What's On In London

What's On In London

A carefully curated selection of exciting events related to arts, design and culture.

Mayfair Gallery presents the definitive guide to the best cultural events happening right now in London. Explore the best that London’s museums, galleries, and cultural spaces have to offer, with specially chosen events and exhibitions from the Mayfair Gallery team. From antique to contemporary, art to design, check out what’s on in our month-by-month guide.

Electric Dreams

Location: Tate Modern
When: 28 November 2024 – 1 June 2025
Admission: £22

Exploring the dawn of tech art from the 1950s to the 80s, this major exhibition from the Tate celebrates the innovators of kinetic, optical, programmed, and digital art, with machines and algorithms used to invent mesmerising creations.

The 80s: Photographing Britain

Location: Tate Britian
When: 21st November 2024 - 5th May 2025
Admission: £20

This collaborative exhibition between the John Soane and Liberian-British artist Lina Iris Viktor pairs the artist's responsive sculptures with the museum’s expansive collection, exploring space, light, and cultural amalgamations.

Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights

Location: Wellcome Collection
When: 19th September 2024 – 27th April 2025
Admission: Free

Via a curated selection of over 150 items, ‘Hard Graft’ explores working practices across the globe, utilising a range of media to delve into the stories of underrepresented labouring communities and their precarious workers’ rights.

NAOMI In Fashion

Location: V&A Museum
When: 22 June 2024 - 6 April 2025
Admission: £16

Via the work of leading global designers and photographers, discover the illustrious career of British supermodel Naomi Campbell. From creative collaborations to activism, the exhibition charts her extraordinary cultural impact.

Barbie®: The Exhibition

Location: The Design Museum
When: 5 July 2024 - 23 February 2025
Admission: c. £20

Following the hit 2023 blockbuster, this exhibition explores Barbie’s fascinating history through a design lens, to coincide with the brand’s 65th anniversary. With over 250 objects, learn about the evolution of your favourite doll.

A Silk Road Oasis: Life in Ancient Dunhuang

Location: The British Library
When: 27th September 2024 – 23rd February 2025
Admission: £8

Via a series of 1000-year-old documents, discover the fascinating history of the oasis of Dunhuang at the edge of the Gobi Desert, via the personal stories of those who lived, travelled through, or worshipped there over a millennia ago.

Silk Roads

Location: The British Museum
When: 26th September 2024 – 23rd February 2025
Admission: £17 (weekday) / £19 (weekend)

This major show challenges misconceptions about the Silk Roads, an overlapping series of trade roads linking the East and West. Focusing on AD 500-1000, the exhibition showcases objects that reveal the astonishing reach of these networks.

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers

Location: National Gallery
When: 14 September 2024 – 19 January 2025
Admission: From £24

See some of Van Gogh’s most famous works up close, including his Starry Night over the Rhône (1888) and Sunflowers (1888). Rarely seen paintings and drawings are brought together in this colossal celebration of the artist.

Francis Bacon Portraits

Location: National Portrait Gallery
When: 10 October 2024 – 19 January 2025
Admission: £23

Discover the life story of Francis Bacon through his evocative portraits. From self-portraits to paintings of his contemporaries, public and private works from the 1950s onwards show Bacon’s express challenge of the traditional genre.

Monet and London: Views of the Thames

Location: The Courtauld Gallery
When: 27th September 2024 – 19th January 2025
Admission: £18

Discover Monet’s lesser-known works, with this exhibition of his evocative views of the Thames River. The show fulfils the artist's ambitions by showing this group just 300 metres from the Savoy Hotel, where many of them were painted.

The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998

Location: Barbican
When: 5th October 2024 - 5th January 2025
Admission: £20

The first institutional exhibition to cover these pivotal years of Indian history, this landmark collation of artwork by over 30 Indian artists explores India’s changing cultural-political landscape during this period of tremendous change.

Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection

Location: V&A Museum
When: Until 5th January 2025
Admission: £20

Spanning a wide reach of themes and subjects such as fashion, reportage, and the male body, this photographic selection encompasses works by some of the world’s leading photographers, exploring modern photography via iconic images.

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum: It Will End In Tears

Location: Barbican
When: 18th September 2024 – 5th January 2025
Admission: Free

Travel through Sunstrum’s narrative creation, in her series of life-size dioramas that reflect her experience of living across three different continents. Drawing, painting, and installation come together to create her imagined world.

Tracey Emin, I followed you to the end

Location: White Cube Bermondsey
When: 19th September – 10th November 2024
Admission: Free

This exhibition presents a selection of new works by Emin, one of the most important visual artists working today. Several new paintings and a monumental bronze sculpture come together in a powerful expression of emotion.

Yayoi Kusama: Every Day I Pray For Love

Location: Victoria Miron London
When: 25th September – 2nd November 2024
Admission: Free

Every Day I Pray For Love marks the artist’s 14th solo exhibition with the gallery, and premieres several new works including a series of paintings which explore line and form, as well as new sculptures and a new Infinity Mirror Room.

