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The major exhibitions for the Ashmolean Museum will open in the spring and autumn in 2026, both ticketed but accompanied by a series of free and temporary displays.
First to transform the John Sainsbury Exhibition Galleries will be In Bloom: How Plants Changed Our World.
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Opening on March 19 and bringing a wealth of information about the plants and flowers which surround us, the exhibition will be open until August 16, 2026.
A statement from the museum said: “This new exhibition will take visitors on a journey from Oxford, across the world and back, uncovering the stories behind some of Britain’s most beloved blooms.
“Featuring over 100 artworks including drawings, paintings, rare prints and ceramics, In Bloom In Bloom explores our changing relationship with the natural world.
“From the fascinating stories of curiosity and ingenuity of early plant explorers to the networks that shaped global trade, this exhibition reveals how the pursuit of exotic plants transformed landscapes, economies, and cultures, leaving a legacy that still shapes our world today.”
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The exhibition will trace the stories behind some of Britain’s favourite flowers, including roses, tulips, camellias and peonies, and display some stunning artworks along the way.
Later in the year the second major exhibition will launch as Aphrodite: The Making of a Goddess.
The Greek goddess of love, beauty and desire was later worshipped by the Romans as Venus, and still maintains a symbolic allure in modern culture.
The new exploration of her story put forward by the Ashmolean presents something “far older and more complex” than Aphrodite’s status as a “symbol of passion and beauty” suggests today.
An Ashmolean announcement said: “This major exhibition will explore Aphrodite’s beginnings on the island of Cyprus, where she was worshipped as an all-powerful goddess over 3,000 years ago, and will trace her journey through the Greek and into the Roman world, where she became Venus.
“The exhibition will reveal how, over the centuries, Aphrodite evolved into an iconic figure symbolising love and beauty as her myths and images flourished – inspiring art, literature, and imagination from the Renaissance to the present day.”
It will feature more than 200 “extraordinary objects”, from sculpture and bronzes to gems and terracottas from the Mediterranean, dating from around 1400 BC to the 21st century.
Opening on October 8 and running until April 11, 2027, the exhibition will attempt to “uncover the making of a goddess whose legacy still shapes our ideas of love and beauty today”.
Both major exhibitions will be available to book at a future date with members visiting for free.
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Alongside the paid programme, a number of free exhibitions and displays will be available for anyone to visit.
Ashmolean Now, the museum’s exhibition series for contemporary artists which launched in 2023, Will bring Soma Surovi Jannat: Climate Culture Care to the art scene in Oxford.
From March 28, the free display will mark the debut UK museum show of Soma Surovi Jannat, the Bangladeshi artist-in-residence at the Ashmolean and the first solo exhibition of a Bangladesh-based artist in this country.
Ms Surovi draws inspiration from the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world, and the Ashmolean collections, to address the climate crisis.
It will take form in Ashmolean objects that inspired her imagined landscapes and new works, including various works on paper, a 30ft long scroll, and an ephemeral drawing completed directly on the gallery walls.
Later in the year, the contemporary series will host Garry Fabian Miller with between the Moon and the Hawthorn.
Mr Miller is described as “one of the most progressive figures in contemporary photography”, as he explores light as both the medium and the subject by experimenting with photographic materials and exposure times.
The new exhibition will present his photographs in dialogue with works by one of his key artistic influences, Samuel Palmer, from the Ashmolean’s collections.
It will run from November 2026 to June 2027, with exact dates to be confirmed, in Gallery 8.
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Free displays will also be on offer to keep up the museum’s accessible art offering.
They will include Colonial Views of India: Photographs by Eugene Clutterbuck Impey, from April 11 next year.
The display will offer a “rare glimpse” of India in the late 19th century captured through the lens of British colonial officer Impey, who worked for the East India Company from 1851.
Serving as a political agent during a time when photography and ethnography were used to exert control in India, “people, places, animals and architecture were recorded as part of a broader project to observe and manage local communities”.
The Ashmolean’s Eastern Art archives hold over 300 of Impey’s photographs and negatives and will show a selection of them in the museum for the first time, including 25 newly printed works alongside an original 19th century print and album.
Moving across the continent, the final free exhibition announced for 2026 is Brothers, Sisters, Others: Nationality and Modern Chinese Art, on from July 11 next year.
The display will “examine the representation of national and ethnic difference in modern art from the People’s Republic of China” through a variety of media.
It will combine lithographic and wood-block prints, oil and ink painting, paper-cuts and books and range from political propaganda posters to intimate self-portraits.
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A statement from Ashmolean said: “The exhibition will give visitors and insight into the various ways that national and ethnic unity and difference have been show from the late-19th to the start of the 21st century.”
The Ashmolean’s exhibition, This Is What You Get, exploring the visual art of Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke through the iconic images of Radiohead, will close on January 11 next year.
It has been running since August 9 this year and received rave reviews from critics and visitors alike for its display of more than 180 objects spanning the artists’ 30-year collaboration.
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