Summer in Sussex is something to savour – for locals and visitors alike. The rolling folds of the South Downs, golden sand and shingle beaches, and a generous scattering of vineyards, breweries, seaside pubs and country inns offer endless ways to enjoy the long, bright days. And for those who want a little culture alongside the sunshine – or a cool, quiet moment away from the heat – the county’s galleries and museums are alive with compelling exhibitions throughout the warmer months.

Paula Rego: Visions of English Literature

A mesmerising exhibition bringing together three of the artist’s most ambitious printmaking series – Nursery Rhymes, Peter Pan and Jane Eyre – created across a decade of her life. Each is shown alongside personal items from Rego’s studio, many never displayed before. Unseen preparatory sketches, etching plates and her own childhood copy of Peter Pan offer an intimate glimpse into her lifelong fascination with literature, and how she transformed these stories into images that are both startlingly original and wholly her own.

The exhibition runs until 6 September 2026. For more information, and to explore the special curated series of events, including talks, workshops and screenings, see Newlands House Gallery.

Pallant House Gallery

British Landscapes: A Sense of Place

This landmark exhibition traces how artists from the eighteenth to the twentieth century have responded to the landscapes of the British Isles, revealing landscape as an expression of memory, identity and emotion. Bringing together more than sixty artists, it moves from Gainsborough and the golden age of British watercolour to the postwar works of Wilhelmina Barns‑Graham, Barbara Hepworth, Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious. From quiet lanes to industrial sites and abstract coastlines, British Landscapes: A Sense of Place reflects on how Britain’s landscapes have been lived in, remembered and reimagined – and how they continue to shape a shared sense of belonging.. Exhibition runs until 1 November 2026.

Haroun Hayward: Path Through Trees

A meditative new body of work inspired by Hayward’s walks through Sussex woodlands. His richly textured paintings blend abstraction with echoes of landscape, using layered colour, pattern and rhythm to evoke the sensory experience of moving through trees – the shifting light, the quiet, the sense of refuge. Exhibition runs until 1 November 2026.

From Bawden to Hockney: Modern British Printmaking

Featuring artists from Edward Bawden and Keith Vaughan to David Hockney and Emily Young, the Dennis Andrews and Christopher Whelen Collection is the latest to join Pallant House Gallery through Art Fund support. This Print Room exhibition presents a selection of the 70 artworks and rare books they gifted and later bequeathed – a collection shaped over decades by personal taste, friendship and curiosity. Exhibition runs until 9 August 2026.

Pop and the Figure

A bold, colourful exploration of how Pop artists reimagined the human figure. Bringing together works by Pauline Boty, Peter Blake, David Hockney and other key voices, the exhibition looks at how artists used popular culture, advertising, celebrity and mass media to reshape ideas of identity and representation. Running until Spring 2027.

See Pallant House Gallery for more information, opening times and how to book tickets.

De La Warr Pavilion

To Improvise A Mountain: Lynette Yiadom‑Boakye Curates

For this exhibition, Lynette Yiadom‑Boakye selects works that have shaped her way of seeing and thinking as an artist, inviting visitors to take a personal journey through art across places and generations. It offers an opportunity to share in her distinctive vision and trace the influences that inform her practice. The spirit of the exhibition draws on a fragment of poetry from ‘Inamorata’, a 1970 recording by Miles Davis – “Who is this music that which description may never justify? / Can the ocean be described?” For Yiadom‑Boakye, poetry’s ability to translate the intangible into images, to think through rhythm and feeling, mirrors the act of painting itself. Exhibition runs until 13 September 2026.

Tschabalala Self: Seated

Through a multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, printmaking, sculpture and collage, Self explores diverse artistic traditions with a focus on Black and femme bodies. Her powerful, character-driven figures, often inspired by fleeting encounters, reflect on identity, race and gender, and what it means to flourish in contemporary life.

For more information on To Improvise A Mountain: Lynette Yiadom‑Boakye Curates, Tschabalala Self: Seated, and the wider programme of summer events, talks and workshops, see De La Warr Pavilion.

Goodwood Art Foundation – Summer Programme

Across Goodwood’s 70‑acre woodland site, works by Nancy Holt, Eva Rothschild, Yayoi Kusama, Lee Ufan, Polly Apfelbaum and Hélio Oiticica unfold through earthworks, sculpture, tapestry, ceramics and outdoor installations. A stone’s throw from Chichester, the site offers a rare blend of landscape and contemporary art. Exhibitions run until 1 November 2026, though visitors should check the Goodwood Art Foundation website in advance, as access is limited during major summer events.

