The art exhibitions you need to see in London in October 2026
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October is, without question, the most high-octane month in our capital’s art calendar. There are prolific fairs, major auctions – and, as ever, a glorious glut of outstanding exhibitions; hurray for London’s being a global art centre!
Let’s begin with the fairs. Frieze is the big one – indeed, in some quarters, it gives its name to the week during which it runs (this year, it’s October 14 – 18), if not the whole season. For the uninitiated, there are actually two fairs, each based in their own tent complex in The Regent’s Park. Frieze London shows contemporary art by living artists, mostly made after the year 2000, and Frieze Masters is for antiquities, historical art, and Modern art made prior to the year 2000. Some galleries have booths at both. Tickets to attend are not cheap, however, there is no doubt that Frieze London is a pulse-setter, and the place to discover emerging talent from around the world – while a trip to Frieze Masters can open the visitor’s eyes to previously unencountered beauty and prove terminally aesthetic-shifting is the best possible way. Between their locations is Frieze Sculpture, a – free - outdoor exhibition.
There are further fairs, running concurrently. The unequivocally chic PAD London in Berkeley Square is dedicated to historical and contemporary collectable design and decorative arts. The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair at Somerset House presents exactly what its title describes, and is always an exciting voyage of discovery - and the same goes for the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park. New this year is Paraíso, a Latin American art fair, taking place at Ambika P3 at the University of Westminster. Then, at the end of the month, Imprint Art Fair is the successor to the Woolwich Print Fair, relocated to SW1.
At the same time, our commercial galleries put on outstanding, museum-worthy shows in their bricks-and-mortar spaces, and there is no charge to see those. Ordovas, W1, is looking at the life and legacy of Erica Brausen and the Hanover Gallery, which, in the post-war years, was the most exciting contemporary gallery in Europe, and instrumental in establishing the reputation of Francis Bacon. Ward Moretti, SW1, has got a jewel of an exhibition devoted to Marlow Moss, the first British Constructivist. Thaddaeus Ropac is showing a selection of the great Georg Baselitz’s breakthrough paintings, and Piano Nobile is looking at the early years of R. B. Kitaj’s career. And, while you’re pacing the streets of Mayfair and St. James’s, do stop by Sotheby’s and Christie’s while their major sales are hanging in the viewing rooms. At the latter is the extraordinary Peter Simon collection – the highest value single-owner collection every presented by the auction house, numbering exceptional works by a diverse range of artists from Francis Bacon to Bridget Riley. While at Sotheby’s is a group of new to the market paintings by Bloomsbury Group artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.
Finally, there are our institutions – which truly, are giving us gold. At the Royal Academy of Arts, Painting the French Riviera is a jaw-dropping bounty of loveliness, the grand rooms packed with landscapes, beach scenes, hotel rooms and lunches by Monet, Cézanne, Matisse, Derain, Picasso et al. The National Gallery is bringing us Renoir’s Paris - sun-dappled gardens, swirling dance halls, friends, family, and lovers. Tate Modern’s focus on Pictorialism demonstrates that a camera can deliver just as much as a paintbrush, and at the Barbican, we’ve being shown, via Robert Ryman, the varying beauty of all-white. There’s much more. Read on!
The best art exhibitions in London for October 2026
1/44Painting the French Riviera at the Royal Academy of Arts
In 1884, Claude Monet declared that to truly record the light and the vibrant hues of the Riviera, he’d ‘need a palette of diamonds and precious stones’. Invited on a three-week painting trip by Auguste Renoir, who had already spent time in L’Estaque and Aix-en-Provence with Paul Cézanne, Monet had extended his stay for another three months. He was so enraptured by the changing tones that – for the first time – he painted the same scene at different times of the day. A glorious new show in the main galleries at the Royal Academy of Arts, W1, brings to life his experience – and the decades that followed. For other artists were similarly inspired and flocked to the dramatic coastline whose beauty propelled them to new creative heights. Thus, its colours and motifs thread through the emergence of modernism, and the work of Signac, Matisse, Derain, Bonnard, Braque, Picasso, ballet impresario Serge Diaghiliv, fashion designer Coco Chanel, and Yves Klein, who famously sought to capture the exact shade the sky above Nice.
