The Serpentine Gallery, London, until 17 May
Figurative painter Leon Golub, an important figure in American art, is examined in the latest monographic show at the Serpentine Gallery. Golub was something of an outlier in a post-war US art scene dominated by abstractionists, minimalists and conceptualists, producing in the 1970s and 80s highly political paintings representing the atrocities, including secret torture, that took place Asia, Africa and Latin America, sometimes at the West’s behest. His images can be difficult to stomach, but are relevant to us now.

The National Gallery, London, until 31 May
Impressionism is such a staple subject for art exhibitions that it’s a real joy to visit the National Gallery’s original take on this most popular of art movements. The show tells the story of art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, without whom, in Monet’s words, the Impressionists “would have died of hunger”. As well as including some truly outstanding paintings on loan, the exhibition is inventively curated, featuring a room that brings together the art that collectors to Durand-Ruel’s home would have seen (including a door with still life panels painted by Monet), as well as a space dedicated to the Impressionists’ famous second exhibition of 1876.

Baltic, Gateshead, until 31 May
Los Angeles artist Jason Rhoades was acclaimed for anarchic, humorous installations in which found objects and neon forms were flung together to present a provocative panoply of contrasting ideas. Since his death of a drug-induced heart failure in 2006, at the age of 41, his work has continued exert an influence on artists, in particular a younger generation of practitioners, who will be no doubt flocking to Baltic this month for the first major UK show of his art.

Heatherley’s, London, 11 March – 27 March
If today’s art students are looking at Jason Rhoades, art students of 1845 were looking at the figure, learning traditional techniques such as drawing from life. That was the year that Heatherley’s School of Fine Art was established, an institution that trained artists such as John Everett Millais PRA, Alfred Gilbert RA and Walter Sickert RA, as well as more recent alumni such as Franz Kline and Posy Simmonds. The school continues today, and this year celebrates its 170th birthday with a series of events and exhibitions, including an archive display that will appeal to those interested in art education.

Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, until 31 May
The life story of the Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington has always captured the imagination, including as it does her moving-and-shaking with European Surrealists, her relationship with fellow artist Max Ernst, a mental breakdown during the Second World War and her subsequent move to Mexico. A Tate Liverpool exhibition puts the focus on her pioneering, eerie work, particularly her paintings in which figures, animals and mythical creatures/wraiths/disembodied forms meet in strange netherworlds. The survey show also includes the British-born artist’s writings, tapestries, sculptures and designs for film and theatre.

Sam Phillips (@SamP_London) is Editor of RA Magazine.