What is the Open Exhibitions season in the UK?

The Open Exhibitions season is the part of the UK art calendar when galleries and art societies hold open-submission shows: exhibitions any artist can apply to enter, with a panel selecting the best work to hang. It runs mostly from late spring through autumn, peaking in summer, though the calls for entry often open months earlier in the new year.

It is one of the most democratic corners of the art world, and one of the most overlooked by visitors. These shows mix established names with people exhibiting for the very first time, all chosen on the strength of the work rather than who represents them. If you want to see a genuine cross-section of what artists across the country are making right now, the open season is where to look.

What an open exhibition actually is

An open exhibition is a show built from an open call rather than a curator’s address book. Instead of inviting a fixed list of represented artists, the organisers publish a deadline and invite anyone to submit work, usually online and usually for a small fee per piece. A selection panel then judges the entries and chooses which ones make it onto the wall.

That structure is what makes these shows distinctive. A solo or group show is curated from a known pool of artists, often ones the gallery already works with. An open exhibition starts from the opposite end: nobody knows in advance whose work will appear, because the work is chosen blind, or close to it, on its own terms. The result is unpredictable in the best sense, with a young printmaker’s first accepted piece hanging a few feet from a Royal Academician’s.

Most open exhibitions also sell the work, taking a commission on anything that goes. For artists without gallery representation, that combination of a credible showing and a route to sales is the whole appeal.

When the season runs

The season is loosely shaped around summer, but the timing that matters most to artists happens earlier. Many of the long-running society shows open their calls for entry in January, February or March, with submission deadlines in spring and the exhibitions themselves opening between May and October. So while a visitor experiences the season as a summer of shows, an artist experiences it as a winter of deadlines.

The Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition is the best-known anchor, a vast open show that has run every year since 1769 and sets the rhythm for everything around it. But it is only the most visible point of a much wider pattern. Across the country, watercolour societies, printmaking societies, regional art clubs and independent galleries all run their own open shows, clustered into the warmer months when footfall is highest.

The work is chosen for what it is, not for who made it. That single rule is what gives the open season its energy.

If you are planning visits, the practical takeaway is that late spring to early autumn is when open shows are thickest on the ground. Outside those months you will still find open-call exhibitions, but they are sparser and more local.

Why these shows are worth your time

Open exhibitions are one of the best ways to discover artists before anyone else does. Because selection is on merit and the field is wide, you regularly encounter genuinely fresh work that has not yet been picked up by a commercial gallery. For a visitor who enjoys the hunt, that is far more rewarding than seeing the same represented names cycle through fairs.

They are also reassuringly unstuffy. The premise is inclusion, so the atmosphere tends to be welcoming rather than rarefied, and prices often run lower than in the primary commercial market. Many shows are deliberately pitched to bring new buyers in, which makes the open season a sensible place to buy a first piece without the pressure of a private dealer’s showroom.

For anyone curious about how the wider machinery works, it is worth reading our explainer on what open-call exhibitions are and how they work, which goes into the submission and selection process in more detail.

Where to find them

The richest seam of open shows is in venues that exist partly to run them. Society galleries are the obvious starting point, since exhibiting members’ and open-submission work is their core purpose. In London, Bankside Gallery on the South Bank is home to the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, both of which stage regular open exhibitions that anyone can apply to.

Artist-led and studio organisations are the other place to look, because they tend to champion emerging makers and run open calls as a matter of principle. Bow Arts in east London is a good example of the kind of space that programmes open and group shows alongside its studio provision, and similar organisations exist in most cities. Beyond the dedicated venues, keep an eye on regional galleries and arts centres in late winter, when calls for entry start appearing on their websites and mailing lists.

The simplest way to track the season is to follow a few relevant galleries and societies and let their announcements come to you. Calls open months before the shows, so a little forward planning is the difference between submitting your own work and merely admiring everyone else’s.