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The UK is extremely lucky in its vast collections of art and artifacts, and London especially so. The big institutions are also able to attract wonderful loan exhibitions to England. So that you don't miss any, here is a select up-to-date list of exhibitions at museums and galleries in London, in closure order.
Artists’ Self-Portraits from the Uffizi: Masterpieces from Velázquez to Chagall
at Dulwich Picture Gallery from Tuesday 22nd May 2007 to Sunday 15th July 2007.
This unique exhibition presents a selection of fifty artists’ self-portraits from the legendary collection of the world-famous Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
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Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design
at The V&A from Thursday 15th March 2007 to Sunday 22nd July 2007.
The exhibition is the first comprehensive retrospective of Stuart's work. It presents him as an architect, artist and taste-maker, setting his work in the context of 18th century design culture.
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Gods, Guardians and Immortals
at The British Museum from to Sunday 22nd July 2007.
This exhibition displays art from the diverse religious traditions of China. The paintings in this exhibition are rarely on public display, some were stored away for safety for hundreds of years. They are extremely fragile and can only be exposed to the light for short periods.
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Antony Gormley: Blind Light
at Hayward Gallery from Thursday 17th May 2007 to Sunday 19th August 2007.
The Hayward presents Blind Light, the first major London showing of the work of British sculptor Antony Gormley.
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Summer Exhibition 2007
at The Royal Academy of Arts from Monday 11th June 2007 to Sunday 19th August 2007.
The Royal Academy’s annual Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art exhibition, with a tradition of showcasing work by unknown and emerging artists alongside that of more established names. The Summer Exhibition attracts entries from around 9,000 artists, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, prints and architectural models.
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Global Cities
at Tate Modern from Wednesday 20th June 2007 to Monday 27th August 2007.
Global Cities looks at the changing faces of ten dynamic international cities: Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo.
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How We Are: Photographing Britain
at Tate Britain from Tuesday 22nd May 2007 to Sunday 2nd September 2007.
Personally I am not a fan of photography in art galleries but:This is the first major exhibition of photography ever to be held at Tate Britain. It takes a unique look at the journey of British photography, from the pioneers of the early medium to today’s photographers who use new technology to make and display their imagery.
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Art for the Nation: 200 world-class paintings from the National Maritime Museum’s collection
at The National Maritime Museum from Friday 17th November 2006 to Sunday 2nd September 2007.
This major new exhibition in the historic Queen's House brings together 200 of the Museum's finest works for the largest in-depth display of paintings we have ever staged – combining works by internationally-significant artists such as Gainsborough, Lely, Hogarth, Reynolds and Turner.
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Faith, Narrative and Desire: Masterpieces of Indian painting in the British Museum
at The British Museum from Thursday 9th August 2007 to Sunday 2nd September 2007.
Drawn from the outstanding collection of Indian paintings held at the British Museum, this exhibition will present a panorama of India’s diverse painting traditions spanning several centuries.
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Dalí & Film
at Tate Modern from Friday 1st June 2007 to Sunday 9th September 2007.
Dalí & Film brings together more than one hundred works including paintings, photographs, drawings and films by Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) in an unprecedented exploration of the central role of cinema in his work.
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Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals
at The National Gallery from Wednesday 27th June 2007 to Sunday 16th September 2007.
Following its independence from Spain in the 17th century, the Dutch Republic experienced an era of unprecedented wealth, the so-called 'Golden Age.' Thanks to the successful activities of its merchants and entrepreneurs - and in sharp distinction to the rest of Europe - a new middle-class elite emerged. Its members became the dominant force in local government and civic institutions, and as a result became the new principal patrons of the arts. Portraits were especially suitable to express their newly found self-confidence and desire for representation, and artists responded by developing new types of portraits to meet the demands of this clientele.
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Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Colour
at Tate Modern from Thursday 7th June 2007 to Sunday 23rd September 2007.
Hélio Oiticica (1937–1980) is acknowledged as one of the most revolutionary Brazilian artists of his generation. Colour was central to his practice and this exhibition will be the first large-scale retrospective to concentrate on this key element in his work. Featuring more than 150 works dating from 1955, the exhibition includes pieces that have not been seen publicly for more than thirty years.
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Sacred: Discover what we share
at The British Library from Friday 27th April 2007 to Sunday 23rd September 2007.
