It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
It’s September! Which means the most intense week in the London art world calendar is upon us: Frieze. Does your lack of a VIP invite to the Big Top Art Circus make you feel like you’re the only child in primary school not invited to the Pizza Hut birthday party? Are you fed up with the number of people recommending Frieze-adjacent exhibitions which will “totally change your view of anthropomorphic post-ironic anarcho-communism”? Can you not bear another Frieze Week networking brunch, which will inevitably end with having networked with no one and wondering whether a GANNI handbag is mandatory attire now?
Get out. Run. Maybe to one of these exhibitions outside of London. Here are my top 10 recommended exhibitions to see this month, starring fish, flowers, and Francisco Goya.
Frieze Week comparison can’t get you if you’re in sunny Walsall…
If the 19th Century had a Pinterest, this exhibition would be what it would look like. Displaying architectural sketches, magazine cover illustrations, and designs for candlesticks and rugs that would make Anthropologie salivate, this show at Scotland’s National Galleries is the ideal place to play the “if I won the lottery and could design my house from scratch” game, before reluctantly going home to where you actually live. The exhibition highlights the era-defining work by Scottish artists working beyond the fine arts. Dedicated to works on paper, this show gives glimpses into aspirational projects that never were (or were, but differently) as well as designs for ephemeral items that have long since been thrown away, both of which make this exhibition a better representation of the designs that truly featured in people’s lives and minds in the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
God's House Tower, Hampshire - Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures - until 05 October
What if a fish were a fading Hollywood starlet and its boudoir was a 13th-century gatehouse in Southampton? There’s only one place to find out. God's House Tower is probably the jewel in Southampton’s crown (and that’s saying something, we have one of the UK’s few in-city full-scale IKEAs), with a curatorial programme that can rival any gallery in the country. Its latest exhibition, by Josie Turnbull, examines the Sisyphean cycle of popularity to passé, centred around the Asian Arowana. The fish, an endangered species native to Southeast Asia, are a high-demand commodity for aquarists. Selective breeding, routine cosmetic surgery, and artificial scarcity, which drives up their prices, all pose a threat to the species’ survival. Reflecting colonial themes and reminding us of the risks of striving for success at all costs, this exhibition will make you think about more than just fish.
Chatsworth, Derbyshire - The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth - until 05 October
With its construction begun in the 16th century (and an entire village moved in the 19th century to better fit the aesthetics of the grounds), Chatsworth House (Pemberley, for you 2005 Darcy enthusiasts) is one of the UK’s most iconic stately homes. It has been the home of the Duke of Devonshire for more than 500 years (crikey, he’s old), and The Gorgeous Nothings showcases pieces of botanical art and floral design, both contemporary and historical, from the Devonshire Collection. The exhibition highlights the work done by landscape designers, gardeners, and botanists who have worked on the site over the past 500 years, with rare manuscripts, extravagant fashion samples, and 18th-century paintings of ladies in hats. The promotional video on the website also suggests that there is a lot of frog content, which is excellent.
Baltic, Tyne and Wear - Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument - until 12 October
Inspired by ancient monuments and archaeological artefacts, Beirut-born artist Ali Cherri has filled Newcastle’s Baltic with large-scale sculptures, installations, drawings, and films which examine how cultural narratives are shaped by conflict. With brand new commissions including a huge sculpture made from bronze and mud, the bodies Cherri creates bear the scars of war, and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of victory, asking “at what cost?”. How I Am Monument scored a whopping five stars in the Guardian (an honour shared with The Muppet Christmas Carol - objectively the best film in the world, so you know their ratings system is reliable), so it isn’t one to miss. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Vienna Secession, technically the same organisation from the 1890s where Klimt was making his hypnotic-but-sort-of-alarming nudes.
The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands - Shelter - until 19 October
For an open call exhibition on the theme of “shelter”, the New Art Gallery Walsall has teamed up with the award-winning charity Outside, who support artists from outside of the traditional art world. I have to say, open call exhibitions - like Jukebox musicals - make me nervous. I worry that their inherent people-pleasing nature (“yay, we’ve all been included in this exhibition!” or “yay, I love the songs of Backstreet Boys and the story of Titus Andronicus, I can’t wait to see them combined!”) will impact their quality. However, having looked at the images from this exhibition, there was absolutely no reason to fear in the case of Shelter. Boasting a variety of impeccably executed sculptures, textile art, paintings, and drawings, this show will make you happy to get home - in the best possible way.
