Featured Events in Oxford in October 2025 (December Updated)

Through the expansive finding of fossils and development of new techniques and methods, the 19th century transformed our understanding of the history of Earth. Breaking Ground explores these themes through William Buckland, geologist and palaeontologist, and Mary Buckland (née Morland), a scientific illustrator, the couple at the heart of this exhibition. They both helped to establish new scientific methods and ideas, which led to fascinating discoveries in palaeontology, including the first ever dinosaur to be named to science.

The stunning high magnification insect portraits by British photographer Levon Biss were first shown in the Microsculpture exhibition in this Museum in 2016. Since then, the show has toured to 44 cities in 22 countries around the world. All the specimens in Microsculpture are drawn from the Museum's entomology collections, selected to show the microscopic form of insects in striking large-format, high-resolution detail. In this new temporary exhibition we are able to show images made after the original 2016 display. New text explores how and why each specimen originally entered the Museum's collection, painting a picture of professional and amateur collectors, entomological traders, British colonial links, and changes in scientific practice.

Pat Suet-Bik Hui 許雪碧 (b. 1943) is a US-based Hong Kong artist. This exhibition showcases her work alongside others who engage with the tradition of the 'three perfections' 三絕, which brings together the three art forms of poetry, calligraphy, and painting. The exhibition includes works by Hui, her contemporaries, her teacher Lui Shou-Kwan and others of his generation, as well as earlier examples from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Seeing Hui alongside these other artists will give visitors the context to understand her as both innovator and standard-bearer of tradition.

As we grapple with the possibilities and excesses of our image-obsessed culture, this free exhibition looks back at the way in which a specific kind of image – portraits – dominated the lives of three contemporaneous rulers:Fath Ali Shah Qajar(1797–1834),King George III(1760–1820), andNapoleon Bonaparte(1799–1814).

The fourth in the Ashmolean NOW exhibition series, where contemporary artists are invited to create new work inspired by the Ashmolean’s historical collections. This exhibition focuses on sculptures by Irish artist Daphne Wright and has been curated by Ashmolean director, Xa Sturgis.

More than 180 objects will be on display from the artists’ 30-year collaboration, including original paintings for album covers, digital compositions, etchings, unpublished drawings, and lyrics in their sketchbooks.

Prophetic Dreamingis the first major institutional retrospective by pioneering digital and para-disciplinary artistSuzanne Treister(b. 1958). Spanning more than forty years, the exhibition maps Treister’s visionary practice and investigations into new technologies, networks of power, alternative belief systems, and the futures they prefigure.

To coincide with the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Winston Churchill this autumn, we are displaying coins and medals from our collection in a showcase in the Money Gallery. These will include a rare proof of a commemorative £2 coin by the Royal Mint, specially produced for the anniversary.

A new set of striking kabuki costumes belonging to the kabuki actor Bandō Tamasaburō V is on display in the Ashmolean's Textile Gallery. Tamasaburō is the most popular and celebrated onnagata (male actor who performs female roles) currently on the kabuki stage.

Lawrence Dicks (b. 1969) is a British sculptor, based in West Sussex, working in wood, stone, and bronze. He graduated from Exeter College of Art and Design in 1998. Dicks knew from early on in his artistic practice that sculpture would be his medium, enjoying the physicality that working with sculpture demands.