The best art exhibitions of 2025

Wayne Thiebaud: American Still Life at the Courtauld, London; until 18 January
A brilliantly condensed show of the 20th-century American master painter, poet of the milkshake, ice-cream cone and chocolate sundae, of the still life with cherry pie and damn fine cup of coffee. Luscious visions of candied apples, peppermint sticks and slices of lemon meringue pie, receding into the pristine blue air of the chiller cabinet, represent a kind of long-gone paradise. The first museum exhibition of his breakthrough paintings in Britain is irresistibly expressive, the pigment radiant as lemon curd, stiff or deliquescent as icing and yet intensely ordered in these almost abstract compositions.