> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The 10 Best London Art Shows of 2025 - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/the-10-best-london-art-shows-of-2025/ - Published: 2025-12-09T21:54:20.000Z - Updated: 2025-12-09T21:58:22.000Z - Description: It was a year of surprising pairings and standout exhibitions by artists including Kerry James Marshall, Jenny Saville, and Leigh Bowery - Author: Hyperallergic - Tags: Best of 2025, Feature, London It should come as no surprise to anyone that London would host some standout exhibitions in 2025\. But even with the city’s thriving art scene, this year seemed exceptional. It wasn’t just eye-catching shows. Museums made conscious attempts to move out of their comfort zones by giving marquee status to those who are often overlooked or marginalized: Indigenous artists, queer pioneers, trailblazing women — the list goes on. In addition to high-profile exhibitions featuring Kerry James Marshall, Jenny Saville, Leigh Bowery, and other important and inimitable figures, institutions went out on a limb with surprising pairings (Vincent van Gogh and Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy of Arts) and under-appreciated talents such as Edward Burra and Joseph Wright of Derby. Particularly notable was Tate Modern’s survey of Australian Aboriginal artist Emily Kam Kngwarray, organized by two First Nations curators. Our London-based contributors were there for it, bringing their knowledge and unique perspectives. There’s still much work to be done in making museums more inclusive and aware of narratives and creators left out of standard Western canons, but it feels like London’s art world is on the right track. Below are our critics’ picks for the best shows of the year. —*Natalie Haddad, reviews editor* --- ### Henri Michaux: The Mescaline Drawings [**Courtauld Institute**](https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-henri-michaux-mescaline-drawings/?ref=hyperallergic.com), February 12–June 4 Curated by Ketty Gottardo ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/michaux-mescaline-1957.jpg) Henri Michaux, "Untitled (Mescaline drawing)" (1957), pen and black ink on paper (© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2025) Henri Michaux, that Belgian neo-Surrealist who so loathed the bright lights of publicity, was as much a poet as an artist of great graphic intricacy. This exhibition centered the works that emerged as a result of his experimentation with mescaline — how the drug dilated his dreams, causing them to warp, flow, and waver. It is an extended poem and a record of a unique part of his graphic work. —*Michael Glover* [*Read the review*](https://hyperallergic.com/the-private-calligraphy-of-henri-michaux-courtauld-gallery/) --- ### Leigh Bowery! [**Tate Modern**](https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/leigh-bowery?ref=hyperallergic.com), February 27–August 31 Curated by Fiontán Moran, Jessica Baxter, Nicola Rainbird, and Margery King ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/tate4.jpg) Costumes created and worn by Bowery on display in **Leigh Bowery!* (photo Natalie Haddad/**Hyperallergic*) Leigh Bowery … the name alone left me both confused and intrigued when I was a teenager reading magazines like *I-D* and *The Face*. Who was this performer who covered his face and transformed his body into a sculpture with his spectacular outfits? Tate Modern’s retrospective of the late artist’s life and work was informative, straightforward in its language and history (as Olivia McEwan notes in her review, linked below), and an extravaganza of colors and textures, attitude and style. I flew across the ocean to see it. —*Natalie Haddad, reviews editor* [*Read Olivia McEwan's review*](https://hyperallergic.com/leigh-bowery-was-his-own-artwork-tate-modern/) --- ### Do Ho Suh: Walk the House [**Tate Modern**](https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/the-genesis-exhibition-do-ho-suh?ref=hyperallergic.com), May 1–October 26 Curated by Nabila Abdel Nabi and Dina Akhmadeeva ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/The-Genesis-Exhibition-Do-Ho-Suh-at-Tate-Modern----Tate-Photography--Jai-Monaghan-.jpg) Installation view of Do Ho Suh, "Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home" (2013–22) in **Do Ho Suh: Walk the House* at Tate Modern (© Tate Photography, photo Jai Monaghan) South Korean artist Do Ho Suh recreates the interiors of his previous homes in fabric mesh. These extraordinary spaces provided visitors to his exhibition plenty of Instagram-ready snapping opportunities. However, a more tactile recreation in paper for which he literally — and laboriously — traced his childhood house in pencil rubbings offered an especially poignant meditation on notions of home, habitation, and our memories of them. —*Olivia McEwan* --- ### Edward Burra [**Tate Britain**](https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/edward-burra?ref=hyperallergic.com), June 13–October 19 Curated by Thomas Kennedy with Eliza Spindel ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/13--edward-burra-simply-heavenly-scene-in-harlem-1957--private-collection.jpg) Edward Burra, "Simply Heavenly Scene in Harlem" (1957); Private Collection (© The estate of Edward Burra, courtesy Lefevre Fine Art, London) Edward Burra, that oddest of oddballs among the English artists who emerged in the 1920s, looks the polar opposite of his strangely stylized art: serious, dutiful, and nonthreatening. The art itself is all wildness writ large. Tate Britain’s full career tells Burra’s whole story, and makes a strong case for his unorthodox genius. —*Michael Glover* [*Read the review*](https://hyperallergic.com/edward-burra-satirical-surrealism-tate-britain/) --- ### Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting [**National Portrait Gallery**](https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2025/jenny-saville/?ref=hyperallergic.com), June 20–September 7 Curated by Sarah Howgate ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/reverse-2002-2003-by-jenny-saville-private-collection-courtesy-gagosian-_c_-jenny-saville.jpg) Jenny