More exhibitions, including Richard Diebenkorn and Prunella Clough

Richard Diebenkorn, Royal Academy, London

A perfect-pitch show of a perfect-pitch artist. Away from hothouse New York, the mid-20th century painter of Californian light and cool ("Berkeley", "Ocean Park") switched from abstraction to figuration and back again, in an era when such decisions represented moral imperatives. His works are characterised by mastery of nuance and delicate balance, turning chaos to stillness and painterly doubt to victories of spontaneity and fluidity.

royalacademy.org.uk, 020 7300 8000, to June 7

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Artists for Ikon, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

Ikon's greatest hits: Hurvin Anderson, Fiona Banner, Martin Creed, Ian Davenport, Zhang Enli, Antony Gormley, Roger Hiorns, Beatriz Milhazes, Cornelia Parker and George Shaw are among many artists in this show of donated work, the culmination of the celebrations of the Birmingham gallery's 50th birthday. Works will be auctioned by Sotheby's in July to set up an endowment fund for the gallery.

ikon-gallery.org, 0121 248 0708, Friday to May 4

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Prunella Clough, Osborne Samuel Gallery, London

Although she later veered towards abstraction, Clough's early mission was to find beauty in the wastelands of postwar Britain: her subjects, depicted in a narrow tonal range, were industrial detritus, lobster pots, lorry drivers, crane operators and again and again the factory workers in Bermondsey's Peek Frean biscuit factory. Her work, modest, thoughtful, intimate, refined, evokes an entire epoch.

osbornesamuel.com, 020 7493 7939, to May 16

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A Scottish Selection, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings

What is distinctive about Scottish art? Colour? Strength and individuality of purpose? Landscape? A modernist impulse looking to Paris not London? The question has been endlessly teased out but never answered, and every show of distinguished Scottish painting reignites it. Here mid- and late-20th century stars from the Fleming Collection - Craigie Aitchison, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, John Bellany, William Gillies, Anne Redpath - join Scottish art from the Jerwood's own holdings.

jerwoodgallery.org, 01424 728377, to July 12

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Inventing Impressionism, National Gallery, London

This scintillating, original show narrates a history of impressionism through the many trophy works passing through the hands of Paul Durand-Ruel, the visionary dealer without whom, Monet said, he and his friends would have starved. Visiting masterpieces include Renoir's "The Country Dance" and "The City Dance", Manet's "The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama", and examples of Monet's "Poplar" series reunited from three continents.

nationalgallery.org.uk, 020 7747 2885, to May 31

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