LondonLife – ‘Goavve-Geabbil’ at the Tate Modern…

Hyundai Commission: Máret Ánne Sara: Goavve-Geabbil installation view featuring -Geabbil at Tate Modern 2025. © Máret Ánne Sara. PICTURE: © Tate/Larina Fernandez.

Described as an “immersive work honouring the reciprocal relationship between the Sámi people, the reindeer, and the land”, the Goavve-Geabbil is a monumental new sculptural installation by Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara and has been made using materials which sustain her community in Sápmi, the territory of the Indigenous Sámi people which spans the countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

In this, Sara’s first major work in the UK, the artist draws on her experience as member of a reindeer herding family to highlight ecological issues impacting Sámi life and has combined hides and bones derived from traditional reindeer herding practices along with wood, industrial materials, sound and scent.

The Hyundai Commission: Máret Ánne Sara: Goavve-Geabbil can be seen in the Turbine Hall at the Bankside institution until 6th April. Admission is free. For more, see tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern.

Hyundai Commission: Máret Ánne Sara: Goavve-Geabbil installation view featuring -Geabbil at Tate Modern 2025. © Máret Ánne Sara. PICTURE: © Tate/Sonal Bakrania.
Hyundai Commission: Máret Ánne Sara: Goavve-Geabbil installation view featuring Goavve- at Tate Modern 2025. © Máret Ánne Sara. PICTURE: © Tate (Larina Fernandez).

This Week in London – Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition; 20th century conflicts; Jennie Baptiste at Somerset House; and Nigerian Modernism…

Wim van den Heever’s winning entry, Ghost Town Visitor.

An exhibition of entries into the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition opens tomorrow at the National History Museum in South Kensington. The exhibition features 100 images selected from a record-breaking 60,636 entries and follows from this week’s announcement of the winners at a ceremony held at the museum earlier this week. The display includes the winning image – ‘Ghost Town Visitor’ which, captured by South African wildlife photographer Wim van den Heever depicts a brown hyena near the ruins of a long-abandoned diamond mining town in Kolmanskop, Namibia – as well as the winner of the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 – 17-year-old Italian Andrea Dominizi’s After the Destruction which spotlights a longhorn beetle in the Lepini Mountains of central Italy, an area once logged for old beech trees, with a background of abandoned machinery. Other images on show include the winner of the Impact Award – Brazilian photographer, Fernando Faciole’s Orphan of the Road depicting an orphaned giant anteater pup following its caregiver after an evening feed at a rehabilitation centre – as well as category winners. The exhibition can be seen until 12th July next year. Admission charge applies. For more, head here.

Three 20th century conflicts which broke out in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus after World War II are the subject of a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. Emergency Exits: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus looks at how these three conflicts, known as “emergencies” to the British Government, shaped and continues to shape Britain, its former territories and the wider world today. The display includes more than 70 objects such as propaganda posters, flags and artworks as well as oral histories and personal belongings which belonged to those impacted by them. As well as telling the stories of the three conflicts, Emergency Exits also explores Operation Legacy, the British Government’s attempt to prevent publication of sensitive documents related to the conflicts which included evidence of human rights abuses. The free exhibition, which opens on Friday, runs until 26th March. For more, see iwm.org.uk/events/emergency-exits-the-fight-for-independence-in-malaya-kenya-and-cyprus.

The first major solo exhibition focusing on the work of pioneering Black British photographer Jennie Baptiste opens in the Terrace Rooms at Somerset House on Friday. Jennie Baptiste: Rhythm & Roots, which is a highlights of Somerset House’s 25th birthday programme, charts how Baptiste used her lens to capture youth culture, music, fashion, and urban life within the Black British diaspora in London in the past few decades. The exhibition can be entered under a “pay what you can” model. Runs until 4th January. For more, see www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/jennie-baptiste-rhythm-and-roots.

Ben Enwonwu, ‘The Durbar of Eid-ul-Fitr, Kano’, Nigeria 1955. © Ben Enwonwu Foundation. Private Collection

On Now: Nigerian Modernism. The Tate Modern is hosting the first UK exhibition to trace the development of modern art in Nigeria with more than 250 works by more than 50 artists on display. The exhibition, which spans the period from the 1940s to today, features works by globally celebrated artists of the 1940s, Ben Enwonwu and Ladi Kwali, as well as works by The Zaria Arts Society members Uche Okeke, Demas Nwoko, Yusuf Grillo, Bruce Onobrakpeya, and Jimo Akolo, Nsukka Art School members including Obiora Udechukwu, Tayo Adenaike and Ndidi Dike, and concludes with a spotlight on the work of Uzo Egonu. The display can be seen until 10th May. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/nigerian-modernism.

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This Week in London – Marie Antoinette; ‘Theatre Picasso’, ‘Exploring Space’ at the Science Museum; and Talk Like A Pirate Day…

Portrait de Marie-Antoinette à la rose, Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun © Château de Versailles, Dist. Grand Palais RMN / Christophe Fouin.

The UK’s first exhibition to focus on the French Queen, Marie Antionette, opens at the V&A on Saturday. Marie Antoinette Style explores the dress and interiors adopted by the Queen, an early modern “celebrity”, during the final decades of the 18th century. It features some 250 objects including loans from Versailles which have never before been seen outside of France. There are personal items worn by the Queen including fragments of court dress, her silk slippers and jewels from her private collection as well as items from the Queen’s dinner service at the Petit Trianon, accessories and intimate items from her toilette case and even recreated scents from the court and a perfume which was favoured by the Queen. There also contemporary couture pieces by designers such as Moschino, Dior, Chanel, Erdem, Vivienne Westwood and Valentino and costumes, including shoes, made for screen, such as for Sofia Coppola’s Oscar winning film Marie Antoinette. The exhibition can be seen in Galleries 38 and 39 until 22nd March. Admission charge applies. For more, see vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/marie-antoinette.

Pablo Picasso, The Three Dancers (1925) Tate. © Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2025.

Around 50 works by famed artist Pablo Picasso have been brought together for a new exhibition at the Tate Modern to mark the centenary of the artist’s work The Three Dancers (1925). Staged by contemporary artist Wu Tsang and write and curator Enrique Fuenteblanca, Theatre Picasso explores aspects of performance in his works and features the Tate’s entire collection of Picassos which, alongside The Three Dancers, also includes Weeping Woman (1937) and Nude Woman in a Red Armchair (1932). There are also loans from key museums in France as well as prints, drawings, sculptures, textile works and collages. These include the wool and silk tapestry Minotaur (1935) which is being displayed in the UK for the first time. Accompanying the works is Henri-George Clouzot’s 1959 film The Mystery of􏰱Picasso. Admission charge applies. Runs until 12th April. For more, see

A new free gallery revealing the stories behind space exploration opens at the Science Museum in South Kensington on Saturday. The gallery – Exploring Space – showcases iconic items from the history of space exploration including a chunk of Moon rock nicknamed ‘Great Scott’ which was collected in 1971, the Soyuz TMA-19M descent module that carried astronaut Tim Peake, and the Sokol KV-2 rescue suit worn by Helen Sharman in 1991. There are also new technologies from the space sector including prototype electric propulsion technology from Magdrive and the ‘rolly-polly’ LEV-2 Moon rover, the result of the first collaboration between a space agency (JAXA) and a toy company (Takara Tomy). For more, see www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/space.

