For more from London's art world, sign up for our free newsletter: Londonist: Urban Palette.
We look ahead and pick the best exhibitions to see in London's galleries and museums, opening this November and December.
Sámi Art & Culture: Through Our Eyes at Somerset House
The Sámi are Europe's only recognised Indigenous people, living across parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. This exhibition showcases work by 19 Sámi artists, including sculpture, photography, video and performance art. It features a new commission made from hundreds of traditional shawl tassels and the work of a street artist who uses graffiti on road signs to change them to the Sámi name for these places. There's been a welcome surge in the showcasing of Sámi art in Europe, and this is the UK's first group exhibition celebrating the culture.
Through Our Eyes: Sámi Art and Culture at Somerset House. 6 November 2026-7 February 2027, free.
Migration and Colonialism: Arcadia by John Akomfrah at the Natural History Museum
We've always been huge fans of John Akomfrah's moving and stunning films, where scenes across multiple screens look back at human history, colonialism and environmental destruction. Arcadia is his latest film, which looks back at the impact of the Columbian exchange, the movement of plants, people, animals, precious metals, commodities, technology, diseases and ideas, across the Atlantic. Images of deserts, ice fields, mountains and seas are interrupted by decaying ships, disease, cargo, and symbols of cross-continental trade.
Arcadia by John Akomfrah at the Natural History Museum. 6 November 2026-3 May 2027, free.
Pioneering designs: The Nue Black Aesthetic at the Design Museum
Bringing together leading Black designers, this exhibition of over 100 objects includes tables, chairs, chandeliers, ceramics, sculpture, clothing, architecture and much more. It's designed to showcase the latest generation of Black designers but also to demonstrate that Black design is not a monolith and that there is no single way to be a Black designer. Many of these designers are from diasporic communities, combining their lived experiences with their heritage to produce a new take on identity, culture, and community.
The Nue Black Aesthetic at the Design Museum. 6 November 2026-8 August 2027, £15.29.
Centre of power: Constantinople to Istanbul at V&A
Now called Istanbul, the city formerly known as Constantinople has a rich history and heritage. It was the capital of two powerful empires, the Byzantine and Ottoman, and therefore had a massive impact on the shaping of the Christian and Islamic worlds. It was a centre of art, architecture and design, as shown through paintings, textiles, mosaics, tablework, jewellery and dozens of other artefacts. Starting from the Roman era, this show guides us through how the city thrived as a city of religion, art, and trade, and takes us through to the height of the Ottoman era, and how that influenced European art and design.
Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires at V&A. 7 November 2026-9 May 2027, £25-27.
Bloomsbury duo: Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant at Tate Britain
Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant were two of the core members of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of English writers, intellectuals, philosophers, and artists who met in the Bloomsbury area and left a lasting legacy on British art, literature and society. This exhibition features over 300 works, including still lifes, landscape paintings, decorative works on furniture, ceramics, and textiles. One of the highlights is a restaging of their studios so we can see how and where they worked.
Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury at Tate Britain. 12 November 2026-11 April 2027, £20.
Funky fashion: Tradition/Rebellion at Japan House
From fur-trimmed kimono to gravity-defying hair, this is a celebration of the eclectic fashion worn by 20-year-olds in the Japanese city of Kitakyushu as they mark their entry into adulthood. In the rest of Japan, this is normally a formal affair, but in Kitakyushu they combine tradition with deeply personal fashions, all in the name of demonstrating individuality. The exhibition follows eight of Kitakyushu’s ‘new adults’, from the first fitting to the ceremony itself. Each look is made possible by the local industry of kimono renters, fashion designers, hairdressers and photographers, all playing their part in the transformations.
Tradition/Rebellion: Coming-of-Age Style in Kitakyushu at Japan House London. 11 November 2026-18 April 2027, free.