Frieze Sculpture

Location: Regent’s Park
When: 18th September – 27th October 2024
Admission: Free

In tandem with Frieze London and Frieze Masters, the much-celebrated public art initiative returns to Regent’s Park this autumn, featuring daring and experimental approaches from Leonora Carrington, Yoshitomo Nara, and more.

Untold Lives

Location: Kensington Palace
When: 14 March - 27 October 2024
Admission: £24

Uncover the untold and forgotten stories of servants and courtiers who worked at the royal palaces over 300 years ago. For the first time, the lives of those who ran the homes and palaces of the royalty are explored in great depth.

Out Shopping: The Dresses of Marion and Maud Sambourne

Location: Leighton House
When: 23 March to 20 October 2024
Admission: £14

With an exhibition that spans both the Leighton and Sambourne Houses for the very first time, discover the stories of Marion and Maud Sambourne via their extensive collection of dresses by some of the leading modistes of the era.

Ranjit Singh: Sikh, Warrior, King

Location: The Wallace Collection
When: 10 April - 20 October 2024
Admission: £14

Featuring nearly 100 pieces, view the Wallace Collection’s remarkable collection of Sikh arms as well as numerous other historic objects, in this exhibition exploring the life of the great Sikh leader Ranjit Singh (1780–1839).

Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider

Location: Tate Modern
When: 25 April - 20 October 2024
Admission: £22

Focusing on a group of friends and collaborators known as The Blue Rider, the exhibition showcases how the work of artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter transformed modern art in the early 20th century.

Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920

Location: Tate Britain
When: 16 May - 13 October 2024
Admission: £20

With 150 works and spanning 400 years, the exhibition explores the paths of women who became professional artists. Many of them challenged contemporary societal norms and broke boundaries, forging a path for future generations.

Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors

Location: Garden Museum
When: 15 May - 29 September 2024
Admission: £15

The exhibition highlights four influential women such as the writer Virginia Woolf, and the green spaces they surrounded themselves with. The gardens acted as their places of sanctuary and artefacts like garden tools help to tell the story of their lives.

Art Without Heros: Mingei

Location: William Morris Gallery
When: 23 March – 22 September 2024
Admission: Free

The most comprehensive UK exhibition dedicated to Mingei, the influential Japanese folk-craft movement developed in the 1920s and 1930s. Discover previously unseen works including ceramics, woodwork, toys, photography, and textiles.

Tropical Modernism

Location: Victoria and Albert Museum
When: 2 March - 22 September 2024
Admission: £14

Developed in the 1940s, Tropical Modernism was an architectural style suited to the hot and humid conditions of West Africa which later spread to India and Ghana. Discover works in this style and why it was considered a symbol of modernity.

The Biba Story, 1964-1975

Location: Fashion and Textile Museum
When: 22 March - 8 September 2024
Admission: £12.65

Established by Polish-born Barbara Hulanicki, discover the rise and fall of Biba - the label that defined 1960s and 70s fashion. The exhibition features clothing, photographs, and other materials all chosen by Hulanicki herself.

Enzo Mari

Location: The Design Museum
When: 29 March – 8 September 2024
Admission: £20

The exhibition celebrates the life of Enzo Mari, one of the greatest and most influential designers of the 20th century. His work, both artistic and educational, focused on the importance of play and inspired generations of designers.

Polly Braden: Leaving Ukraine

Location: The Foundling Museum
When: 15 March - 1 September 2024
Admission: £12.75

In this photography exhibition, Polly Braden documents the lives of women forced to leave their homes on account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, creating intimate portraits of the ongoing displacement of these individuals.

Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind

Location: Tate Modern
When: 15 February - 1 September 2024
Admission: £22

With over 200 works spanning from scores to installations, discover the fascinating career of Yoko Ono. Alongside her humanitarian campaigns, her multidisciplinary practice includes conceptual and participatory art, film, and music.

A Focus on Paris

Location: The Fan Museum
When: 27 March - 17 August 2024
Admission: £5

Immerse yourself in the cultural hub of Paris through the Fan Museum’s extensive collection. Discover the architectural, fashion, and technological developments of the city via elaborate fans from the 18th to the early 20th centuries.

Michelangelo: The Last Decades

Location: The British Museum
When: 2 May - 28 July 2024
Admission: £20

Discover the final decades of Michelangelo’s life and career. Drawings and architectural studies are paired with intimate poems and letters to paint a striking portrait of one of Europe’s finest artists in his later years.

The Last Caravaggio

Location: National Gallery
When: 18 April - 21 July 2024
Admission: Free

For the first time in 20 years, Caravaggio’s last known painting - ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula' (1610) – is coming to London. Discover the drama and violence of this exceptional work in this National Gallery exhibit.

Sargent and Fashion

Location: Tate Britain
When: 22 February - 7 July 2024
Admission: £22

In this large-scale exhibition from the Tate Britain, nearly 60 of Sargent’s paintings are paired with several period garments, to show the innovative ways in which the famed artist used fashion to construct identity in his portraits.

Angelica Kauffman

Location: Royal Academy
When: 1 March - 30 June 2024
Admission: £17

Discover Angelica Kauffman, one of the most celebrated artists of the 18th century, with this Royal Academy exhibition that charts her progression from child prodigy to celebrated painter of portraits and history.