The world's greatest collection of Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy books. The rarest and most exquisite sacred books and manuscripts presented and explored, side by side, in a major UK exhibition for the first time.
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Temptation in Eden
at The Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery from Thursday 21st June 2007 to Sunday 23rd September 2007.
This stunning exhibition is the first in Britain devoted to the great German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (c.1472-1553). Temptation in Eden focuses on one of Cranach’s most memorable and enchanting works: the Courtauld’s Adam and Eve, painted in 1526 when the artist was at the height of his powers. This beguiling painting demonstrates Cranach’s outstanding gifts as a portrayer of landscape, animals and the female nude.
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Impressionists by the Sea
at Royal Academy of Arts from Saturday 7th July 2007 to Sunday 30th September 2007.
Impressionists by the Sea explores the origins and development of the fashionable contemporary beach scene from the early 1860s to the early 1870s, in the work of artists such as Eugène Boudin, Monet, Manet, Renoir and Whistler.
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Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan
at The British Museum from Thursday 19th July 2007 to Sunday 21st October 2007.
Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan features some of the most beautiful Japanese art-crafts produced during the past fifty years including ceramics, textiles, lacquer, metal, wood, bamboo, glass and dolls.
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The changing face of childhood: British children's portraits and their influence in Europe
at Dulwich Picture Gallery from Wednesday 1st August 2007 to Sunday 4th November 2007.
All over Europe, in the Age of Enlightenment - the second half of the eighteenth century - the interest in children’s portraits was spreading through not only the royal and noble families, but more widely, generating also an interest in the moral concepts associated with the bourgeois family.
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Making History: Antiquaries In Britain, 1707–2007
at The Royal Academy of Arts from Saturday 15th September 2007 to Sunday 2nd December 2007.
This exhibition explores the work and achievement of the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London since its foundation in the early eighteenth century to the present day. The exhibition showcases treasures from Britain’s oldest Learned Society concerned with the study of the past. It will feature works of art, antiquities and manuscripts of unique historical importance, such as the processional cross of King Richard III and his defeated Yorkist army recovered from the battlefield of Bosworth (1485). Also on show will be the earliest known medieval manuscript illustrations of Stonehenge, as well as drawings and records of other buildings and objects now lost, paintings of ancient sites and landscapes by Constable, Turner, Blake and an extraordinary collection of English royal portraits from Henry VI to Mary Tudor.
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Renaissance Siena: Art for a City
at The National Gallery from Wednesday 24th October 2007 to Thursday 3rd January 2008.
'Renaissance Siena: Art for a City' will showcase the bravura techniques and virtuoso inventiveness of two of the greatest Sienese artists of this period, Francesco di Giorgio and Domenico Beccafumi, alongside many of their contemporaries. Around one hundred beautiful paintings, sculptures, drawings, manuscripts and ceramics will be included in the exhibition.
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The Turner Prize: A Retrospective
at Tate Britain from Tuesday 2nd October 2007 to Sunday 6th January 2008.
This exhibition presents a chronological selection of key works shown over the twenty-three years, allowing a unique opportunity to reflect upon some of the significant moments in the recent history of British art and the reception of the prize by the press, by artists, and by the public.
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The World as a Stage
at Tate Modern from Wednesday 24th October 2007 to Sunday 6th January 2008.
The World as a Stage brings together a key group of international, contemporary artists whose works investigate ideas of ‘theatre,’ staging and performance.
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Millais
at Tate Britain from Wednesday 26th September 2007 to Sunday 13th January 2008.
Witty, satirical, subversive and hugely talented, William Hogarth remains one of the most fascinating and innovative artists from the eighteenth century. This superb exhibition is the most comprehensive showing of the artist’s work in living memory and incorporates the full range of Hogarth’s work.
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The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection: Renaissance and Baroque
at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace from Friday 30th March 2007 to Sunday 20th January 2008.
The first exhibition of Italian art in the Royal Collection for over 40 years brings together 90 paintings and 85 drawings from royal palaces and residences across Britain. It celebrates the artistic legacy of the Stuart kings, Charles I and his son, Charles II, whose taste so profoundly influenced the character of the British Royal Collection.
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Louise Bourgeois
at Tate Modern from Tuesday 11th September 2007 to Sunday 27th January 2008.
