Exhibitions to see this autumn

This autumn, the Royal Academy of Arts presents the largest survey of celebrated American artist and Honorary Royal Academician Kerry James Marshall ever to be shown in Europe. One of America’s most important artists, Marshall’s powerful paintings place the lives of Black Americans front and centre. Full of references spanning art history, civil rights, comics, science fiction, his own memories and more, Marshall’s works comment of the past, celebrate everyday life, and imagine more optimistic futures.

Marking the artist’s 70th birthday, this major solo exhibition explores Marshall’s expansive career to date. Kerry James Marshall: The Histories features over 70 works, bringing together primarily paintings, as well as examples of the artist’s prints, drawings and sculpture, from museums and private collections across North America and Europe. The exhibition is the first institutional presentation of the artist’s work in the UK since 2006 and includes a dramatic new series of paintings made especially for the show.

His vivid and mostly large-scale paintings place the Black figure front and centre. Marshall builds upon the Western tradition of history painting and makes visible those people who were so noticeably absent in the works that came before him. Learn more

Marie Antoinette Style is the UK’s first exhibition on the French queen Marie Antoinette. The exhibition, held at the V&A will explore the origins and countless revivals of the style shaped by the most fashionable queen in history. A fashion icon in her own time, and an early modern ‘celebrity’, the dress and interiors modelled and adopted by the ill-fated Queen of France in the final decades of the eighteenth century have had a lasting influence on over 250 years of design, fashion, film and decorative arts. 

Among 250 objects, including exceptional loans from the Château de Versailles never before seen outside France, the exhibition will also feature contemporary clothing including couture pieces by designers such as Moschino, Dior, Chanel, Erdem, Vivienne Westwood and Valentino, and costumes made for screen, such as for Sofia Coppola’s Oscar winning Marie Antoinette starring Kirsten Dunst, as well as shoes designed by Manolo Blahnik for the film. Learn more

Last year among the anniversary buzz of Surrealism’s centenary, Lee Miller rightly had a huge moment of recognition, with Kate Winslet’s blockbuster film, ‘LEE’ and an accompanying exhibition titled, ‘Lee and LEE’ held at Farley’s House and Gallery.

Now, Tate Britain has curated the most extensive retrospective of the photographer’s work to date, showcasing around 250 vintage and modern prints. Miller began her career in front of the lens as one of the most sought after models of the late 1920s, though it wasn’t long before she began capturing her own images, earning her place as one of the most notable avant-garde photographers of the day, known for her experimental surrealist imagery, fashion and war photography. Learn more about the exhibition of who Tate is calling one of the 20th century’s most urgent voices.

The Courtauld Gallery’s latest exhibition ‘Wayne Thiebaud American Still Life’ is the first museum show of the artist’s work to be held in the UK. Now regarded as one of the greatest and most original American artists of the 20th century, Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021) captured quintessential post-war American subjects, such as deli counters, diners and gumball machines, in vibrant still-life paintings. Inspired by the work of Chardin, Manet and Cézanne, Thiebaud turned often overlooked subjects into a profound body of Modernist paintings. Learn more

The National Portrait Gallery’s latest fashion forward exhibition is showcasing the illustration, photography and Oscar-winning costume design of the exemplary Cecil Beaton. Showcasing his most triumphant works that captured the Bright Young Things of the 1920s, the Jazz Age, and the high fashion of the 1950s, be prepared to be dazzled by photographs, letters, portrait sketches, fashion illustration and costume of some of the twentieth century’s most iconic figures, including Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret; as well as Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Salvador Dalí. Learn more

• Liz West: Future Tense: Art in the Age of Transformation at York Art Gallery
• Gilbert & George: 21st century pictures at Hayward Gallery
• Turner Prize 2025 at Cartwright Hall, Bradford
• Theatre Picasso at Tate Modern