CURRENT EXHIBITIONS & DISPLAYS
Current Exhibitions & Displays
Explore the V&A's programme of changing exhibitions and displays. Complementing the Museum's permanent collection, they cover a broad range of subjects from design and fashion to photography and architecture.
Major exhibitions feature multiple rooms of objects and installations while smaller displays are sometimes located in just a single case.
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Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Courts
Procession of Maharao Ram Singh II of Kota about 1850. Museum no. IS.564-1952
10 October 2009 - 17 January 2010
Sponsored by Ernst & Young
Exhibitions, Rooms 38, 39 and North Court
£11 Adults
£ 9 Seniors
£ 6 Students, 12-17 yrs, ES40 Holders
The word 'maharaja' (literally 'great king') conjures up images of fantasy and spectacle. The heyday of the maharajas began in earnest after the collapse of the Mughal empire in the early 18th century. The exhibition opens with this period of chaos and adventure and closes at the end of British rule in 1947, when Indian princes acceded their territories into the modern states of India and Pakistan.
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Future Fashion Now: New Design from the Royal College of Art
Photograph: Royal College of Art / Dominic Tschudin
22 May 2009 - 31 January 2010
Fashion, Room 40
Free admissionShowcasing highlights from the Royal College of Art (RCA) fashion MA graduates' final collections, this display will feature over 50 outfits and accessories from an oversize handbag to a leopard print suit. As well as women's wear, knitwear, millinery and footwear design, the display will reveal aspects of the design process including preliminary sketches, illustrations, and models to explore the design stages the students go through to create their final collection, from their inspiration to the finished garment.
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Capturing the Moment. Photographs by Reg Wilson
Anthony Sher, Richard III, 1985
18 March 2009 - 10 January 2010
Theatre and Performance Temporary Exhibition Gallery, Room 104
Free admissionReg Wilson is one of Britain's most prolific performance photographers. From the 1960s he has recorded four decades of the performing arts in all their richness and variety, capturing the great and the good on stage, backstage and in the studio. This selection from Wilson's archive, chosen by the artist, shows every aspect of the performance process from the studio to the finished product. It also demonstrates a range of techniques, from the staged photo-call to the snatched backstage shot and includes some of the earliest stage photography and colour productions.
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'Gardens neatly razed': The Art of the Flopsy Bunnies
Sketch of flower borders (unused background study for The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, Beatrix Potter
10 August - 17 December 2009
Leighton, Room 102
Free admissionThis display, celebrating the centenary of 'The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies' (1909), highlights Beatrix Potter's use of real landscapes to establish a distinctive sense of place in her fiction. Potter's book illustrations to the tale, on loan from the British Museum, feature alongside her background sketches of the garden of her uncle's house at Gwaynynog, Denbighshire - the inspiration for the setting of her story.
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Stories for Humans: Contemporary Comics
Ghostlight, Karen Rubins (detail)
1 October - 22 November 2009
Room 220, Sackler Centre
Free admissionThis display presents the work of eleven internationally renowned contemporary comics artists from Europe, Iran, Japan and the USA, all with very different styles and techniques of execution. Artists represented include Jim Woodring, Chris Ware, OsamuTezuka and Stéphane Heuet. The work has been selected by the V&A's comics artist resident Karen Rubins from the comics collection in the V&A's National Art Library. Karen's work is also on display and there is an opportunity to contribute to a comic strip inspired by the Museum and its collections.
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Designer Bookbinders: Fine Bindings for the Man Booker Prize 2009
Bookbinding in progress by Derek Hood, for A.S.Byatt's The Children's Book, Booker Prize shortlist 2009
22 October 2009 - 21 March 2010
20th Century, Room 74
Free admissionThis small display showcases the bookbindings designed by the Society of Designer Bookbinders for the six shortlisted Man Booker Prize novels. The society supports and promotes the craft of fine bookbinding in Britain and has helped to establish the reputation of British bookbinding worldwide through exhibitions and publications. It has been associated with the Booker Prize for fiction since 1991, when the Booker Prize Foundation first invited Fellows of the society to design and bind copies of the six shortlisted novels. This is an intense process: the bindings take around 150 hours of work, yet the binders have only a few weeks following the shortlist announcement. All the books have to be ready in time for presentation to their authors on the night of the Man Booker Prize award. Avid novel readers will enjoy comparing these artistic interpretations of the texts with their own responses.
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An 18th-Century Enigma: Paul de Lamerie and the Maynard Master
The Maynard Dish, London, England 1736-37, Paul de Lamerie. LOAN: The Cahn family foundation.
11 May 2009 - 9 May 2010
Silver, Room 66
Free admissionThis display reveals the brilliant craftsmanship of Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751), the greatest silversmith working in England in the 18th century, and his craftsman, known as the Maynard Master. The V&A's outstanding collection of silver is showcased alongside masterpieces from the collection of Sir Arthur Gilbert, including a lavishly decorated salver, a lion mask (one of the signature elements of the Maynard Master), and the Maynard Dish, the piece that marked the first appearance of the artistic personality responsible for de Lamerie's most ambitious commissions.
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Art Matters: The Maharaja's Procession
Action for Children Gabriel Court Supported Accommodation, Rochdale
10 October 2009 - 10 January 2010
Rooms 17a & 18a
Free admissionThis display is part of Art Matters, a joint arts initiative between leading children's charity Action for Children and professional services firm Ernst & Young, and the V&A. Using the theme of Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Courts, sponsored by Ernst & Young, Action for Children groups from across the country took part in a series of artist-led workshops. This initiative enables the young people taking part to experience a sense of achievement and explore their potential. Art is a powerful tool in helping young people to express themselves, a method of expression that may be new to many of them, a selection of the young people's masterpieces is on display.
