6 Lesser-Known UK Art Galleries to Visit in 2025
Words by
Charlotte Metcalf
16th April 2025
Six curators working in beautiful, lesser-known art galleries across the UK share their personal picks and highlight upcoming exhibitions for 2025.
Detail of the Thornhill Mural, The Sherborne.
“The home and workplace of Henry Moore is a unique opportunity to understand the artist’s work. Moore moved to Perry Green in 1940 and decided to stay, enlarging the site to place his work. His maquette studio, which still exists, next to the sheep field, is particularly special to show where he developed his ideas. You can see the desk where he did his sheep drawings and there are still household goods, like the talc he used, so it feels as if he has just left the room. As the world-leading resource on Moore, we also have a peerless archive of more than 750,000 items accessible by appointment."
Henry Moore at work in his maquette studio in 1968 © John Hedgecoe
Favourite exhibit: “The well-known 1966 Double Oval which sits on the green outside the visitor centre. Two parallel but unidentical bronze, arched forms show Moore exploring how abstract forms interlock and repeat. You can see and walk through them and the work represents such a turning point from where Moore jumped more into abstraction.”
2025 must-sees: “Encounters is our upcoming programme of performances, events and talks built around the collaborations between Moore and other creatives, like WH Auden, for whom he illustrated a book of poems.”
Henry Moore's Double Oval, 1966 © John Chase
GAINSBOROUGH’S HOUSE, SUDBURY, SUFFOLK
Calvin Winner, Executive Director
“Gainsborough’s House represents a fantastic art pilgrimage to the home and birthplace of Thomas Gainsborough in beautiful Constable country. The traditional silk weaver’s house — the family worked in the industry — stands in its historic garden with a 400-year-old mulberry tree. Alongside is the new building, enabling us to have a dynamic programme of temporary exhibitions. There are also print workshops for practising artists.”
Wooded Landscape with a Herdsman Seated, c.1746-1747, by Thomas Gainsborough
Favourite exhibit: “An early 1746 landscape by Gainsborough, painted when he was just 19 and moving back to Sudbury from London. It sparkles with the beauty of a quintessentially East Anglian sky and landscape. I love it so much that it’s printed on my business cards. Importantly, it shows how Constable and then JMW Turner were inspired by Gainsborough."
The Painting Room in Gainsborough 's House © Hufton + Crow
2025 must-sees: “In spring 2025, we’ll be showing a magnificent collection of 18thcentury paintings borrowed from Highgate’s Kenwood House, including one of Gainsborough’s finest portraits of Countess Howe. In the historic house, we’re showing work by the renowned printmaker Katherine Jones RA, and in the garden, there will be beautiful organic carvings by Helaine Blumenfeld. “In autumn, we are exhibiting a collection of works by Stanley Spencer and his brother Gilbert alongside those of his wife, Hilda Carline, while portrait painter, Humphrey Ocean RA, will create work in response to Gainsborough’s House.”
THE MCMANUS: DUNDEE’S ART GALLERY AND MUSEUM
Anna Day, Head of Libraries and Culture
“It’s such a joy to work in this beautiful, ornate George Gilbert Scott building. It was opened in 1867 as a memorial to Prince Albert and was Dundee’s original V&A. It tells the story of Dundee’s place in the world through extraordinary exhibits like The Tay Whale skeleton. Dundee’s immense wealth was built on whaling — alongside jute, jam and journalism — so it’s poignant that the whale found itself lost and hunted up the Tay."
Two Auld Wifies, 1982, by Ron Stenberg ©Lars Stenberg
Favourite exhibit: “Two Auld Wifies, by New Zealand artist Ron Stenberg, who gifted it to us. There was a campaign to discover the identity of the ‘auld wifies’, and the painting actually depicts a mother and her son who lived in a mental health institution. The pair met on the bench every day for a chat. Although she looked like a typical Dundee wifey, she was, in fact, very well-off. So this is a story about motherhood, not being able to live with your child and hidden wealth; the McManus is a treasure trove of stories.”
