White Cube, the London-headquartered gallery with spaces in London, Paris, Hong Kong and New York, now represents painter Tesfaye Urgessa. The gallery announced the news in a press release posted on 6 August 2026 (White Cube), confirmed by the trade publication ARTnews (ARTnews).

Urgessa is an Ethiopian-born, Germany-based painter whose figurative canvases draw on memory, migration and the body. His work has moved steadily through the European gallery and institutional circuit over the past several years, but the moment that put him in front of a global audience came in 2024, when he was selected to represent Ethiopia at the 60th Venice Biennale — the Biennale, the sprawling international exhibition held every two years in Venice, where countries mount national pavilions to showcase artists they consider vital.

It was not just a personal milestone. Ethiopia had never before mounted a national pavilion at the Biennale in its 129-year history, making Urgessa the artist who carried the country's debut onto one of the art world's most visible stages (Artnet News).

Representation by a major commercial gallery and a national pavilion at Venice are two different kinds of recognition that often reinforce each other. A pavilion puts an artist's work before curators, critics and collectors from dozens of countries over six months; gallery representation gives that artist the infrastructure — studio support, exhibition programming, placement in private and institutional collections — to sustain momentum after the Biennale closes its gates. White Cube, founded in 1993 by Jay Jopling, is one of the galleries whose roster is watched as a signal of where market attention is flowing.

For Urgessa, the arrangement means his work will be shown and sold through White Cube's network across Europe, Asia and North America. For White Cube, it adds a painter whose Venice moment is still recent enough to resonate with collectors and curators planning acquisitions and exhibitions for the coming season.

No date has been announced for a first solo show with the gallery.