In October 2007 Tate Modern presents the first major survey since 1995 of the work of the French-born artist Louise Bourgeois (b.1911). The exhibition will provide an unprecedented opportunity to reassess her work.
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Hockney on Turner Watercolours
at Tate Britain from Monday 11th June 2007 to Sunday 3rd February 2008.
Tate Britain have lent 80+ of their best Turner oils to a travelling exhibition, so we get a chance to see extra water colours. Probably a good thing to get the chance, perhaps a bad thing to lend so many to one place at one time.Anyway:A dazzling, evocative and sublime, this exhibition provides a rare opportunity to see some of JMW Turner’s most spectacular works. Usually outnumbered by his grand oil paintings, around 150 of Turner’s beautiful watercolours are displayed, giving a comprehensive view of the artist’s astonishing use of watercolour, his techniques and his influences.
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Prints and Drawings - Recent acquisitions - Part 1
at The British Museum from Thursday 28th June 2007 to Monday 11th February 2008.
This display presents a selection of about 300 prints and drawings acquired by the Museum since 2001. It takes place in two stages: the first part concentrates on earlier works, while the second focuses on the past century. Almost all of the works shown are gifts, or were bought with funds donated by supporters.
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The Age of Enchantment: Beardsley, Dulac and their Contemporaries
at Dulwich Picture Gallery from Wednesday 28th November 2007 to Sunday 17th February 2008.
With the death of Aubrey Beardsley in 1898, the world of the illustrated book underwent a dramatic change. Gone were the degenerate images of scandal and deviance. The age of decadence was softened to delight rather than to shock. Whimsy and a pastel toned world of childish delights and an innocent exoticism unfolded in the pages of familiar fables, classic tales and those children’s stories like The Arabian Nights and Hans Andersens’ Stories. These were published with lavish colour plates and fine bindings: these were the coffee table books of a new age.
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Prints and Drawings - Recent Aquisitions - Part 2
at The British Museum from Friday 16th November 2007 to Sunday 9th March 2008.
This display presents a selection of about 300 prints and drawings acquired by the Museum since 2001. It takes place in two stages: the first part concentrates on earlier works, while the second focuses on the past century. Almost all of the works shown are gifts, or were bought with funds donated by supporters.
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The Unilever Series: Doris Salcedo
at Tate Modern from Tuesday 9th October 2007 to Sunday 6th April 2008.
Widely recognised as one of the leading sculptors of her generation,over the past five years Doris Salcedo has increasingly addressed the public sphere in her practice and has completed several large–scale projects around the world. This will be Salcedo’s first public commission in the UK.
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The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army
at The British Museum from Thursday 13th September 2007 to Sunday 6th April 2008.
This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition will explore one of the greatest
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Maison Tropicale for Design Museum at Tate Modern
at Tate Modern from Tuesday 5th February 2008 to Sunday 13th April 2008.
Hotelier André Balazs, in partnership with the Design Museum and Tate Modern, brings a house designed by architectural visionary Jean Prouvé to Britain for the first time.
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The Landscape Oil Sketch
at The National Gallery from Saturday 15th December 2007 to Wednesday 16th April 2008.
Most landscape oil sketches from the 18th and early 19th centuries were never intended for exhibition - sketching out of doors was used primarily as a training for the hand and the eye. Often sketches remained overlooked, staying in artists’ families rather than being offered for sale. Only a few collectors recognised the quality of pieces in this tradition.
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From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870–1925 from Moscow and St Petersburg
at Royal Academy of Arts from Saturday 26th January 2008 to Friday 18th April 2008.
This landmark exhibition presents modern masterpieces drawn from Russia’s principal collections: the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the State Hermitage Museum and the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
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Peter Doig
at Tate Britain from Tuesday 5th February 2008 to Sunday 27th April 2008.
Spanning the last two decades, this major survey brings together over 50 paintings and works on paper, and includes many pieces which have never previously been shown in the UK, made since his move to Trinidad in 2002. This exhibition is the most comprehensive overview of Doig’s work to date, tracing the development of his recurring motifs and haunting vision, and discovering how he has continually challenged his own approach to image-making.
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Juan Muñoz: A Retrospective
at Tate Modern from Thursday 24th January 2008 to Sunday 27th April 2008.
