by From dawn, the Tate Modernism goes to Yoshitomo Nara’s defiant dreamer in the Hayward, London’s art world is blooming in full bloom this summer.
Regardless of whether you are looking for blockbuster retrospective, free gallery or a rare chance of seeing masterpieces without crowds, here is your guide for the best exhibitions in the entire capital in the summer of 2025.
Alone with the Tate: Getyourguides Dawn Tours
Do you ask for a modern visit to avoid selfie sticks? Getyourguide is new Alone Experience offers the start in the early morning before doors are accessible to the public with intimate tours of art historians.
It is part of the platform All art. No amount. Initiative that deals with increasing frustration about overcrowding at cultural locations.
The tours run monthly (£ 69) and promise a meditative, personal encounter with big works – and it starts with Moma in New York and the Vatican Museums if you want to take your amount with the amount globally with you.
Gey your tickets until September at Getyourguide
Kiefer/van Gogh, Royal Academy (until October 26)
This ambitious exhibition combines Anselm Kiefer’s monumental materiality with van Gogh’s emotional turbulence and examines common themes of nature, memory and transformation through severe textures, bright colors and multi -layered symbolism.
It is one of the most spoken shows of the season and rightly so.
Yoshitomo Nara, Hayward Gallery (until August 31)
Expect Nara’s big eyes, bright paintings and large -scale installations to greet them with despite and calm melancholy.
This retrospective of career examines innocence, alienation and protest with humor and heart and captures the contradictions of our time.
Book here
Grayson Perry: Grandwahn, Wallace Collection (until October 26)
In the largest contemporary exhibition of the Wallace, Grayson Perry’s tapestries, ceramics and ironic humor meet the historical treasures of the museum in a lively, subversive dialogue about taste, collecting and class.
Jenny Saville: The anatomy of painting, National Portrait Gallery (until September 7)This main survey sets up monumental exploration of the human form for three decades and deals with body, identity and picturesque experiments. Expect raw, visceral canvases that confront beauty standards and abstraction equally.
Arpita Singh, serpentine north (until July 27)
This lively exhibition is the artist’s first solo show outside of India, which extends watercolor, drawings and bold oils for over 60 years, explores gender, memory and personal stories through fantastic figuration.
Giuseppe Penone, Serpentine South (until September 7)ARTE POVERA MASTER PENONE invites you to an immersive world of tree-like sculptures, bronze fusses and laurel-fragrant installations that flow through nature, memory and the course of time and in Kensington gardens.
Rachel Jones: Gated Canyons, Dulwich Picture Gallery (until October 19)
The first contemporary solo exhibition of the gallery shows Jones’ lively, abstract works and creates a dialogue with the historical collection and examines and explores identity and emotional expression through saturated colors and gestural markings.
Francesca Mollett, modern art, old street
Start mollets cleverly clever, light-soaked abstract paintings in a focused solo presentation that cemented your place as one of the most promising young British painters who work today.
Diamond Stupily, closet gallery
The artist based in New York has strong research into thresholds and materiality in an experimental solo exhibition south of the river. Expect to go with your mind.
The London summer art scene is full of options, from blockbuster retrospectives that require an afternoon to free shows that offer moments of surprising and calm reflection.
Regardless of whether it is about Dawn, through an empty Tate modern, the size of pine at RA or a hidden jewel in a SHORDITCH project area, the city’s galleries are ready to keep your weekends inspired all season.