Charleston

Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press

Rediscover Virginia Woolf as a radical printer, publisher and maker through the Hogarth Press. Founded in 1917 in Woolf’s living room, the press blurred boundaries between art, craft and literature, treating the book as an art object and championing collaboration. Today, it stands as a powerful model for sharing ideas outside traditional structures. Charleston in Firle until 6 September 2026.

Guerrilla Girls: Art, Activism & the Fight for Equality

A punchy, provocative exhibition celebrating four decades of the Guerrilla Girls’ feminist activism. Featuring posters, prints, video and new commissions, the show exposes ongoing inequalities in the art world with the collective’s trademark wit, clarity and masked anonymity. Charleston in Firle until 6 September 2026.

Gladys Hynes: A Modernist in Motion

A focused exhibition celebrating Gladys Hynes – painter, illustrator, sculptor and one of modernism’s most quietly radical voices. Known for her bold use of colour, rhythmic compositions and political conviction, Hynes moved fluidly between mediums and ideas. This exhibition brings together paintings, drawings and design work that reveal her distinctive visual language and her connections to the wider modernist network, including the Bloomsbury group. Charleston in Lewes, until 11 October 2026.

Walter Sickert: Faces, Stages, Stories

Discover a fresh perspective on Walter Sickert, focusing on his drawings and prints that reveal his interest in repetition, translation and the charged atmosphere of everyday life. Though older than the Bloomsbury group, Sickert exhibited alongside them and helped shape approaches to interiors, urban scenes and emotional tension. Charleston in Lewes until 11 October 2026.

See Charleston for more information on exhibitions, locations, opening times and the full summer calendar of events and festivals.

Lemons, Laws & Secret Doors: A Hastings Queer History Collective Exhibition

Created by the Hastings Queer History Collective, this exhibition brings together personal objects, fashion, film, sound and multimedia works, alongside a major new commission by Emma Frankland. Within it are stories of joy, defiance, community and survival – of people who loved, made art, danced, organised and refused to disappear. It traces LGBTQIA+ lives lived here, even when they were not always recognised. Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, until 30 August 2026.

Hastings Contemporary

Janaina Tschäpe: Conversations with the Sea

Inspired by the sea and the mythologies surrounding it, Tschäpe’s new paintings and works on paper fill the gallery’s largest space. Vast, abstract landscapes ripple with aquatic energy.

Miguel Rothschild: Undercurrents

A dramatic seascape installation exploring the elemental power of the ocean. Rothschild’s work invites viewers to consider what lies beneath the surface – both literally and psychologically.

Moore / Freud

A focused exhibition exploring how Henry Moore and Lucian Freud drew upon familial bonds and intimate relationships as sources of artistic inspiration.

All three exhibitions run until 13 September 2026. See Hastings Contemporary for more information.

Towner Eastbourne

Comrades in Art: 100 Years of Creative Exchange

Comrades in Art highlights eleven artists from the founding generation of the Artists International Association (AIA); Peggy Angus, Pearl Binder, James Boswell, James Fitton, Margaret Fitton, James Holland, Percy Horton, Peter Laszlo Peri, Betty Rea, Cliff Rowe and Nan Youngman, shown alongside works by prominent exhibiting artists who supported its campaigns for peace, cultural development and international understanding. Established in 1933 to unify artists against fascism and war, the AIA rallied comrades across Europe during the Spanish Civil War and resisted the rise of General Franco, while championing wider access to art through affordable lithograph prints and mural commissions. Exhibition runs until 18 November 2026.

Cecilia Fiona: Spirals Gathering, Time Breathing

Opening 17 July 2026, Danish artist Cecilia Fiona presents a major new body of work in her first institutional solo exhibition in the UK. Her large‑scale paintings and installations blend mythology, nature and surreal storytelling, creating immersive environments where human and non‑human forms intertwine. Exhibition opens 17 July and runs until 1 November 2026.

See Towner Eastbourne for more information on Comrades in Art: 100 Years of Creative Exchange, Cecilia Fiona: Spirals Gathering, Time Breathing and for their summer programme of live events, workshops and talks.

From feminist activism to British printmaking, Sussex’s cultural opportunities are as diverse as they are abundant. Whether you’re exploring the coast or the countryside, galleries across the region offer an inspiring and thought‑provoking mix of work – making it an ideal destination to explore over the summer.

Planning to linger a little longer? Explore our curated selection of Sussex stays, from cosy cottages to coastal retreats.