British astronaut, Helen Sharman’s Sokol spacesuit made by Zvezda. Sharman wore this rescue suit during the space flight on board the SOYUZ-TM-12 and MIR spacecraft in May 1991. Space suit model number KV-2 No. 167.

“Ahoy me hearties!” It’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day on Friday and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich is celebrating from Friday across the weekend with talks about everything from Barbary corsairs to sea shanties, character actors and two-for-one discounts on tickets to the Pirates exhibition. Visitors over the weekend who dress like a pirate will be in the chance to win prizes including Cutty Sark rig climb tickets, annual passes to the Old Royal Naval College, and a family tour of The Golden Hinde. And to brush-up on your pirate lingo, “Abbey-Lubber” means a lazy sailor avoiding work, and ‘Jack Ketch’ a hangman or executioner. For more, see rmg.co.uk/whats-on/national-maritime-museum/international-talk-pirate-day.

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This Week in London – New film tour at the Old Royal Naval College; beyond human design; the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt on display; and, the power of gardening…

PICTURE: Robert Bye/Unsplash

The Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich is celebrating at 100 years of film and TV at the site and mark the occasion, it’s launched a new film-related tour. The new tour – Wigs, Weddings, Powder and Palaces – looks at where productions such as BridgertonThe CrownPirates of the Caribbean and Les Misérables have been filmed and promises to explore some “closely guarded secrets of filmmaking” as well as letting those on the tour “step in the shoes and onto the set of stars”. The tour, which leaves from the Visitor Centre, also includes a fun and interactive 15-minute class of hand fan etiquette and its secret meanings inspired by the filming of Bridgerton. Charges apply. For bookings, head to https://ornc.org/whats-on/wigs-weddings-powder-and-palaces-film-tour/.

• A major exhibition exploring how design can help the planet thrive by shifting its focus beyond human needs has opened at the Design Museum. More Than Human – the first major exhibition from a growing movement of ‘more-than-human’ design, features more than 140 works by more than 50 artists, architects and designers. They include Japanese artist Shimabuku’s artworks created for octopuses, a new monumental seaweed installation by artist Julia Lohmann, a vast new tapestry that explores the perspectives of pollinators by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, and an eight metre long mural by MOTH (More Than Human Life Project) depicting the growing movement to award legal rights to waterways around the world. Runs until 5th October. Admission charges apply. For more, see https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/more-than-human.

• The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt goes on display in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall today. Started around 1989, the work is made of 42 quilts and 23 individual panels which represent 384 people affected by HIV and AIDS. Volunteers from the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Partnership will be present alongside the Tate’s staff to welcome visitors and on Saturday, at 11am and 2pm, the hall will host live readings of the names. Runs until 16th June. For more, see https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/uk-aids-memorial-quilt.

On Now: Unearthed: The Power of Gardening. This display at the British Library explores the “transformative, enriching and sometimes radical power” of gardening in the UK and the impact it’s had on the nation. Among the items on display is the only surviving illustrated collection of herbal remedies from Anglo-Saxon England (dating from around 1000–25), the first English gardening manual, Thomas Hill’s A Most Briefe and Pleasaunte Treatise (1563), the first mechanical lawnmower (1832), and gardening boots which once belonged to horticulturalist and designer Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932). Runs until 10th August. Admission charge applies. For more, see https://events.bl.uk/exhibitions/unearthed-the-power-of-gardening.

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This Week in London – VE Day commemorated at St Paul’s; the National Gallery redisplayed; and, Tate Modern celebrates its 25th…

VE Day commemorations continue in London this week with an Evensong service to be held outside St Paul’s Cathedral this evening. The service to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe will be held between 5pm and 6pm. Following the service will be a lamp-lighting ceremony and blessing on the cathedral’s west steps with the cathedral bells being tolled as part of a national bell-ringing at 6:30pm. A replica of a World War II Spitfire can also be seen in front of the West Steps. The service is free and unticketed – entry is via Paternoster Square. For more, see www.stpauls.co.uk/whats-on/special-evensong-to-commemorate-80th-anniversary-of-end-of-second-world-war-in-europe-ve80.

Central Hall, The National Gallery. Image and Identity: Full-Length Portraits 1550-1900. Part of ‘C C Land: The Wonder of Art’. PICTURE: © The National Gallery, London

A major redisplay of the National Gallery’s collection – created as part of its bicentenary celebrations – can be seen from Saturday. C C Land: The Wonder of Art, which coincides with the opening of the transformed Sainsbury Wing after more than two years of building works, features more than 1,000 works and traces the development of painting in the Western European tradition from the 13th to 20th centuries. Among the works displayed are the Coronation State Portraits, commissioned from the artists Peter Kuhfeld and Paul S Benney and unveiled by King Charles III and Queen Camilla this week, which will be on display until 5th June when they will be moved to the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace. There are also newly restored works including the Pollaiuolo brothers’ The Martyrdom of San Sebastian and Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?) and newly acquired works such as Eva Gonzalès’ The Full-length Mirror (about 1869‒70), Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s After the Audience (1879) and Nicolas Poussin’s Eucharist (about 1637‒40) – one of the greatest paintings of the Last Supper. Meanwhile, a series of rooms have been dedicated to the work of individual artists including the likes of Titian (active about 1506‒1576), Rembrandt (1606‒1669) and Monet (1840‒1926) and one part of the new display focuses on King Charles I (1600‒1649) as a collector of art and includes major loans from the Royal Collection. Finally, in a first for the gallery, Segna di Bonaventura’s Crucifix (about 1310‒15) has been suspended from the gallery’s ceiling, enabling today’s audiences to view the work in the way it would have been seen in the 14th century. Entry to the gallery is free. For more, see nationalgallery.org.uk.

Tate Modern. PICTURE: Courtesy of the Tate Modern.