Graffiti galore: Beyond the Streets at Saatchi Gallery
After the success of the 2023 exhibition of the same name, Saatchi Gallery has brought back Beyond the Streets with many new artworks. It covers six decades of street culture's influence on contemporary art, photography, fashion, music, and activism. It's the story of graffiti and street artists, and hip-hop musicians who were willing to challenge boundaries and take risks, reshaping the world around them. The gallery has been turned into an immersive journey through the history of street culture and its ongoing influence, spanning more than 10 rooms and bringing together over 100 international creators in painting, sculpture, fashion, ephemera, and interactive experiences.
Beyond the Streets at Saatchi Gallery. 11 November 2026-5 May 2027, £25.
Childhood and nature: Where We Grow at The Foundling Museum
Whether it's running around your local park or out in the countryside, it's our experiences with nature that shape us as children. This exhibition traces how this relationship evolved, including how children interacted with the Foundling Hospital's gardens, through archival materials such as 18th-century seed lists, and the botanical motifs found in the Museum's galleries. Alongside this archive, contemporary artists have made work about their own childhood experiences, including Andy Holden's installation, where the bird eggs reference growing up with an ornithologist father.
Where We Grow: Nature, nurture and childhood at the Foundling Museum. 17 November 2026-18 April 2027, £13.50 (includes admission to the museum).
A powerhouse collector: Peggy Guggenheim in London at the Royal Academy of Arts
American-born Peggy Guggenheim is one of art history's greatest collectors and taste-makers. She set up a gallery in Mayfair in the 1930s, which became known for showcasing artists whose work fell outside the conservative tastes of the London art scene at the time. This included artists such as Vasily Kandinsky, Salvador Dalí, Barbara Hepworth, and Henry Moore. 88 years after her gallery opened its doors to more avant-garde art in Britain, many works by the artists she championed are returning for an exhibition celebrating her time in London.
Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector at the Royal Academy of Arts. 21 November 2026-14 March 2027, £17.
Moomins and more: Tove Jansson and her Families at Quentin Blake Centre
Many of us have fond childhood memories of reading or watching the Moomins, those strange hippo-human hybrid creatures, and their adventures. They were created by Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, and here's our chance to throw ourselves into the Moomin-verse and experience her other creations. There are over 100 rarely-shown sketches, paintings, illustrations and photographs from Jansson and those closest to her, plus scraps from the first published Moomin book. It's also a chance to discover her broader life, the influence of her graphic designer mother, her early work for a satirical magazine, and her contribution to Finland’s public realm through large-scale murals.
Tove Jansson and her Families at the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. 21 November 2026-9 May 2027, £15 (includes entrance to all exhibitions).
Groundbreaking portraiture: Van Eyck at The National Gallery
Painter Jan van Eyck is best known for the Arnolfini Portrait, in which a wealthy couple pose in a small room. The convex mirror in the background lets us look back on where we would be if we were observing them, only to see two other persons there. It's one of the gallery's best-known masterpieces, but here we can see all nine of van Eyck's portraits together for the first time in London. They were painted over 600 years ago, and while they are masterfully executed, what made his work radical was that he didn't paint kings, queens, and aristocrats; instead, he depicted successful craftsmen, merchants, and his own relatives.
Van Eyck: The Portraits at The National Gallery. 21 November 2026-11 April 2027, £18.
Tender photography: Nan Goldin at the Hayward Gallery
Over the past five decades, Nan Goldin has photographed personal relationships, addiction and queer subcultures, forming what she calls ‘a record of my life that no one can revise.’ She gained global recognition for her public protests against the funding of the arts by the Sackler family, and their role in the opioid epidemic. Here's a chance to see the intimate and tender moments in her photography, as well as the beauty and fragility of human, animal and environmental existence.
Nan Goldin: You Never Did Anything Wrong at the Hayward Gallery. 24 November 2026-14 March 2027, £19.
Pop art legend: Peter Blake at Pitzhanger
Peter Blake is one of the biggest names in British Pop Art, and across a career spanning seven decades he has created paintings, collages, prints and album covers — including, famously the cover of the Beatles album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. His west London studio, located in nearby Hammersmith, has been recreated at Pitzhanger in Ealing, offering insight into his working life, alongside paintings, sculpture, collages, and works on paper, revealing his fascination with pop culture and British and American cultural life.
