20+ art exhibitions to see in London in December 2025
This guide highlights some of the must-see art exhibitions to visit over the festive period in London, including the days between Christmas and New Year’s. From major retrospectives of international masters such as Kerry James Marshall, Wayne Thiebaud, and Anna Ancher, to engaging contemporary works by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Jennie Baptiste, and Tanoa Sasraku, London’s galleries and museums are brimming with inspiration. This guide will help you plan your cultural adventures during this wonderful festive period.
Kerry James Marshall: The Histories
Kerry James Marshall, De Style, 1993,Acrylic and collage on canvas. 264.2 x 309.9 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Purchased with funds provided by Ruth and Jacob Bloom. © Kerry James Marshall. Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA
#FLODown: In celebration of his 70th birthday, The Histories is the largest European survey of the acclaimed American artist at the Royal Academy of Arts. The exhibition features over 70 works, including paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures, spanning Marshall’s career from the 1980s to the present. His powerful, large-scale paintings depict the Middle Passage, the legacies of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and everyday life in Black communities, highlighting daily experiences while centring Black figures. The show also includes imagined portraits of historical Black figures, monumental contemporary scenes, and a new series of works created especially for the exhibition.
Date: 20 September 2025 – 18 January 2026. Location: Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD. Price: £23.50–£25.50. Book now
Marie Antoinette Style
Film still from Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. Photo courtesy of I WANT CANDY LLC. and Zoetrope Corp.
#FLODown: The UK’s first exhibition dedicated to Marie Antoinette, held at the V&A South Kensington, focuses on her influence on fashion and culture. The exhibition showcases 250 objects, including personal items such as silk slippers, jewels, and her final written note, alongside lavish fragments of court dress and intimate objects from Versailles. Contemporary couture by designers including Dior, Chanel, Vivienne Westwood and Moschino, as well as costumes from Sofia Coppola’s Oscar-winning film Marie Antoinette, trace the queen’s legacy through centuries of design and media.
Date: 20 September 2025 – 22 March 2026. Location: V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL. Price: £23–£25. Book now
A Story of South Asian Art: Mrinalini Mukherjee and Her Circle
Mrinalini Mukherjee, Jauba, 2000. Hemp fibre and steel, 143 x 133 x 110 cm approx. Tate: Presented by Amrita Jhaveri 2013. Photo: © Tate. Courtesy of Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation.
#FLODown: The Royal Academy of Arts also has a major exhibition celebrating the life, work and legacy of Mrinalini Mukherjee, one of India’s most pioneering artists. Bringing together around 100 works spanning more than a century, the show explores her practice in dialogue with her mentors, peers, friends and family, highlighting the networks of creativity that shaped modern and contemporary South Asian art.
Date: 31 October 2025 – 24 February 2026. Location: The Jillian and Arthur M. Sackler Wing of Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BD. Price: From £17; concessions available. Book now
Peter Doig: House of Music
Peter Doig, Maracas, 2002-2008, oil on canvas, 290 x 190 cm. © Peter Doig. All Rights Reserved.
#FLODown: Peter Doig returns to the Serpentine with his first exhibition at the gallery since 1991. House of Music brings together new and recent paintings alongside restored analogue sound systems, creating an immersive environment where painting, cinema, and music intersect. Doig’s works from Trinidad sit alongside large-scale performance-inspired pieces, and a rare 1920s–30s Western Electric/Bell Labs sound system plays music selected from the artist’s vinyl and cassette archive, allowing visitors to experience his artistic universe in full sensory depth.
Date: 10 October 2025 – 8 February 2026. Location: Serpentine South Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA. Price: Free. serpentinegalleries.org
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley: THE DELUSION
THE DELUSION, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Arts Technologies. © Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley.
#FLODown: Over at Serpentine North, British artist and game designer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley presents THE DELUSION, a groundbreaking new project and ambitious multiplayer video-game experience that blends satire, cooperative gameplay and participatory theatre to explore polarisation, censorship and social connection. Conceived as a live “community play”, the show invites collective decision-making, dialogue and reflection on pressing sociopolitical issues. Merging advanced digital technologies with traditional animation techniques, the project highlights Brathwaite-Shirley’s ongoing engagement with the Black Trans and Queer community.
Date: 30 September 2025 – 18 January 2026. Location: Serpentine North, West Carriage Drive, London W2 2AR. Price: Free. serpentinegalleries.org
Wayne McGregor: Infinite Bodies
Installastion View Wayne McGregor Infinite Bodies at Somerset House. Image credit Andrea Rossetti.