The Tate Modern is celebrating 25 years this weekend with four days of festivities starting from tomorrow (Friday). A number of recent additions to Tate’s collection will go on display around the building for the anniversary and some of the most iconic works from Tate Modern’s history are coming back including Louise Bourgeois’s 10 metre high bronze spider Maman which was the first work to greet visitors when Tate Modern opened in 2000. Other returning works include Mark Rothko’s Seagram murals and Dorothea Tanning’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik while among contemporary works being highlighted over the weekend is an immersive multi-screen film installation by Nalini Malani. Two new exhibitions are also open for the anniversary weekend – A Year in Art: 2050 which explores how artists imagine possible futures, and, Gathering Ground which features international contemporary art united by a deep connection to land and community. The weekend also features live music and performances, pop-up talks and tours, and special food and drink offers. For more, see https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/birthday-weekender.

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This Week in London – Hiroshige at the British Museum; poppies return to Tower for VE Day commemoration; and, Do Ho Suh at the Tate Modern…

Ferry on the Fuji River. From Famous Places in Japan, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858). Colour -woodblock print, about 1832. © The Trustees of the British Museum

An exhibition exploring the art and legacy of Japanese artist Hiroshige opens at the British Museum today. Hiroshige: artist of the open road takes visitors on a “lyrical journey” through Edo-period Japan, exploring both natural landscapes and urban life as well as considering Utagawa Hiroshige’s (1797– 1858) lasting influence on modern and contemporary art. The display marks the major gift of 35 Hiroshige prints to the American Friends of the British Museum from the collection of Alan Medaugh, a leading US collector of the artist’s work with these works being shown alongside 82 Hiroshige prints loaned by Medaugh and other works. Among them are the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Highway (1833–35), One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–58) and Eight Views of Stations along the Main and Secondary Roads (about 1839) as well as examples of his famous bird-and-flower prints Runs in the Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery (Room 35) until 7th September. Admission charge applies. For more, see britishmuseum.org/hiroshige.

• The 80th anniversary of World War II is being marked with a new display of ceramic poppies in the Tower of London. Almost 30,000 poppies, previously seen in Paul Cummins’ 2014 artwork, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, are being used in the new installation designed by Tom Piper. Opens on 6th May in advance of the 80th anniversary of VE Day, marking the official end of the World War II in Europe, on 8th May. Included in admission with a small section visible from the public footpath. For more, see www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/whats-on/tower-remembers-2025.

Do Ho Suh, Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home, 2013-2022. Installation view at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia. Photography by Sebastian Mrugalski Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul and London and Victoria Miro. © Do Ho Suh

• The large-scale installations, sculptures, videos and drawings of artist Do Ho Suh are going on show at the Tate Modern from today. The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, the title of which comes from a Korean expression referring to the hanok – a house that could theoretically be disassembled, transported and reassembled at a new site, includes works from across three decades. They include the new installation Nest/s (2024) and Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul (2024), Who Am We? (2000_ – a mosaic of tens of thousands of tiny portrait photographs collected from sources including school yearbooks, and his major Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home (2013-22) project. Runs at the Bankside institution until 19th October. Admission charge applies. For more, see tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – ‘Electric Dreams’ at Tate Modern; The Reflection Room; and, last chance to get NYE tickets…

Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss, Liquid Views (1992). Liquid People at
“Arte Virtual”, Metro Opera, Madrid, Spain, 1994 (detail). ZKM Karlsruhe. © Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss

Early innovators of optical, kinetic, programmed and digital art are being celebrated in a new exhibition which opens today at Tate Modern. Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet features the work of more than 70 artists who worked between the 1950s and the dawn of the internet age and “who took inspiration from science to create art that expands and tests the senses”. Works on show include Electric Dress (1957) by Japanese artist Atsuko Tanaka of the Gutai group which is being shown alongside her circuit-like drawings, German artist Otto Piene’s Light Room (Jena) which surrounds viewers in a continuous light ‘ballet’, British-Canadian Brion Gysin’s homemade mechanical device, Dreamachine no.9 (1960-76) which creates kaleidoscopic patterns, and Tatsuo Miyajima’s eight-metre-long wall installation of flashing LED lights, Lattice B (1990), which is a meditation on time. A series of rooms, meanwhile, explores the art shows which played a key role in the development of digital art including London’s groundbreaking ‘Cybernetic Serendipity’ exhibition held at the ICA in 1968, and the exhibition also features the work of early adopters including US artist Rebecca Allen and Palestinian Samia Halaby as well as some of the earliest artistic experiments in virtual reality such as Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss’ interactive installation Liquid Views (1992). Runs until 1st June. Admission charge applies. For more, see tate.org.uk.

The Museum of London Docklands is launching The Reflection Room, a new display space for artists on Friday. The new space, which the museum says will offer “room to explore a range of ideas and perspectives that foreground emotions and human experiences connected to London’s history”, will open with British-Caribbean artist Zak Ové’s mixed media installation Exodus. The installation, which is said to suggest a “reflection on today’s discourse around migration” will be accompanied by a wall of historic maps that present a visual sense of data on international migration, agricultural trade, and tourism between 1500 and 2005. Exodus can be seen until May. Admission is free. For more, see www.londonmuseum.org.uk/docklands/.

• The final tranche of tickets for London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display go on sale on Monday, 2nd December, at noon. Tickets must be bought in advance to attend and cost between £20 and £50 depending on the viewing area while Londoners will pay £15 less on each ticket booked than those living outside of the capital. Tickets will be available at www.ticketmaster.co.uk. For more on the event, see www.london.gov.uk/nye.

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This Week in London – Michelangelo’s last decades; expressionists on show; and, Dinosaur rEvolution…

Michelangelo Buonarro (1475–1564) – study for the ‘Last Judgment’ (Black chalk on paper, about 1534–36); the fall of Phaeton (Black chalk, over stylus underdrawing, on paper, about 1533); and, Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and St John (Black chalk and white lead on paper, about 1555–64.) All images © The Trustees of the British Museum

A landmark exhibition exploring the final three decades of the life of Renaissance master Michelangelo has opened at the British Museum. Michelangelo: the last decades focuses on how his art and faith evolved and centres on the two metre high Epifania (about 1550–53), which is being displayed for the first time since conservation work on it began in 2018. Showing alongside it is a painting made from it by Michelangelo’s biographer, Ascanio Condivi, as well as preparatory drawings from the Last Judgment, which chart how Michelangelo invented a fresh vision of how the human form would be refashioned at the end of the world, and works created as part of his correspondence with his friends Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and the poet Vittoria Colonna. The latter include The Punishment of Tityus (about 1532) showing an eagle tearing out the liver of a bound naked man which was gifted to Tommaso as moral guidance for the young man. Other highlights include a group of drawings of Christ’s crucifixion which he made during the last 10 years of his life and through which he explored his feelings about mortality, sacrifice, faith, and the prospect of redemption. Runs until 28th July in the Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org/michelangelo.

