More Visual Arts News
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The Midlands has a wealth of art galleries and museums hosting a range of fantastic exhibitions - both permanent and temporary. Here's a selection of what's showing across the region.
SUMMER EXHIBITION
Coventry’s Warwick Arts Centre is hosting three concurrent exhibitions this month and next.
Bologna-based Rwandan artist Francis Offman’s Economics Of Painting showcases canvases that tell stories of friendship, conversation and travel, while Swiss creative Nicole Bachmann’s There Are Tides In The Body is a new film commission. Set across two locations in Kent and Spon End in Coventry, the film considers the body as a site of knowledge by using movement and voice to ‘embody vocabulary’ and create new meaning. Completing the trio of exhibitions, Activate/Assemble/Amplify contemplates the creative future of Coventry’s children and young people. Sharing artworks and performances made throughout the year as part of youth and schools projects, the exhibition explores the participants’ vision for themselves and their city.
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, Friday 3 May - Sunday 23 June
DION KITSON: RUE BRITANNIA
A major solo exhibition, Dion Kitson’s Rue Britannia sees the artist remodelling everyday objects to isolate and elevate ubiquitously ‘ordinary’ sights, such as a burst football or discarded plastic bottle.
The exhibition also includes Council House Of Kitson - a new installation featuring a pebble-dashed façade and footage documenting Dion’s father.
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Friday 10 May - Sunday 8 September
JOHN PIPER AND 20TH CENTURY ART
Barton Court’s 10th anniversary exhibition showcases more than 50 fabrics, limited-edition prints and original works by John Piper, a Surrey-born 20th-century artist whose work often focused on the British landscape.
An official war artist in World War Two, Piper’s depictions of bomb-damaged churches and landmarks, including and most notably Coventry Cathedral, hugely enhanced his reputation and led to his work being acquired by a number of public collections.
A selection of work by other 20th-century artists also features in the exhibition.
Barton Court, Colwall, Herefordshire, Saturday 11 - Monday 20 May
INTERNATIONAL WATERCOLOUR MASTERS
The International Watercolour Masters (IWM) makes a welcome return to Shropshire this month, and as usual the exhibition will be showcasing a selection of impressive artwork by some of the world’s most talented creatives.
Alongside the paintings by global masters, IWM will also present (via a giant screen in the main exhibition arena) the top 200 entries in the show’s hugely popular watercolour competition, which this year was entered by thousands of people from across the world.
Lilleshall Hall, Shropshire, Wednesday 15 - Friday 24 May
LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION: FROM GARDENS TO LAND ART
Works by celebrated artists including JMW Turner, Nicolas Poussin and Anya Gallaccio feature in this brand-new exhibition at Compton Verney, a show which explores the question of how art might work together with nature to reverse the decline of the UK’s green spaces.
An accompanying selection of playful interactive activities in the exhibition galleries will provide families with the opportunity to imagine their own colourful and fantastical landscapes.
Image: JMW Turner, c1827-8, The Lake, Petworth, Sunset
Compton Verney, Warwickshire, until Sunday 16 June
FRESH AIR FOR THE POTTERIES
Fresh Air For The Potteries marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of William Blake, whose reputation as a photographer is mainly built around the popularity of his ‘Smokies’ - photos that depicted the Potteries’ industrial landscape of bottle ovens and chimneys.
Blake also travelled throughout the region, taking photographs of the towns and villages he visited. In so doing, he built up a visual record of north Staffordshire during the early 20th century.
The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, until Sunday 5 May
DRAWING ATTENTION
This thought-provoking British Museum touring exhibition features artwork produced by some of the most promising up-and-coming names in the field of contemporary drawing, displayed alongside a selection of works by celebrated artists including Mary Delany, Edouard Manet, Barbara Hepworth, Andy Warhol and Yinka Shonibare.
The exhibition showcases a wide range of techniques and practices, with artists showing how drawing - often considered a quiet or private medium - can be used to challenge social norms, explore identity and protest injustice.
Wolverhampton Art Gallery,until Thursday 16 May
NEW NARRATIVES IN PHOTOGRAPHY
A desire to explore narratives of community, public space and diaspora is the motivation behind the work of the four artists whose photos are showcased in this exhibition.
The featured creatives - Asad Ali, Hira Noor, Ume Laila and Waleed Zafar - are all based in Pakistan and use photography in new and innovative ways.
The exhibition is being presented as part of an international-residency collaboration between two arts organisations, both of which are photography-led: Grain Projects (which is located here in the West Midlands) and Tasweerghar (from Lahore in Pakistan).
Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham, until Monday 27 May
QUILT ART: MATERIAL EVIDENCE
The ‘adventurous spirit and rich heritage’ of women who make art through stitching is celebrated in this new exhibition, which features work by current and former members of pan-European group Quilt Art.
Inspired by the life and work of the late Mary Fogg - a founder member of the group and a pioneer in the field of textile art - the show sees each featured artist take a unique approach to Mary’s legacy, presenting cutting-edge work which aims ‘to transcend people’s ideas of what quilting can do’.
The exhibition is accompanied by a book featuring the included artworks and giving an insight into the working processes of each artist.
Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham, until Monday 27 May
CARBONIFEROUS MONSTERS: 100 MILLION YEARS BEFORE THE DINOSAURS
This sure-to-be-popular exhibition is being promoted as ‘a must-see for prehistoric monster fans of all ages’. Visitors to the show will get to meet a host of bizarre and ferocious monsters, some of which had even larger teeth than the Tyrannosaurus Rex!
