The Best Exhibitions In London | April 2025
London is full of exhibitionists.
In fact, we have some of the finest in the world.
And right now, they’re doing what they do best: showcasing some utterly fascinating topics at the array of amazing museums and art galleries in London. Must-see shows right now include a stuffed pet rhinoceros from the court of Versailles; a vibrant display of men’s Speedos from the 1980s; a landmark exhibition at The Wallace Collection by a multi-media maestro; a mega installation with 100,000 dried flowers; and retro magazine covers featuring the likes of Kate Moss and Liam Gallagher.
24 AMAZING LONDON EXHIBITIONS TO SEE RIGHT NOW:
1) Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo | Royal Academy
Victor Hugo was one of France’s most famous writers. Two of his most iconic works, Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, were printed worldwide and continue to be celebrated in culture today. Writing aside, Hugo also loved to draw. He documented his grand imaginings of castles, monsters and seascapes in ink and wash visions and while Hugo might’ve just considered them doodles, his works inspired other artists including Vincent Van Gogh. This exhibition follows Hugo’s talent for drawing, featuring some of his finest works on paper, which are rarely on public display and were last seen in the UK over 50 years ago.
Details: Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo runs at the Royal Academy from 21st March until 29th June. Tickets cost £17.
2) John Morley: Artist Gardener | Garden Museum
We imagine artist John Morley has quite an idyllic life. He’s a snowdrop specialist for one thing and he spends most of his working life painting what he knows and loves: the plants from his garden. Quite dreamy right? Well now you can plant yourself in Morley’s ritualistic approach to painting at this retrospective of works, many of which have never been publicly displayed. And afterwards you can treat yourself to tea and a slice of cake in the Garden Café. Bliss.
Details: Lost Gardens of London is on display at the Garden Museum from 20th March until 20th April 2025 – tickets cost £15.
3) Greyson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur | The Wallace Collection
Richard Ansett
This is a landmark show for The Wallace Collection, it’ll be the largest contemporary exhibition held at the museum, ever. And who else would decorate the halls and walls of Hertford House with such multi-media abandon than Greyson Perry? The exhibition will display ceramics, tapestries, furniture and collage, alongside some of the Wallace Collection’s masterpieces which helped inspire and shape Grayson Perry’s vision for this exhibition.
Details: Greyson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur is on at The Wallace Collection from 28th March until 26th October – tickets cost £15.
4) Arpita Singh: Remembering | Serpentine North Gallery
Arpita Singh: Remembering
This exhibition is the artist’s first solo outside India. It tracks her impressive career over six decades, showcasing her large-scale oil paintings as well as her more intimate watercolours and ink drawings.
Details: Arpita Singh: Remembering is on at the Serpentine North Gallery from 20th March until 27th July. Free.
5) Versailles: Science and Splendour | Science Museum
© Science Museum Group
When you think of Versailles, you tend to think of enormous wigs, cake, and debaucherous balls. You don’t tend to think ‘world-changing scientific advancements’. Well, apparently we should all give the lavish 17th century court a break, because it was basically the CERN of its day: more than 100 objects on display here demonstrate the link between knowledge and power. You’ll see the world’s most elaborate pocket watch, designed for Marie Antoinette; discover how the palace was a launch pad for the first ever hot air balloon flight; and gawp at Louis XV’s pet rhinoceros, who was stuffed for posterity after he too fell victim to the revolutionaries.
Details: Versailles: Science and Splendour is on at the Science Museum until 21st April 2025. Tickets cost £12.
6) Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition 2025 | Somerset House
They say a photo is worth a thousand words. And this statement couldn’t be more true of the many works on display as part of the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition. It’s a show that will shift your perspective, stop you in your tracks and take you beyond the headlines, one considered snap shot at a time.
Details: Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition 2025 runs at Somerset House from 17th April until 5th May. Tickets cost £17.50.
7) Morris Mania | William Morris Gallery
William Morris Gallery collection
William Morris (1834-96) has gone viral. Today, we see his botanical patterns on shower curtains, phone cases, on film and TV, and in all corners of our homes, dentist waiting rooms and shopping centres. This show will take a look at the impact of Britain’s most iconic designer in our increasingly cluttered and commodified world.
Details:Morris Mania runs from 5th April until 21st September at the William Morris Gallery. There is a suggested £5 donation
8) Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious | Dulwich Picture Gallery
Tirzah Garwood is perhaps best known as the wife of artist Eric Ravilious. But she also made a name for herself (and what a name) with her own artwork, as well as her autobiography Long Live Great Bardfield. Now largely forgotten, her work is getting a long-deserved survey at Dulwich Picture Gallery, which has gathered pieces from right across her career. There are beautiful marbled papers and detailed oil paintings, as well as 11 Ravilious watercolours on show to highlight the parallels between this remarkable artistic duo. Sounds like the kind of show that’ll make you want to get your own paints out.
Details: Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious is on at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 26th May 2025. Tickets cost £20 (inc. optional donation).
