It's surely an anniversary the Tate has long been counting down to: JMW Turner was born in 1775, John Constable in 1776. To mark the 250 years of two of the country's greatest painters, Turner and Constable is on at Tate Britain from November 27 to April 12. Rivals with very different approaches to landscape painting, they were both hugely influential. More than 170 works are promised, with Turner's Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons and Constable's White Horse coming home from the US for the show. Before those two were even born, Joseph Wright of Derby had already painted his most famous picture, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump . It'll be part of Wright of Derby: From the Shadows at the National Gallery from November 7 to May 10, which is intended to challenge the view of Wright as just a painter of light and shade and to illustrate how he used the night to explore deeper and more sombre themes. Only 20 or so works, however, making it a disappo...
As London's Courtauld Gallery closes for a makeover , some of its highlights are making the short trip up the Strand for a show at the National Gallery. Courtauld Impressionists , which runs from September 17 to January 20, brings together works purchased in the 1920s by the industrialist Samuel Courtauld for his own collection as well as Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings he helped acquire for the National Gallery. Manet, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat and Bonnard are represented and tickets are a modestly priced £7.50. There are two new exhibitions at the Royal Academy. The first traces the career of Renzo Piano , architect of the Shard, and it's on from September 15 to January 20. The second, starting September 29 and running until December 10, looks at the indigenous art of Oceania , marking the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific. Huge canoes and stunning god images are promised among the 200 artefacts. Dulwich...