With Oxford’s home of modern art celebrating its half-century, and other venues hosting some fascinating, and important, exhibitions, there has never been a better year to get out and explore the county’s galleries and museums. In the second of our looks ahead at the city’s big year of art, Stuart Macbeth picks his choice of 2016’s best shows within paintbrush-striking distance of Oxford

* Celebrate half a century of provocative art

We’re very lucky to have Modern Art Oxford tucked away on a back street in the city centre. In 2016 the space celebrates its 50th anniversary with Kaleidoscope, a year long series of events, performances and new commissions.

Standout shows include The Indivisible Present, featuring works by Douglas Gordon and Yoko Ono, and autumn show It’s Me To The World with works by Marina Abramovich and Agnes Martin among others.

Lively late night events add DJs, live music and booze.

Kaleidoscope runs throughout 2016 at Modern Art Oxford.

Admission is free and further details can be found at modernartoxford.org.uk.

* A career-spanning look at an iconic artist

The North Wall presents an exhibition of works by painter and sculptor Hugo Powell, who died in 2014.

Powell’s sculpture explores themes of spirituality, symbolism, nature and form, working in stone, clay, wood, bronze and found objects. This is the first exhibition to gather work from his whole career, through to the magnificent bronze Dancing Phoenix completed two weeks before his death.

The North Wall Arts Centre: Shapes and Meaning: A Retrospective. April 27 to May 21. Free admission.

* Looking back at 125 years of local creativity

Aside from a brief hiatus during the Second World War, Oxford Art Society has held an annual exhibition every year since its foundation in 1891.

This year’s annual Members’ Exhibition will be show and selling work by artists living and working in and around Oxford at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. This exhibition features the best of the county’s painters, sculptors and print makers, many of whom have also had works featured at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition.

Oxford Art Society – Celebrating 125 Years runs at The Oxfordshire Museum, from March 19 to April 17. Free admission.

* The best of the master of pop art

The country’s oldest public museum this year hosts a master of modern art.

The Ashmolean’s Andy Warhol exhibition, starting next month, is among the most exciting major artistic shows happening in the county this year. Visitors will be able to enjoy three thrilling rooms of work by the pop art icon, with more than 100 paintings, sculptures, screen prints and drawings, encompassing the whole range of Warhol’s career as a fine artist, and easily rivalling the season’s pop-centric displays in London and Paris.

For the devoted, there will also be a rare opportunity to view some of Warhol’s 1960s films, including Sleep and Empire.

This exhibition has been arranged in collaboration with Hall Art Foundation who were behind the superb Ed Ruscha display last year, and with whom the museum have collaborated since 2013.

There is an Oxford connection too as Andrew Hall, the Wall Street trader who bought these works alongside his wife for their personal collection, studied Chemistry in our city in the early 1970s Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, the Ashmolean are also running a series of after-hours Warhol Lates. These will offer visitors a dazzling mix of music, films, silent discos, DJs and more, all drawing inspiration from the man himself.

Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Collection runs at the Ashmolean Museum from February 4 to May 15. Tickets £10 (£9 concessions) from ashmolean.org.uk/exhibitions. Warhol Lates run from 6-8.30pm on March 10 and 24 and April 7.

* Picasso on Paper

Oxford Mail:

Picasso’s desire to experiment with new styles, forms and materials is represented in this touring exhibition of works from Dusseldorf’s Kunstpalast.

Just across the Oxfordshire border visitors can inhale over 70 rarely seen works dating from the 1920s to the 1960s. Among them, Picasso grapples with themes from bullfighting to the circus to portraiture, in a rarely seen series of etchings, lithographs and aquatints.

Compton Verney is fast establishing itself as a superb venue for exhibitions, following on the heels of last year’s Canaletto show. Among other displays this year Britain in the Fifties: Design and Aspiration, featuring work by Edward Bawden.

Picasso on Paper is at Compton Verney from October 15 to December 11. Admission £8 (£7.20 concessions) including entry to the house

* The joy of ceramics

“Pottery is almost as good as sex,” claims Kate Malone, whose colourful work features in the permanent collections of the V&A, the Ashmolean and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

She is now something of a celebrity having recently featured on BBC2’s TV show The Great Pottery Throw Down.

For 2016, Waddesdon have specially commissioned new work from her which celebrates the house and gardens.

Kate Malone’s work is on display at the Stables at Waddesdon Manor from June to October. waddesdon.org.uk

* Keep it local

The 2016 edition of Artweeks runs from May 7-30 with the focus on Oxford City from May 7-15, the south of the county from May 14-22, and north Oxfordshire from 21-30. A highlight of the county’s annual arts calendar this is a rare opportunity to see work in unlikely locations, including artist’s studios and homes.

Free admission. Go to artweeks.org for more information.