London Travel Guide (London, England)

The vast permanent collections of the National Gallery and the two Tates, the fascinating miscellanies of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the select holdings of such institutions as the Courtauld and the Wallace Collection make London one of the world's great repositories of Western art. However, the city is also a dynamic creative centre, with young British artists such as Rachel Whiteread, Sarah Lucas and Steve McQueen maintaining the momentum established by the likes of Hockney, Caro, Auerbach and Freud.

In the environs of Cork Street, behind the Royal Academy, you'll find various commercial galleries showing the best of what's being produced in the studios of Britain and further afield, while numerous other private showcases are scattered all over London, from the superb Saatchi Gallery in St John's Wood to the consistently challenging space run by Flowers East over in the East End.

London fails to compete with Berlin, Paris and New York in only one respect - it doesn't have a designated exhibition space good enough to handle the blockbuster shows. Nevertheless, at any time of the year, London's public galleries will be offering at least one absorbing exhibition, on anything from the art of the apocalypse to Soviet supremacists.

Annual fixtures include the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition , when hordes of amateur artists enter their efforts for sale, and November's controversial Turner Prize , devoted to new British work, which is preceded by a month-long display of work by the shortlisted artists at the Tate. More exciting than these, however, are the art school degree shows in late May and June, when the current crop of student talent puts its work on display. Pick up a copy of Time Out in mid-May for the times and locations of the student shows.