Until January 31; royalacademy.org.uk
Pictured: Raoul Dufy, Golfe Juan, 1927. Oil on canvas, mounted on board, 81.8 x 100.6 cm. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950
The National Gallery Photographic Department2/44Renoir & Love at the National Gallery
The arrival of Impressionism shattered the tradition of academic representation – and, with rapid brushstrokes that sought to capture fleeting moments of light, changed the course of art. An exceptional exhibition at the National Gallery, WC1, traces Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s experimentation with style and theme between the 1860s and 1880s, and his becoming – alongside Monet, Degas, Manet, Pissarro and Berthe Morisot - one of the movement’s leading figures. There are paintings that have never before been seen in the UK – and sun-dappled gardens, swirling dance halls, families, friends, and lovers. Meanwhile, beyond the gallery walls, Renoir’s The Umbrellas has been reimagined as a five-metre-high mural at the corner of Carnaby Street and Ganton Street.
October 3-January 31; nationalgallery.org.uk
Pictured: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Madame Monet and her son, 1874 © National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.
- tate.org.uk/nPictured: Peter Henry Emerson and Thomas Frederick Gooddall, Gathering Water-Lilies, 1885. Copyright Wilson Centre for Photography</em>","contentType":"photo","credit":"","segmentedSources":{"sm":[{"height":223,"width":320,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/6abcd868a5d14f9ae7cbe096/master/w_320,c_limit/6.%20Peter%20Henry%20Emerson%20and%20Thomas%20Frederick%20Gooddall.%20Gathering%20Water-Lilies.%201885.%20Wilson%20Centre%20for%20Photography%20copy.jpg"},{"height":446,"width":640,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/6abcd868a5d14f9ae7cbe096/master/w_640,c_limit/6.%20Peter%20Henry%20Emerson%20and%20Thomas%20Frederick%20Gooddall.%20Gathering%20Water-Lilies.%201885.%20Wilson%20Centre%20for%20Photography%20copy.jpg"}],"md":[{"height":446,"width":640,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/6abcd868a5d14f9ae7cbe096/master/w_640,c_limit/6.%20Peter%20Henry%20Emerson%20and%20Thomas%20Frederick%20Gooddall.%20Gathering%20Water-Lilies.%201885.%20Wilson%20Centre%20for%20Photography%20copy.jpg"},{"height":893,"width":1280,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/6abcd868a5d14f9ae7cbe096/master/w_1280,c_limit/6.%20Peter%20Henry%20Emerson%20and%20Thomas%20Frederick%20Gooddall.%20Gathering%20Water-Lilies.%201885.%20Wilson%20Centre%20for%20Photography%20copy.jpg"}],"lg":[{"height":714,"width":1024,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/6abcd868a5d14f9ae7cbe096/master/w_1024,c_limit/6.%20Peter%20Henry%20Emerson%20and%20Thomas%20Frederick%20Gooddall.%20Gathering%20Water-Lilies.%201885.%20Wilson%20Centre%20for%20Photography%20copy.jpg"},{"height":1429,"width":2048,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/6abcd868a5d14f9ae7cbe096/master/w_2048,c_limit/6.%20Peter%20Henry%20Emerson%20and%20Thomas%20Frederick%20Gooddall.%20Gathering%20Water-Lilies.%201885.%20Wilson%20Centre%20for%20Photography%20copy.jpg"}],"xl":[{"height":893,"width":1280,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/6abcd868a5d14f9ae7cbe096/master/w_1280,c_limit/6.%20Peter%20Henry%20Emerson%20and%20Thomas%20Frederick%20Gooddall.%20Gathering%20Water-Lilies.%201885.%20Wilson%20Centre%20for%20Photography%20copy.jpg"}],"xxl":[{"height":893,"width":1280,"url":"https://media.houseandgarden.co.uk/photos/6abcd868a5d14f9ae7cbe096/master/w_1280,c_limit/6.%20Peter%20Henry%20Emerson%20and%20Thomas%20Frederick%20Gooddall.%20Gathering%20Water-Lilies.%201885.%20Wilson%20Centre%20for%20Photography%20copy.jpg"}]}}}" data-testid="GallerySlideWrapper">
3/44Light & Magic: The Birth of Art Photography at Tate Modern
Tate Modern, SE1, is holding the first major show to explore the global extent of Pictorialism, the term coined in 1869 to differentiate photographers whose ambition went beyond documentation. Beauty is in abundance: Robert Demachy, a contemporary of the Impressionists, manipulated his process to make images as soft as a charcoal drawing, while Long Chin-san took from the evocative language of traditional Chinese ink painting. Peter Henry Emerson imbued his studies of rural life with an atmospheric authenticity comparable to the Glasgow Boys’ treatment of the same subject. And Edward Steichen conceived painterly landscapes – as well as portraits of such figures as the boxer Primo Carnera for Vanity Fair. Notably, magazines contributed significantly to the development of Pictorialism, producing the wherewithal for experimentation. The Tate exhibition also includes work by Adolph de Meyer, who in 1913 became Vogue’s first staff-photographer – and, on occasion, shot for House & Garden.