Wassily Kandinsky, ‘Riding Couple’, 1906-1907, Lenbachhaus Munich, Donation of Gabriele Münter, 1957

• A new exhibition has opened celebrating the expressionists’ radical experimentations with form, colour, sound and performance at the Tate Modern. Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider features masterpieces from the Lenbachhaus in Munich and includes some works never previously seen in the UK. Among the artists whose work is on display are everyone from renowned artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, Franz Marc and Paul Klee, through to lesser known figures like Wladimir Burliuk and Maria Franck-Marc. Highlights include Marianne Werefkin’s Self-Portrait (c1910), Münter’s Listening (Portrait of Jawlensky) (1909), Erma Bossi’s Circus (1909), Kandinsky’s Impression III (Concert) (1911), Franz-Marc’s Deer in the Snow II (1911), Klee’s Legend of the Swamp (1919), and a selection of photographs from the Masterpieces of Muhammadan Art exhibition staged in Munich in 1910. Runs until 20th October. Admission charge applies. For more, see tate.org.uk.

On Now – Dinosaur rEvolution. This exhibition at the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill highlights discoveries from recent decades which have changed the way we envisage dinosaurs – not all as scaly green reptiles but many with an array of colours, feathers, quills and spikes. At the centre of the display are five large animatronic dinosaur models – including a seven metre-long Tyrannosaurus rex – as well as well as artworks by artist and exhibition curator Luis V Rey. The exhibition also features fossil casts including the horned skull of a Diabloceratops, the claw of a Therizinosaurus, and skeletons of Velociraptor and Compsognathus – a chicken-sized, feathered dinosaur. Runs until 3rd November. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.horniman.ac.uk.

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This Week in London – Impressionists on paper; Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant honoured with a Blue Plaque; new Burnham Beeches history app; and, young artists celebrated on London billboards…

Claude Monet, ‘Cliffs at Etretat: The Needle Rock and Porte d’Aval’, c 1885. National Galleries of Scotland.

A new exhibition exploring how Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists in late 19th-century France radically transformed the status of works on paper opens at the Royal Academy on Friday. Impressionists on Paper: Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec features around 80 works on paper by artists including Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Eva Gonzalès, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh. Among the highlights are Degas’ Woman at a Window (1870-71), van Gogh’s The Fortifications of Paris with Houses (1887), Monet’s Cliffs at Etretat: The Needle Rock and Porte d’Aval (c1885) and Toulouse-Lautrec’s images of the urban underworld of Montmartre. The display can be seen in The Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Galleries until 10th March. Admission charges apply. For more, see royalacademy.org.uk.

English Heritage have unveiled their final Blue Plaque for 2023 and it celebrates two of the most influential painters of the early-to-mid 20th century, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The plaque was unveiled at number 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, from where the Bloomsbury Group – of which Bell and Grant were leading members – drew its name. Bell first lived at number 46 with her siblings, including Virginia Stephen (later Woolf), and, in 1914, Grant moved in with Vanessa and her husband, Clive Bell. Paintings the pair made at number 46 include Grant’s Interior at Gordon Square (c1915) and Bell’s Apples: 46 Gordon Square (c1909-10), a still-recognisable view from the drawing-room balcony to the square. For more on the English Heritage Blue Plaques scheme, head to www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

The history of Burnham Beeches has been brought to life with a new augmented reality app. The app allows users to superimpose periods of Burnham Beeches’ history – from the Iron Age, Middle Ages and World War II – over what they see when visiting the site and incorporates sounds from selected era as well. It can be accessed via a QR code which is being published on signs at Burnham Beeches. Burnham Beeches, located near the village of Burnham in Buckinghamshire, was acquired by the City of London in 1880 when the area was threatened by development and is managed as a free open space. For more, head here.

The work of 30 young artists celebrating African community and culture is being showcased on billboards across the city in conjunction with Tate Modern’s current exhibition, A World in Common. The photographs have been selected following a call from the Tate Collective for 16-to-25-year-olds to submit images responding to the exhibition. More than 100 entries were submitted by young people based across the UK and beyond and Londoners will be able to view the 30 shortlisted works on billboards in Haringey, Lambeth, Southwark and Tower Hamlets over the next two weeks.

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This Week in London – Cezanne at the Tate; Freud at The National Gallery; Diwali on the Square; and; a new Blue Plaque…

Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire (1902-6)/Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Helen Tyson Madeira, 1977.

A “once-in-a-generation” exhibition of Paul Cezanne’s paintings, watercolours and drawings opened at the Tate Modern this week. The EY Exhibition: Cezanne features around 80 works including key examples of his iconic still life paintings, Provençale landscapes, portraits and bather scenes. There are also more than 20 works which have never been seen in the UK before including The Basket of Apples (c1893, from the The Art Institute of Chicago), Mont Sainte-Victoire (1902-06, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art) and Still Life with Milk Pot, Melon, and Sugar Bowl (1900-06, from a private collection). The display traces Cezanne’s (1839-1906) artistic development and also examines the relationships which were central to his life, particularly that with his wife Marie-Hortense Fiquet and their son Paul, immortalised in paintings such as Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair (c1877) and Portrait of the Artist’s Son (1881-2). Admission charge applies. Runs until 12th March. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

Lucian Freud, Girl with Roses, (1947-8)/Oil on canvas; 105.5 x 74.5 cm
Courtesy of the British Council Collection
© The Lucian Freud Archive. All Rights Reserved 2022/ Bridgeman Images

A landmark exhibition to make the centenary of the birth of 20th century artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011) has opened at The National Gallery. The Credit Suisse Exhibition – Lucian Freud: New Perspectives is the most significant survey of his paintings in a decade and brings together output from across his seven decade career, everything from early works such as Girl with Roses (1940s) to Two Children (Self-Portrait) (1960s) and famous late works such as The Brigadier (2003–4). The display also shows how Freud positioned himself in the tradition of court painters such as Rubens or Velázquez through works such as HM Queen Elizabeth II (2001). Can be seen in the First Floor Galleries until 22nd January. Admission charge applies but in response to the cost of living crisis, the gallery is allowing visitors on Friday nights to pay as much as or little as they like. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/the-credit-suisse-exhibition-lucian-freud-new-perspectives.

Diwali on the Square will take place at Trafalgar Square this Sunday. The free annual family-friendly event will open with 200 colourfully dressed dancers in the main square followed by performances from artists drawn from London’s Hindu, Sikh and Jain communities. From 1pm to 7pm, there will also be a host of activities including Neasden Temple’s Diwali Festival Experience, dance workshops, yoga and meditation, sari and turban tying, comedy, a children’s zone, and, henna and face painting. Meanwhile, an array of South Asian food stalls will be serving up delicious traditional and fusion, vegan and vegetarian cuisine.  For full details, head here.

