Art exhibitions opening in London in November 2026
Never has there been a better reason than the pleasure of art to drag you out of the house during what we can only predict will be a dreary November. If you’re looking to jump back in time, an upcoming exhibition at the V&A is set to include hundreds of relics from Istanbul’s yesteryears, just as Wallace Collection’s new free display takes a closer look at the art Cosimo I de’ Medici kept. Van Eyck’s portraits finally arrive at the National Gallery, while Peggy Guggenheim's esteemed art collection makes a splash at the Royal Academy. Looking to nourish your cultural appetite this November? Read on and take notes.
The Nue Black Aesthetic
Giles Tettey Nartey pictured playing ‘Strange Notes’. Image credit Giles Tettey Nartey.
#FLODown: What does it mean to be a Black designer working today? This is the question London’s Design Museum poses with its latest exhibition, The Nue Black Aesthetic, which features over 100 objects across six sections and encourages visitors to rethink assumptions about what Black design looks like in 2026. Guest-curated by author and journalist Charlene Prempeh, the exhibition will include work by some of today's most innovative contemporary Black designers, including Andu Masebo, Bianca Saunders, Saul Nash, Samuel Ross, Taiba Akhuetie, and Foday Dumbuya. Throughout November, a series of curatorial events will run alongside the exhibition, including a fashion life drawing class with Feben and an evening talk on how memory, material culture, ritual, and diaspora shape contemporary design.
Date: 6 November 2026 - 8 August 2027. Location: The Design Museum, 224 - 238 Kensington High Street, Kensington, London W8 6AG. Price: From £15.29. Concessions available. Book now.
Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires
Constantinople to Istanbul. 'The Sultan riding out in procession to Friday Prayers', watercolour by anonymous Greek artist, about 1809, Istanbul, Turkey. Image V&A.
#FLODown: Seldom does a whole city get an exhibition dedicated to its people, history, and culture. Good job, Istanbul isn’t just any city. Coming to the V&A this November, Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires offers a compelling new perspective on a city defined by artistic excellence across more than a millennium. By taking an intricate look at 1,600 years of artistry, the exhibition brings together remarkable works of art, design, and architecture to reflect on the enduring creative legacies of history’s most influential empires that once served the capital: the Byzantine and the Ottoman.
Date: 7 November 2026 - 9 May 2027. Location: V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL. Price: £22. Concessions available. Book now.
Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury
Vanessa Bell, 'Self-Portrait' c. 1915. (detail) Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund © estate of Vanessa Bell. All rights reserved, DACS 2025.
#FLODown: Feel like you’ve seen it all when it comes to the Bloomsbury Group? Think again: Tate Britain’s latest exhibition, Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury, invites further introspection on the artistic duo at the centre of the movement by celebrating their extraordinary artistic partnership and enduring impact on British Art. In addition to the some 300 works that make up the show (a variety of decorative objects, ceramics, textiles, oil landscapes and self-portraits), a once-in-a-lifetime restaging of the artists' studio, relocated for the exhibition from their Sussex home in Charleston, will also form part of the showcase, allowing visitors to step back in time and experience the magical haven these artists once called home.
Date: 12 November 2026 - 11 April 2027. Location: Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG. Price: £20. Concessions available. Book now.
Film London Jarman Award
Film Jarman London Award 2026. Image courtesy Whitechapel Gallery,2026.
#FLODown: This November, the Film London Jarman Award returns to the Whitechapel Gallery for its 18th edition, celebrating the very best of contemporary filmmaking that is equally experimental as it is compelling. Named in honour of avant-garde filmmaker Derek Jarman, the award recognises artists working with moving images, many of whom, like Jarman himself, treat filmmaking as much a political act as a poetic one. This year’s shortlist highlights works by Sadia Pineda Hameed, Ilona Sagar, Rhea Storr and Alia Syed, bringing together a diverse range of films united by their interrogation of structures of authority, with migration sitting at the heart of three of the four nominated films. Previous nominees include Turner Prize winners Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Duncan Campbell, Charlotte Prodger, Laure Prouvost and Elizabeth Price.
Date: 17 November - 13 December 2026. Location: Whitechapel Gallery, 77 - 82 Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. Price: Free. More information here.
