Christopher Dresser: 1834-1904
The world’s first industrial designer, in the first big British exhibition devoted to this largely forgotten genius, who died 100 years ago. You will be amazed by the elegance of the minimalist teapots and toast racks, which anticipate Bauhaus design by 40 years, and you’ll delight in the ceramics, glassware and watercolours.
V&A, SW7, until Dec 5
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Art & the 60s: This Was Tomorrow
It wasn’t just the emergence of pop that made this decade one of the most exciting in the history of British art. Abstract painting was at its peak then, too, and op art, auto-destructive art and the sculpture of Caro and others contributed to making London swing. Last week.
Tate Britain, SW1, until Sept 26
Liverpool Biennial
Britain’s only big biennial, staged in the future European Capital of Culture, boasts four exhibitions — the International, Independents, New Contemporaries and John Moore 23 — at various venues.
Walker Art Gallery, Tate Liverpool and other venues, until Nov 28
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Peter Brookes — Nature Notes
Not just inspired wit but superb drawings and watercolours in the Nature Notes created for The Times by our sister paper’s political cartoonist. You don’t need to see Jacques Chirac as a puffed-up frog, but it helps.
Chris Beetles, SW1, until Oct 9
Alfred Wolmark
It’s amazing to think that Wolmark, born in Warsaw in 1877, died in London in 1961. For the painter of heavy impastos in bright local colours seems to belong to the distant, musty age just before the first world war, in which modernism was introduced to Britain by the likes of the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, whom Wolmark once portrayed. Alas, the painter’s daring faded fast in the 1920s. But his is a reputation worth rescuing.
Ben Uri Gallery, NW8, until Nov 7
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Singer & Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition
The annual celebration of watercolour painting provides a satisfyingly varied exhibition. The first prize goes to Stuart Pearson Wright for a stunning portrait of a black baker, his buns and tarts displayed before him.
Manchester Town Hall, from Tue until Oct 3