Lawyer Hersch Lauterpacht, who played a key role in prosecuting the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials and whose belief that states should be held accountable for crimes against their own people led to lasting change in international law, has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque. Born in what is now Ukraine, Lauterpacht moved to London in 1923, originally to study at the LSE and lived with his family at 103 Walm Lane in Cricklewood for 10 years (it was here that his son Elihu – who went on to be a prominent lawyer himself – was born in 1928 and where Lauterpacht was living when he was naturalised as a British citizen in 1931). For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

Nicholas Lyons was elected as the 694th Lord Mayor of the City of London last week. He succeeds current Lord Mayor Vincent Keaveny and will take office on 11th November for a one-year term.  The annual Lord Mayor’s Show takes place on 12th November, which will be followed by the Lord Mayor’s Banquet on 28th November at Guildhall where the Prime Minister will deliver a keynote speech.

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This Week in London – 5,000-year-old chalk sculpture in British Museum exhibition; Surrealism’s influence explored; and, new sculpture at St Paul’s…

Burton Agnes chalk drum, chalk ball and bone pin (3005 – 2890BC). PICTURE: © The Trustees of the British Museum 

• A 5,000-year-old chalk sculpture – described as “the most important piece of prehistoric art to be found in Britain in the last 100 years” – has gone on show at The British Museum as part of its The world of Stonehenge exhibition. The sculpture was unearthed by members of Allen Archaeology during a routine excavation on a country estate near the village of Burton Agnes in East Yorkshire in 2015. Uncovered alongside the burial of three children (it had been placed near the head of the eldest child and included three hastily added holes possibly to represent the children), the sculpture is decorated with elaborate motifs that the museum said “reaffirms a British and Irish artistic style that flourished at exactly the same time as Stonehenge was built”. The sculpture is similar to three barrel-shaped cylinders made of solid chalk – dubbed the ‘Folkton drums’ due to their shape – which have been in the museum’s collection since they were unearthed in the excavation of a child burial in North Yorkshire in 1889. It is thought the items are works of sculptural art rather than intended to serve a practical purpose and were perhaps intended as talismans to protect the children they accompanied. Radiocarbon dating of the Burton Agnes child’s bones identifies the burial as from 3005–2890 BC. The world of Stonehenge can be seen until 17th July. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org/stonehenge.

The Surrealism Beyond Borders exhibition at Tate Modern, 2022, ©Tate

Spanning 80 years and 50 countries, a new exhibition opening at the Tate Modern today takes an in-depth look at how Surrealism has inspired and united artists around the globe. Surrealism Beyond Borders, running at the Tate in partnership with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, features more than 150 works ranging from painting and photography to sculpture and film, many of which have never been seen in the UK before. Among the highlights Cecilia Porras and Enrique Grau’s photographs, which defied the conservative social conventions of 1950s Colombia, and paintings by exiled Spanish artist Eugenio Granell, whose radical political commitments made him a target for censorship and persecution. There’s also iconic works such as Max Ernst’s Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale (1924) and lesser known, but significant, pieces such as Antonio Berni’s Landru in the Hotel, Paris (1932), and Toshiko Okanoue’s Yobi-goe (The Call) (1954). Runs until 29th August in the Eyal Ofer Galleries. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/surrealism-beyond-borders.

A “bold” new artwork by Nigerian-born artist, Victor Ehikhamenor, has gone on display in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral. The specially-commissioned mixed-media work is part of 50 Monuments in 50 Voices, a partnership between St Paul’s Cathedral and the Department of History of Art at the University of York which involves inviting contemporary artists, poets, musicians, theologians, performers and academics to respond to 50 historic monuments across the cathedral. Still Standing combines rosary beads and Benin bronze hip ornament masks to depict an Oba (King) of Benin and was made in response to a 1913 brass memorial panel commemorating Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson (1843-1910) which is in the Nelson Chamber of the Cathedral’s Crypt. Rawson had a long career in the Royal Navy which culminated in his commanding the Benin Expedition of 1897. The work is on show until 14th May. Admission charge applies. For more, head to https://pantheons-st-pauls.york.ac.uk/50-monuments-in-50-voices/.

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This Week in London – The Northern Lights come to Greenwich; Sir Kenneth Clark honoured; and, Phyllida Barlow at the Tate…

Borealis, Dan Acher. PICTURE: Courtesy GDIF

The Northern Lights come to Greenwich this Bank Holiday weekend. The Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, promoted as London’s “leading festival of free outdoor theatre and performing arts”, features two major installations in the Old Royal Naval College grounds – the Borealis and We are Watching – from artist Dan Acher as well as the Greenwich Fair on Sunday. There’s also dance and theatrical performances – including Family Tree, a performance inspired by the life of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman whose cells were harvested and cultivated without her consent after her death from cervical cancer in 1951, and Future Cargo, Requardt & Rosenberg, a contemporary sci-fi dance show – and pop-up events in neighbourhoods across the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The festival opens tomorrow and runs until 11th September. For the full programme of events and for more information, see https://festival.org/gdif/whatson/. For bookings for Borealis, head here.

Art historian and broadcaster, Sir Kenneth Clark, has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque at his former Marylebone home. Clark (1903-1983), who is probably best known for the landmark 1969 BBC TV series Civilisation, lived in the property at 30 Portland Place between 1934 and 1939 – the period when he became director of The National Gallery and when he was knighted. Sir Kenneth and his wife Jane hosted parties at the property where guests included Winston Churchill and Vanessa Bell. Sir Kenneth, who also headed organisations including the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Independent Television Authority, is noted for having saved some of the nation’s most valuable artworks during World War II by having more than 800 paintings evacuated to rural Wales. He was also responsible for many of the Ministry of Information’s wartime films and sponsored emerging artists including Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

A celebration of Phyllida Barlow’s art has opened at the Tate Modern on South Bank. ARTIST ROOMS: Phyllida Barlow spans the British artist’s 60 year career and features some of her large-scale sculptures as well as more than 30 works on paper. Highlights include Object for the television (1994), the only surviving work from Barlow’s 1990s series Objects for… and major installations such as untitled: brokenstage/hangingcontainer, 2012/2013 and untitled: upturnedhouse2, 2012. The exhibition is free to enter. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Royal portraits in Greenwich; Sir Roger Bannister to be honoured; and, drawing on the Tate’s Turbine Hall floor…

King Henry VII by unknown Netherlandish artist, 1505 (oil on panel) © National Portrait Gallery, London

More than 150 of the finest portraits of royal families over five dynasties are on show at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits, which is being run in conjunction with the National Portrait Gallery, features famous paintings, miniatures, sculpture, photographs, medals and stamps from the Tudor, Stuart, Georgian, Victorian and Windsor dynasties. Highlights include the earliest known portrait of Henry VII (also the oldest artwork in the exhibition) which was painted in 1505 by an unknown artist, Flemish artist Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger’s famous ‘Ditchley Portrait’ of Elizabeth I, portraits of Charles II and his mistresses, early 19th century domestic photographs of Queen Victoria and her family, and a selection of paintings and photographs of Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton and Annie Leibovitz. Runs until 31st October. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.rmg.co.uk/TudorsWindsors.