#FLODown: Celebrating the 30-year career of choreographer Sir Wayne McGregor CBE, this exhibition at Somerset House combines dance, AI, robotics, and motion capture to explore the future of the human body. Multi-sensory installations and live performances by McGregor’s company immerse visitors in innovative choreography, while cinematic works like On the Other Earth extend the experience across the West End. The exhibition reflects on identity, technology, and the possibilities of movement in a rapidly changing world.
Date: 30 October 2025 – 22 February 2026. Location: Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA. Price: from £19.50. Concessions available. Book now
Dirty Looks: Desire and Decay in Fashion
Dirty Looks, IAMISIGO, handwoven raffia-cotton blend look dyed with coffee and mud spring/Summer 2024 Shadows. Photograph by Fred Odede, courtesy of IAMISIGO.
#FLODown: Dirty Looks at the Barbican Art Gallery examines how designers worldwide have used dirt, decay and imperfection as creative forces in contemporary fashion. The show features over 100 looks from more than 60 designers, tracing fifty years of distressed and decomposed aesthetics that challenge traditional notions of beauty, luxury and value. Displays range from rusted, buried garments and mud-stained couture to regenerated textiles and spiritually inspired designs, revealing how decay has been reclaimed as a symbol of resistance, renewal and transformation. Scenography by Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck contrasts sleek gallery spaces with raw, eroded surfaces, creating a sensory experience that mirrors the tension between fashion’s polished image and its material realities.
Date: 25 September 2025 – 25 January 2026. Location: Barbican Art Gallery, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: from £20+BF. Book now
Anna Ancher: Painting Light
Painting Light, Anna Ancher, Dulwich Picture Gallery. Image credit MTotoe.
#FLODown: Dulwich Picture Gallery presents the first major UK exhibition devoted to Danish painter Anna Ancher (1859–1935). Over 40 works, including newly discovered studies, trace her pioneering exploration of light and colour. The exhibition highlights her intimate portrayals of everyday life in Skagen, Denmark, and her engagement with Scandinavian modernism. Works by her female contemporaries are included to celebrate the broader contributions of women artists in the period.
Date: 4 November 2025 – 8 March 2026. Location: Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Road, Dulwich, London SE21 7AD. Price: £18. Concessions available. Book now
Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum
Mona Hatoum, Orbital, 2018 © Mona Hatoum. © White Cube (Theo Christelis).
#FLODown: Also on display at the Barbican Centre is the second exhibition in the Encounters series, which explores a dialogue between historic works by Alberto Giacometti and new and existing works by Mona Hatoum. The show spans nearly a century of artistic production, including sculptures in bronze, plaster, steel and glass, as well as installations, video and works on paper. Hatoum recontextualises iconic Giacometti pieces such as Woman with Her Throat Cut (1932) and The Nose (1947), placing them in conversation with her own large-scale sculptures and newly created works.
Date: 3 September 2025 – 11 January 2026. Location: Barbican, Level 2, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: £8+BF. Book now
Lee Miller
Lee Miller, David E. Scherman dressed for war, London 1942. Lee Miller Archives. © Lee Miller Archives, England 2025. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk
#FLODown: The UK’s largest retrospective of Lee Miller is on show at Tate Britain, showcasing around 230 vintage and modern prints, including newly discovered works and unseen archival material, spanning her career from French surrealism to war photography. The exhibition highlights Miller’s fearless, innovative approach, which produced some of modern photography’s most iconic images. It traces her journey from modelling in New York to working with Man Ray in Paris, through avant-garde surrealism, to her pioneering fashion photography for British Vogue during WWII. As one of the few accredited female war correspondents, Miller captured frontline battles and post-war Europe with striking immediacy. The show also examines her post-war artistic circles and self-portraits, offering a comprehensive portrait of her legacy as both artist and photojournalist.
Date: 2 October 2025 – 15 February 2026. Location: Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG. Price: £20. Concessions available. Book now
Lucy Raven: Rounds
Lucy Raven: Rounds. © Lucy Raven. Photographer Ari Marcopoulos.
#FLODown: Lucy Raven’s exhibition Rounds at the Barbican Centre’s Curve gallery delves into the cyclical violence and relentless force shaping the American West. The UK premiere of her moving image installation Murderers Bar (2025) captures the monumental transformation of the Klamath River following the largest dam removal in U.S. history. Utilising aerial, drone, and sonar imaging, the film traces the river’s journey from the dynamiting of the dam to the restoration of its natural flow, highlighting the activism of Indigenous tribes advocating for ecological justice. Complementing this, Raven’s newly commissioned kinetic light sculpture, inspired by centrifuges, creates an intense sensory experience that mirrors the physical effects of extreme forces. Together, these works examine the material, ecological, and social consequences of industrial development and environmental restoration in the Western United States.
