November is one of London’s strongest months for art. The National Gallery brings together all nine of Jan van Eyck’s surviving painted portraits, the Hayward Gallery opens Nan Goldin’s first major UK institutional exhibition since 2002, and the Royal Academy revisits Peggy Guggenheim’s early London gallery.nationalgallery.org+2
Here’s what to see across London this month.
Van Eyck at the National Gallery
Van Eyck: The Portraits opens at the National Gallery on November 21 and runs until April 11, 2027. For the first time, all nine of Jan van Eyck’s surviving painted portraits are brought together in one exhibition.nationalgallery.org+1
The exhibition includes works borrowed from across Europe and represents around half of the roughly twenty surviving autograph paintings by the Northern Renaissance master. Rather than focusing only on aristocratic subjects, it also includes merchants, craftsmen and members of Van Eyck’s own family, showing how he expanded the possibilities of portraiture.nationalgallery.org+2
For anyone interested in early Netherlandish painting, Renaissance art or the history of portraiture, this is the major museum exhibition to see in London this November.
Nan Goldin at the Hayward Gallery
Nan Goldin: You Never Did Anything Wrong opens at the Hayward Gallery on November 24 and runs until March 14, 2027. It is Goldin’s first major UK institutional exhibition since 2002.artlyst+1
The exhibition brings together five decades of photographs alongside four recent films, including You Never Did Anything Wrong, Part I and Part II, Stendhal Syndrome and Memory Lost. Goldin’s work explores intimacy, addiction, queer subcultures, friendship and personal memory, often blurring the distance between documentary photography and autobiography.artlyst+1
This is one of the most important photography exhibitions in London this season, and a strong choice for visitors interested in contemporary photography, personal narrative and social history.
Peggy Guggenheim at the Royal Academy
Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector opens at the Royal Academy on November 21 and runs until March 14, 2027.royalacademy.org
The exhibition revisits Guggenheim Jeune, the gallery she ran at 30 Cork Street between January 1938 and June 1939. It reunites key works from her pioneering exhibitions with related pieces by artists including Eileen Agar, Salvador Dalí, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Vasily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.royalacademy.org
The show is particularly interesting for its focus on collecting, exhibition-making and the role of a single gallery in introducing avant-garde art to London.royalacademy.org+1
Bloomsbury at Tate Britain
Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury opens at Tate Britain on November 12 and runs until April 11, 2027.artlyst+1
The exhibition brings together more than 300 works by the two central figures of the Bloomsbury Group, including portraits, paintings, painted furniture and ceramics. It also recreates their Charleston studio at full scale, giving visitors a sense of the domestic and creative environment in which their work developed.artlyst+2
For visitors interested in British modernism, design, interiors and the connections between art and everyday life, this is one of the season’s most immersive exhibitions.
Photography and contemporary art
London’s November programme also includes strong contemporary photography and painting.
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Andrius Arutiunian: They Tried to Count Us opens at the Hayward Gallery on November 24, alongside the Nan Goldin exhibition.culturecity
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Louise Giovanelli: In the Light of False Suns opens at White Cube Mason’s Yard on November 20 and runs until January 16, 2027.wallpaper
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This Is Still Not a Pipe: The Afterlife of Magritte continues at Gagosian until December 12.wallpaper
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Sound & Vision takes place at Iconic Images Gallery from November 6 to 8.wallpaper
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Renée Levi: September remains at the Hayward Gallery until November 15.wallpaper
Other exhibitions to consider
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Through Our Eyes: Sámi Art and Culture opens at Somerset House on November 6 and runs until February 7, 2027.
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Arcadia by John Akomfrah opens at the Natural History Museum on November 6.
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Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires opens at the V&A on November 7.
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Beyond the Streets opens at Saatchi Gallery on November 11.
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The Coming of Age opens at Wellcome Collection on November 29, exploring ageing through more than 150 artworks and objects.musa
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Peter Blake: In The Studio opens at Pitzhanger on November 25.
How to plan your visit
For a focused day, start at the National Gallery for Van Eyck: The Portraits, then continue to the Hayward Gallery for Nan Goldin: You Never Did Anything Wrong. Both exhibitions open in the second half of November and offer contrasting perspectives on portraiture, photography and personal history.nationalgallery.org+1
For a second visit, pair the Royal Academy’s Peggy Guggenheim in London with Tate Britain’s Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury. Together, they offer a rich look at collecting, modernism, Bloomsbury and the networks that shaped twentieth-century British art.
