Artlyst has selected twelve art exhibitions that will take place out of London and around the UK during 2025. The highly successful Women In Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990 completes its UK tour at The Whitworth in Manchester; Ithell Colquhoun starts at Tate St Ives before heading to Tate Britain in June; solo shows for Surrealist Paule Vézelay, sculptor Helen Chadwick, Emma Talbot, Sue Webster Andy Goldsworthy and Anselm Kiefer plus some interesting group shows.
Paule Vézelay: Living Lines
25 January – 27 April 2025
Royal West of England Academy (RWA) Bristol
Paule Vézelay (1892-1984) was one of the UK’s first abstract artists, responsible for an extraordinary output encompassing painting, collage, sculpture, constructions, illustration, textiles and photography. The Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in Bristol will stage the first major exhibition of Vézelay’s work in over 40 years, offering an unprecedented insight into the artist’s accomplished seven-decade career. Her vivid explorations of colour and line fill this retrospective exhibition at the RWA – the largest solo show of Vézelay’s work in over 40 years.
The exhibition will then travel to the Towner Eastbourne from 14 May – 31 August 2025
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Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds
Tate St Ives, Cornwall
1 Feb – 5 May 2025
The exhibition will debut at Tate St Ives in February 2025, journeying to Tate Britain from June to October 2025.
The first major exhibition of visionary artist Ithell Colquhoun
One of the most radical artists of her generation, Ithell Colquhoun was an important figure in British Surrealism during the 1930s and 1940s. An innovative writer and practicing occultist, Colquhoun charted her own course, investigating surrealist methods of unconscious picture-making and fearlessly delving into the realms of myth and magic.
The Scottish Colourists
Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh
7 February – 28 June 2025
Discover the groundbreaking exhibition in partnership with the Fleming Collection, which for the first time showcases the Scottish Colourists in the context of their European contemporaries, interrogating how this international generation of radical painters forged a new language of colour in the early 20th century.
The Scottish Colourists — SJ Peploe, JD Fergusson, GL Hunter, and FCB Cadell — are widely recognised as pioneers of early 20th-century Scottish art. Often exhibited as a quartet, their work will now be shown in the company of key figures such as Matisse and Derain, as well as the Bloomsbury Group’s Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The exhibition also explores a possible ‘Celtic’ influence through the works of Welsh artists Augustus John and John Dickson Innes, and Ireland’s Roderic O’Connor.
Anselm Kiefer: Early Works
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
14 February – 15 June 2025
Anselm Kiefer: Early Works will be a landmark survey of the artist’s work produced between 1969-1982. Organised in collaboration with the Hall Art Foundation and drawn from the Hall Collection, the exhibition will show approximately 45 works rarely displayed in public before.
Born in 1945, Anselm Kiefer has become a towering figure of post-war art and is best known for his monumental paintings and installations. His immense body of work covers an array of cultural, literary and philosophical subjects.
Kiefer’s artistic techniques and materials – which include straw, lead, concrete, fire, and ash – are similarly expansive, with pieces endlessly changing in their organic nature.
This major exhibition will return to Anselm Kiefer’s roots, featuring important early paintings, photos, prints, artist books, watercolours and mixed-media work, including less well-known, intimate pieces.
Women In Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990
The Whitworth, Manchester
7 March – 1 June 2025
This landmark exhibition at the Whitworth will feature over 80 women artists and collectives whose ideas helped fuel the women’s liberation movement during a period of significant social, economic and political change.
The exhibition has been specially reshaped and refreshed for the Whitworth, speaking to Manchester’s radical histories. Alongside a dynamic public engagement programme, the exhibition includes Bobby Baker’s An Edible Family in a Mobile Home, a sculptural installation of delicious edible life-size family figures formed from cake and biscuit. This will be the first free-to-enter presentation of this major touring exhibition.
Women in Revolt! Is organised by Tate Britain in collaboration with National Galleries of Scotland and the Whitworth, The University of Manchester.
