diff --git a/doc/api/next_api_changes/deprecations/18649-TH.rst b/doc/api/next_api_changes/deprecations/18649-TH.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..7d73d9bbe362
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/api/next_api_changes/deprecations/18649-TH.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+``imread()`` reading from URLs
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Passing a URL to `~.pyplot.imread()` is deprecated. Please open the URL for
+reading and directly use the Pillow API
+(``PIL.Image.open(urllib.request.urlopen(url))``, or
+``PIL.Image.open(io.BytesIO(requests.get(url).content))``) instead.
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/image.py b/lib/matplotlib/image.py
index a155d6472aee..14b3f78f703b 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/image.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/image.py
@@ -1430,6 +1430,10 @@ def imread(fname, format=None):
     fname : str or file-like
         The image file to read: a filename, a URL or a file-like object opened
         in read-binary mode.
+
+        Passing a URL is deprecated.  Please open the URL
+        for reading and pass the result to Pillow, e.g. with
+        ``PIL.Image.open(urllib.request.urlopen(url))``.
     format : str, optional
         The image file format assumed for reading the data. If not
         given, the format is deduced from the filename.  If nothing can
@@ -1472,9 +1476,13 @@ def imread(fname, format=None):
     img_open = (
         PIL.PngImagePlugin.PngImageFile if ext == 'png' else PIL.Image.open)
     if isinstance(fname, str):
-
         parsed = parse.urlparse(fname)
         if len(parsed.scheme) > 1:  # Pillow doesn't handle URLs directly.
+            cbook.warn_deprecated(
+                "3.4", message="Directly reading images from URLs is "
+                "deprecated. Please open the URL for reading and pass the "
+                "result to Pillow, e.g. with "
+                "``PIL.Image.open(urllib.request.urlopen(url))``.")
             # hide imports to speed initial import on systems with slow linkers
             from urllib import request
             ssl_ctx = mpl._get_ssl_context()
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_image.py b/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_image.py
index 6486fcf84e6f..9657968de7eb 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_image.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_image.py
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 from PIL import Image
 
 from matplotlib import (
-    colors, image as mimage, patches, pyplot as plt, style, rcParams)
+    _api, colors, image as mimage, patches, pyplot as plt, style, rcParams)
 from matplotlib.image import (AxesImage, BboxImage, FigureImage,
                               NonUniformImage, PcolorImage)
 from matplotlib.testing.decorators import check_figures_equal, image_comparison
@@ -714,7 +714,8 @@ def test_load_from_url():
     url = ('file:'
            + ('///' if sys.platform == 'win32' else '')
            + path.resolve().as_posix())
-    plt.imread(url)
+    with _api.suppress_matplotlib_deprecation_warning():
+        plt.imread(url)
     with urllib.request.urlopen(url) as file:
         plt.imread(file)
 
@@ -1128,7 +1129,8 @@ def test_exact_vmin():
 @pytest.mark.network
 @pytest.mark.flaky
 def test_https_imread_smoketest():
-    v = mimage.imread('https://matplotlib.org/1.5.0/_static/logo2.png')
+    with _api.suppress_matplotlib_deprecation_warning():
+        v = mimage.imread('https://matplotlib.org/1.5.0/_static/logo2.png')
 
 
 # A basic ndarray subclass that implements a quantity