New Year, New Exhibitions
The new year brings a new season to London’s galleries and Museums. Here’s our guide to the new exhibitions coming to London’s most popular galleries over the coming months.
 | Sleeping with Sherlock, Museum of London 14 February and 28 March, 7.30pm – 9.30am The museum’s first ever all-night event includes a three-course dinner and quizzes, sleuthing workshops, demonstrations of blood-splatter analysis and an interactive re-staging of the Sherlock Holmes story. Look around the exhibition, then settle down to some late-night ghost stories and movie marathon. A full English breakfast is served in the morning. Tickets from £175, VIP package available www.museumoflondon.org.uk |
| Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, The V&A, South Kensington 14 March – 19 July The show that saw audiences in New York queuing around the block in 2011 comes to London (the designer’s hometown), with an additional 30 garments and exhibits from the designers early days. As well as the iconic pieces created for David Bowie and Bjork, the exhibition also includes his outrageous catwalk shows. Tickets from £16 (concessions available) www.vam.ac.uk |  |
 | Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends, National Portrait Gallery, Trafalgar Square 2 February – 25 May John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), has been described as one of England’s leading portrait painters, and this collection of 70 portraits shows a different side with more experimental works. There’s an interesting backstory behind the exhibition to be discovered and the focus is on his lesser known portraits of his artistic circle of friends – Robert Louis Stevenson, August Rodin, Claude Monet, William Butler Yeats to name a few. It’s an unmissable opportunity to view the artist’s more daring and distinctive portraits. Tickets from £14.50 www.nationalportraitgallery.org |
| Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden, Tate Modern, South Bank 5 February – 10 May A completely different interpretation of portraiture: Marlene Dumas’s work of the human figure reflects upon love, death, sexuality and the influence of mass media and celebrity in today’s society. Tickets from £14 www.tate.org.uk |  |
 | Rubens and His Legacy – Van Dyck to Cézanne Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London 24 January – 10 April 2015 April Set to be one of London’s biggest exhibitions this spring, ‘Rubens & his Legacy’ provides the opportunity to view a selection of the masterpieces Rubens produced during his lifetime, alongside major works by later artists who were influenced by his work and themes. The exhibition is divided into six themes: power, lust, compassion, elegance, poetry & violence, & includes works by Constable, Gainsborough, Rembrandt & Picasso. It’s advisable to pre-book tickets or take advantage of the late night openings until 10am on Friday & Saturday. Tickets from £14 www.royalacademy.org.uk |
| Inventing Impressionism, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square 4 March – 31 May Renoir, Degas, Monet and Pissarro – all the big hitters from the Impressionist movement are here and it’s likely to be the ‘hot ticket’ this Spring. The central focus of the exhibition is Paul Durand-Ruel’s, the art dealer behind the artists’ success. His revolutionary business tactics and support reversed their fate and fortunes at a time when Impressionism was being ridiculed or ignored. ‘Without him’, said Monet, ‘we wouldn’t have survived’. Tickets from £16 (concessions available) www.nationalgallery.org |  |
 | Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art, British Museum, Bloomsbury 26 March – 5 July Tracing a transformative period in Greek art from the prehistoric simplicity of Cycladic figurines, to the realism of the Hellenistic age, the exhibition reveals the changing ideals of beauty, piety and honour in Ancient Greece. Tickets from £16.50 (concessions available) www.britishmuseum.org |