Saville, "Reverse" (2002–3), oil on canvas; Private Collection (courtesy Gagosian © Jenny Saville) Though technically considered a [YBA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young%5FBritish%5FArtists?ref=hyperallergic.com), Jenny Saville deserves her place in the canon of wider Western art history. While her contemporaries Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin created conceptual objects designed to shock, Saville's painterly work is just as powerful, yet informed by a wealth of art historical precedent in the Renaissance through to De Kooning. Her work is mostly hidden away in private collections, so the National Portrait Gallery's survey presented a rare chance to experience her large-scale, uncompromising flesh in its full impact. Arguably Britain’s greatest living painter. —*Olivia McEwan* [*Read the review*](https://hyperallergic.com/jenny-saville-uk-greatest-living-painter-national-portrait-gallery-london/) --- ### Van Gogh/Kiefer [**Royal Academy of Arts**](https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/kiefer-van-gogh?ref=hyperallergic.com), June 28–October 26 Curated by Julien Domercq and Natasha Fyffe ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/vincent-van-gogh-shoes-1886-oil-on-canvas-e1757101497141.jpg) Vincent van Gogh, "Shoes" (1886), oil on canvas (photo Olivia McEwan/**Hyperallergic*) Van Gogh and Anselm Kiefer? Do the two have much in common? The fact is that Kiefer has been consumed by a passion for van Gogh since his youth in the 1960s, and this extraordinary show of relatively few van Goghs and very many more Kiefers at the Royal Academy demonstrates how the German artist seized hold of the spirit of the post-Impressionist, and scaled it up as poor Vincent could never have afforded to do. A brilliant series of riffs on the most merchandised artist of all time. —*Michael Glover* [*Read Olivia McEwan's review*](https://hyperallergic.com/anselm-kiefer-van-gogh-royal-academy/) --- ### Emily Kam Kngwarray [**Tate Modern**](https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/emily-kam-kngwarray?ref=hyperallergic.com), July 10–January 11, 2026 Curated by Kelli Cole ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/EKK.jpg) Installation view of **Emily Kam Kngwarray* at Tate Modern (photo Aruna D'Souza/**Hyperallergic*) Organized by the exceptional First Nations curators Kelli Cole and Hettie Perkins, this exhibition brings together 80 works by Kngwarray (c. 1914-1996), an artist from Australia’s Northern Territories who began to translate Aboriginal image-making traditions into watercolor, acrylic, and batik, paving the way for contemporary Aboriginal art. The pieces are stunningly beautiful, but don’t mistake abstraction for lack of narrative: they are a form of cultural survival, telling stories passed on for millennia. —*Aruna D'Souza* [*Read Anna Souter's review*](https://hyperallergic.com/emily-kam-kngwarray-language-of-country-tate-modern/) --- ### Kerry James Marshall: The Histories [**Royal Academy**](https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/kerry-james-marshall?ref=hyperallergic.com), September 20–January 18, 2026 Curated by Mark Godfrey, Adrian Locke, Rose Thompson, with curatorial researcher Nikita Sena Quarshie ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/Kerry2.jpg) Kerry James Marshall, "Many Mansions" (1994), acrylic on paper mounted on canvas (photo Aruna D'Souza/**Hyperallergic*) We don’t need much reminder that Marshall is the greatest painter of his generation, but this exhibition, which displays his most ambitious work in galleries grand enough to hold it, contains enough surprises to necessitate an urgent trip to the UK (or Zurich or Paris, its next stops). His newest canvases, on the complicity of Africans in the transatlantic slave trade, are both historically precise and impishly inconvenient — brilliant, in other words. —*Aruna D'Souza* --- ### Lee Miller [**Tate Britain**](https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/lee-miller?ref=hyperallergic.com), October 2–February 15, 2026 Curated by Hilary Floe and Saskia Flower ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/3.-Lee-Miller--Model-Elizabeth-Cowell-wearing-Digby-Morton-suit--London-1941.-Lee-Miller-Archives-1.jpg) Lee Miller, "Model Elizabeth Cowell wearing Digby Morton suit, London" (1941) (Lee Miller Archives © Lee Miller Archives, England 2025, all rights reserved, leemiller.co.uk) Why is Tate Britain’s retrospective of the photographic career of Lee Miller so important and alluring from start to finish? Because of the discovery of an enormous photographic archive containing approximately 60,000 prints, negatives and documentation in family attic images that was discovered at her final home, Farley Farm in East Sussex. It tells the story of her ambition, her bravery, and her achievements as never before. —*Michael Glover* --- ### Wright of Derby: From the Shadows [**National Gallery**](https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/wright-of-derby-from-the-shadows?ref=hyperallergic.com), November 7–May 10, 2026 Curated by Christine Riding ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2025/12/A-Girl-Reading-a-Letter-with-an-Old-Man-Reading-Over-her-Shoulder--ca1767-70-copy.jpg) Joseph Wright of Derby, "A Girl Reading a Letter with an Old Man Reading Over her Shoulder" (c. 1767–70) (photo Olivia McEwan/**Hyperallergic*) The easiest way to sum up Joseph Wright of Derby is as “Britain’s Caravaggio,” for the National Gallery’s exhibition “*From The Shadows*” focuses on his use of tenebrism (a form of chiaroscuro) to introduce this unfairly overlooked regional talent. Yet during the age of [William Hogarth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William%5FHogarth?ref=hyperallergic.com) — who typified a cynical, moralising critique of 18th-century society and politics — it is Wright of Derby’s wide-eyed optimism, spiritualism, and faith in science that reveals his warm heart. A revelatory show. —*Olivia McEwan*