Undersea
Hastings Contemporary
29 March – 14 September 2025
Exploring the mysteries, myths and life that lurk beneath the waves, Undersea brings together paintings, prints, drawings and objects from across different cultures and artistic movements. Undersea follows Seaside Modern (2021) and Seafaring (2022) to complete a trilogy of exhibitions curated by renowned art historian James Russell.
Dive into an underwater world and explore over 75 artworks that span four centuries and a range of cultures.
Helen Chadwick: Life Pleasures
The Hepworth Wakefield
17 May – 27 October 2025
British artist Helen Chadwick (1953 – 1996) embraced the sensuous aspects of the natural world, breaking taboos of the ‘traditional’ or ‘beautiful’ in art history.
This major retrospective will be the first in over 25 years, and will chart the development of Chadwick’s art from her renowned degree show piece In the Kitchen (1977) through to her Piss Flowers (1991–2).
Chadwick’s experiments across mediums were innovative and unconventional; typically combining aesthetic beauty with an alliance of unusual, often grotesque materials. She consistently expressed a feminist perspective steeped in humour, and employed a vast range of materials in unexpected ways, incorporating bodily fluids, meat, flowers, chocolate and compost into her works. Through her skilled use of traditional fabrication methods and sophisticated technologies, she quickly established herself as a leading figure amongst Britain’s post-war avant-garde, becoming one of the first women artists to be nominated for the Turner Prize in 1987.
Emma Talbot
Compton Verney, Warwickshire
5 July – 5 October 2025
For Compton Verney’s major summer exhibition, award-winning artist Emma Talbot (b.1969) has assembled a collection of new and recent work that powerfully explores the experience of life, from birth to death.
Lubaina Himid with Magda Stawarska
Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
12 July – 2 November 2025
This new exhibition by one of the UK’s most renowned and celebrated contemporary artists will present new paintings, a special installation made in collaboration with Magda Stawarska and ‘interventions’ in the Kettle’s Yard house.
Initially trained in theatre design, Himid is best known for her innovative approaches to painting and social engagement, playing a pivotal role in the British Black Arts movement since the 1980s. Over the last decade, she has earned international recognition for her figurative canvases, which explore overlooked and invisible aspects of history and contemporary daily life.
At Kettle’s Yard, her new work will centre on what is missing from the telling of life stories, who is left out of narratives, what strategies are used to fill in the gaps and the objects we choose to leave behind as clues.
Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years
National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh
26 July – 2 November 2025
Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years will take over the upper and lower galleries in the Royal Scottish Academy building for the summer. Based in Scotland, Goldsworthy (born 1956) is internationally famous for his extraordinary work with natural materials. The exhibition showcases over 200 works such as photographs, sculptures and expansive new installations built in-situ.
Goldsworthy will also create several major new works onsite at the Royal Scottish Academy building especially for the exhibition.
Roger Fry
Charleston in Firle, East Sussex
15 November 2025 – 15 March 2026
The first major exhibition in over 25 years dedicated to Roger Fry as a painter, unveiling a lesser-known aspect of one of the most influential figures in 20th-century British art.
Best known for his work as an art critic, writer, and curator, Fry was instrumental in bringing Post-Impressionism to England. His 1910 and 1912 exhibitions at the Grafton Galleries in London, featuring Cézanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, and others, were revolutionary. They introduced a shocked British public to this bold new movement, helping to ignite the modernist era in Britain and forever changing the course of British art.
This exhibition features Fry’s vibrant portraits, landscapes, and interiors, capturing the essence of his time in Paris during the 1920s. Showcasing never-before-seen artworks from private collections alongside national treasures, the exhibition highlights Fry’s innovative use of colour and his concept of ‘significant form,’ key to his artistic philosophy.
Sue Webster
Firstsite Colchester
15 November 2025 – 1 March 2026
In 2025, Firstsite will present Sue Webster’s first UK institutional exhibition as a solo artist, following her celebrated collaborative career with Tim Noble. This landmark show centres around The Crime Scene, an installation Webster has been developing since 2019. The work acts as an exorcism of sorts, weaving together personal objects and images from past and present to examine what it means to be an artist.
Lead Image: The Hepworth Wakefield photo by Iwan Baan