July 2, 2026
A Hidden Master: Waldmüller's Alpine Landscapes Come to London
The National Gallery's first-ever UK show for Austrian painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller revealed a 19th-century master of dazzling, sunlit detail.
He's a household name in Vienna and almost unknown in Britain — until now. In summer 2026 the National Gallery staged the first UK exhibition devoted to the Austrian painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793–1865), focusing on his luminous landscapes.
Waldmüller painted the Alps and the Austrian countryside with an almost forensic devotion to truth: every blade of grass, every rock and ray of sunlight rendered with crystalline clarity, decades before the Impressionists loosened the brush.
Lent largely by Vienna's Belvedere Museum, the show invited London audiences to discover a quiet giant of 19th-century European painting.
Image: “Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller - Praterlandschaft - Google Art Project” — Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.