Westminster Abbey has announced a new memorial to Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to run under a mile in four minutes. The abbey said the memorial ledger stone to Bannister, who later became a neurologist, will be placed in what is known as ‘Scientists’ Corner’ in the building’s nave, close to the graves of scientists Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin as well as the ashes of Stephen Hawking. “Throughout his life Sir Roger Bannister reached out for that which lay beyond,” said the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, in a statement. “As a sportsman, pushing himself towards a prize some considered beyond human reach, as a scientist ever eager for deeper understanding of neurology. We are delighted that his memory and his achievement will be set in stone in the Abbey. He ran the race set before us all.” Bannister is famous for having run a mile in three minutes, 59.4 second at Oxford on 6th May, 1954 – a record which stood for almost nine years.

Be among those transforming the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall into an “ever changing work of art”. Visitors are invited to join in covering the hall’s floor with their own jottings using coloured drawing materials as part of artist Ei Arakawa’s interactive installation, Mega Please Draw Freely. The installation, which can be contributed to until 29th August, kicks off UNIQLO Tate Play – a new free programme of playful art-inspired activities for families, being in partnership with UNIQLO, at the Tate Modern. The project, which has seen the Turbine Hall floor covered with a temporary surface allowing it to be drawn upon, is inspired by the Gutai group, radical Japanese artists who wanted to change the world through painting, performance and children’s play and, in particular, the group’s ‘Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition of 1956’ in which Yoshihara Jirō created the groundbreaking work Please Draw Freely, a large board on which people were free to draw and paint. Visitors can access Mega Please Draw Freely by booking a free collection display ticket online at www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Noël Coward’s glittering world; figures from the African diaspora; and, reflections on land rights and colonialism in Australia…

The glittering world of playwright and songwriter Noël Coward is on show in a new exhibition opening at the Guildhall Art Gallery this Monday. The much delayed Noël Coward: Art & Style, which marks the 100th anniversary of Coward’s West End debut as a 19-year-old earlier this year, brings together never-before-seen materials from the Coward Archive and demonstrates the impact he and his creative circle had on the culture of his time – and today. Highlights include an original page of Coward’s handwritten lyrics for Mad Dogs and Englishmen, the chocolate brown evening suit he wore in the film Boom!, two of his signature silk dressing gowns, his iconic ‘Hamlet’ chair, and several of his own paintings. There’s also a specially commissioned new reconstruction of the iconic white satin dress that Molyneux designed in 1930 for Gertrude Lawrence in Private Lives and a never-before-exhibited gold lamé theatre cape by Lucile (Titanic survivor Lady Duff Gordon) from 1920. The exhibition, which is free, runs until 23rd December. Tickets must be booked in advance. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/noelcoward.

A new portrait depicting Dido Belle (1761-1804) has gone on display at Kenwood House – one of six works depicting historic figures from the African diaspora now on show at English Heritage properties across the nation. Belle, who is depicted by artist Mikéla Henry-Lowe, was the illegitimate daughter of a young black woman named Maria Bell and a Royal Naval officer, Sir John Lindsay. She spent much of her life at Kenwood House with her great-uncle William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice. Other portraits in the series depict the likes of African-born Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (the work of Elena Onwochei-Garcia, it’s on display at Corbridge Roman Town on Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland), North African-born 7th century Abbot Hadrian (the work of Clifton Powell, it’s on display at St Augustine’s Abbey in Kent) and Queen Victoria’s god-daughter Sarah Forbes Bonetta (the work of Hannah Uzor, it’s on display at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight). For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/black-history/.

More than 25 works by Australian artists exploring debates around land rights and colonialism have gone on show in a new exhibition at the Tate Modern. A Year in Art: Australia 1992 takes as its starting point the High Court of Australia’s landmark 1992 Mabo ruling which overturned the doctrine of terra nullius. Works on show include Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s 1989 Untitled (Alhalkere) – an expression of her cultural life as an Anmatyerre elder, Gordon Bennett’s 1991 work Possession Island (Abstraction) which is presented in dialogue with Algernon Talmage’s 1937 work The Founding of Australia 1788, and Tracey Moffatt’s 1997 photographic series Up in the Sky, which speaks to the ‘Stolen Generations’ – the forced separation of Aboriginal families by government agencies. At the heart of the display is Vernon Ah Kee’s 2010 four-screen video installation tall man which shows footage of the protests and riots following the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island in 2004. The exhibition is free. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Rodin at the Tate; life-sized Monopoly; and, a floral tribute to John Keats…

Many London institutions reopen in the coming week – while some are continuing with exhibitions which were already on before lockdowns lead to closures, there are also some new exhibitions being launched and these we’ll feature in coming weeks…

Auguste Rodin Monument to the Burghers of Calais, 1889 Musée Rodin, S.00153. PICTURE: Courtesy of the Tate Gallery.

A major new exhibition on the work of French sculptor Auguste Rodin opens at the Tate Modern on Monday. The EY Exhibition: The Making of Rodin features more than 200 works including the Thinker (1881) and The Three Shades (1886) as well as a newly restored plaster made in preparation for The Burghers of Calais (1889). The exhibition is the first show to focus in-depth on Rodin’s use of plaster and takes inspiration from the artist’s landmark self-organised exhibition at the Pavillon de l’Alma in 1900. It also explores the complex dynamics with different models – including his onetime studio assistant and collaborator Camille Claudel – and looks at his use of photography and watercolours. Located in the Eyal Ofer Galleries, the exhibition runs until 21st November. Admission charges applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

The world’s first life-sized Monopoly-based attraction will be opening in Tottenham Court Road in August, it was revealed this week. Hasbro, Inc and Gamepath, a new division of international theatre producer Selladoor Worldwide, are behind the attraction which the City of London Corporation says will “bring together the best of the iconic board game, escape rooms and team challenge”. The premises at 213-215 Tottenham Court Road will house individually designed and unique main gameplay boards including Classic, The Vault, and City as well as a Junior Board. There will also be a retail outlet and a Monopoly-themed bar and restaurant. Stay tuned for more.

A new floral display featuring flowers from John Keats’ graveside in Rome and his home in London’s Hampstead form part of a new indoor art installation at the Hampstead property, Keats House, when it reopens Monday. The display, created by London artist Elaine Duigenan, is part of the Keats200 commemorations marking the bicentenary of his death. “Flowers are embedded in John Keats’s life story and are a vehicle for expressing something both transitory and lasting, and my installation seeks to honour his legacy by alluding to human frailty and resilience,” says Duigenan. “As an artist, I understand both the desire for recognition and the fear of leaving no mark, so I have crowned him laureate and wreathed him as though for oblivion.” For more (to check opening times before attending), see  www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/keats.