The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, until Sunday 2 June
THE WORLD THAT BELONGS TO US
Autobiography and activism come together in this multimedia exhibition showcasing painting, photography, film, animation, wall drawing and site-specific installation.
Featuring work by intergenerational artists from the South Asian diasporas of the UK, US and Canada, the show aims to stimulate conversations around a wide range of subjects, from community and belonging, to migrant and diasporic storytelling and queer & feminist world-building.
New Art Gallery, Walsall, until Sunday 9 June
AFTER THE END OF HISTORY: BRITISH WORKING CLASS PHOTOGRAPHY 1989 - 2024
The challenges, beauty and diversity of contemporary working-class life - as depicted by working-class artists using the medium of photography - are explored in this fascinating exhibition, curated by acclaimed photographer, writer & broadcaster Johny Pitts.
A Hayward Gallery Touring show, the collection features work from 1989 onwards and marks the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (which happened on 9 November of that year).
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, until Sunday 16 June
CONTEMPORARY PÂTE DE VERRE: THE MATERIAL OF TIME
This unique exhibition of internationally acclaimed Pâte de Verre glass artists is the result of a collaboration between Stourbridge Glass Museum and the Contemporary Pâte de Verre Association. The Association works to support new investigations into Pâte de Verre and what the 5,000-year-old glass technique can do ‘in sculpture and new narratives for our rapidly changing world’.
The show is based on the same-named 2022 book The Material Of Time by Dr Max Stewart and Tone Orvik.
Stourbridge Glass Museum, until Sunday 23 June
DAME LAURA KNIGHT
The first female artist ever to be welcomed into the Royal Academy, Dame Laura Knight felt a profound love for Worcestershire and the Malvern Hills. Indeed, her emotional connection to the area provided her with a great deal of artistic inspiration during the later years of her life.
Curated by Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum, this brand-new exhibition, titled I Paint Today, pays homage not only to the artist herself but also to her relationship with the local countryside.
The show features works from the Worcester City collection alongside loans from regional and national collections, including Tate.
Worcester City Art Gallery, until Sunday 30 June
VICTORIAN RADICALS
Birmingham’s impressive collection of Pre-Raphaelite art here goes on display in the city for the first time in more than five years.
Taking the subtitle ‘From The Pre-Raphaelites To The Arts & Crafts Movement’, Victorian Radicals features vibrant paintings and exquisite drawings presented alongside jewellery, glass, textiles and metalwork. The show provides visitors with the chance to discover the story of the Pre-Raphaelites - Britain’s first modern art movement - and learn about their influence on artists and makers well into the 20th century.
Image: Hope Comforting Love in Bondage, 190. Artist: Sidney Harold Meteyard
The Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, until Wednesday 10 July
A SPIRIT INSIDE
With its themes ranging from mythology and internal contemplation to external and political expression, A Spirit Inside comprises a selection of works produced by women and non-binary artists across a period of 100-plus years.
The featured pieces have been drawn from the Women’s Art Collection - Europe’s biggest collection of work by female artists - and The Ingram Collection, one of the UK’s best collections of modern and contemporary British art.
Artists whose work is featured in the show include Leonora Carrington, Winifred Nicholson, Bridget Riley, Man Fung Yi and Permindar Kaur.
Compton Verney, Warwickshire, until Sunday 1 September
HIDDEN VOICES
Fitting in nicely (just as you’d expect!) with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s (SBT) multi-year Women Who Made Shakespeare theme, Hidden Voices focuses on the important females in the life of the bard, exploring their impact as mothers, wives, widows, businesswomen and managers of a busy household at New Place, the site of the grandest house in Jacobean Stratford-upon-Avon.
The exhibition also seeks to dispel many of the myths which have persisted across the centuries: that William didn’t love wife Anne, because he left her the ‘second best bed’; that daughter Susanna was his favourite; that younger daughter Judith was illiterate; and that because Shakespeare’s mother Mary was a farmer’s daughter, she was less upwardly mobile.
Numerous objects from SBT’s collection are featured in the exhibition, including artefacts from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon, until Sunday 3 November
PAYING RESPECTS: MONEY AND MORTALITY
Having been struck in tribute to emperors, monarchs and leaders - and also used in many of the rituals and routines that mark the passage from life to the afterlife - coins of historical significance are invariably accompanied by some fascinating stories.
That’s certainly true of the examples on show in this ongoing Barber display. The exhibition draws from a superlative collection that features caches of Byzantine, Trapezuntine and Sasanian currency, as well as significant holdings of Roman and medieval coins.
Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, until spring 2024
DIPPY IN COVENTRY: THE NATION'S FAVOURITE DINOSAUR
The Natural History Museum’s iconic Diplodocus cast - life-size, made of plaster-of-paris, and affectionately referred to as Dippy - has taken up residence in Coventry for an initial period of three years.
Diplodocus carnegii, to give it its official name, lived during the Late Jurassic period, somewhere between 155 and 145 million years ago. Huge, plant-eating dinosaurs with long, whip-like tails, they grew to about 25 metres in length and are believed to have weighed around 15 tonnes, making them three tonnes heavier than a London double-decker bus.
Dippy first arrived in London in 1905 and recently visited Birmingham as part of an eight-city tour that attracted a record-breaking two million visitors.
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, until Tues 21 February 2026