Rain on Princes Street, 1975, by Stanley Cursiter ©Estate of Stanley Cursiter
2025 must-sees: “A Weather Eye is our beautiful free exhibition of paintings by Scottish artists throughout history. Our curator discovered there are more words for weather in Scots than in any other language — we have 421 different words for snow, even more than the Inuit.”
Storm at Sea Remembered, 1974, by Jon Schueler © Jon Schueler Foundation
THE SHERBORNE, DORSET
Paul Newman, Dorset Visual Arts Creative Director
“After more than 30 years of unsuccessful revival attempts and being on the Heritage at Risk Register, our Grade I-listed Georgian house reopened last spring after an extensive restoration project. This represents a monumental achievement and is a testament to the extraordinary generosity and drive of Michael Cannon [who bought Sherborne House in 2018 and established The Sherborne Trust]. Michael was intent on handing this glorious house back to the community with a mission to champion the richness of art for everyone. It’s now a heritage land- mark, offering beautiful sculpture gardens, the historic Thornhill mural, a variety of exhibitions, a curated shop, and Macready’s bar and restaurant, which serves a menu of locally sourced food.”
The Sherborne. Photo by Brett Charles.
Favourite exhibit: “The Thornhill mural, depicting the Calydonian boar hunt from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, painted in Baroque style. The mural gives such a sense of theatre as you can view the ‘start’ of it from a small black square inlaid in the ground-floor tiles at the bottom of the staircase. From here, you look to the window and either side with the drapery ‘revealing’ the drama about to unfold.”
The Thornhill mural at The Sherborne. Photo by Brett Charles.
2025 must-sees: “BIND, a Dorset Visual Arts Salon Collective, runs until 20 April when a new curator steps in. New work will explore relationships that bind and differentiate various approaches to art.”
PETERSFIELD MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY
Louise Weller, Head of Collections and Exhibitions
“The museum celebrates local history, culture and community, featuring a fascinating variety of social history objects, photographs, fashion and art. The Buriton Hoard is a prized exhibit. It features four impressive bronze ornaments, including two necklaces, known as torcs, from the Middle Bronze Age period.”
Favourite exhibit: “My favourite recent area of work was conserving and presenting items from our fashion collection, particularly a selection of dresses from the 1930s. These pieces were part of our record-breaking summer exhibition focused on art collector Peggy Guggenheim, who lived near Petersfield during that time.”
Evening dress with cape, 1930s black crepe woven with lines of metallic thread
2025 must-sees: “Bound Together: Modern British Bookbinding, celebrates the career of bookbinder Roger Powell, who lived and worked in Froxfield, Hampshire. The exhibition includes rare, seldom-seen books from private collections. There’s also a summer exhibition of Michael Craig-Martin’s work and, in the autumn, Rediscovering the Photographs of Winifred Joseph, 1917 to 1945, will present striking photographs of mid 20th-century rural life.”
STANLEY SPENCER GALLERY, COOKHAM, BERKSHIRE
Amy Lim, Curator
Housed in the former Wesleyan chapel where Stanley Spencer worshipped as a child, the gallery is a unique opportunity to see Spencer’s paintings in the place that inspired them, only metres away from the many locations they depict in Cookham.”
Favourite exhibit: “Spencer worked on his last, enormous imaginative painting, Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta, for almost a decade. It was still unfinished at his death, which gives us a great insight into his working methods. I spot something new every time I look at it. My favourite part is the group of swans mobbing a punt. No one painted swans better than Stanley Spencer.”
Detail from Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta (1952-1959), Stanley Spencer Gallery
2025 must-sees: “Our exhibitions will focus in depth on Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta, bringing together lots of the associated paintings and studies, many of which are in private collections. It will be an opportunity to take a deep dive into Spencer’s memory, imagination and vision. The gallery is only a stone’s throw from the Thames, the painting’s setting, so visitors should take a stroll along the Thames Path and see some of the locations that inspired Spencer.”