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This Week in London – JMW Turner’s world at the Tate; ‘Unknown Warrior’ centenary marked at National Army Museum; and, model making from the ‘age of railways’…

JMW Turner, ‘The Burning of the Houses of Parliament’ (c 1834-35), oil paint on canvas, Tate (accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856)

A landmark exhibition on the work – and times – of JMW Turner opens at the Tate Modern in Millbank today. Turner’s Modern World features some 160 works and attempts to show how the landscape painter found “new ways to capture the momentous events of his day, from technology’s impact on the natural world to the dizzying effects of modernisation on society”. Highlights include war paintings such as The Battle of Trafalgar (1806-8) and Field of Waterloo (1818), works capturing political events like The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835) and maritime disasters like A Disaster at Sea (1835) and Wreck of a Transport Ship (c1801), as well as works related to the industrial advances taking place such as Snow Storm (1842), The Fighting ‘Téméraire’ (1839), and Rain, Steam and Speed (1844). Admission charge applies. Runs until 7th March (online booking required). For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

An exhibition at the National Army Museum in Chelsea marks the 100th anniversary of the Unknown Warrior being laid to rest in Westminster Abbey. Using objects, paintings, photography and personal testimony, Buried Among Kings: The Story of the Unknown Warrior tells the story of the creation of this symbolic memorial dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of British servicemen who died during World War I. Highlights include a union flag on loan from the Railton family (it was Chaplain David Railton who conceived the original idea for an Unknown Warrior following an encounter in 1916 with a wooden cross on the Western Front which was inscribed ‘An Unknown British Soldier’), a Bible carried by Chaplain George Kendall during the selection of the Unknown Warrior, a fragment of the original wooden Cenotaph erected in 1919-1920, and Frank O Salisbury’s large scale painting, The Passing of the Unknown Warrior, which depicts the procession of the Unknown Warrior from Victoria Station to Westminster Abbey. In connection with the exhibition, Victoria Station is hosting a pop-up display between 9th and 16th November on the journey of the Unknown Warrior from the Western Front to Westminster Abbey (the coffin actually arrived in London on 10th November, 1920). Admission charge applies (at Chelsea). Runs until 14th February (online booking required). For more, see www.nam.ac.uk.

Model steam locomotive, 1:12 scale, working, represents a standard passenger type locomotive c.1837, made by Mr. J. Dawson, District Superintendent at Southampton of the London & Southampton Railway.

Model making in the “age of the railways” is the subject of a free exhibition now on at the Science Museum in South Kensington. Brass, Steel and Fire features intricate models from the Science Museum Group Collection as well as stunning miniature locomotives and a display of almost 200 tools used by model-maker Keith Dodgson. Highlights include ‘Salamanca’, the world’s oldest model locomotive (on loan from Leeds Museums and Galleries), a model of ‘Fire King’ – made in the 1840s by apprentice Josiah Evans who used his experience to later build full size locomotives, and the world’s oldest working model steam engine, the Etherley winding engine model. The exhibition is free and runs until 3rd May. Online booking required. For more, see sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/brass-steel-and-fire.

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This Week in London – ‘Artemisia’ at The National Gallery, ‘Black Greenwich Pensioners’, and, Bruce Nauman at the Tate…

• The original transcript of the trial in which 17th century Italian artist Agostino Tassi faced charges of ‘deflowering’ female artist Artemisia Gentileschi will be public display for the first time as part of an exhibition on Gentileschi’s work opening at The National Gallery on Saturday. The rescheduled exhibition Artemisia, the first major monographic exhibition of Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1654 or later), was inspired by the gallery’s recent acquisition of Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (about 1615–17), the first painting by the artist to enter a UK public collection. Gentileschi, the first women to gain membership of the artists’ academy in Florence, had a career spanning more than 40 years and is now widely recognised as one of the most gifted painters of the Italian Baroque period. Alongside her artistic achievements, elements of her biography have also attracted considerable attention including her rape as a young woman and the torture she choose to endure as part of the trial that followed (seen at the time as an accepted means by which testimony could be validated). As well as the trial transcript, written in Latin and Italian, the exhibition will include recently discovered personal letters and works such as two versions of Susannah and the Elders – one painted in 1610 when Gentileschi was just 17 and the other, her last known painting, dating from 1652. There’s also self portraits including Self Portrait as a Female Martyr (mid 1610s), and her two versions of Judith beheading Holofernes – one dating from 1612-13 and the other from 1613-14. Runs until 24th January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk. PICTURE: Installation view of Artemisia at the National Gallery. © The National Gallery, London.

The history of Black British mariners is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich on Saturday. Marking Black History Month, Black Greenwich Pensioners explores the history of the Black Royal Navy personnel and how they formed one of Britain’s earliest Black communities when they became pensioners at the Royal Hospital for Seaman on the site where the Old Royal Naval College stands today. Through paintings, prints, photographs and a small selection of objects, the display looks at the role Black mariners played in British naval conflicts as well as the personal histories of prominent Greenwich pensioners including John Thomas, who escaped slavery and was later returned to enslavement in Barbados, John Simmonds, a Jamaican veteran of the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar whose descendants still reside in the UK, and Briton Hammon, author of the first slave narrative. Entry is free. Runs until 21st February in the mezzanine gallery at the Visitor Centre. For more, see https://ornc.org/uncovering-the-history-of-black-british-mariners/

The first exhibition to showcase the full spectrum of American artist Bruce Nauman’s work in more than 20 years opens at the Tate Modern on Wednesday. Bruce Nauman features more than 40 works and “unfolds” over a sequence of immersive installations. Highlights include a selection of early works such as Henry Moore Bound to Fail (1967/70) and A Cast of the Space Under My Chair (1965/68), the moving image installation MAPPING THE STUDIO II with color shift, flip, flop & flip/flop (Fat Chance John Cage) (2001), ground-breaking neon signs like The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truth (Window or Wall Sign) (1967), Human Nature Knows/Doesn’t Know (1983/86) and One Hundred Live and Die (1984) and large scale works such as Going Around the Corner Piece with Live and Taped Monitors (1970) and Double Steel Cage Piece (1974) as well as the whole-room installation, Shadow Puppets and Instructed Mime (1990). Runs until 21st February. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – VJ Day remembered; Steve McQueen; and, Windsor gardens…

• The National Army Museum in Chelsea is joining with the Royal Air Force Museum, the National Museum of the Royal Navy and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to mark the 75th anniversary of VJ (Victory over Japan) Day, this Saturday, 15th August, with a series of free events including online talks. Among those taking part are World War II veteran Captain Sir Tom Moore, recently knighted by the Queen for his efforts in helping raise funds for the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic, author and explorer Levison Wood (who explores the story of his grandfather’s service in Burma), and Professor Tarak Barkawi, author of Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II, as well as General Lord Richards, Grand President of the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League who’s involved in a conversation about the contribution of Commonwealth soldiers during the Far East campaign. For the full programme of events, head to www.nam.ac.uk/series/vj-day-75.