Peter Blake: In The Studio at Pitzhanger. 25 November 2026-18 April 2027, £17.
It's back: London Museum opens
11 years in the making — and four years since the previous venue closed — we finally have the chance to see the new London Museum, the reincarnation of the former Museum of London. The brand new museum in Smithfield pulls together several historic buildings into one giant celebration of the city and its history, drawing on over seven million objects. The permanent collection includes highlights such as "The Lord Mayor’s Coach, Banksy’s Piranhas artwork, Charles I's execution vest, Emmeline Pankhurst's hunger strike medal, the Whitechapel Fatberg, and Anna Pavlova's 'Dying Swan' dress." The Cheapside Hoard will also be on display, along with archaeological treasures of the Roman period from beneath the Bloomberg building.
London Museum. Opens 28 November, free.
Short-run exhibitions and art fairs
The National Army Museum will have a special display on the experiences of South Asian communities during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath, including how people from South Asia were recruited to support post-war reconstruction in Britain (3-15 November, free). Sculptor Annie Trevorah has taken aim at the contemporary beauty industry with an aesthetic clinic for animals named after the first cloned mammal, as seen in her playful sculptures at Coningsby Gallery (4-14 November, free).
Two of our favourite prizes for emerging artists hold exhibitions of their shortlisted artists, with the Ingram Prize supporting artists who have recently graduated showing their works at Unit 1 Gallery in West London (5-10 November, free). The Cass Art Prize champions contemporary art from across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and we're fans of many of their previous winners and shortlisted artists. This year the works will be shown at the Bomb Factory in Marylebone (6-14 November, free).
The International Original Print Exhibition returns to Bankside Gallery (5-15 November, free), and printmaking is a medium where you can always find affordable works to purchase. Speaking of buying works, the Discerning Eye* returns to the Mall Galleries (13-21 November, free), where six expert judges each have a wall to showcase around 100 works at a domestic scale for visitors to buy. If you prefer buying directly from artists and galleries, then Highgate Art Fair (6-8 November, free) has a mix of artists and galleries all presenting their work in a primary school in north London.
Heading into December, spectacularly detailed architectural drawings by Minty Sainsbury are on show at Coningsby Gallery (1-5 December, free), and the Royal Drawing School showcases its students' work in its end-of-year exhibition (2-19 December, free). Plus, artist and author Robert John launches his book and the artworks that go alongside it at Zari Gallery (10-20 December, free).
Exhibitions outside London
Gainsborough's House in Sudbury is hosting the work of three contemporary artists who incorporate nature and landscape into their art (8 November 2026-18 April 2027, £15 entry fee for the house). Glenn Brown references the relationship between art history and the landscape in his works, which sit at the intersection of the beautiful and the grotesque. Georg Wilson imagines a world without humans, celebrating the animals we often overlook, and the late Monica Poole's works explore nature's dark beauty through wood engravings.
Conceptual artist Ryan Gander has his first major UK show in 20 years at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne (14 November 2026-11 April 2027, £5-14). It includes one of his best-known works, in which an animatronic mouse pokes its head out of a hole in the wall before philosophising to the room. There's an expansive floor installation of colourful, repurposed toys, a fully mirrored room, paintings, and his first AI virtual-reality experience, where we get to meet the artist's avatar.
Ragnar Kjartansson is an artist we've admired for his ability to mix music with art, and meaningful ideas with playfulness. He brings this eccentric energy to Goodwood in Weekdays in Arcadia (26 November 2026-12 April 2027, £15), which includes a six-channel video installation featuring eight female performers from the Iceland Dance Company moving between screens, singing, and playing acoustic guitars, as well as a large-scale ceramic installation, and paintings which depict Kjartansson’s experience of shepherding in southern Iceland.
* The author of this piece is a trustee of Discerning Eye.