October 14-February 21; tate.org.uk
Pictured: Peter Henry Emerson and Thomas Frederick Gooddall, Gathering Water-Lilies, 1885. Copyright Wilson Centre for Photography
National Portrait Gallery London4/44Hanover Gallery at Ordovas
Founded in 1947 by Erica Brausen, a German émigré, the Hanover Gallery was viewed by collectors and critics of the time as the most exciting gallery in Europe. Its programme combined the continental avant-garde with contemporary British artists, showing Lucian Freud, William Scott, Henri Matisse, Richard Hamilton, Germaine Richier, Niki de Saint Phalle, Man Ray, Marlow Moss, Jean Miró, Alberto Giacometti – and, importantly, Francis Bacon, whose reputation Erica established. This autumn, Ordovas gallery, W1, is celebrating Erica’s extraordinary life and legacy, and presenting works by artists she showed.
October 9-December 11; ordovasart.com
Pictured: Lucian Freud, Girl in Bed © The Lucian Freud Archive. All Rights Reserved 2026 / Bridgeman Images copy
5/44France: In the Footsteps of Great Artists by Nick Trend
Part exhibition-in-a-book, part highly evocative holiday guide, Nick Trend’s second volume in his Art of Travel series invites the reader to explore France according to the artists who shaped its culture. From Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s Versailles to Suzanne Valadon’s Montmartre, Leonardo da Vinci’s Loire Valley to Edouard Manet’s Paris, Paul Cézanne’s Aix-en-Provence to Paul Gauguin’s Brittany – and much more – we’ve given fascinating insight into the artists’ lives there, and, helpfully, told where we can see the works they created in each place. It’s an ideal accompaniment to the Royal Academy’s Painting the French Riviera – particularly if you’re inspired by those exquisite works to plan a trip.
Pictured: France: In the Footsteps of Great Artists by Nick Trend is published by Thames & Hudson
6/44Robert Ryman: The Real Thing
The late American painter Robert Ryman was associated with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. Removing narrative, he investigated how subtle changes in brushwork, surface and type of paint would interact with light, and so create a sense of delight and fulfilment. An exhibition at the Barbican, EC2, featuring works from the mid-1950s to the 2000s, offers opportunity to experience, in his words, ‘the real thing’.
October 8-February 28; barbican.org.uk
Pictured: Robert Ryman, Untitled Study, 1963. Kenneth C. Griffin Collection. © 2026 Robert Ryman - DACS, London. Photo - Stephen Arnold, courtesy David Zwirner
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7/44Marlow Moss: Space, Movement & Light at Ward Moretti
Marlow Moss is known as the first British Constructivist. Born in 1889, she studied at the Slade, and then at the Académie Moderne in Paris under Fernand Léger, who introduced her to Constructivist principles – among them that art should be ‘built’ rather than ‘composed’, adherence to the machine aesthetic, and the stripping of emotionality. Moss completely abandoned figurative work. In 1930, she introduced the double line to her abstract compositions, which influenced Piet Mondrian to use it in his. Jewish, and a lesbian, she hurriedly moved to Lamorna Cove in Cornwall at the outbreak of the Second World War and lost many of her works. It makes this show at Ward Moretti, SW1, all the more remarkable – and then there’s the intricacy of her preparatory sketches, and the exquisite delicacy and luminosity of her paintings.
Until October 30; wardmoretti.art
Pictured: Marlow Moss, White, Black, Yellow and Blue, 1954, Signed lower right, Marlow Moss 1954. Oil on canvas, 46 x 61 cm (18⅛ x 24 in.)
- Hulton Archive/Getty Images8/44
The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum
The extraordinary 11th century embroidery is the hot ticket of the season – and it is truly wondrous to behold. Probably commissioned by William the Conqueror’s half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, and stitched by anonymous English women, it tells of the events leading up to and including the 1066 Battle of Hastings. Almost 70 metres in length, the storytelling is exceptional, from the funeral of Edward Confessor to the arrival of William’s men at Pevensey and the battle itself. There are exquisite details: the stitching of the chain mail armour, the fantastical creatures included in the border, the depiction of early Romanesque buildings. If you haven’t already got a ticket, set your alarm for October 21 at 10am when the next tranche goes on sale. Before that, there are workarounds: two hotels are offering room packages that include tickets, namely The Londoner and One Aldwych. There is also a 19th century copy at Reading Museum, which is only 25 minutes from Paddington.