9) Pirates | The National Maritime Museum
From Captain Hook to Captain Pugwash, this exhibition reveals there’s a lot more to the swash-buckling scoundrels we see depicted in fiction. The show traces the history of these elusive villains from the South China Sea to the coast of North Africa, exploring issues of piracy today and how it continues to threaten sailors. Heave ho and get yourself down there.
Details: Pirates is running at The National Maritime Museum until 4th January 2026. Tickets cost £15.
10) Textiles: The Art of Mankind | Fashion and Textile Museum
While we might sometimes take our clothes for granted – who has time to keep up with the latest trends? And deliberate over what’s ‘in’ or ‘out’? – this exhibition shows there is so much more to textiles than the threads we put on our backs. Told through themes spanning materials, identity, collaboration, and sustainability, Textiles: The Art Mankind explores how craft and creativity connects society.
Details: Textiles: The Art of Mankind is on at the Fashion and Textile Museum runs from 28th March until 7th September. Tickets cost £12.65.
11) Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker | Whitechapel Gallery
Photo: Lisa Whiting
Wide-ranging retrospective of the career of critically-acclaimed multi-media artist Daniel Rodney, who amassed a broad and vital body of work before his death from complications related to sickle cell anaemia aged 36. Born in Birmingham, Rodney was part of the influential the BLK Art Group, a group of British African-Caribbean artists initially based in the Midlands, whose work explored issues of race and racial identity, class, and gender. Visceral Canker surveys the majority of Rodney’s career, featuring pieces from 1982 to 1997 across multiple disciplines, including digital media, sculpture, installation, drawing, and painting. Expect everything from large-scale oil pastels on X-rays, to kinetic and animatronic sculptures, to sketchbooks from Rodney’s archive.
Details: Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker runs at Whitechapel Gallery until 4th May 2025. Tickets cost £7.50 – £16.50.
12) Splash! | Design Museum
Women modelling beach ball swimsuits in Cuba,19th June 1956.
The Design Museum brings us yet another headline exhibition: Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style. The show promises to plunge you into a history of swimming and revolves around three environments: the pool, the lido and nature, looking at how design informs our experience of swimming in each. On display, you’ll find objects including a vibrant display of men’s Speedos from the 1980s and Pamela Anderson’s iconic Baywatch swimsuit.
Details: Splash! A Century Of Swimming & Style runs until 17th August. You can find out more and book tickets (£16) on the Design Museum website.
13) The Face Magazine: Culture Shift | National Portrait Gallery
For a moment in the 80s and 90s, The Face was the coolest magazine on the, erm, face of the planet. This retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery turns back the clock to a simpler time, when glossy magazines shaped the cultural landscape, media budgets were bloated, and the pages of The Face boasted a cornucopia of the world’s most in-demand rockstars and models shot by the most influential style and fashion photographers. The exhibition features over 200 images, by snappers including Sølve Sundsbø, David Sims and Elaine Constantine, featuring stars such as Kate Moss, Liam Gallagher, and ANDRÉ 3000 – in short, anyone who was anyone – plus contributions from the mag’s talented roster of writers, too, including Ekow Eshun, Sabina Jaskot-Gill, and Pete Paphides. In short, it’s absolutely fabulous.
Details: The Face Magazine: Culture Shift runs at the National Portrait Gallery from 20th February – 18th May 2025. Tickets cost £23, or free for National Portrait Gallery members.
14) Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒1350 | The National Gallery
Picture the scene; it’s the turn of the 14th century in Siena and all anyone can talk about is a never-before-seen style of painting. A handful of artists are pushing boundaries, tearing up the rule book of Medieval art and adding drama, emotion and tenderness to their work.
This exhibition brings to life a vibrant city of painters who, at the time were collaborating, learning and observing. On display are works that have been separated for centuries, helping us to piece together this pivotal moment in artistic history.
Details: Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 is running at The National Gallery from 8th March until 22nd June. Tickets are £22.
15) Cartier | V&A Museum
If bling is your thing, look no further. This major exhibition features more than 350 bejewelled objects, including precious jewels, historic gemstones, iconic watches and clocks, tracking the history and legacy of the legendary jewellery house. Even if bling is not your thing, it’s hard to ignore the glittering brilliance of some of the prized pieces on display – from the late Queen Elizabeth’s gigantic 23.6 carat pink diamonds to Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco’s engagement ring and Princess Anne’s Pineflower tiara.
Details: Cartier runs at the V&A until 16th November 2025. Tickets cost £27 – book on the V&A website.
16) Noah Davis | The Barbican
Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based artist Noah Davis amassed a gorgeous body of work, most of it figurative paintings depicting the everyday lives of black people, before his death from cancer at only 32. Now the Barbican is staging a major retrospective of his career, with over 50 pieces on display. Highlights include 40 Acres and a Unicorn, 2007 – depicting a young man riding a unicorn, emerging from a black background – and Imitation of Wealth, 2013 – which partially re-stages the first exhibition Davis curated and opened at his own much-loved Underground Museum in 2013, a free and open-to-all cultural centre and museum space in the primarily Black and Latinx LA neighbourhood of Arlington Heights. It’s a richly engrossing exhibition, and testament to Davis’ relentless creativity.
