Monet for your Mantelpiece?

As London emerges from its summer slumber, our diaries are filling up with exciting new exhibitions. As we perused the biggest upcoming events in the art calendar, we let ourselves be inspired, drawing connections between some of the giants of art history and our own makers. Revel in the glorious colours of the Expressionists and the balmy brushstrokes of Monet in unique handmade pieces that can bring the joy of art into your own home.

In a joyous coincidence, a new series of vessels by Barry Stedman arrived in the gallery the day after we visited Tate's Expressionists exhibition, which explores the groundbreaking artistic movement that centred around Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky. Barry's new series brought a burst of summer colours back into the gallery, his sunny oranges and greens applied with a spontaneous, painterly quality that echoes the bold planes of colour which characterise celebrated Expressionist Gabriele Münter's dynamic paintings.

Ceramicist Sandy Brown and painter Wassily Kandinsky are united by a sensitivity to the possibility of spiritual expression through colour and form. An instrumental character in the Blue Rider movement, Kandinsky's abstract compositions pulse with an energy that is mirrored in Sandy's ceramics. Her practice spans from platters, like the one pictured, to enormous installation works like Temple, in which she created a non-denominational spiritual space for the modern day out of over 7,000 handmade ceramic tiles.

See works by Sandy Brown and Barry Stedman in the gallery now. Expressionists continues at Tate Modern until 20 October.

The National Gallery is celebrating its 200th birthday with a blockbuster exhibition for the ages with Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers (14 September 2024 - 19 January 2025), which brings together Vincent's most iconic works. His raw brushstrokes and energetic markmarking are echoed in Alice Kettle's internationally renowed embroidery works, which transform a medium commonly associated with decorative embellishment into a roaring cry of expressive artistry. Her freeform embroidered lines have the graphic, linear quality of drawing, while creating an extraordinary three-dimensional surface. Much like Van Gogh used painting to create light in a life of trauma, Alice Kettle uses thread to give voice to the dispossessed: women of the past, refugees and migrants caught up in displacement, and her own female rage and grief.

Bring the evocative colours of Claude Monet's skies into your home with Phill Atrill's glassware and Emily Jo Gibbs' intricate textile works. The mysterious, hazy light of Monet's sunrises glows through Phil Atrill's Morning Mist series of glass vases and sculptures, which delight in the gradients of colour that emerge from the handblowing process and make each piece unique. The Courtauld puts a spotlight on Monet's dreamy views of the metropolis in Monet and London (27 Sept 2024 – 19 Jan 2025). Much like the renowned Impressionist, Emily Jo Gibbs is occupied with observing the quiet beauty of the everyday, capturing fleeting glimpses of the natural world in painstakingly hand-stitched silk organza appliqué.