Date: 9 October 2025 – 4 January 2026. Location: The Curve, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: Free. barbican.org.uk
Women in Print: 150 Years of Liberty Textile Designs
‘Malindi’ furnishing fabric, designed by Gwenfred Jarvis for Liberty, 1959. Image courtesy of William Morris Gallery
#FLODown: Women in Print at the William Morris Gallery celebrates the vital role of women designers in shaping Liberty’s fabrics. Conceived in partnership with Liberty to mark the design house’s anniversary, the exhibition traces 150 years of innovation and influence, showcasing how women’s contributions have defined the legacy of Liberty prints. Featuring works by Jessie M King, Sonia Delaunay, Lucienne Day and Althea McNish, the display highlights the historical importance of these designs and their continuing relevance in contemporary fashion and textiles.
Date: 18 October 2025 - 21 June 2026. Location: William Morris Gallery, Lloyd Park, Forest Road, Walthamstow, London E17 4PP. Price: Free. Suggested donation of £5. wmgallery.org.uk
Gilbert & George: 21ST CENTURY PICTURES
Gilbert & George DATE STONES, 2019 89 x 174 in. (226 x 442 cm) © Gilbert & George. Courtesy White Cube
#FLODown: The Hayward Gallery presents Gilbert & George’s most significant works from the past 25 years. Over 60 large-scale installations explore contemporary society through humour, symbolism, and provocative imagery. The exhibition features familiar series such as The London Pictures (2011) and The Beard Pictures (2016), alongside works such as The Corpsing Pictures (2022). It also debuts two new works from The Screw Pictures (2025), reflecting on ageing, mortality, and everyday life with the artists’ signature audacity.
Date: 7 October 2025 – 4 January 2026. Location: Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Price: from £20. Concessions available. Book now
Wayne Thiebaud: American Still Life
Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021), Cakes, 1963, oil on canvas, Gift in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art from the Collectors Committee, the 50th Anniversary Gift Committee, and The Circle, with Additional Support from the Abrams Family in Memory of Harry N. Abrams © Wayne Thiebaud/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2024
#FLODown: At the Courtauld Gallery, the first UK museum exhibition dedicated to Wayne Thiebaud is now on display, featuring his still-life paintings of post-war American everyday subjects, from diner food and deli counters to gumball dispensers and pinball machines, which established his reputation in the 1960s. By elevating objects often dismissed as kitsch, Thiebaud transforms them into profound works of modern art.
Date: 10 October 2025 – 18 January 2026. Location: Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries, Floor 3, The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA. Price: £15. Concessions available. Book now
Nigerian Modernism
Uzo Egonu, Stateless People an artist with beret 1981. © The estate of Uzo Egonu. Private Collection.
#FLODown: The first major UK exhibition to explore the development of modern art in Nigeria is on show at Tate Modern. Featuring over 250 works by more than 50 artists, it reveals how artists respond to colonialism, independence, and globalisation by engaging with Indigenous forms and modernist ideas. The exhibition includes works by early pioneers such as Aina Onabolu and Ben Enwonwu, as well as leading figures like Bruce Onobrakpeya, Uche Okeke, Demas Nwoko, Susanne Wenger, and Yusuf Grillo. It explores key movements including the Zaria Art Society, with its call for a “natural synthesis” of African and Western art; the experimental Oshogbo school; and the Nsukka group, known for its revival of uli design.
Date: 8 October 2025 – 10 May 2026. Location: Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. Price: from £18. Concessions available. Book now
Nordic noir: works on paper from Edvard Munch to Mamma
The Old Fisherman, 1897, Edvard Munch © The Trustees of the British Museum
#FLODown: Nordic Noir at the British Museum brings together around 150 works by 100 artists, showcasing one of the strongest collections of Nordic graphic art outside the region. Spanning from Edvard Munch’s pioneering woodcuts to contemporary pieces by artists such as Mamma Andersson, Olafur Eliasson, John Savio and Fatima Moallim, the exhibition explores themes of nature, Norse myth, mental health, feminism and Sámi rights. Developed through a five-year collecting strategy supported by the AKO Foundation, the show traces how Nordic artists have expanded Munch’s legacy of emotional intensity and innovation from 1945 to today.
Date: 9 October 2025 – 22 March 2026. Location: The British Museum, Room 90, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG. Price: Free. britishmuseum.org
Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World
The Second Age of Beauty by Cecil Beaton, British Vogue February 1946 © The Condé Nast Publications Ltd. Condé Nast Archive London.
