New Exhibitions in June

Frida Kahlo: Now, there's a name to be reckoned with. More than just a painter, a global phenomenon, a superstar who died too young. And so coming to Tate Modern on June 25 we have Frida: The Making of an Icon , surely set to be one of the most in-demand tickets in London this year. It's not so much a show about Frida, though, as about the cult of Frida: More than 30 of her works are accompanied by some 200 by contemporaries and those from later generations whom she inspired, and then there are over 200 objects exploring "Fridamania". The show had good reviews when it was on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and you've got until January 3 to catch it at the Tate. While we're on the subject of mid 20th-century female icons whose candle burned out long before their legend ever did.... Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait starts at the National Portrait Gallery on June 4. The Hollywood star would have been 100 years old this year, and this show, running until Sept...

New Exhibitions in June

Frida Kahlo: Now, there's a name to be reckoned with. More than just a painter, a global phenomenon, a superstar who died too young. And so coming to Tate Modern on June 25 we have Frida: The Making of an Icon, surely set to be one of the most in-demand tickets in London this year. It's not so much a show about Frida, though, as about the cult of Frida: More than 30 of her works are accompanied by some 200 by contemporaries and those from later generations whom she inspired, and then there are over 200 objects exploring "Fridamania". The show had good reviews when it was on at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and you've got until January 3 to catch it at the Tate.

While we're on the subject of mid 20th-century female icons whose candle burned out long before their legend ever did.... Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait starts at the National Portrait Gallery on June 4. The Hollywood star would have been 100 years old this year, and this show, running until September 6, looks back at her life and career as captured by photographers such as Cecil Beaton and Eve Arnold, as well as artists including Andy Warhol and Pauline Boty.

At the Garden Museum in Lambeth, you can travel back in time to the 1950s and the painting school and garden in Suffolk belonging to Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines. Among the cast of characters: Lucian Freud, gardener Beth Chatto and cookery writer Elizabeth David. Benton End: A Paradise of Pollen and Paint is on from June 2 to September 20.

We very much enjoyed a large-scale exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea last year on the theme of Flowers. From June 5, two floors of the gallery will be given over to The Sun and the Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial. Dozens of established and newer artists feature, including Patrick Caulfield, Barbara Hepworth, William Hogarth and Bridget Riley. Among the room-filling installations is Helios, a reproduction of the Sun by Luke Jerram. Until September 8.

Taking over the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank from June 16 to October 18: Anish Kapoor, with a series of immersive works ranging from his mirror sculptures to objects coated in the world's blackest known substance. Kapoor's art can really draw you in; we enjoyed seeing a show by him at Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing a few years ago.

Joseph Wright of Derby is one of the great names of British 18th-century painting, but we didn't think he was well served by a small exhibition at the National Gallery this past winter. Don't get us wrong; the paintings were terrific, we just felt the tickets were much overpriced. The same show moves on to Derby Museum and Art Gallery, where Wright of Derby: From the Shadows can be seen free of charge from June 13 to November 1. The absolute highlight: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.

It's 100 years since the death of Claude Monet, and among the exhibitions marking the anniversary is Monet in Le Havre, which is on from June 5 to September 27 at MuMa, the splendidly located gallery at the mouth of the city's harbour. The show, with some 100 exhibits, looks at the period from 1845, when Monet moved to Le Havre with his family at the age of five, to 1874, the year of the first Impressionist exhibition, when he made his last major series of seascapes in the port.

All the way across France to the Côte d'Azur, for a visit to the Musée Bonnard in Le Cannet, and one of Pierre Bonnard's favourite subjects: his wife Marthe washing and bathing. Les Toilettes de Marthe, with loans from collections both inside and outside France, runs from June 27 to October 31.

Metamorphoses: Ovid and the Arts opens at the Galleria Borghese in Rome on June 23. The exhibition explores how the classical poetry of Ovid has inspired artists for 2,000 years, and it comes from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where it had some excellent reviews. Correggio, Michelangelo, Titian, Rubens, and Poussin are among the artists featured. Until September 20.

Last chance to see....

June 7 is the final day to see Avant-Garde: Max Liebermann and Impressionism in Germany at Museum Barberini in Potsdam, an absorbing exploration of how the Impressionist movement crossed the Rhine. We saw the first run of the exhibition last autumn at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden.

And you've got until June 21 to see the astonishing paintings of the recently rediscovered 17th-century artist from the Southern Netherlands, Michaelina Wautier, at the Royal Academy in London. Generations said her work couldn't have been painted by a woman, but they were wrong....

Images

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940, Nickolas Muray Collection of Mexican Art, University of Texas, Austin
Anish Kapoor (b. 1954), Tsunami, 2018. Photograph: Dave Morgan. © Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved, DACS, 2026
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), Femme à la toilette or La Cheminée, 1916, Fondation Pauline, Switzerland. © ag images
Michaelina Wautier (c. 1614-1689), Portrait of a Military Commander (Pierre Wautier?), about 1660, Private collection

What's On in 2026

Coming up in 2026: Lots more big exhibitions starring women artists, including Frida Kahlo, Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington and Gwen John , as well as a host of names from the 17th-century Low Countries. And women almost certainly embroidered the Bayeux Tapestry, a contender for this year's hottest ticket in London. Here's a selection of shows that have caught our eye around Britain and Europe, in more or less chronological order; as ever, we make no claim to comprehensiveness, and our choice very much reflects our personal taste. January We'll start the year at the Fondation Beyeler on the outskirts of Basel, where they're devoting an exhibition to Paul Cezanne . Focusing on the artist's later years, the show will bring together some 80 oil paintings and watercolours. January 25 to May 25. February Two leading British women artists feature in exhibitions opening this month, with the National Museum in Cardiff honouring the best-known female painter Wales has pr...

The Highs and Lows of the Nahmad Collection

It's widely referred to as the world's most valuable private art collection : the one assembled over decades by the Nahmad brothers, dealers Ezra and David . Worth an estimated $3 billion or more, it's said to include hundreds of Picassos. Some 60 works from it are now on display at the Musée des impressionnismes in Giverny as The Nahmad Collection: From Monet to Picasso . Intended, apparently, to demonstrate how art developed from the early 19th century through Impressionism and on to the start of the modern era, towards the liberation of colour and form, this is an exhibition that ends up coming across as somewhat incoherent. We're not really told much about the Nahmads or their collecting choices -- and as you search the Internet, things become slightly mysterious: Is Ezra alive or dead? The art, presumably, is supposed to speak for itself, but it's a rather eclectic, if not confusing, selection; some of the works are fantastic, some are distinctly ho-hum. Let...

What's On in 2025

What will be the exhibition highlights of 2025 around Britain and Europe? At the end of the year, Tate Britain will be marking 250 years since the birth of JMW Turner and John Constable with a potential blockbuster. Meanwhile, the Swiss are making a big thing of the 100th anniversary of the death of Félix Vallotton (a real favourite of ours). Among women artists in the spotlight will be Anna Ancher, Ithell Colquhoun, Artemisia Gentileschi and Suzanne Valadon. Here's a selection of what's coming up, in more or less chronological order; as ever, we make no claim to comprehensiveness, and our choice very much reflects our personal taste. And in our search for the most interesting shows, we're visiting Ascona, Baden-Baden, Chemnitz and Winterthur, among other places. January We start off in Paris, at the Pompidou Centre; the 1970s inside-out building is showing its age and it'll be shut in the summer for a renovation programme scheduled to last until 2030. Bef...

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