Drawing the Unspeakable

Curated by David Dimbleby and Liza Dimbleby Towner Gallery, Eastbourne | Open 5 Oct – 27 Apr

'Sun above Houses and Shadowy Dog', Ken Kiff, 1986. ©The Estate of Ken Kiff Ltd. Towner Eastbourne

“Drawing the Unspeakable explores the universal language of drawing – a medium that renowned broadcaster David Dimbleby and his daughter, the artist and writer Liza Dimbleby, have long recognised as a powerful tool for expressing the inexpressible. For both father and daughter, drawing transcends the limitations of words, offering a means to convey the most complex ideas and emotions. This exhibition highlights their shared belief in the power of art to communicate experiences that words cannot fully capture.”

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers

National Gallery, London | Open now – 19 Jan

'Weeping Tree', Van Gogh, 1889. Art Institute Chicago

“We’re bringing together your most loved of Van Gogh’s paintings from across the globe, some of which are rarely seen in public. They will be paired together with his extraordinary drawings.”

Anne-Laure Zevi, More Drawings

Lyndsey Ingram, London | Open 8 Oct – 15 Nov

© Anne-Laure Zevi / Lyndsey Ingram Gallery

“Zevi’s drawings are psychologically charged. Their intensity lies both in her technique - which meanders from charcoal, to pencil, ink and remarkably, to the rubbing of cosmetic make-up into delicate sheets of paper – as well as their mysterious, enigmatic subject matter.”

Barbara Walker, Being Here

Whitworth Museum, Manchester | Open 4 Oct – 26 Jan

’Vanishing Point’(2022), Barbara Walker

“Growing up in Birmingham, Walker’s personal experiences with issues of class, race, power and belonging have shaped her practice. She makes work that ranges from small, embossed works on paper, to large-scale wall drawings. Intensely observed and empathetic, her work gives a powerful presence to Black communities and culture in art history.”

Marlene Dumas, Mourning Marsyas

Frith Street Gallery, London | Open now – 16 Nov

Utøya, 2018–2023, Marlene Dumas

“The paintings in this show are created through a mixture of chance and intention, mostly evolving in a dance through time, combining very fast and focused actions with reflective pauses. Here, Dumas’s style as well as subjects move between being in and out of control. We encounter neither portraits nor observations, but images of feelings and moods.”

Uncanny Visions: Paula Rego and Francisco de Goya

Holburne Museum, Bath | Open 27 Sept – 5 Jan

Paula Rego (1935 – 2022). ‘Little Miss Muffet II’, 1989 (hand coloured etching & aquatint). © Paula Rego. All rights reserved. 2024 Bridgeman Images

“The exhibition presents Goya’s Los Disparates (The Follies) (1815-1824), alongside Rego’s complete Nursery Rhymes, a series of over 30 etchings and aquatints. Exploring how two artists living a century apart resorted to similar visual motifs and narrative devices, the exhibition examines how Goya’s influence on Rego is apparent through the media and techniques she employed as well as through some of her themes and aesthetics.”

Monet and London: Views of the Thames

Courtauld Gallery, London | Open 27 Sept – 19 Jan

Claude Monet (1840 – 1926), London, Parliament. Sunlight in the fog, 1904, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, Photo © Grand Palais RMN (musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

“Claude Monet (1840—1926) is world renowned as the leading figure of French Impressionism, the movement that changed the course of modern art. Less known is the fact that some of Monet’s most remarkable Impressionist paintings were made not in France but in London. They depict extraordinary views of the Thames as it had never been seen before, full of evocative atmosphere, mysterious light and radiant colour.”

Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour

MK Gallery, Milton Keynes | Open 19 Oct – 23 Feb

Vanessa Bell, Interior with a Table, 1921. © Tate

“Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) was a pioneering modernist painter and founding member of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of influential English artists, writers and intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century. This exhibition – her largest-ever solo show – provides an in-depth overview that includes drawings, paintings, ceramics and furniture.”

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael

Royal Academy, London | Open 9 Nov – 16 Feb

The Virgin and Child with St Anne and the Infant St John the Baptist ('The Burlington House Cartoon'), c.1506-08, Charcoal with white chalk on paper, mounted on canvas. 141.5 x 104.6 cm. The National Gallery, London. Purchased with a special grant and contributions from the Art Fund, The Pilgrim Trust, and through a public appeal organised by the Art Fund, 1962.

“At the turn of the 16th century, three titans of the Italian Renaissance – Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael – briefly crossed paths, competing for the attention of the most powerful patrons in Republican Florence. On 25 January 1504, Florence’s most prominent artists met to advise on an appropriate location for Michelangelo’s nearly finished David. Among them was Leonardo da Vinci, who – like Michelangelo – had only recently returned to his native Florence. Starting with Michelangelo’s celebrated Taddei Tondo, this exhibition explores the rivalry between Michelangelo and Leonardo and the influence both had on the young Raphael.”

Feeling inspired? Why not try one of our Drop-in courses, online or in the studio. We also have some 5-week courses starting in October