The National Portrait Gallery has opened the largest museum exhibition of Tim Walker's career, and its most personal. 'Tim Walker's Fairyland: Love and Legends' opened to the public on 9 October 2026 and runs to 7 February 2027, presenting nearly 250 new portraits made over five years as an exploration of queer identity, community and love. Walker, who rose to prominence in the 1990s with whimsical fashion photography for Vogue, Vanity Fair and i-D, spent half a decade photographing queer trailblazers in Britain and beyond. The sitters range from household names such as Ian McKellen, whose portrait 'Love' (2023) shows him surrounded by hands spelling the title, Ben Whishaw, Chappell Roan, Lady Gaga and Frank Ocean, to activists, healthcare workers, nightlife performers and people whose contributions to queer life have rarely received comparable attention. The exhibition's title reclaims a word once used to shame queer people, and its narrative spans five decades of queer activism, from the Gay Liberation Front era to the present. Curated by Susanna Brown with exhibition design by Shona Heath, the show is accompanied by a new book featuring contributions from writers including Travis Alabanza, Russell T Davies, Shon Faye, Lisa Power and Joelle Taylor. For the National Portrait Gallery, 'Fairyland' is a landmark commission that places queer portraiture at the centre of the national collection's contemporary programme. Standard tickets are priced from 23 pounds, and the gallery opened the show to the public at 1.30pm on its first day. The opening drew a starry crowd, with portraits of guests including Helena Bonham Carter, Adwoa Aboah, Emma D'Arcy, Alan Carr and Jarvis Cocker taken on the night. Among the exhibits is a previously unpublished portrait of Harry Styles from the 2019 'Fine Line' shoot, given a new public life seven years after it was made. Walker has said he wants queer visitors to walk in and recognise themselves in the show's nuance, beauty and creativity.