The UK’s annual Art History Festival kicks off soon with the largest programme to date. Over 100 free events will celebrate and champion those who study and research art history, showing art can be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere – with everything absolutely free.
The theme of the 2025 festival is art’s close relationship with nature and how this can be a key factor in improving people’s well-being and mental health. It will showcase the power of art and nature together, and its ability to heal, uplift and rejuvenate individuals and communities. Between Monday 15th September – Sunday 21st September, with the help of over 100 partners, the public will be able to enjoy talks from leading artists and historians, hands-on workshops, tours through exhibitions and outside spaces, and panel discussions.
Drawing on cultures from around the world, from Chinese calligraphy to contemporary eco-art, it will explore how art from around the world responds to themes relating to the natural world.
Organised by the Association for Art History, the festival seeks to both engage new people with the richness of art, design and architecture as well as promote the important work of those who study visual and material art and work with collections who make the art experiences that we all enjoy.
Workshops
The length and breadth of the UK will be taking part, from Orkney to Guernsey, and including cities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Exeter, Oxford and Belfast.
The festival operates UK-wide, from culture-rich cities to rural towns, with major museums taking part, as well as the special and unique places that some may not have yet visited. This includes the Hundred Heroines Museum in Stroud who are exhibiting works of nature by female artists and photographers, a workshop at Bethlam Museum of the Mind to create floral-inspired bookmarks, and a display of animal paintings at the Alfred Cohen Museum in Norfolk’s Wighton village.
For art lovers, families with budding artists, and those wanting a deeper understanding of the art and nature around us, the Art History Festival offers an easy way to find, plan and organise your week of art with a full events listing on the website. Through a new partnership with Bloomberg, all events will be available to book easily on the Bloomberg app.
Gregory Perry, Chief Executive, Association for Art History said “I’m delighted to see the Art History Festival continue to grow and return for its fifth year. It’s a fantastic demonstration of how art history connects people–through ideas, objects and stories–and how it can illuminate the world around us. As the only one of its kind in the UK, the Festival offers a unique opportunity to celebrate and take part in the inspiring work that organisations and people in the arts produce for audiences across the UK.“
Growth
Since its inception in 2021, the festival has continued to grow at an incredible pace, engaging with five times as many attendees last year since its inaugural year. The 2025 Festival is generously supported by the National Gallery Trust, and the Trafalgar Square Gallery will host a detailed audio description of Henri Rousseau’s mysterious and imaginative nature painting Surprised! alongside a new piece of music composed and performed by cellist Nina Plapp (Tuesday 16th), as well as a curator talk through the exhibition Millet: Life on the Land (Friday 19th). And at the National Gallery’s Friday Late, art historian James Fox will speak about his new book Craftland chronicling the vanishing skills and traditions of rural Britain.
One of the most in-demand artists of the year Hew Locke will be in conversation with Will Gompertz at City Lit (Friday 19th) for a conversation exploring themes of migration, identity, and empire in contemporary artistic practice. And in a rare opportunity to hear Argentinian-born artist Amalia Pica discuss her career working with primatologists from Nigeria to North America, The Gallery at Cowcross Street will be hosting her in conversation with historian Richard Taws (Wednesday 17th) in an event with a Q&A and drinks.
The focus on nature means a lot of events outside in the great outdoors too. This includes comedian and art historian Verity Babbs guiding a tour around Regent’s Park to look at Frieze Sculpture (Friday 19th), an exploration of labyrinths at Albion Millenium Green (Wednesday 17th) and a guided walk to look at the fungi at Goldsmith’s University.
In Scotland, Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios will chart the history of textiles from William Morris to IKEA and how the natural world has been interpreted through magical patterns (Saturday 20th). In Glasgow, Britain’s contribution to the Art Nouveau which placed the natural world at its centre, including Mackintosh and the Macdonald Sisters, will be explored in a talk at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (Wednesday 17th).
In Conwy, an exhibition of 130 artists showcasing the beauty and diversity of the natural world, as well exploring the climate crisis and sustainability, will be shown at the Pensychnant Conservation Centre (Saturday 20th).
An art tour of the Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum (Saturday 20th) will focus on the healing power of nature in art from the Second World War.
There’s a broad range of events encompassing many different activities and displays, from a special slow-looking invitation at Suffolk’s Galerie Betty Charles with 30 minutes of observation and gentle guidance from curators (Saturday 20th), to a performance art display in Birmingham with bikes making us think how we use transport in urban environments.
Nature
Be sure to check out the fun-for-all-the-family events too such as getting hands-on with nature through a sensory printmaking workshop at Oxford’s The Ashmolean, and the chance to create your own medal for the brave animals that have helped us in conflict at the Imperial War Museum. Geography is no barrier, thanks to an extensive series of online events that can be joined from home. These include the National Galleries of Scotland hosting an online talk with environmental artist Kerry Morrison (Tuesday 16th), The Courtauld Institute’s workshop exploring artists such as Constable, Turner and Monet and how they captured the light, colour and elements of the natural world first-hand (Saturday 20th), a City Lit look at how non-human technologies have re-shaped the way we see nature (Monday 15th) and a hour-long online lecture and Q&A offered by the V&A Academy on how the Impressionists revolutionised the way the world was captured through painting.
The Association for Art History will also be offering advice for young people seeking creative careers, such as learning how to pitch your CV for a career in the art world with Sotheby’s Diana Ewer, tips for networking in the arts with NXT-Gen Founder Alexander Steinacker, and advice on getting into creative careers from Europe’s largest art consultancy with Riki Auton of Artiq (Saturday 21st).
Artist Hew Locke says “”Art history has been a pleasure in my life, but also an important part of my self-education in general, giving me an insight into many other cultures, past and present. It is not separate from politics or global history but is a view of history from a different angle.”
These are just a very small selection of the events that are on offer, for full details and updates visit: https://festival.forarthistory.org.uk/events/ – please note this is a growing list, and more events are being added all the time so do check back for regular updates.
All events are free, but some require advanced booking due to limited places.
See also: Japanese Culture in Shoreditch