#FLODown: The first major exhibition dedicated to Cecil Beaton, highlighting his career in fashion photography, illustration, and costume design, is on display at the National Portrait Gallery. Featuring over 170 works, the exhibition showcases Vogue spreads, royal portraits, and Oscar-winning film costumes. Beaton’s striking imagery, from interwar society to postwar Hollywood glamour, is complemented by insights into his collaborations with leading designers, revealing the influence of his visual language on fashion and popular culture.
Date: 9 October 2025 – 11 January 2026. Location: National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London WC2H 0HE. Price: £23. Concessions available. Book now
Howard Hodgkin: In a Public Garden
Howard Hodgkin, In a Public Garden, 1997-8, hand painted etching with carborundum.
#FLODown: The most extensive institutional exhibition of Howard Hodgkin’s original prints to date is on display at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery. Featuring around 60 hand-finished works spanning five decades, the show is presented across both the contemporary gallery and the historic rooms of the Manor. Hodgkin’s emotionally charged, painterly prints, many of which merge the line between print and painting, offer a vivid exploration of memory, colour and abstraction.
Date: 1 October 2025 - 22 February 2026. Location: Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, Ealing Green, London W5 5EQ. Price: from £12. Concessions available. Book now
Jennie Baptiste: Rhythm & Roots
Jennie-Baptiste, 1995. Photo taken from a series for fashion designer Wale Adeyemi.
#FLODown: Rhythm & Roots at Somerset House is the first major solo presentation by British photographer Jennie Baptiste, spanning three decades of work celebrating Black British youth culture. The exhibition features iconic and previously unseen portraits of artists including Roots Manuva, Estelle, Ms Dynamite and NAS. Highlights include Revolutions @33 1/3 rpm, Baptiste’s series on London’s hip-hop DJ scene, and Black Chains of Icon, a conceptual exploration of identity and legacy. DJ-curated soundtracks and public talks complement the exhibition.
Date: 17 October 2025 – 4 January 2026. Location: Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA. Price: Free. Buy now
Tanoa Sasraku: Morale Patch
Tanoa Sasraku, Morale Patch [detail], 2025. Found object (acrylic and crude oil).
#FLODown: The ICA presents Tanoa Sasraku’s Morale Patch, a new solo exhibition exploring the symbolic and political power of oil and its connection to war, national identity, and memory. Using process-driven works on paper, sculpture, and found objects, Sasraku meditates on destruction, seduction, and the making of national myths. Emblems and mementos recur as motifs, creating a layered exploration of personal and collective histories.
Date: 7 October 2025 – 11 January 2026. Location: ICA, 12 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH. Price: from £6. Concessions available/ pay what you can. Book now
Maggi Hambling & Sarah Lucas: A Shared Brutal Wit
Maggi Hambling & Sarah Lucas: A Shared Brutal Wit. Image credit MTotoe.
#FLODown: This two-gallery exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ and Frankie Rossi Art Projects celebrates the friendship and dialogue between British artists Maggi Hambling and Sarah Lucas. The show presents their irreverent humour and explorations of love, death, and everyday life across painting, sculpture, and installations, highlighting their mutual influence and creative vitality.
Date: 20 November 2025 – January 2026. Location: 8 & 38 Bury Street, London SW1Y. Price: Free. Book now
Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey
Joy Gregory, Stockwell Siren from the series Celebrity Blonde, 2001, performance © Joy Gregory
#FLODown: Whitechapel Gallery presents a major retrospective of Joy Gregory, a British artist known for experimental photography exploring race, gender, identity, and diaspora. The exhibition features analogue and digital photography, installation, performance, and textiles. Key series include Objects of Beauty, Memory & Skin, and The Blonde, alongside a new commission connecting Afro-Caribbean histories with indigenous Kalahari communities, offering an insightful meditation on memory and cultural exchange.
Date: 8 October 2025 – 11 January 2026. Location: Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Price: from £15. Concessions available. Book now
A Grand Chorus: The Power of Music
Mikhail Karikis - We are Together Because - Film still
#FLODown: A Grand Chorus: The Power of Music at the Foundling Museum focuses on the transformative impact of music through Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. The exhibition brings together three centuries of scores, instruments, artworks, recordings and film, tracing the piece’s origins, global reach and its role in supporting the Foundling Hospital. It features the UK premiere of Mikhail Karikis’s installation We Are Together Because… (2025), created with young musicians from Lisbon, alongside stories of Foundlings whose lives were shaped by music. A programme of live performances and events demonstrates music’s power to inspire hope, courage and unity.
Date: 2 October 2025 – 29 March 2026. Location: Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ. Price: from £14.50. Concessions available. Book now