Details: Noah Davis runs at the Barbican until 11th May 2025. Tickets cost from £9 – £18.
17) War and the Mind | Imperial War Museum
An RAF pilot’s lucky charm – his baby son’s mitten
Global warfare is often detailed by death tolls, injuries and other tragic, quantifiable losses – but there’s also the question of the long-lasting impact on the mind. The IWM’s free exhibition is a fascinating and important exploration into wartime psychology – from the propaganda used to boost the morale of civilians in war-torn countries to the tactics used to encourage military enrolment, the coping mechanisms of those fighting on the front-lines, and the long-lasting effects of trauma, shell-shock and PTSD.
Details: War and the Mind runs at the Imperial War Museum until 27th April 2025. It’s free to visit; just turn up.
18) AdWomen | Museum of Brands
Following on from last year’s Mad Women documentary on Channel 4, the Museum of Brands is hoping to shed some light on the overlooked contributions of women to the once male-dominated world of advertising. You’ll see some of the best-known female-produced ads of the last century, alongside a line-up of vintage products and adverts documenting the changing ways women have been portrayed, and appealed to, over the years.
Details: AdWomen runs at the Museum of Brands until 28th April 2025. Entry is included with museum admission (£10).
19) Astronomy Photographer of the Year | National Maritime Museum
© Gwenael Blanck
Want to see some truly stellar photography? Head on down to the Astronomy Photographer Of The Year. It’s free to visit, and it’s ready to blow your mind into cosmic dust until summer of 2025. This is the 16th year they’ve held the competition, and they’ve received thousands of entries from dozens of countries, whittling them down to just the best 100…
Details: Astronomy Photographer of the Year runs at the National Maritime Museum until summer 2025. It’s free to visit; just turn up.
20) Flowers – Flora in Contemporary Art & Culture | Saatchi Gallery
Rebecca Louise Law, Calyx
Flowers have been a source of inspiration for artists for centuries. The fleeting beauty, fragility and drama are captured in works throughout history; from the brooding still lifes by Dutch Masters to Takashi Murakami’s smiling posies.
In this exhibition of 500 unique artworks and objects, viewers will be guided through nine sections – from Roots, In Bloom, Flowers and Fashion, Science: Life & Death, to New Shoots. Each section is rooted to the theme of flowers, showing artworks across multiple mediums, from photography to sculpture. There’s also a captivating installation piece by Rebecca Louise Law, made up of over 100,000 dried flowers.
Details: Flowers – Flora in Contemporary Art & Culture is running at the Saatchi Gallery until 5th May. Tickets cost £20.
21) Vogue: Inventing The Runway | Lightroom
Vogue: Inventing the Runway is the third exhibition to take over the Lightroom space in King’s Cross, and it’s making the most of this 360º, triple-storey digital gallery by splashing every surface – even the floor – with jaw-dropping visuals. Drawing on Vogue’s vast archive of footage, the show takes you from the exclusive salons of the 1940s to the night that the Great Wall of China became one giant runway for Fendi. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so it all moves quite quickly and aims for breadth rather than depth of information, but if you’re a fan of couture there’s no better way to get front row seats to some of the 20th & 21st century’s greatest fashion shows.
Details: Vogue: Inventing the Runway is on at Lightroom until 26th April 2025. Tickets cost £25; you can book here.
22) Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights | Wellcome Collection
This unique North London institution straddling the arts and the sciences takes another Wellcome look at a rarely explored topic: labour exploitation. Diving into three main themes of slavery, street work and labour in the home, the exhibition explores how each had, or still has, the power to degrade and dehumanise. Contemporary artworks respond to the physical toil of hard labour, the lifelong impacts on the mind and body, and the uplifting power of protest for better rights and recognition. It’s an exhibition that’s both eye-opening and galvanising. In short: it works.
Details: Hard Graft is free to visit, and runs at the Wellcome Collection until 27th April.
23) Linder: Danger Came Smiling | Southbank Centre
Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
Linder Sterling’s subversive, immediately-distinctive feminist punk photomontage work has been a part of British culture (or is that British counterculture) since the 1970s. You might be familiar with her image for the Buzzcocks 1977 single, Orgasm Addict – an oiled-up naked woman, her head replaced with an iron, and two toothy lipsticked smiles for nipples. That image – perhaps her most recognisable – is here in this Southbank Centre retrospective, but so is a large cross-section of her other work; compelling, warped reimaginings of the female form, blending darkness and humour to wonderfully provocative effect.
Details: Linder: Danger Came Smiling runs at the Southbank Centre until 5th May 2025. Tickets cost £19.
24) Voices of Resistance: Slavery and Post in the Caribbean | London Postal Museum
The Postal Museum
This show explores stories of enslaved people whose labour fuelled 19th-century postal ships. Through letters found in The Postal Museum’s archive, the exhibition pieces together the lives of a generation of enslaved people and their courageous acts of bravery.
Details: Voices of Resistance: Slavery and Post in the Caribbean runs at The Postal Museum until 6th January 2026. Tickets are included in museum entry, book via The Postal Museum website.
–
Like culture? Like being indoors? Check out our guide to London’s best cinemas.