September 10-July 11; britishmuseum.org
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sylvaindeleu@mac.com Sylvain Deleu,Sylvain Deleu9/44Lucie Rie/ Hans Coper: Life at the Wheel at Offer Waterman
Lucie Rie and Hans Coper were two of the most influential figures in 20th century British studio pottery, and this show at Offer Waterman, W1 - the first major exhibition of their works in London since 1997 - will span the full breadth of their entwined careers. Rie was born in Vienna, and in 1937 exhibited her ceramics in Paris alongside Picasso’s Guernica, before arriving in London in 1938 as a Jewish refugee, and spending the war making buttons and jewellery for couture houses (some of which are now in the collection of the V&A South Kensington, along with a reconstruction of her studio). Hans Coper was born in Germany, and, also fleeing Nazi persecution, arrived in London in 1939 – where he was interred as an enemy alien, and then sent to Canada for military service. In 1946, back in London and looking for work, he approached Rie and went to work as her studio assistant. They became close friends and collaborators, while each also developed their individual practices, shaping the future of pottery with their elegantly thrown earthenware, stoneware and porcelain forms.
September 18-October 30; waterman.co.uk
Pictured: Lucie Rie, Vase with sgraffito design, c.1982 and Footed bowl, c.1978 Photograph by Sylvain Deleu © Estate of the artist/The Lucie Rie and Hans Coper Foundation Courtesy Offer Waterman Gallery
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10/44Georg Baselitz: The Heroes 1965-66 at Thaddaeus Ropac
Georg Baselitz, who died earlier this year, was one of the most influential painters of his generation, and one who found a way forward from the shattered, post-World War Two prospects of Germany. This exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac, W1, is dedicated to the Hero paintings – the breakthrough works of his formative years that confronted the social realities of the time and established many of the visual motifs and existential themes that would go on to shape his practice. At the centre is a cast of monumental figures set within ravaged landscapes. ‘They’re not heroes swinging their first,’ said Baselitz. ‘They look broken, destroyed, ragged, tattered. And that is how I wanted them.’
October 13-December 18; ropac.net
Pictured: B.j.M.C. - Bonjour Monsieur Courbet, 1965 Oil on canvas Image 162 x 130 cm (63.78 x 51.18 in) Photo- Ulrich Ghezzi © Georg Baselitz 2026. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, London · Paris · Salzburg · Milan · Seoul
11/44R.B. Kitaj: From Fragments 1958-1975 at Piano Nobile
Ronald Brooks Kitaj was born in Ohio, but in 1958 moved to Oxford to study at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. The following year he began at the Royal College of Art in London where his contemporaries numbered David Hockney, Allen Jones and Patrick Caulfield. He upheld figurative art at a time when abstract was dominant, and in a 1975 catalogue essay for a show he curated at the Hayward, he coined the term ‘School of London’ to describe himself and his fellow figurative painters Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Michael Andrews, et al. Piano Nobile, W11, is showing work from this early stage of his career, including collages, drawings and paintings.
Until November 27; piano-nobile.com
Pictured: R. B. Kitaj, Let Us Call It Arden & Live In It, copyright the artist, image courtesy of Piano Nobile
12/44The 90s: Art & Fashion at Tate Britain
The 90s were an exhilarating decade, and have since become synonymous with a sense possibility and optimism. It was the time of Britpop, of the YBAs (Young British Artists) taking over the establishment thanks to the Sensations show at the Royal Academy of Arts, and of London Fashion Week becoming imbued with a radical and audacious spirit, thanks to John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, and others. In 1997, Tony Blair and the Labour Party won a landslide election to the echoes of D:Ream’s upbeat anthem Things Can Only Get Better. Now, former Vogue editor Edward Enninful is curating a show at Tate Britain, SW1, that explores the period’s surge of creative energy. Featuring nearly 70 artists, photographers and designers, it re-evaluates a transformative moment in British art.
