Museum Exhibition

Raqib Shaw at Compton Verney

Posted: 14 July 2026

Raqib Shaw, *The Pragmatic Pessimist*, 2024

Venue Visit Artist Page

19 September 2026 – 21 February 2027

Warwickshire, UK

‘Night Sonnets’ opens this September at Compton Verney, marking Raqib Shaw’s first major UK exhibition in over a decade. The presentation brings together a selection of paintings reflecting the artist’s enduring interest in moonlight and the night.

Moonlight has long informed Shaw’s practice, from his childhood in Kashmir, where ‘nights were dense with stories’, to a wide range of cultural references, including his love of poetry and the verses of the Kashmiri poet Habba Khatoon and his affinity with Ludwig II of Bavaria, known as the ‘Moon King’. This enduring fascination with the night also shapes his process of working after dark.