Welcome to the IanVisits alternative guide to London.
Lectures, talks, heritage events, organised walks and other random geeky miscellany.
This is quite an old listings page, did you want: Wednesday, 1st May 2024?
Displayed in date order by how soon they close.
Discover the close-knit world of the Georgian music industry, where not what you knew, but who you knew, was of greatest importance. (Ending Soon Sun, 1st May)
Foundling Museum
Celebrating the diversity of photography as it exists today, the Sony World Photography Awards 2022 exhibition showcases the very best images from all competitions across the Awards. (Ending Soon Mon, 2nd May)
Somerset House
Free
Brothers in Arms
Follow the story of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, an elite British tank regiment whose men fought their way across North-West Europe in the final stages of the Second World War. (Ending Soon Fri, 6th May)
National Army Museum
This exhibition explores master goldsmith, Carl Fabergé – who symbolised Russian craftsmanship, luxury and elegance – and the Anglo-Russian relationship which saw the opening of a London branch in 1903. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th May)
Victoria and Albert Museum
Featuring highlights from the museum's manuscripts collection, this exhibition explores the types of books illuminations came from and the 19th-century context in which they were cut up and collected. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th May)
Victoria and Albert Museum
Discover more about the rise of Greek Revival architecture through contemporary watercolours and contextual images. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th May)
The British Museum
Free
London: Port City
This exhibition will trace more than 200 years of extraordinary experiences and intense activity on a river that has always been essential to the city’s survival. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th May)
Museum of London Docklands
The myth of Van Gogh today is linked as much to his extraordinary life as it is to his stunning paintings. This exhibition will allow both aspects to be explored. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th May)
Courtauld Institute of Art
A first time display in London oversized prints of some of Bischof's most revered icons. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th May)
Leica Gallery
A once-in-a-century opportunity to see this iconic painting in the UK. (Ending Soon Sun, 15th May)
National Gallery
The exhibition shows artwork from the children’s stories that Heath Robinson both wrote and illustrated. (Ending Soon Sun, 15th May)
Heath Robinson Museum
The first major retrospective of this legendary artist to focus exclusively on her work using fabrics and textiles. (Ending Soon Sun, 15th May)
Hayward Gallery
The 29 works on display will highlight Raphael’s development as a draughtsman and show how his talented pupils continued to draw with a similar inventive and free-flowing spirit. (Ending Soon Sun, 15th May)
The British Museum
Joanna Hiffernan’s relationship with Whistler ran deeper than artist and muse. In this exhibition explore her life and role as a friend, model, lover and collaborator. (Ending Soon Sun, 22nd May)
Royal Academy of Arts
Sweet Harmony looks at a significant five-year period in UK dance music history and the previously undocumented contribution that young people living and working in the London Borough of Waltham Forest made to it. (Ending Soon Wed, 25th May)
Vestry House Museum
Free
Light and Shadow
An exhibition by Yoon Hyup, known for his vibrant use of lines and dots to create minimalistic and abstract city scape paintings. (Ending Soon Sun, 29th May)
Stolenspace Gallery
Free
Radio Ballads
Radio Ballads presents new film commissions alongside paintings, drawings and contextual materials that share the stories learned in social care work. (Ending Soon Sun, 29th May)
Serpentine North Gallery
Free
Victor Seaward
Touching on histories of medicine, trade and industrialisation through digitally rendered objects, Seaward weaves narrative through commonplace objects and organic forms. (Ending Soon Sun, 29th May)
Zabludowicz Collection
An outdoor exhibition of 138 award-winning images selected from 20,000 submissions by photographers in 151 countries. (Ending Soon Tue, 31st May)
Granary Square
Step back through millennia and discover how this ancient civilization questioned, contemplated, and debated the natural world. (Ending Soon Sun, 5th Jun)
Science Museum
