An Exhibition of Contemporary Mountain Photography

In 2023, the Alpine Club held a photo competition amongst its membership to seek out the best mountain photography from the past five years. After receiving over 100 entries, the four winners were selected by professional photographer John Cleare. The winning entries, along with a number of honorable mentions are now on display in the lecture hall at the Alpine Club's Charlotte Road premises.

^{Grand Gendarme of the Lenzspitze, ENE Ridge at dawn with the Weissmies and Lagginhorn behind by Michael de Csilléry}

The exhibition, which also features a number of historic monochrome photographs from the AC collection, will run from 12 September to 19 November and is open to visitors from 12:00 – 17:00 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as well as on London lecture evenings.

Visitors are kindly asked to book in advance by contacting the Alpine Club Office on 02076130755 or by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

A 2024 calendar featuring the winning entires, as well as nine additional photographs from the competition, is available to purchase at the exhibition or online via the Alpine Club Shop.

No Substance But Light | Video Tour

Artist Heather Dawe leads a video tour of her exhibition 'No Substance But Light'. Taking us from Nanda Devi to the north of Scotland, Heather digs into the process of creating mountain art; contrasting her painstakingly produced works against some collaborations between her own art and the interpretations of artificial intelligence.

The exhibition will run until the end of July 2023 and can be visited between the hours of 12:00 and 17:00 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Please contact the Alpine Club Office on 02076130755 or by email on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to book your visit.

Heather Dawe Presents 'No Substance But Light'

In ‘No Substance But Light’ writer, artist and AI expert Heather Dawe brings together a selection of works which exemplify her long fascination with both the mountains and the creative process. Using oils, watercolours, pastels and a novel technique which synthesises art by combining her own sketches with AI art generation, Heather seeks to capture the lights, rich colours and physical feeling of the mountains.

^{'Tre Cime' © Heather Dawe}

While much of Heather’s inspiration comes from time spent in and around mountain landscapes, she is also fascinated by human creativity, which leads to her constant need to explore her own creative process. To a degree this is driven by her day-job as an AI thought leader in industry. As AI increasingly becomes a part of our lives, she believes we shouldn’t lose sight of the importance and value of our own intuitive and critical thinking, as they form the essence of what makes us human.

By displaying her personal, haptic works alongside those created with the aid of artificial intelligence, she hopes to encourage visitors to consider the increasingly blurred lines between human and AI art, reflecting on the impact that technology has on human nature.

^{Cìr Mhòr and Goatfell on Srran © Heather Dawe}

^{North Kintail Ridge © Heather Dawe}

Also featured in the exhibition are a series of oil paintings of Nanda Devi which Heather produced as part of her 2022 guest editorship of The Himalayan Journal. These will be displayed alongside oils and pastels of the Dolomites and Canadian Rockies, a series of watercolour and ink scenes of the Tour du Mont Blanc and some oils and pastels of places more close to home: the Scottish Highlands, Eryri, the Lake District and Yorkshire.

^{'Nanda Devi' © Heather Dawe}

‘No Substance But Light’ will run from 10 May 2023 until 31 July 2023 at the Alpine Club’s premises of 55 Charlotte Road, London, EC2A 3FQ and will be open from 12:00 – 17:00 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Visitors are kindly asked to book in advance by contacting the Alpine Club Office on 02076130755 or by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Latest Exhibition from Mountain Artist John Colton Set to Open at the Alpine Club

For our first exhibition of 2023, John Colton brings a collection of alpine memories to Charlotte Road. In this new show, playfully titled ‘Over the Hill,’ he shares a series of scenes captured during his most active years in the Alps and revisited during 2022.

^{'Aiguilles' - John Colton}

Working from his old A5 sketchbooks, filled with scenes of mountain days from the latter half of the 20^th Century, John takes us back to the moments when alpine landscapes filled his vision, immersing us in the adventures of his youth.

Each of the chosen sketches has been lovingly recreated and is accompanied by a written piece that situates the work in John’s own remarkable life. Many of the scenes show the view of or from classic alpine routes, with John’s words helping to convey the history and mythos of these climbs.

“Drawing the hills has added another dimension to my mountaineering life, enriching it considerably by extending dialogue, contact and friendship with a diverse collection of people.” – John Colton

For this exhibition, John has worked in watercolour on grey paper, using white gouache rather than the paper itself to evoke the play of alpine light. Now, many years removed from the original sketches, he takes the opportunity for artistic license, focussing on the elements of greatest import in his renewed compositions.

^{'From the Walker Spur' - John Colton}

With an exhibition that reproduces earlier works, there is a clear sense of an artist looking back on their career. But there is more than simple nostalgia at play here. As a mountain artist who is keenly aware of the history of the form, John is also reappraising, renewing and looking at his own place in the mountain art firmament with fresh eyes.

When discussing his early artistic life, John gives the impression of a beatnik-adjacent milieu, his art adorning the walls of restaurant gardens and temporary street stalls in the French Alps that lasted as long as the gendarmerie allowed. Through the friends he made in this time, not least the Simonds of “The Nash”, his works found their way into the hands of Desmaisons and Herzogs. But when he showed his paintings to the proprietors of the upscale art galleries of Old Geneva they turned him down, reassuring him that he would be famous when he died. His reply? “I can’t wait.”

‘Over The Hill’ will run from 14 February 2023 to 30 April 2023 at the Alpine Club’s premises of 55 Charlotte Road, London, EC2A 3QF and will be open from 12:00 – 17:00 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Visitors are encouraged to book in advance by contacting the Alpine Club Office on 02076130755 or by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..