The best exhibitions in the UK for 2025

Turner Liber Studiorum: Ships in a Breeze.

Turner's 'magnum opus' of landscape and seascape prints will be on display at Manchester's Whitworth Gallery

(Image credit: Getty / Sepia Times / Universal Images Group)

published 30 January 2025

From the National Gallery's sprawling Van Gogh show to the Courtauld's blockbuster display of Monet's paintings of a foggy River Thames, 2024 was a show-stopping year for art. And it looks like 2025 will be just as exciting. Here are some of the must-visit exhibitions to keep an eye out for around the UK, spanning iconic costumes, powerful photography, and the overlooked prints of a legendary artist.

Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style, The Design Museum, London

Learn about "Britain's century-long love affair with swimming" at The Design Museum's "playful" show, said Lucy Kehoe in The Times. The exhibition delves into the country's "passion for pools and poolside culture", beginning in the 1920s when lidos became popular, and taking guests on a journey to explore the "modern innovations" that continue to shape our relationship with swimming today. Look out for Pamela Anderson's striking red costume from "Baywatch" and the first Olympic gold medal won by a British woman.

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Opening in September, the David Bowie Centre at the V&A's new east London venue will bring together an array of "rarely seen artefacts" that chart the creative process of one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, said Lydia Figes in Dazed. The permanent archive will include everything from costumes and photographs to album sleeve artwork and stage models. "Brought to life" by rotating guest curators and experts, this is an "absolute must-see for Bowie lovers".

This exhibition opened to "ecstatic reviews" last year at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, with critics praising its "scholarly heft as well as beauty", said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. Now, the "show of the season" is coming to London's Trafalgar Square as part of the National Gallery's 200th birthday celebrations. Visitors will be transported to 14th-century Siena for a breathtaking tour of "exquisite, innovative artworks" by the likes of Duccio, Simone Martini, and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. "Prepare to be dazzled."

Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen has assembled "rarely seen black and white photographs that articulate the history of protest in Britain" for this powerful exhibition at Margate's Turner Contemporary, said Figes in Dazed. From the radical suffrage movement in 1903 to the Anti-Iraq War protest a century later, the show examines the crucial role photography has played in documenting acts of resistance and helping to bring about change.

To mark the 250th anniversary of JMW Turner's birth, the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester will be showcasing "Liber Studiorum" – the legendary British artist's "magnum opus of landscape and seascape etching and mezzotint prints", said Kehoe in The Times. Last on public display at the Whitworth over 100 years ago, the beautiful but overlooked prints will be displayed alongside a series of Turner's watercolours from the gallery's collection, alongside loaned works from private collections.

This landmark exhibition of over 170 artworks by the "enthralling" British Surrealist Ithell Colquhoun is well worth visiting, said Sooke in The Telegraph. Tate St Ives is a fitting setting for the show; "inspired by the region's ancient landscapes and Neolithic monuments", Colquhoun made regular trips to Cornwall from the 1940s before moving there permanently in the 1950s. The exhibition will transfer to London's Tate Britain in June.

Learn about modern garden design at this "colour-popping" exhibition in Dundee, said Kehoe in The Times. The new show offers a "snapshot" of how gardens could look in the future, and explores how "ideas of sustainability and biodiversity" might shape our green spaces. Among the treasures on display are a series of ceramics, sculptures, drawings and photographs that reflect how gardens have influenced "pioneering" artists and designers from Duncan Grant to William Morris.

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Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.