The Best London Shows This Weekend

The best art exhibitions open in London this Saturday and Sunday, ranked by aggregated critic reviews from major publications. Updated Jun 22.

Showing 14 exhibitions

#1

Henry Moore: Monumental Nature

Henry Moore: Monumental Nature

Until Jan 31, 2027

30 monumental sculptures by Moore spanning his 70-year career

5/5 from 2 ratings · 4 reviews total

"In parts of the show, Moore's love of natural forms seems to run counter to the Victorian splendour of Kew. One of his bone-like pieces, Three Piece Sculpture: Vertebrae (1968-69), sits in front of the Palm House. Moore's irregular, undulating tripartite form seems to echo – or mock – the pane-glass and wrought-iron symmetry of the older building."

The Telegraph

Tied #2

Georg Baselitz: Back Again

Georg Baselitz: Back Again

Until Aug 30

Free

Baselitz's final paintings series, a posthumous career summation

5/5 from 1 rating

"I've never been a huge Baselitz fan: I found the whole upside down painting thing an affectation and I would have happily fronted a campaign to have all his work shown the right way up so we can see what it's really about. I also think he churned out the same painting for decades. But this is brutally emotional stuff."

The Guardian

Tied #2

Kyotographie: Kawada Kikuji x Iwane Ai

Kyotographie: Kawada Kikuji x Iwane Ai

Until Oct 18

Free

Two generations of Japanese photography, from postwar history to diaspora life

5/5 from 1 rating

"These were revolutionary photographs at the time – and they still feel new in their search to express the inexpressible. The dimly lit, subterranean gallery keeps you cocooned in this elegiac, brooding atmosphere. Kawada is drawn to images that trace the extremities of the Earth, the visible outer edges of our existence – the sky, the horizon, water, burning suns and scorching fires."

The Guardian

#4

James McNeill Whistler

James McNeill Whistler

Until Sep 27

First major European Whistler retrospective in 30 years at Tate Britain

4.8/5 from 4 ratings

"Then, in 1865, Whistler suddenly paints the sea as if it was a piece of silk decorated with white lace and a ribbon. Green and Grey, Channel is a stunning declaration of artistic independence. He takes the sea, the element humans can't control, the roaring theme of Turner's visions, and makes it a painterly plaything."

The Guardian

#5

Zurbarán

Zurbarán

Until Aug 23

First ever UK exhibition of Zurbarán: altarpieces, still lifes and monastic robes from Seville

4.5/5 from 4 ratings · 5 reviews total

"The word 'visionary' is done to death but the 17th-century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán demands it: he paints supernatural things naturally and natural things supernaturally. Space becomes different in his world, melting distance and erasing the barrier between you and the picture."

The Guardian

Tied #6

Hepworth in Colour

Hepworth in Colour

Until Sep 6

First exhibition dedicated to Hepworth's pioneering use of colour in sculpture

4.5/5 from 2 ratings

"The rounded, white plaster objects are cut open to reveal deep blue interiors that seem immemorial, although Hepworth has simply painted them. Across the blue illusionistic depths, red-painted strings are tautly fixed. The red strings might suggest seaweed if, like me, you can't get nature out of your head looking at these abstract yet evocative works."

The Guardian

Tied #6

M.C. Escher. The Exhibition

M.C. Escher. The Exhibition

Until Sep 6

Over 150 original works: illusions, impossible buildings and tessellations

4.5/5 from 2 ratings

"Escher, this utterly traditional artist, makes you see that we walk a world we don't understand. We are his funny little people, going up and down the stairs, thinking we ascend or descend when we're on the flat, propping up our everyday lives with cosy assumptions to hide from the infinite, the impossible real."

The Guardian

#8

Wes Anderson: The ArchivesEnding Soon

Wes Anderson: The Archives

Until Jul 26

First retrospective of Wes Anderson's cinematic archive — 700+ objects across 30 years

4.4/5 from 5 ratings

"The Texan is the third film-maker to be given a retrospective at the Design Museum, following Stanley Kubrick and Tim Burton, and this is the pick of the three. Cinema like this can feel incredibly extravagant — some canine puppets for Isle of Dogs took three years to make and were on screen for a matter of seconds. Here, though, you can spend time with it all."

The Times

#9

Hurvin Anderson

Hurvin Anderson

Until Aug 23

First major solo show of over 80 paintings spanning Anderson's full career

4.2/5 from 6 ratings

"In Anderson's work, the natural world is almost ominously abundant. Greenery seems to suffocate man-made structures, which often appear dilapidated – like ruined temples in a jungle. The sense of melancholy this generates is offset by the pleasure that Anderson evidently derives from manipulating paint. His compositions – some of which flirt, ingeniously, with abstraction – are awash with attractive blotches and drips."

The Telegraph

#10

Cecily Brown: Picture Making

Cecily Brown: Picture Making

Until Sep 6

Free

Cecily Brown's first major UK institutional solo in 20 years at Serpentine South

4/5 from 2 ratings

"And she is magnificent — not merely critically, but commercially. Brown is among the most expensive living female painters in the world, her canvases commanding prices that would make lesser talents weep. The market, for once, is not wrong."

The Standard

Tied #11

Holy Pop!

Holy Pop!

Until Aug 9

Contemporary shrines exploring fan devotion to pop icons and celebrities

4/5 from 1 rating

"The focus on religion is heavy-handed at times – perhaps loving the Spice Girls or Elvis is just not that deep? – and it feels remiss for the exhibition not to question what happens when these obsessions go too far, if they are always healthy, or if idolising celebrities should be seen as a blanket positive thing. Still, Holy Pop! is a joyous celebration of pop culture fandoms, and all their quirky, messy extremes."

TimeOut

Tied #11

Donald Locke: Resistant Forms

Donald Locke: Resistant Forms

Until Aug 30

London's first survey of Windrush Generation sculptor Donald Locke

4/5 from 1 rating

"Elsewhere, slender ceramic figures are gathered like pawns on a chessboard, though here they are more crowded, more claustrophobic, not helped by the cages covering their heads. What are we to make of these structures? Devices for trapping fruit-eating pests, or part of a wider system of confinement, of lives hemmed into structures larger than themselves."

TimeOut

Tied #11

Constable in Hampstead

Constable in Hampstead

Until Sep 20

Constable's Hampstead years explored through paintings, prints and letters

4/5 from 1 rating

"Others (like me) may be put off by his somewhat patrician perspective: a landowner surveying a plot in which everyone is busy at work, driving cows or ploughing fields. This small show at Hampstead's Burgh House offers something like an olive branch to Constable haters."

The Guardian

Tied #11

Benton End: A Paradise of Pollen and Paint

Benton End: A Paradise of Pollen and Paint

Until Sep 20

Paintings, photos and objects from Cedric Morris's radical 1950s Suffolk art school

4/5 from 1 rating

"As an exhibition, it's a leaf through a scrapbook rather than a comprehensive survey. Summers run together, the days seem long and hazy, the irises are always in bloom. I left this evocative and convivial show craving ratatouille, resolving to plant irises and level the earth at the back of the garden for a greenhouse of my own."

The Times

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