Opening this month

5-8 August

CultureLine is a partnership between 10 museums located along the recently opened East London overground line. This weekend programme features exhibitions, costumed characters, guided walks and live music.

It starts with a talk on the Whitechapel Gallery’s Alice Neel show, the first major UK retrospective of the American painter. The other museums involved in CultureLine are Hackney Museum, the Geffrye Museum, Wesley’s Chapel, Royal London Hospital Museum, the Women’s Library, Brunel Museum, the Horniman Museum, Crystal Palace Museum and the Museum of Croydon.

Cost £123,000 (cost of whole CultureLine project)
Main funders Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (Renaissance), Transport for London
Marketing material Second Opinion.


6 August- 3 October

An exhibition looking at the arrival of the Romans in northern England from the year 73AD. Moving from their immediate military impact to the establishment of a monetary economy, the interactive display will trace the gradual Romanisation of civilian settlements in the north. The exhibition will tour along various sites on Hadrian’s Wall over the coming year.

Cost undisclosed
Funding Renaissance North West. The exhibition is a partnership between Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, Hadrian’s Wall Heritage and Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery
Curator Tim Padley
Exhibition design Redman Design


7 August-27 November

Happy Days will look at all aspects of childhood, including toys, games, books, comics, clothes and holidays. Mansfield Museum has been gathering photographs and objects from local residents for inclusion in the exhibition. The displays will be supported by hands-on activities such as a sandpit and toy corner. There will also be a Wii electronic Olympics.

Cost Nominal
Funder in-house
Curator Jodie Henshaw


7 August-6 September

Bedbound and well into his 80s, the French painter, sculptor and designer Henri Matisse was still producing his famous cut-outs, using colours so strong that his doctor ordered him to wear dark glasses.

This exhibition features 35 lithographic prints of abstract and figurative patterns created by the artist in the last four years of his life. Highlights include reproductions of Matisse’s iconic images, the Snail and the Blue Nudes.

Cost £700 (hire fee)
Funding Highland Council Exhibition Unit
Curated by Hayward Touring Exhibitions
Exhibition design and graphics Hayward in-house design


10 August-20 March 2011

On loan from the University of Cumbria, MoDA’s latest exhibition celebrates the vibrant work of textile designer Raymond Honeyman. Refusing to surrender to computer-aided design, Honeyman hand draws and paints his patterns, each one made up of about 50,000 stitches. The display reflects a recent resurgence of interest in artisan values and craft skills. Honeyman will give an evening lecture at the museum on 14 October.

Cost £5,000 (hire fee £2,000, transport and marketing £3,000)
Funding supported by Twisted Thread and Ehrman Tapestries
Curator Mary Schoeser
Exhibition design and graphics University of Cumbria in-house design


10 August onwards

During a 1999 renovation of the museum’s top floor gallery, once home to the Ashmolean Museum, staff discovered an unexpected record of museum life in the 18th century.

In a dust-filled cavity beneath the floorboards, they found lost labels and objects from old collections, and hundreds of everyday scraps from the lives of curators and visitors, including hazelnut shells and cherry stones from 18th-century snacks, notes passed between staff and a baby tooth worn as a keepsake.

This display is an opportunity to see the lost ephemera, set alongside a reconstructed view of the space beneath the floorboards (featuring original 18th-century dust).

Cost undisclosed
Funding in-house
Curator Jim Bennett
Design and graphics in-house designer Sarah Callaghan.


25 August-7 November

Two centuries may separate them, but musician Jimi Hendrix and composer George Frideric Handel were once neighbours; in 1968 Hendrix moved into a top floor flat next door to Handel’s former residence in London’s Soho.

The flat, which is now the administrative offices of Handel House Museum, will open to the public this August to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Hendrix’s death. The exhibition features a host of photographs and memorabilia, including hand-written lyrics and Hendrix’s distinctive orange velvet jacket and Westerner hat.

Cost undisclosed
Funding in-house with support from private donors
Curator Martin Wyatt
Exhibition design and graphics Martin Wyatt, Sarah Bardwell, Gemma Morris

Image: Mikado Maids by Raymond Honeyman