Art Exhibitions To See In London: April 2026

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We look ahead and pick the best exhibitions to see in London’s galleries and museums opening in April.

Migration stories: Veronica Ryan at Whitechapel Gallery

Veronica Ryan recreates commodities such as tea, oranges and vanilla pods as small-scale sculptures —  reminding us they are hidden legacies of colonial trade. She works across sculpture, textiles and works on paper, and there are over 100 pieces in this major exhibition looking back over her career as a Turner Prize winner, and creator of the permanent public artwork Custard Apple (Annonaceae), Breadfruit (Moraceae) and Soursop (Annonaceae), unveiled in Hackney in 2021.

Veronica Ryan: Multiple Conversations at Whitechapel Gallery. 1 April-14 June, £15.

Cultural diplomacy: The Wallace Collection at War at The Wallace Collection

In 1939, the glitzy contents of the Wallace Collection were emptied for safekeeping, and the building, Hertford House, became an unlikely host to cultural diplomacy. This free display focuses on two exhibitions held here in 1942, which we now might find surprising; both championed the Soviet Union after its entry into the war on the Allies’ side. They reveal how art, information and propaganda were mobilised to promote Anglo-Soviet friendship at a defining turning point in the conflict.

The Wallace Collection at War at The Wallace Collection. 15 April-25 October, free.

Cutting up books: Jack Milroy at Shapero Modern

Jack Milroy takes illustrated books and carefully excises the images to create remarkable 3D works in which animals leap and flowers spring forth from the pages.  In this exhibition at Shapero Modern, Milroy pairs his works with those that the bookshop owns a rare edition of — copies that certainly can’t be sliced into. We get to see beautiful first editions next to their contemporary cousins that have been vandalised, disembowelled, dismembered… then presented as beguiling artworks.  

Jack Milroy: Bibliophilia at Shapero Modern. 15 April-17 May, free.

Personal portraits: Paula Rego at Victoria Miro

Paul Rego told important stories through her figurative paintings, and here’s a chance to see a large collection of the late artist’s drawings, featuring works from the 1950s until her death, showing how she conveyed emotions and stories in pen, ink, pastel, charcoal and pencil. There are intimate drawings which have never been exhibited before, as well as studies for some of Rego’s most recognisable paintings. These are accompanied by notes, letters, sketchbooks, photographs and other archival material from throughout her life. There’s a drawing she made of her grandmother when she was nine, and another of her granddaughter, created many years later.

Paula Rego: Story Line at Victoria Miro. 16 April-23 May, free.

A new outpost: V&A East Museum

A short walk from the mind-blowing V&A East Storehouse, which opened in 2025, the accompanying V&A East Museum is about to make its debut. It will be many things to many people, but its essence lies in multiculturalism. Two free, permanent ‘Why we make’ galleries will showcase examples of creativity “from a range of countries, cultures and times”. Taken together, the hundreds of exhibits will demonstrate creativity’s power to bring about change. There’ll also be temporary exhibitions, starting with The Music is Black: A British Story.

V&A East Museum. Opens 18 April, free.

A colour storm: Katharina Grosse at White Cube, Bermondsey

We’ve always admired how Katharina Grosse embraces scale to create large, vivid works — and at White Cube’s space in Bermondsey, she has plenty of room to work with. Grosse believes that colour is an immediate, visceral force — one that can alter our perception of reality. With that in mind, no boundaries are drawn; works spill across canvases, walls and floor. This show includes pieces created in the studio, from Grosse’s archive and others created in situ. Be ready to embrace a colour storm.

Katharina Grosse at White Cube Bermondsey, London. 22 April–31 May, free.

Grinding for years: Skate at 50 at Southbank Centre

The Southbank’s diagetic soundtrack is the clatter of skateboards as they grind, kickflip and ollie in the Undercroft Skate Space, considered by many to be the birthplace of British skateboarding. This exhibition celebrates 50 years of skateboarders using this space, through a variety of documentary-style films and photography interspersed with stop-frame animations and soundscapes. For those who like to pause by the Undercroft and watch in wonder for a few moments, this is a chance to be pulled deeper into this world.

Skate 50 at Southbank Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hall. 30 April-21 June, pay what you can.

Short-run exhibitions

Sculpting a face that captures someone’s likeness is no mean feat; here’s a chance to see what the professionals are capable of, in a show organised by the Society of Portrait Sculptors at The Garrison Chapel (13-26 April, free). Face 2026 is the 62nd iteration of the exhibition, and it’s held at an impressive Chelsea venue to boot. Meanwhile, if you want to see how art can be crafted without the use of hands, make for the 70th Anniversary of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists at the Royal Horticultural Halls (15-18 April, free) and observe how innovative artists are ‘Defying Limits’.

Exhibitions outside London

We adore a chunky Henry Moore sculpture, but he was also a talented draughtsman. One of his most famous sets of drawings depicts Londoners sheltering in Underground shelters during the Blitz. Over the brief period of 1940-41, Moore completed some 300 of these drawings, and over 30 of them are on show at the Henry Moore Studios and Gardens (1 April-25 October, free). Presented at the heart of the artist’s former home and workplace in Hertfordshire, the display offers visitors a rare opportunity to encounter these works in the landscape where Moore lived and worked for over four decades — especially with his larger sculptures also scattered outside.

It’s always exciting when a new dinosaur is discovered. Unearthed in Wyoming in 2020, Juliasaurus was a cousin of T. rex, and at around six metres long, you wouldn’t have wanted to cross paths with it. The nearly complete skeleton is making a voyage across the pond to Hollytrees Museum in Colchester (3 April-1 November 2027, £tbc). The exhibition includes around 100 objects and specimens, fossils discovered in the local area, replicas of dinosaur bones from contemporaries of Juliasaurus, and a taxidermied crocodile.

Shaquelle Whtyte is a phenomenal young figurative painter who really captures the energy and dynamism of his subjects. He’s having a homecoming, with six large-scale paintings on show at Wolverhampton Art Gallery (18 April-31 August, free), a place Whtyte fondly remembers visiting as a child. It’s only fitting that he’s being shown alongside the works that inspired his artistic journey, and that the gallery has purchased one of his works for its collection.

Three of Britain’s landscape heavyweights come together as Gainsborough, Turner and Constable’s works are combined and compared at Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury (25 April-11 October, £tbc). To celebrate 250 years since Constable’s birth, this exhibition brings together over 40 oil paintings, watercolours and drawings by Gainsborough, Turner and Constable, and by some of their contemporaries. Suffolk is the birthplace of both Constable and Gainsborough, with much of the surrounding countryside continuing to echo the placid beauty of their paintings.