October 8-February 14; tate.org.uk
Pictured: Jon Shard, Flesh at The Haçienda, 1996 Courtesy of British Culture Archive © Jon Shard, British Culture Archive
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13/44Salman Toor: Someone Like You at the Courtauld
The Courtauld, WC1, is presenting the first European solo show devoted to the Pakistan-born and New York-based painter Salman Toor. His practice, rooted in admiration for the Old Masters as well as personal experience, explores the intimate moments of contemporary urban lives, the interactions of desire, and the want to belong. There’s anguish, but also joy, a strange beauty, and a revisiting of Edouard Manet’s 1882 A Bar at the Folie-Bergère.
October 2-January 10; courtauld.ac.uk
Pictured: Salman Toor, Three Friends in a Cab (2021), Private Collection. © Salman Toor; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo Farzad Owrang
14/44Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum
The artist and designer Es Devlin was recently the recipient of House & Garden’s 2026 Cultural Innovator award – and, thanks to her retrospective at the Design Museum, W8, we’re being given opportunity to explore the full breadth of her wide-ranging practice, which is unified by her interest in an audiences’ emotions and their common experience.
The entrance to the exhibition is through a recreation of Es’s studio, and there is what she has described as a ‘thirty-year desk’, filled with notes, sketches and models, ‘so people can really get under the bonnet’ of a career that began with set design; she made her National Theatre debut in 1998. From the 2000s, an in tandem segue saw her employing light, scale, and kinetic architecture to create wondrous stadium-sized spectacles for musicians and bands including Kanye West, U2, Beyoncé, and Adele, as well as shows for major fashion houses, from Louis Vuitton to Chanel. She designed the scenic elements for the 2012 London Olympics’ closing ceremony and won three Emmy Awards for the Super Bowl Half Time Show of 2022. Her first major art installation was created in 2016, and the percentage of them, in proportion to other work, has been increasing. There is also, at the Design Museum, a new installation, The Infinite Library, an encouragement towards collective reading. For, asks Es, ‘if we don’t practice community, how do we think we’ll ever achieve it?’
Until April 4; designmuseum.org
Pictured: Es Devlin photographed amongst her archive, photo credit Daniel Devlin @susakpress
Photography by Tim Walker15/44Tim Walker’s Fairyland: Love and Legends
The National Portrait Gallery, WC1, is presenting a five-year series of exuberant and fantastical portraits by Tim Walker, whose theatrically surreal work has graced global editions of Vogue since 1995. There are queer activists, artists, performers and writers – among them Ben Whishaw, Lady Gaga, and filmmaker Francis Lee styled as an ode to Edward Carpenter, the 19th century socialist and advocate for gay liberation who inspired E.M. Forster’s Maurice (and whose 1894 portrait by Roger Fry hangs in room 24 of the NPG.) Alongside is narrative history, hinting at the crossover that can occur between photographic portraiture and documentary.
October 9-February 7; npg.org.uk
Pictured: Chappell Roan, Fashion Chanel Haute Couture, New York City, 2025, by Tim Walker, copyright Tim Walker
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16/44Ian Davenport: Reflections at Waddington Custot
Ian Davenport has become known for his Puddle Paintings, made by pouring paint onto a tilted surface, and allowing gravity to spread it. But this fascinating show at Waddington Custot, W1, spans the artist’s career, and so also includes early experimental pieces, including a monumental canvas Untitled (Large White) that formed part of the work that earned Davenport his Turner Prize nomination in 1991 (he was the youngest artist ever shortlisted.)
Until November 21; waddingtoncustot.com
Pictured: Ian Davenport, Blossom, 2023, acrylic on aluminium mounted onto aluminium panels (with additional floor section), image courtesy the artist and Waddington Custot
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Unknown17/44This Is Still Not A Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte at Gagosian Grosvenor Hill
Gagosian Grosvenor Hill, W1, is presenting an extraordinary exhibition devoted to René Magritte and his continuing influence on artists working today. Organised in collaboration with the Fondation Magritte, and featuring loans from museums and private collections, there is a wonderful range of the artist’s own paintings, works on paper and sculpture from all periods of his career – and featuring some of his best-known subjects: apples, pipes, bowler hats, clouds. Hung alongside are works by more than forty artists of different generations, some of which have been created specifically for this exhibition.
Until December 12; gagosian.com
Pictured: René Magritte, La Malédiction (The Curse), 1931 Oil on canvas 21 1/4 x 28 3/4 inches (54 x 73 cm) © 2026 ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London Photo- Antoine van Kaam Courtesy Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, the Netherlands
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Thys Dullaart Photography18/44William Kentridge: A Nicely Built City at Goodman Gallery
An exhibition at Goodman Gallery, W1, is also the world premiere of famed South African artist and opera director William Kentridge’s new stop-animation film A Nicely Built City (Never Resists Destruction), which is the twelfth film in his widely acclaimed cycle of Drawings for Projection. The film is accompanied by new drawings, sculptures and editioned works on paper.
