Opening this month

17 June-5 September

Continuing the Great British Art Debate, Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery is hosting this exhibition celebrating the diversity of British watercolour.

With rarely seen works by artists including JMW Turner, William Blake and Anish Kapoor, the show weighs up the status of watercolour in Britain’s artistic heritage and looks at the painters who have pushed its boundaries.

The Great British Art Debate is a four-year project exploring British identity through national and regional art collections.

Cost £41,500
Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund, Museums Sheffield, Arts Council England
Curators Alison Morton, Liz Waring, Martin Myrone
Exhibition design in-house
Graphics The Cafeteria


19 June-12 September

An extraordinary friendship that began in Mexico City during the second world war is explored as part of Pallant House Gallery’s season on surrealism.

Devoted to the work of three leading women surrealists who formed a lifelong bond after fleeing war-torn Europe, this exhibition represents the most substantial display of Carrington’s work in Britain for 19 years, and the first comprehensive showing of works by Varo and Horna in the UK.

Cost undisclosed
Supporters Mexico Tourist Board, Foyle Foundation, Almada Foundation, Edward James Foundation, Catherine and Franck Petitgas, Keith Clark, UK Mexican Embassy
Sponsors Mexicana, GAM
Curators Stefan van Raay, Joanna Moorhead, Teresa Arcq
Exhibition design and graphics in-house designer David Wynn


22 June-29 August

A show bringing together prehistoric ceramic figurines from the Balkans and Japan. The exhibition will look at the parallels between the two ancient cultures, both of which created miniature humans forms from clay and ritually broke them.

The prehistoric figurines will be juxtaposed against contemporary artworks, including manga drawings inspired by the Japanese demon statues. Visitors get a biscuit-fired figurine by artist Sue Maufe to break – or not.

Cost undisclosed
Supporters Arts and Humanities Research Council, Henry Moore Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
Curators Simon Kaner, Andrew Cochrane, Douglass Bailey
Exhibition design and graphics George Sexton Associates


26 June-17 October

This celebration of the life of the 19th-century textile designer, writer and socialist thinker extends not just through Blackwell House but out onto its front lawn.

Inside, the exhibition covers Morris’s domestic life, design work and writings, investigating how the artist developed his disdain for industrialisation and his ideas on a fairer society.

Outdoors, environmental artist Steve Messam is staging LawnPaper, a landscape installation where Morris’s distinctive wallpaper patterns will be etched onto the surrounding lawns through selective shading and trimming (until mid-July).

Cost £20,000
Main funders Lakeland Arts Trust, Golsoncott Foundation
Curator Kathy Haslam, William Morris Society
Exhibition design and graphics Lakeland Arts Trust


26 June-31 October

This year marks the centenary of guiding in the UK, set up after girls across the country lobbied Boy Scouts founder Lord Baden-Powell for a youth movement of their own.

Through photographs, films and personal stories, this anniversary exhibition will trace the history of London’s guiding movement and show how the organisation has adapted to social change, taking a pioneering approach to issues such as disability and sex education.

Cost £30,000
Main funder Girlguiding London and the South East Region
Curator Jim Gledhill
Exhibition design Norton Allison
Graphics Displayways, Ikea


30 June-12 September

An investigation into how modern scientific methods have improved the National Gallery’s understanding of its Old Master collection. The exhibition will document techniques such as infrared imaging and electron microscopy, which have uncovered forgeries and secrets hidden within the gallery’s acquisitions.

Notable exhibits include a supposed Renaissance portrait later proven to be a 20th-century forgery, and A Man with a Skull, originally attributed to Hans Holbein, but later shown to have postdated the artist’s death.

Cost undisclosed
Main funder Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Curators Marjorie Wieseman, Ashok Roy


3 July-19 September

The first permanent gallery to be established in a stately home celebrates its coming of age. The Terrace Gallery, a radical departure in 1989, was the brainchild of artist and curator Diane Howse.

Twenty-one artists, writers, curators and performers will respond to the collections at Harewood and throw new light on objects, themes and locations from around the house and gardens. Contributors include photographers Neeta Madahar and Peter Mitchell. This show originally had a 19 June opening.

Cost undisclosed
Main funder in house
Curator Diane Howse
Design in-house