What to see this week

Hugh Buchanan: New Town is at The Scottish Gallery, 16, Dundas Street, Edinburgh, until July 1 (0131–558 1200; www.scottish-gallery.co.uk) The leading watercolourist has created a special body of work (right: The Sèvres

Vase) to mark the 250th anniversary of Edinburgh’s New Town. No artist is better qualified to give expression to the beauty, harmony and symbolism of Georgian Edinburgh, while, at the same time, showing the city’s architecture and interiors as they are lived in today. The accompanying catalogue contains essays by Prof Duncan Macmillan (‘The Enlightenment in Stone’), Adam Wilkinson on Northern Light, Ian Gow on Edwin Smith’s Edinburgh photography and Prof Peter Davidson on Edinburgh by lamp and moonlight.

Wilhelmina Barns-graham is at Waterhouse & Dodd, 47, Albemarle Street, London W1 until July 7 (020–7734 7800; www.waterhousedodd.com) Barns-graham (1912–2004) was born and died in Scotland, but also worked in St Ives from 1940, where she established her reputation alongside contemporaries such as Terry Frost, Bryan Wynter and Peter Lanyon. She travelled widely and absorbed many lessons from the European avant-garde. This survey shows her evolution through a variety of styles, from early figurative art to her late gestural abstractions. The works have been sourced directly from the Barns-graham Trust and are for sale.

A Fragile Beauty: Art on the Blackdown

Hills 1909–1925 is at the Museum of Somerset, Taunton Castle, Taunton, Somerset, until July 8 (01823 255088; www.museumofsomerset.org.uk) The Camden Town Group artists, led by Sickert, are best known for their paintings of urban life, but they were later drawn to rural places, notably the Blackdown Hills. This loan exhibition includes works by artists such as Spencer Gore, Charles Ginner and Robert Bevan that celebrate the landscapes of Devon and Somerset, which remain little changed.

John Monks: Mirror Image is at Long & Ryle, 4, John Islip Street, London SW1, until July 28 (020–7834 1434; www.longandryle.com) Reflections and the effect of light on interiors and objects are preoccupations of John Monks, who divides his time between two studios, one in a converted Clapham furniture factory and the other in a restored château. His eloquent paintings can be found in such public collections as the Met in New York and the V&A.