What’s on in October 2018: the best C20 architecture, art and design

Our autumn round-up highlights artistic collaborations, including Maggi Hambling and friends, Clifford and Rosemary Ellis, and the Barbican’s Modern Couples exhibition.

Renzo Piano: the Art of Making Buildings
Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 20 January 2019

From London’s soaring Shard to the extraordinary Jean-Marie Tjibaou cultural centre in Nouméa, this show highlights 16 key Renzo Piano buildings and also features a new sculptural installation, ‘Island’. More

Living with Buildings
Wellcome Collection, London, from 5 October to 3 March 2019 FREE ENTRY

This major exhibition examines the positive and negative influence buildings have on our physical and mental health. It includes works by Andreas Gursky, Rachel Whiteread and Martha Rosler, and buildings designed by Lubetkin, Goldfinger and Aalto.  More

Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-Garde
Barbican Art Gallery, London, from 10 October to 27 January 2019

Aino and Alvaar Alto, Eileen Grey and Jean Badovici, and Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar all feature in this wide-ranging exploration of creative partnerships in C20 art, architecture and design. (Above: Rodchenko and Stepanova in the workshop) More

Anni Albers
Tate Modern, London, from 11 October to 27 January 2019

The first major UK exhibition of work by German textile artist Anni Albers (1899–1994) includes wall hangings, ‘pictorial weavings’, drawings and the creation of her influential 1965 book, On Weaving. More

Figure Totem Beast: Sculpture in Britain in the 1950s
Tate Britain, London, from 29 October to 4 February 2019 FREE ENTRY

Elizabeth Frink, Lynn Chadwick and Eduardo Paolozzi were among the young sculptors of the 1950s whose brutal and uncompromising work reflected Cold War anxieties. More

Making Art Matter: Clifford & Rosemary Ellis
Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, until 25 November

The 50-year partnership of Clifford and Rosemary Ellis spanned book covers for the Collins New Naturalists series, posters for London Transport, Shell and BP, and watercolours of the Bath Blitz. More

Julian Trevelyan: the Artist and His World
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, from 6 October to 10 February 2019

Painter, printmaker and teacher Julian Trevelyan (1910–1988) moved on from Surrealism to Mass Observation and depicting everyday life in C20 Britain. More

The Quick & the Dead: Hambling, Horsley, Lucas, Simmons, Teller
Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, from 20 October to 6 January 2019

Recent paintings and drawings by Maggi Hambling of four fellow artists are shown ‘in dialogue’ with their portraits of her. More

Still showing
Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up
V&A, London, until 4 November

Clothing and personal artefacts that belonged to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907–54). As well as glorious fabrics in silk and cotton, the display includes cosmetics, a corset and even a prosthetic leg (and boot). More

Susannah Straughan