What's on at the Fitzwilliam Museum?

Origins of the Afro Comb: 6,000 years of culture, politics and identity

To 3 November

This exhibition is running to coincide with Black History Month in October.

Discover the extraordinary 6,000-year history of African hair combs, from pre-dynastic Egypt to modern-day black fist combs referencing the Black Power Movement. Each of the hundreds of beautiful combs on display is a work of art, from pieces exquisitely carved in wood with tiny geometric designs, to works sculpted from ivory or inlayed with multi-coloured glass beads. The displays include archive photography, projections, paintings and sculpture showing the wide variety of hair styles found in Africa and around the world. The exhibition also includes personal stories about combs and African type hair, as well as expressing the contribution personal styling has had to play in maintaining and expressing cultural identity across the African Diaspora.

The night of longing: Love and desire in Japanese prints

1 October 2013 - 12 January 2014

An exhibition of Japanese woodcuts and books of the Edo and Meiji periods (18th and 19th centuries) depicting lovers from literature and life. Images range from lovers yearning for absent partners and expressing their longing in letters and poems; dramatic scenes of thwarted or desperate lovers, sometimes on the verge of suicide; 'risqué prints' (abuna-e), with suggestions of eroticism or hints that sex is near at hand, through to more explicit images of sexual partners (shunga or 'spring pictures') and their contexts in erotic books; assignations in and around Edo (Tokyo) and the route to the pleasure quarter at night. Artists include Harunobu, Utamaro, Hiroshige, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi and Yoshitoshi. The exhibition is based on the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum and is designed to complement the exhibition at the British Museum Shunga: Sex and pleasure in Japanese Art (3 October 2013 - 5 January 2014)

Edmund de Waal: On White - Porcelain stories from the Fitzwilliam

29 November 2013 - 23 February 2014

This unique exhibition sees three galleries of the Fitzwilliam Museum taken over by renowned potter, and Cambridge graduate, Edmund de Waal. The re-curated spaces feature objects from de Waal's residency in China last summer, pieces from the museum's permanent collection, poetry, photographs and letters. Highlights include two major installations. The first of these, a thousand hours, is one of de Waal's most ambitious to date and was the centrepiece of a major exhibition at the Alan Cristea Gallery in London. The work comprises 1,000 pots encased in two large walk-through vitrines. A second featured work has been specially commissioned for this show.

A world of private mystery: John Craxton, RA (1922 -2009)

2 December 2013 - 21 April 2014

The major exhibition this winter at the Fitzwilliam Museum celebrates the life and career of 20th century British artist John Craxton. A world of private mystery traces his development as an artist, both through his travels, later life in Crete and the influence of other major artists during his lifetime.