Until November 7; goodman-gallery.com
Pictured: William Kentridge, Drawing for L'Orfeo (Diverging Tree), 2025, charcoal and coloured pencil on paper, image courtesy Kentridge Studio and Goodman Gallery
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19/44Antony Gormley: Where at Cristea Roberts
Cristea Roberts Gallery is presenting over 20 new works on paper by Antony Gormley – some monumental in scale. A group of eight unique prints titled Lux grew out of Cave, Gormley’s enterable sculpture, which readers might have experienced navigating, working through darkness to light. Then, Body captures four unique impressions from Gormley’s own body. Covered in crude oil, linseed oil and petroleum jelly – all substances of the earth’s composition - he fell directly onto the paper, leaving a transfer.
October 14-December 23; cristearoberts.com
Pictured: Antony Gormley, Proof VI (Test), 2025, crude oil, linseed oil, and petroleum jelly on paper, 240 x 173 cm, courtesy artist and Cristea Roberts Gallery, London © Antony Gormley. Photo: Stephen White & Co.
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20/44Still Life, Then and Now at Robilant
Robilant, W1, is holding a survey of 500-years of still life painting, charting the changing essence and status of the genre from the 16th century to the present day. With loans from institutions and private collections, it includes works by Francisco de Zurbarán, Henri Fantin-Latour, Odilon Redon, Pierre Bonnard, Philip Guston, Nicolas de Staël – and more.
October 14-December 18; robilantgallery.com
Pictured: Nicolas de Staël - La Bouteille Noire (The Black Bottle), 1955; image courtesy Robilant
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21/44Frida: The Making of an Icon at Tate Modern
This show at Tate Modern, SE1, presents over 30 of Frida Kahlo’s extraordinary works that between them explore her ‘many selves’: the intellectual, the activist, a woman in pain, a Mexican artist. Alongside are clothes, jewellery and archive photographs – and works by her contemporaries, as well as artists that she’s inspired.
June 25-January 3; tate.org.uk
Pictured: Frida Kahlo, Untitled [Self-portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird] 1940. Nickolas Muray Collection of Mexican Art.
22/44Anish Kapoor at the Hayward Gallery
Almost 30 years ago, the Hayward Gallery, SE1, was the first public gallery in this country to stage a major show of British Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor’s work, that manipulates space, light, scale and perception to afford us moments of the sublime. His highly anticipated return spans new and past works, offering a series of spectacular encounters across the gallery and its terraces.
Until October 18; southbankcentre.co.uk
Pictured: Anish Kapoor, Tsunami 2018 Stainless steel. Photograph Dave Morgan ©Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved, DACS, 2026
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THOMAS MERLE23/44Cecilia Vicuña: Living Threads at Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery, E1, is presenting the first major UK exhibition of Cecilia Vicuña, who is one of Latin America’s most internationally renowned artists, poets, and activists – and whose 2022 Tate Turbine Hall work many readers will have seen. It incorporated ‘quipus’, an ancient language based on a system of knotted cords rooted in Andean pre-Hispanic culture. The Whitechapel show spans six decades of Vicuña’s interdisciplinary practice, encompassing painting, photography, film – and the textiles and large-scale installations for which she is best known.
October 7-February 14; whitechapelgallery.org
Pictured: Cecilia Vicuña Nasca Paracas , 2025 Oil on canvas 25.4 x 20.3 cm © 2026 Cecilia Vicuña/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York Courtesy the artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels Photo Thomas Merle
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Camera24/44Nicola Turner: I Tear Secrets from your Yielding Flesh at Annely Juda Fine Art
Nicola Turner, who trained in set and costume design and has worked with the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre, has developed a practice that combines found objects with ‘dead’ materials such as horsehair and wool to explore fundamental dichotomies: life and death, human and non-human, attraction and repulsion. Some will remember her extraordinary sculpture for the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts in the summer of 2024. Now, for her first solo show at Annely Juda Fine Art, W1, she has created a site-responsive installation that fills the ground floor galleries and continues up the façade of the Georgian townhouse in Hanover Square.
Until November 7; annelyjudafineart.co.uk
Pictured: Nicola Turner, Nativas, 2026 (left) and Vita, 2026 (right, detail). © The Artist. Courtesy Annely Juda Fine Art
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