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V&A Illustration Awards 2009
'New York Trilogy', Tom Burns, 2008
9 June 2009 - 21 March 2010
Sponsored by the Enid Linder Foundation
20th Century, Room 74
Free admissionThe V&A Illustration Awards are held annually to highlight the best book and editorial illustration by UK artists published in the previous year. Their aim is to encourage, recognise and celebrate high standards of creativity in the industry. Prizes are also given to the most promising student illustrators. In 2009, Tom Burns won the prize for Best Illustrated Book for the Folio Society edition of Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy. He was also voted the overall winner of the competition. This display showcases many of the competition winners and entries.
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Faber and Faber: Eighty Years of Book Cover Design, 1929–2009
Robert Lowell, ‘For the Union Dead’, Faber and Faber, 1964. Cover design by Berthold Wolpe. Reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber.
3 August - 6 December 2009
National Art Library Landing, Room 85
Free admissionThis display celebrates the 80th anniversary of Faber and Faber, one of the great remaining independent publishing houses in London. Established in 1929, the taste and originality of co-founder Richard de la Mare led to the development of an unmistakable style at a time when only a few London publishers were conscious of book design. This commitment to design has continued to the present day. The books on display are from the Faber Archive Library. This display is a trailer for a forthcoming larger display on Faber and Faber which will be held in the Twentieth Century Gallery, 17 April - 7 November 2010.
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'All the better to see you with my dear': Fairy Tales & Enchantments
Large button Netsuke with a design of the story of Shiranui Montogar, Signed ‘Reigyoku’, Japan, About 1850-1900, Museum No. 564-1904. Dresden Bequest.
2 July 2009 - 28 February 2010
Sackler Centre Entrance
Free admissionThis display focuses on a theme that is captivating to both children and adults alike: fairy tales. Some variant of fairy or folk tale exists in all cultures. Their tradition is rooted in mythology; their purpose to divert, instruct and caution. Employing equal measures of fact and fiction, tales of magic and enchantment make compelling subjects for the decorative arts. A selection of objects from around the world and across several centuries will demonstrate the hold that fairy tales and magic have on our collective imaginations. The majority of these objects have not been displayed before and include both well-known subjects and those that may be less familiar. The display provides an opportunity to explore both the origins of fairy tales, in folk lore and legend, and also the darker side to their purpose: cautionary advice and superstition.
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A Higher Ambition: Owen Jones (1809–74)
William Simpson, design for the internal decoration of The Great Exhibition Building of 1851 by Owen Jones, 1850. Museum no. 546-1897
28 March – 22 November 2009
Free admission
This display traces Owen Jones's unique contributions to Victorian design reform; from his early studies of Islamic decoration at the Alhambra Palace, through to his designs for the 1851 Great Exhibition building, the publication of the Grammar of Ornament (one of the most important design sourcebooks of all time) and his influence in the founding of the South Kensington Museum.
The V&A holds the world's most comprehensive collection of Owen Jones material, and on the occasion of the bicentenary of his birth, this is the first ever monographic display or exhibition to look at the contribution of Owen Jones to architecture, design and colour theory.
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Judaica from the Gilbert Collection
Torah crown, Austria, about 1825. Museum no. Loan:Gilbert 68:1-2008
Until 30 September 2010
Sacred Silver, Room 83
Free AdmissionThis small display features ornate Jewish ritual objects from Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert's collection. Arthur Gilbert's family, the Bernsteins, were successful Jewish immigrants, who had moved to London from Poland in the 1890s. Central to Jewish observance is the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The scroll on which the Torah is written is wound on rollers called 'Trees of Life' ('Atzei Hayyim'). It is customary to decorate the rollers with either a crown or a pair of rimmonim. The crown symbolises majesty and the law of Torah. The rimmonim evoke the bells worn on the high priest's robe as described in the Book of Exodus.
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Objects of Luxury: French porcelain of the eighteenth century
Sugar basin and cover, Saint-Cloud, about 1700-20, Museum no. 487-1909
18 September 2009 - end May 2010
Room 146
Free admissionCelebrate one of the most exciting discoveries of the 18th century in this display.
Known as 'white gold', porcelain was produced for use in all aspects of fashionable public and private life; from banquets to boudoirs, from tea drinking to the toilette. The sensuous charm of the 'soft-paste' porcelain produced in France earned it universal admiration. This display introduces the major French factories, including the Royal Porcelain Manufacture at Sèvres, and demonstrates the wide variety of objects they could provide for their fashionable clientele.
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Elegant Accomplishments: The Art of Noh Performance
Noh mask of waka-onna, Suzuki Nohjin, Japan, 2000. Museum no. FE.127-2000.
7 September 2009 - 7 March 2010
Japan, Room 45
Free admissionThis small display from the V&A's collection of superb Nō robes and masks, together with prints illustrating performance, is shown in the Museum's gallery dedicated to the arts of Japan. It complements the tour of Nō performance and associated events being presented across the UK this autumn. The V&A has been collecting Nō masks - worn by performers of this form of Japanese musical drama - since 1876, a time when the fate of Nō hung in the balance. That same year saw the ban on wearing swords by the samurai - who had been the traditional patrons of Nō for centuries. Many Nō families were forced to sell off their family treasures and western museums were then fortunate enough to acquire many fine examples of these crafts.
