The project to create the Terrace Gallery began in 1988. The Sub-Hall, opening on to the Terrace on the South front of the House, was panelled and lit to become a contemporary gallery space for temporary exhibitions. It opened to the public in 1989 and since that time has shown a changing programme of exhibitions by a wide range of artists at different stages of their careers.

The Terrace Gallery was the first gallery space dedicated to contemporary art to open in an English country house. It is part of a continuum of support and patronage of contemporary art at Harewood. Turner and Girtin were in their early twenties, at the beginning of their careers, when they were commissioned by Beau Lascelles in 1797. More recently Epstein’s ‘Adam’, brought here by the 7th Earl of Harewood in the 1970’s, is now the first thing visitors see on entering the House.

From the opening of the Terrace Gallery a more extensive programme has developed across the wider landscape of Harewood. Harewood Contemporary locates new works alongside the historic collections in various rooms in the House, in the Church, in the gardens and the landscape as well as in the Terrace Gallery.