Do you remember when going to New York was the trip of a lifetime? People would go for at least a week, maybe fitting in other parts of America, because they certainly wouldn’t be coming back this way any time soon. Now you can get return flights for under £300. You can nip to New York for a weekend. And that’s exactly what Robert Watson did, spending just two days in the Big Apple. But instead of queuing up for a bagel at the place where Meg Ryan had an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or standing listlessly at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Watson got to work photographing New York behind the tourist curtain, capturing the true spirit of native New Yorkers and the buzz of Real Life in the city that never sleeps.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery is my favourite place to visit in Leicester after my improv troupe. I perform to just-about-double-figure audiences at the Comedy Festival each year. Their new exhibition - exploring how old and new technologies aren’t so different after all - is sure to be a treat (even if you haven’t just taken an ego-beating in the basement of a pub). Utilizing now archaic- but once cutting edge tech (you try explaining a pencil to someone in 1794 - they’d be thrilled!) with interactive digital elements, this show illuminates just how far we have come, and reminds us how boggling it is that we have a hand-sized device ready to give us access to all of the information in the world at a millisecond’s notice, when typewriters were still a must-have in offices just 50 years ago. And while you’re in Leicester, why not stay until February, when we’ll be back in the basement?
Millennium Gallery, South Yorkshire - The Ruskin Collection: Capturing Colour - until 30 November
John Ruskin! My favourite Victorian oddball! This exhibition showcases some of Ruskin’s collection, celebrating all things colour, a cornerstone of his theories on beauty. The writer created the philanthropic Guild of St George society - whose collection now lives in the Millennium Gallery - in 1871, founding his own museum filled with work designed to inspire Sheffield’s workers living in the smog of the industrial city. The works in this colour-themed show highlight Ruskin’s love of nature, which he saw as the true source of all beauty. He clearly didn’t love the au-naturel look so much, though, when he annulled his marriage to the Pre-Raphaelite model Effie Gray on grounds of non-consumation because he was apparently appalled at the sight of her bush. Linking Ruskin’s theories to works in the collection, including watercolours, metalwork, and manuscripts, this show is a vibrant glimpse into the Victorian world. (But isn’t it crazy about the bush thing?)
The Bowes Museum, County Durham - Pippa Hale: Pet Project - until 01 March 2026
The Bowes Museum - purpose-built in 1892 to hold the art collection of John Bowes and his wife, the Countess of Montalbo - is home to paintings by El Greco, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Francisco Goya. It also houses over 5000 objects in its ceramics collection, including a miniature cat made in Staffordshire in 1825, probably painted by a Georgian child surviving on pennies, which looks like how you would draw a cat after a spliff. The Georgian child probably would have quite liked a spliff... In Pet Project, artist Pippa Hale has created a wonderland of interactive art, reimagining the pets of Bowes’ ceramics collection as enormous bean bags and paint-it-yourself ceramics. This show looks incredibly fun, and what an innovative way to celebrate ceramic objects, which are so often overlooked in stately collections.
Goldmark Gallery, Rutland - Goya’s Los Caprichos - undisclosed
Not sure how long this one is “popping up” for, so I hope I’m not leading you astray. Made during a period of illness in the 1890s, Goya’s collection of 80 dark and satirical etchings is a damning portrayal of Spanish society (which I can’t get enough of, after that Euros final, am I right?!) Making the most of the recently developed aquatint technique for this series, Goya’s resulting etchings have a beautiful, watercolour-esque quality, even in the more nightmarish ones, like where a woman pulls teeth from a recently hanged corpse. If it turns out that this exhibition has closed, perhaps you can make the best of it and soak up the other wonders that the UK’s smallest county has to offer (like a castle and a big lake and a large collections of horseshoes hung upside-down so the devil can’t make a nest in them), and celebrate its liberation from Leicestershire in 1997.
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