Georges Seurat was a quiet art innovator who used the science of what became known as Pointillism to conjure up unique images with thousands of dots of colour that merge into the mind’s eye.

Here at the Courtauld Gallery, it is his seascapes from annual summers on the French coast that demonstrate his brilliance: stand back from the canvas and see harbours, beaches, sailboats and cliffs emerge. Step close and the painstaking technique of his dot-painting is revealed.

Seurat and the Sea is the first exhibition devoted to an artist who was a contemporary of Van Gogh, Cezanne and Monet with a totally different approach to his craft. It is the first anywhere to focus exclusively on his seascapes with 27 paintings and sketches made on the northern coast of France between 1885 and 1890, before his untimely early death at the age of 51.

Seurat is an important figure because he brought method as a counterpoint to the freedom of Impressionism. He Seurat trusted optics — applying colour theory with the rigour of a scientist.

The result is a set of artworks that won’t be to everyone’s taste but will definitely gain the rapt attention of the purist and the art student with a calm, detailed and dispassionate view of his subject.

The exhibition has drawn five-star reviews from The Guardian and The London Standard, and such has been demand that the Courtauld has extended its Friday evening opening hours throughout the run and will open until 20.00 in its final week. It closes 17 May 2026 — do not miss it.

The permanent collection on the floors below is one of London's finest art experiences and is consistently underestimated.

Housed in the spectacular LVMH Great Room, it includes Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, Renoir's La Loge, Degas's Two Dancers on a Stage, Monet's Antibes, and Cézanne's Montagne Sainte-Victoire with Large Pine.

Also currently on display until August is The Barber in London, a selection of exceptional loans from The Barber Institute of Fine Arts featuring masterpieces by Turner, Frans Hals and Degas.

Somerset House itself is reason enough to linger. William Chambers's neoclassical building sits between the Strand and the Thames, and in summer its fifty-five fountains animate the great courtyard in choreographed sequences.

There is a summer season of concerts including The Cribs, Lightning Seeds and Benjamin Clementine, while food and drink offerings include the new Poons Chinese restaurant, Spring from legendary chef Skye Gyngell and Aram, a new Syrian venture.

Beyond the gates, the surrounding streets reward exploration. Two Temple Place — a fantastically eccentric neo-Gothic mansion a short walk west — mounts free exhibitions of unusual ambition. Covent Garden is ten minutes on foot, and the Victoria Embankment Gardens offer an unexpectedly peaceful riverside escape between the two.

Seurat and the Sea, The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 0RN. Until 17 May 2026. Tickets £18, under-18s free. Gallery entry from £9. courtauld.ac.uk

Simpson’s in the Strand: Newly-reopened by the masterful Jeremy King, this legendary restaurant from yesteryear is packing them in with an elegant charm in two restaurants and a couple of bars. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding is very much in vogue.

The Delaunay: Austrian-style Grand Cafe famed for schnitzel and Sachertorte. Stylish and relaxing with impeccable service

Poon’s in Somerset House: One of the great Chinese restaurants in London returns to the City after an absence of several decades.