Through artist impressions and technical diagrams from her fieldwork, geologist and landscape artist Emma Theresa Jude reports on her recent ascent of the ‘Inaccessible Pinnacle’ at the peak of Sgùrr Dearg on the Scottish Isle of Skye. (Ending Soon Sun, 5th Jun)
Orleans House Gallery
£14
Freud and China
This exhibition explores Sigmund Freud's fascination and relationship with China. (Ending Soon Sun, 5th Jun)
Freud Museum
Free
Hidden Masterpieces
This exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see some of the finest works amongst the drawings collected by Sir John Soane. (Ending Soon Sun, 5th Jun)
Sir John Soane's Museum
This display will present an important group of twenty-two works by Parmigianino from The Courtauld’s collection. (Ending Soon Sun, 5th Jun)
Courtauld Institute of Art
Gaze through the lens of some of the world's best wildlife photographers and marvel at the beauty of our planet. (Ending Soon Sun, 5th Jun)
Natural History Museum
This exhibition, 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' introduces cabinets of curiosity into the heart of the Sainsbury Wing, containing assembled fragments that might look like relics from another collection. (Ending Soon Sun, 12th Jun)
National Gallery
Free
Tower Avenue
Royal Photographic Society (RPS) award-winning photographer, Dexter McLean, MA, focuses on representation of both the black and disabled communities that he embodies in Tower Avenue, his first solo show. (Ending Soon Sun, 12th Jun)
Orleans House Gallery
Free
Falklands Conflict
New exhibits will include items from IWM’s rich collection that will go on display for the very first time and highlight eyewitness accounts of the conflict. (Ending Soon Tue, 14th Jun)
Imperial War Museum
Free
Chihoi: The Train
A slideshow of selected artworks from Hong Kong artist Chihoi’s graphic novel, based on a story written by Taiwanese poet Hung Hung, evokes a dreamlike train journey. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Jun)
Southbank Centre
Free
Hair: Untold Stories
This exhibition puts the substance before the style and unlocks the untold stories of hair. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Jun)
Horniman Museum
Kawanabe Kyōsai was one of the most exciting Japanese painters of the 19th century. Discover his work – some of which has never been seen before – in the first exhibition outside of Japan in nearly 30 years. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Jun)
Royal Academy of Arts
The Garden Museum’s exhibition explores the use of roses in fashion from the Victorian era to today. (Ending Soon Sun, 19th Jun)
The Garden Museum
A revelatory new take on art in Britain after the Second World War, a period when artists had to make sense of an entirely altered world. (Ending Soon Sun, 26th Jun)
Barbican Centre
Learn about Victorian Westminster in this exhibition showcasing selection of collections from City of Westminster Archives, toys on loan from Pollocks Toy Museum and Victorian costumes. (Ending Soon Thu, 30th Jun)
Westminster City Hall
£16
Lubaina Himid
Tate Modern presents Himid’s largest solo exhibition to date, incorporating new paintings and significant highlights from across her remarkable career. (Ending Soon Sun, 3rd Jul)
Tate Modern
This exhibition explores William Hogarth’s relationship with animals through his work as an artist and in his personal life. (Ending Soon Sun, 3rd Jul)
Hogarth's House
Informed by recent archaeological and scientific discoveries, this exhibition offers new insight on one of the world’s great wonders, bringing the true story of Stonehenge into sharper focus than ever before. (Ending Soon Sun, 17th Jul)
The British Museum
A Celebration of BBC Television made at Riverside Studios (Ending Soon Sun, 24th Jul)
Riverside Studios
Visit the museum to see the temporary displays that will feature Royal themed products and packaging from the past 200 years. (Ending Soon Sun, 31st Jul)
Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising
£24
Raphael
One of the first-ever exhibitions to explore Raphael's complete career. (Ending Soon Sun, 31st Jul)
National Gallery
Explore five centuries of UK news through broadsheets, blogs and objects from our own collection and examine era-defining stories close-up. (Ending Soon Sun, 21st Aug)
The British Library
An exhibition based around the disputed claims that the Dutch painter Philips Wouwerman was a plagiarist. (Ending Soon Sun, 21st Aug)
Dulwich Picture Gallery
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. (Ending Soon Sun, 28th Aug)