Spanish artist Juan Muñoz (1953-2001) came to international prominence in the mid 1980s with dramatic sculptural installations that placed the human figure in specific architectural environments. His reputation was built on his power to create an intriguing tension between the illusory and the real, the contrasting acts of looking and receiving, and the poignant isolation of the individual amongst a crowd. This exhibition includes well-known sculptures such as Many Times (1999), The Prompter (1988) and Conversation Piece (1996), the “raincoat drawings”, and important pieces with sound, light and mechanical elements. This is the first major solo retrospective of Juan Muñoz in the UK since Double Bind, 2001, his remarkable installation for the Turbine Hall, the second in the Unilever Series at Tate Modern.
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Modern Painters - The Camden Town Group
at Tate Britain from Wednesday 13th February 2008 to Monday 5th May 2008.
Welcome to London in the 1910s – a bustling modern metropolis, home to the motor car, the music hall, and a group of innovative young painters. They were the Camden Town Group, who introduced Post-Impressionism to Britain, inspired by the work of Van Gogh and Gauguin on the continent. Modern Painters focuses on the key themes in their work: life in the city, people, style, sex, and the infamous Camden Town murder.
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Pompeo Batoni
at The National Gallery from Wednesday 20th February 2008 to Sunday 18th May 2008.
In his day, Pompeo Batoni was the most celebrated painter in Rome. The American painter Benjamin West said, ‘When I went to Rome, the Italian artists of that day thought of nothing, looked at nothing, but the work of Pompeo Batoni’. For nearly half a century, Batoni recorded international travellers' visits to Italy on the Grand Tour in portraits that remain among the most memorable artistic accomplishments of the period. Equally gifted as a history painter, his religious and mythological works were eagerly acquired by the greatest patrons and collectors in Britain and mainland Europe.
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Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia
at Tate Modern from Thursday 21st February 2008 to Monday 26th May 2008.
Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Francis Picabia were at the cutting edge of art in the first half of the twentieth century, and made a lasting impression on modern and contemporary art. Duchamp invented the concept of the ‘readymade’: presenting an everyday object as an artwork, Man Ray pioneered avant-garde photographic and film techniques and Picabia’s use of kitsch, popular or low-brow imagery in his paintings undermined artistic conventions.
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William Blake: 'I still go on / Till the Heavens and Earth are gone'
at Tate Britain from Saturday 3rd November 2007 to Sunday 1st June 2008.
This special display marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Blake. The Tate created the first ever Blake Gallery in the 1920s and since then Tate has played a very important part in presenting Blake to an international audience. This display includes Blake works from the excellent permanent collection but a highlight is the private loans of recently discovered works which have never before been exhibited.
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The Return of the Gods
at Tate Britain from Monday 28th January 2008 to Sunday 8th June 2008.
The monumental Duveen Galleries are the perfect setting for the first exhibition to focus on the full range of British neo-classical sculpture. These extraordinary marble pieces were designed to astonish and captivate, as artists were given hitherto unknown licence to create highly charged nudes with vitality and sensuality. From the exquisite grace of Canova’s The Three Graces to the dramatic vigour of Thomas Banks’s The Falling Titan, the human figure, transformed and idealised in white marble, was the essence of this sculpture. Observation of the body, realisation of soft flesh in permanent and beautiful stone led to the creation of these outstanding masterpieces of figurative sculpture, inspired by and transcending classical models from Ancient Rome and Greece.
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Cranach
at Royal Academy of Arts from Saturday 8th March 2008 to Sunday 8th June 2008.
The Royal Academy of Arts presents the first major exhibition in Britain devoted to Lucas Cranach the Elder (c.1472–1553). The exhibition brings together some 70 works chosen to represent the quality and range of this important master.
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Fascination with nature
at The British Museum from Monday 3rd March 2008 to Tuesday 5th August 2008.
The works in this display show the importance of bird, flower and insect motifs in Chinese art. The exhibition is a unique opportunity to view Chinese depictions of nature – the paintings are extremely fragile and can only be displayed for short periods of time.
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Hadrian: Empire and Conflict
at The British Museum from Thursday 24th July 2008 to Sunday 26th October 2008.
This special exhibition will explore the life, love and legacy of Rome’s most enigmatic emperor, Hadrian (reigned AD 117–138).
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