwimmer series] are photographs made without a camera, purely with light… they evoke all sorts of associations, like skin, or astronomy, or chemicals dissolving, and it’s all done by the brain. It’s what your ‘brain association tool’ creates."

Wolfgang Tillmans

"This is something [Tillmans] has been exploring for over a decade: a purist approach to colour and form that acts as a counterpoint to his figurative pictures... From across the studio, with the sunlight falling on them from above, they look like the jewel-coloured windows of a white-walled church."

Liz Jobey