Steve McQueen is back at Tate Modern. The exhibition, which reopened last Friday following the reopening of all Tate galleries, spans 20 years of McQueen’s work and features 14 major pieces spanning film, photography and sculpture. The exhibition adds to the three visitor routes already in place at the Tate Modern and coincides with McQueen’s latest artwork Year 3, an epic portrait of London’s Year 3 pupils created through a partnership between Tate, Artangel and A New Direction which can be seen at Tate Britain until 31st January. Visitors must prebook. For more, head to tate.org.uk/visit.

Beyond London (a new regular feature in which we include sites around Greater London)
• The East Terrace Garden at Windsor Castle – commissioned by King George IV in the 1820s – has opened to weekend visitors for the first time in decades. Overlooked by the castle’s famous east facade, the formal garden features clipped domes of yew and beds of 3,500 rose bushes planted in a geometric pattern around a central fountain. It was originally designed by architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville between 1824 and 1826 on the site of an old bowling green made for Charles II in the 1670s. Plants, including 34 orange trees sent by the French King Charles X, were specially imported for the garden and statues were brought from the Privy Gardens at Hampton Court, including a set of four bronze figures by Hubert Le Sueur which  were made for Charles I in the 1630s and which remain in the garden today. Prince Albert is known to have taken a particular interest in the garden and the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, and her sister Princess Margaret grew vegetables there during World War II. As well as the opening of the East Terrace Garden on weekends, visitors with young children on Thursdays and Fridays in August are being given special access to the Castle’s Moat Garden beneath the iconic Round Tower, thought to have dated from the period of King Edward III and believed to be the setting for Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, the first story in Canterbury Tales. Pre-bookings essential. For more, see www.rct.uk.

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This Week in London – Cecil Beaton and the ‘Bright Young Things’; ‘The Enchanted Interior’; and Andy Warhol at the Tate…

World famous British photographer Cecil Beaton’s portraits from the “golden age” of the 1920s and 1930s are being celebrated in a shiny new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things features some 150 works, many rarely exhibited, which Beaton took in the 1920s and 1930s depicting the “extravagant world of the glamorous and stylish”. The subjects include the likes of artists Rex Whistler and Stephen Tennant, modernist poets Iris Tree and Nancy Cunard, the glamorous socialites Edwina Mountbatten and Diana Guinness (née Mitford), and actresses Tallulah Bankhead and Anna May Wong as well as less well-known figures like eccentric composer and aesthete Lord Berners, the artist and Irish patriot Hazel, Lady Lavery, and Lady Alexander, whose husband produced Oscar Wilde’s comedies and who became an early patron of Beaton’s. Beaton’s own life story and his relationship with the sitters is woven into the exhibition including through self-portraits and images of him  taken by contemporaries. Runs until 7th June. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.npg.org.uk. PICTURE:  The Bright Young Things at Wilsford by Cecil Beaton, 1927. © The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive.

The theme of female subjects depicted in ornate, enclosed interiors – one prevalent in 19th century British painting – is at the centre of a new exhibition opening at the Guildhall Art Gallery on Friday. The Enchanted Interior, being presented in partnership with Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, showcases works in styles ranging from the high Victorian through to Art Nouveau, Aestheticism, Surrealism, and pieces by contemporary female artists which ‘speak back’ to the historic tradition. Artists whose work is represented include Edward Burne-Jones, Evelyn De Morgan, James Abbot McNeill Whistler, Emily Sandys, Jessica Woodman, Fiona Tan, John William Waterhouse and Clementina Hawarden. Admission charge applies. Runs until 14th June. For more, follow this link.

The works of iconic 20th century American artist Andy Warhol are being showcased in a new exhibition at Tate Modern. Andy Warhol, the first exhibition on the artist at the gallery in 20 years, features more than 100 works. Among them are key pieces from the pop period – Marilyn Diptych (1962), Elvis I and II (1963/1964) and Race Riot (1964) – as well as Screen Tests (1964–6), the floating Silver Clouds (1966) installation, and a recreation of the psychedelic multimedia environment of Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966) originally produced for the Velvet Underground rock shows. Also included are later works like his 1975 Ladies and Gentlemen series and Sixty Last Suppers (1986). Runs until 6th September. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – ‘Woburn Treasures’ at the Queen’s House, and, Steve McQueen at the Tate Modern…

Significant works from the private art collection of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford – including art by Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough – goes on show at the Queen’s House in Greenwich from today. Woburn Treasures will see more than 20 works from the collection hanging alongside the collection of Royal Museums Greenwich with highlights from the Woburn collection including a full-length portrait of Anne of Denmark – the Queen Consort of King James I and the person who commissioned Inigo Jones to build the Queen’s House – by Flemish artist Gheeraerts the Younger (the painting is pictured). There’s also a full-length portrait of Lady Elizabeth Keppel by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Canaletto’s large-scale Regatta on the Grand Canal, one of 24 paintings by the Italian artist commissioned for Lord John Russell, the fourth Duke of Bedford, following his visit to Venice in 1731. The paintings are accompanied by a selection of sculptures, ceramics and a silver-gilt toilette set from the Woburn collection, spanning the period from the 17th to 19th centuries. The display has been made possible due to the 18 month closure of Woburn Abbey, seat of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford since the 1620s, as a result of the biggest refurbishment and conservation project since the property first opened to the public in 1955. The exhibition can be seen at The Queen’s House until 17th January, 2021. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.rmg.co.uk/woburntreasures. PICTURE: Anne of Denmark 1611-14 by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger Oil on canvas From the Woburn Abbey Collection.

The work of Turner Prize-winning British artist Steve McQueen is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the Tate Modern today. Steve McQueen features 14 major works spanning film, photography and sculpture and includes his earliest film shot on Super 8 camera – Exodus (1992/97) as well as 7th Nov. (2001), in which the artist’s cousin Marcus recounts the tragic day he accidentally shot and fatally injured his own brother, large-scale video installations such as Western Deep (2002) and Static (2009) and the two-channel video installation Ashes (2002–15). Also on display is End Credits (2012–ongoing), McQueen’s homage to the African-American singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson (1898–1976) and the exhibition, which coincides with the display of McQueen’s latest artwork Year 3 at Tate Britain, also features Weight (2016), a sculpture first exhibited by Artangel at the recently closed Reading Gaol, where Oscar Wilde had been imprisoned and wrote De Profundis in 1897. Runs until 11th May. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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