Exhibition of the week

Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam
Terrifying creatures of the night and surreal dreamscapes galore – and those are just the “sane” canvases this Victorian artist painted before he was confined to Bedlam, where his visions became truly unsettling.
Royal Academy, London, 25 July to 25 October

Also showing

Felicity Powell
Dreamlike images across many media by this artist who died in 2015 after documenting her own cancer.
Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, until 3 October

Autopsy
UFOs, the Roswell “alien” and the inaccessibility of truth in the digital age provide suitably strange fodder for Paul McCarthy, Chino Moya and many more.
Seventeen Gallery, London, until 15 August

Elizabeth Blackadder: A Life in Colour
Tapestries by this colour-loving Scottish artist are accompanied by her paintings and drawings.
Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, until 14 November

Clare Woods: Garden Without Seasons
Pastoral and horticultural new paintings that delve into nature in a show that suits the season.
Pitzhanger Manor and Gallery, London, from 29 July until 8 November

Image of the week

Photograph: © Jem Southam

Ray Exworth spent his life filling Cornish sheds with breathtaking sculptures – but wouldn’t let anyone in to view them. Now, after his death, his secret body of work has been revealed. Read the full article

What we learned

At 100, painter, sculptor and performance artist Ken Turner is still smashing the system … and the occasional Tesla

Sheffield’s Designers Republic lit up the north with their work for Aphex Twin, Pulp … and Pringles

Trent Park House museum reveals the story of its wartime ‘secret listeners’

The Manifesta biennale brings radical community spirit to struggling German towns

The artful work of hundreds went into dazzling textiles show Entangled and Woven

Jessica Morgan has taken ‘a big pay cut’ to become Tate’s new director

Masterpiece of the week

Head of a Peasant Woman by Vincent van Gogh, about 1884

Photograph: Imagedoc/Alamy

When Vincent van Gogh gave up his early attempts at art dealing, teaching and missionary work to learn to paint, he saw art as a social vocation. Instead of saving the poor by preaching he would help them by depicting their harsh lives. This peasant woman is one of the folk he painted from life in Nuenen in the south Netherlands in his first really ambitious art project: a passionate attempt to document rural poverty that culminated in his famous 1885 painting The Potato Eaters. He sees sadness and distraction in her eyes as she patiently sits for him, her individual presence heightened by the vague background that leaves nothing to look at but the figure. Van Gogh suggests a tension between her workaday appearance and a richer, more elusive inner life. He would later embrace expressionism and wild colour in search of ways to open that subjective realm of the soul.
National Gallery, London

Sign up to the Art Weekly newsletter

If you don’t already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here.

Get in Touch

If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email [email protected]