Last call for London

3 min.
City Hopping

Getting a last summer dose of culture in London

London has dozens of exhibitions running at any given moment. We've picked out four shows that have been open for a while and have only a few months left to run.

Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography – Dulwich Picture Gallery

Portrait of a City brings together work by 34 photographers, all drawn from a single private collection, tracing a century of American urban life. Shot in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, the photographs use the cities as dynamic backdrops for the social changes of the 20th century. Among the iconic images: Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother and Mary Ellen Mark's The Damm Family in Their Car.

Practical info: until 4 October, Dulwich Picture Gallery, tickets from £14.40. More info.

Mary Ellen Mark, The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California, 1987 © Mary Ellen Mark, Courtesy of The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation

Anish Kapoor – Hayward Gallery

Distorting mirror sculptures, objects coated in Vantablack – the blackest substance in the world – and seemingly bottomless pits in the floor that will genuinely throw you off balance. With these, Anish Kapoor fills the entire Hayward Gallery building. New work is also on show, including monumental installations in Kapoor's signature red. Over the course of his decades-long career, Kapoor has become known for ambitious, large-scale works such as the breathtaking Sky Mirror and Cloud Gate (also known as The Bean) in Chicago.

Practical info: until 18 October, Hayward Gallery (Southbank Centre), tickets £22. More info.

Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam – Royal Academy of Arts

Victorian painter Richard Dadd built a promising career after training at the Royal Academy. Then, after a journey through the Mediterranean, he developed delusions and killed his own father. He spent the rest of his life in the psychiatric institutions Bethlem and Broadmoor. Against all odds, he kept painting there, drawing on memory, imagination and a lasting interest in literature and legend to create fantastical worlds rich in intricate detail. His paintings and watercolours are among the most original and imaginative works in British art. One of Dadd's most celebrated paintings, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, inspired a song by the band Queen. Beyond Bedlam brings together more than a hundred of his works.

Praktical info: until 25 October, Royal Academy of Arts (Burlington House), tickets £15. More info.

Titania Sleeping, 1841

Oil on canvas. 64.8 x 77.5 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Paintings. © GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre) / Jean-Gilles Berizzi

Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art – V&A South Kensington

The first-ever UK exhibition devoted to Elsa Schiaparelli shows how the Italian designer elevated fashion to art in the 1930s, through collaborations with Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau. Expect the famous 'Skeleton' and 'Tears' dresses, a necklace with gilded pine cones, and a hat shaped like a shoe, along with a look at how current creative director Daniel Roseberry carries that surrealist legacy forward today.

Practical info: until 8 November, V&A South Kensington, tickets £28 (weekdays) / £30 (weekend). More info.

Schiaparelli Haute Couture autumn/winter 2024