Cosimo I de’ Medici: Art and Dynasty
Cosimo I de’ Medici Art and Dynasty. Image courtesy Wallace Collection
#FLODown: From a monumental wine cooler to a ceremonial sword bearing links to the mythical hero Hercules, these are the objects that made up a collection once owned by the man behind one of Renaissance Italy’s most powerful dynasties: Cosimo I de' Medici. Tracing the Grand Duke of Tuscany’s journey from Duke of Florence to one of the country’s most important rulers, Cosimo I de’ Medici: Art and Dynasty at the Wallace Collection takes a deeper look at how Cosimo used art to strengthen his authority, impress his court, and secure his family's legacy. Outside of Cosimo’s historical importance, this exhibition emphasises art's divine power beyond mere aesthetics and artifice.
Date: 18 November 2026 - 21 March 2027. Location: Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN. Price: Free. More information here.
Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector
André Masson Ondine, 1937 Gouache, sand, seashell and feather on wood. 21.5 × 15 cm. Galerie Natalie Seroussi, Paris. Photo Jean-Louis Losi, Paris, courtesy Galerie Natalie Seroussi. © 2026 ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London.
#FLODown: In the late 1930s, London still bore remnants of Victorian society: stiff, traditional, and deeply conservative. The American collector Peggy Guggenheim brought swift change to all of that, helping welcome a new kind of creativity by promoting works associated with Surrealism and abstraction, transforming not only Cork Street (where her gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, was based) but the country’s artistic tastes more broadly. This November, the Royal Academy of Arts reflects on her legacy and that of the artists she encouraged (Eileen Agar, Salvador Dalí, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Vasily Kandinsky to name a few) in a one-of-a-kind exhibition titled Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector. Interested in 20th-century art? There is no better place to get your fix this Autumn.
Date: 21 November 2026 - 14 March 2027. Location: Royal Academy Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD. Price: £17. Book now.
Van Eyck: The Portraits
Jan van Eyck, 'Margaret, the Artist's Wife', 1439. Municipal Museums Bruges, Groeninge museum © Municipal Museums Bruges, Groeningemuseum. Photo_ The National Gallery, London.
#FLODown: For the first time ever, The National Gallery brings together portraits by Northern Renaissance master Jan van Eyck, so you can marvel at the watchful eyes and flushed cheeks of everyday people who lived over 600 years ago. We all know the Van Eyck portraits, even if our introduction came through meme culture rather than formal art education, so by breathing life into Van Eyck’s world, the National Gallery offers an unprecedented chance to see them up close, without a pixelated screen. Why unprecedented? Never before has such a monumental staging of Van Eyck’s works taken place in one of the world’s largest art institutions, making this a truly once-in-a-lifetime show.
Date: 21 November 2026 - 11 April 2027. Location: National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN. Price: £18. Concessions available. Book now.
Nan Goldin: You Never Did Anything Wrong
Young Love (detail) Nan Goldin, Young Love (detail), 2024. Copyright Nan Goldin. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian.
#FLODown: Nan Goldin has spent much of her artistic life enraptured by the beauty and fragility of human existence, turning her gaze (and subsequent camera) to close friends, lovers and those on the fringes of society. In a new major exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, You Never Did Anything Wrong, Nan Goldin expands on this outlook by focusing on the natural world, drawing a connective thread between personal experience and political action by photographing the collective joy and sorrow shared by human, animal, and environmental existence. Including photographic stills and images from Goldin’s archive amongst four recent films, the exhibition makes up an episodic autobiography of Goldin, one she describes as ‘a record of my life that no one can revise.’ Copy that.
Date: 24 November 2026 - 14 March 2027. Location: Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Price: £19. Concessions available. Book now.
Anthony Daley: Resonance
Anthony Daley.
#FLODown: As we edge closer to the winter months, it’s easy to feel as though the colour of life has drained to sepia overnight, taking the sun-soaked remnants of summer with it. For anyone looking for a renewed burst of colour to carry them through the changing seasons, we encourage you to visit British-Jamaican artist Anthony Daley’s latest exhibition, Resonance, at Varvara Roza Galleries in St James, London. A painter who engages with the traditions of European Old Master Painting, Daley makes works that intentionally obscure sight by applying, abstracting, and relayering paint, resulting in large-scale atmospheric paintings awash with colour, light, and emotion.
Date: 10 - 28 November 2026. Location: Varvara Roza Galleries, 8 Duke Street, St James, London SW1Y 6BN. Price: More information here.
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