The free collections, the big shows, and when to go

The British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Modern, Tate Britain and the V&A are free all year, and their permanent collections outclass most ticketed shows. The sensible plan is to book the paid exhibitions around them rather than the reverse.

The free collections

Any of the big five can fill a day, so pick one per visit: the National Gallery for Western painting from Giotto to Cézanne, the British Museum for the Parthenon sculptures, the Rosetta Stone and the Assyrian reliefs, Tate Modern for 20th-century and contemporary art in the Turbine Hall and the collection displays, Tate Britain for Turner and British painting, and the V&A for fashion, jewellery, furniture and sculpture.

Closer to home for many visitors is the Wallace Collection on Manchester Square, with French 18th-century painting, Old Masters and one of the best armour collections in the country, all free. Along with Handel and Hendrix, it's the museum within easy reach of the most central London apartments. The Science Museum and the Natural History Museum are free too, though school holidays get busy from opening time, so check each website for free timed slots before you go.

Paid shows and Friday nights

Headline shows at the Royal Academy, Tate, the National Gallery and the British Museum sell by timed ticket, and the weekend slots in the final month go first, so buy as soon as you have dates. The emptiest time is a weekday morning in the first fortnight of a show's run. Most of these institutions also sell a membership with free, unlimited entry to their exhibitions and members' hours, which pays for itself after two or three visits if you're in London for a few months, and the Art Fund's National Art Pass gets you half-price entry to major exhibitions and free entry to more than 250 places across the UK.

On Fridays the National Gallery is open until 9pm, with a programme of Friday Lates of talks and music through the autumn, and the British Museum keeps around 50 of its galleries open until 8.30pm; book a timed slot, and note the last one is at 7pm. The V&A in South Kensington holds a themed Friday Late most months, with drop-in performances and bars. If you're going straight from work, eat there: the National Gallery's Ochre brasserie serves dinner until 9pm on late Fridays and Bar Giorgio stays open too, while the British Museum's Court cafés run until 8pm. After a working week, a Friday evening without the school groups is the most civilised way to see a major collection.

The autumn fixtures, and the ones that return

Each autumn Frieze Sculpture fills the English Gardens of Regent's Park with large outdoor works, free and open to all. The 2026 edition, its 14th, has 11 artists and runs from 16 September to 1 November, overlapping with Frieze London and Frieze Masters in the same park, which is when Mayfair's commercial galleries put on their strongest shows.

The Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, open to submissions from any artist, runs through the summer on Piccadilly and has done every year since 1769. In Kensington Gardens the Serpentine galleries are free, and each summer a new temporary pavilion goes up on the lawn beside Serpentine South; the 2026 one is by the Mexican practice Lanza Atelier.

October is the wettest month of the year and November isn't much drier, with rain on about twelve days, so keep a free museum within walking distance for those afternoons and book the paid exhibition for the morning, when you're fresher and the rooms are emptier. Programmes change every few months and the big exhibitions are announced well ahead, so check each museum's own website for current shows and prices, and sign up to its newsletter.