Foundling Museum
Explore the 100-year history of the prestigious Royal Academy of Dance. (Ending Soon Sun, 28th Aug)
Victoria and Albert Museum
In this exhibition, learn more about printmaking in Rudolf's court in Prague during the highpoint of innovative and ambitious prints made from around 1580 until the early years of the 17th century. (Ending Soon Sun, 28th Aug)
The British Museum
Free
Rooted Beings
The exhibition considers what we might learn from plant behaviour, and the impacts of colonial expeditions on the exploitation of natural resources and indigenous knowledges. (Ending Soon Sun, 28th Aug)
Wellcome Collection
Whether you are a fanatical supporter, part-time punter or sporting sceptic, visitors to this exhibition will enjoy discovering the remarkable design stories behind the world's beautiful game. (Ending Soon Mon, 29th Aug)
The Design Museum
This landmark exhibition will rewrite the history of the revolutionary art movement. (Ending Soon Mon, 29th Aug)
Tate Modern
This exhibition highlights the sporting, economic and wellbeing opportunities generated by the Games, the journey of the Paralympics movement and the remarkable changes to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. (Ending Soon Wed, 31st Aug)
Lee Valley VeloPark
Pitzhanger’s new exhibition by Rana Begum RA explores the perception of light, colour and form within sculpture, painting and installation. (Ending Soon Wed, 31st Aug)
Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery
The exhibition showcases a series of works by Anna Marongiu, a Sardinian artist who created 262 illustrations of The Pickwick Papers between 1928–1929. (Ending Soon Sun, 11th Sep)
Charles Dickens Museum
Life in a cup presents a fascinating beverage story and explores the traditions that make coffee a way of life in parts of the Islamic world. (Ending Soon Sun, 18th Sep)
The British Museum
An exhibition using creative technology to explore how images shape the way we remember history, contrasting Holocaust photos taken by perpetrators with the perspectives of victims. (Ending Soon Sun, 18th Sep)
Jewish Museum London
£18
Walter Sickert
The first major retrospective of Sickert at Tate in over 60 years, this exhibition explores how he had an often radical, distinctive approach to setting and subject matter. (Ending Soon Sun, 18th Sep)
Tate Britain
A dynamic history, a precarious present: navigate Venice's iconic waterways at the National Maritime Museum (Ending Soon Sun, 25th Sep)
National Maritime Museum
This exhibition displays American 20th-century hand-drawn animation alongside French 18th-century art to reveal the surprising and enchanting connections between these two artistic movements. (Ending Soon Sun, 16th Oct)
Wallace Collection
Life Through a Royal Lens explores the Royal Family through photography and brings together some of the most iconic images ever taken of the Royal Family to Kensington Palace (Ending Soon Sun, 30th Oct)
Kensington Palace
The show traces how menswear has been fashioned and refashioned over the centuries, and how designers, tailors and artists – and their clients and sitters – have constructed and performed masculinity, and unpicked it at the seams. (Ending Soon Sun, 6th Nov)
Victoria and Albert Museum
A display of photographs capturing factories and their workers in an era of rapid transition. (Ending Soon Sun, 6th Nov)
Victoria and Albert Museum
£8
Inspired!
This exhibition examines ways in which visual artists have taken inspiration from the literary arts – poetry, plays, novels, and also music. (Ending Soon Fri, 23rd Dec)
Guildhall Art Gallery and Roman Amphitheater
Discover the ground-breaking technology that changed the post forever in a new exhibition. (Ending Soon Sun, 1st Jan)
The Postal Museum
Celebrating the life and work of one of the best loved children's authors of the 20th century. (Ending Soon Sun, 8th Jan)
Victoria and Albert Museum
The exhibition includes rare pieces of porcelain and lacquer, samurai armour, embroidered screens and diplomatic gifts from the reigns of James I to Her Majesty The Queen. (Ending Soon Sun, 26th Feb)
The Queen's Gallery
An installation of six large-scale clay columns inspired by traditional architectural practices in Chile, by Swedish-Chilean artist Anton Alvarez (Ending Soon Tue, 28th Feb)
100 Bishopsgate
Visit an 'abandoned' Tube station underworld and discover what secrets lurk beneath our busy streets in this Hidden London exhibition. (Ending Soon Mon, 31st Jul)
London Transport Museum