As we dodge tennis balls and pray for thunderstorms to wash away the pollen, here’s a selection of ten excellent exhibitions to fill your days with.
Jubilation: 200 Years of Royal Souvenirs
Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising, Ladbrooke Grove
Adult: £9 | Concessions: £7 | Children (7-16): £5
Visit the museum to see the temporary displays that will feature Royal themed products and packaging from the past 200 years. There will be a focus on past Jubilees and celebratory events such as Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation, as well as a new display on contemporary limited edition packaging to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee.
Raphael
National Gallery, Trafalgar Square
Adults: £24-£26 | Children: Free | Members: Free
(also £10 entry after 5pm on Fridays)
This exhibition, one of the first ever to explore Raphael’s complete career, looks at his celebrated paintings and drawings as well as his work in architecture, poetry, and design for sculpture, tapestry and prints.
Breaking the News
British Library, King’s Cross
Adults: £16 | Concessions: £14-£16 | Children (12-17): £14 | Members & Children (<11): Free
Explore five centuries of UK news through broadsheets, blogs and objects from our own collection and examine era-defining stories close-up. From reporting on Jack the Ripper to the Profumo Affair. And from coverage of the Grenfell Tower fire to the war in Syria.
Superheroes, Orphans & Origins: 125 years in comics
Foundling Museum, Bloomsbury
Adult: £9.50 | Concessions: £7.50 | Children: Free | NHS Staff £4.75
Enter into the world of superheroes in this first major exhibition to explore the representation of foundlings, orphans, adoptees, and foster children in comics, graphic novels and sequential art from around the globe.
150 Years of the Royal School of Needlework: Crown to Catwalk
Fashion and Textile Museum, Bermondsey
Adults: £12.65 | Concessions: £11.55 | Students: £10.45 | Children under 12: Free
Presenting textiles from the Royal School of Needlework’s own 5,000-piece archive, alongside examples from museums and collections across the UK, this in-depth retrospective will display the often surprising history of one of the UK’s oldest and most revered applied arts organisations.
The Humour of William Heath Robinson
Heath Robinson Museum, Pinner
Adults: £6.60 | Concessions: £4-£5.50 | Children/Students: Free
To mark the 150th anniversary of Heath Robinson’s birth, an exhibition of a selection of his cartoons representing the wide range of his subjects and spanning his humorous output from 1905 to 1943.
Inspired!
Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London
Adults: £8 | Concessions: £6 | Children under 12: Free
The exhibition will include paintings, drawings and sculptures which demonstrate the variety of inspirations and influences for artists from the 17th to the 19th century, including portraits of writers, actors, composers, and musicians.
Canaletto’s Venice Revisited
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Adult: £10 | Children: £5 | U-25/Student: £6.50
This major exhibition will display the complete set of 24 Venetian views painted by Canaletto in the 1730s, and reassess Canaletto at the height of his career, looking beyond the broad views he is famous for to also closely examine the features that bring his Venice to life.
Maurice Broomfield: Industrial Sublime
V&A Museum, South Kensington
Free
Maurice Broomfield’s dramatic photographs captured factories and their workers in an era of rapid transition, depicting the remnants of the industrial revolution alongside emerging technologies.
Grime Stories: from the corner to the mainstream
Museum of London, City of London
Free
A display honouring the music, people and places central to the grime scene and its roots in East London. From grime pioneer Jammer’s basement, the iconic birthplace of one of the most important battle platforms in the UK music scene, to Roony ‘Risky’ Keefe’s films celebrating grime’s story of Black and working class ingenuity, this is your chance to explore the moments, music and people that took grime from the corner to the mainstream.
£24 is an extraordinary amount of money for an exhibition ticket for what is supposed to be a public institution and makes it impossible for a huge number people to even think about attending let alone considering the cost of travel there and back.
And that’s before they even think about taking anyone else with them.
And £2 off for a job seeker is just offensive.