Maggi Hambling – Touch: Works on paper, British Museum

Painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling is one of the most prominent artists working in Britain today. She's also one the most divisive. On the one hand, you have her cult following. She's a rakeish wild-haired figure, with a cut-glass accent and rock-god magnetism. She drives a maroon Chrysler, smokes like a chimney and has a host of celebrity pals; PJ Harvey adores her.

But then there are the naysayers. Her last exhibition at the National Gallery, a frenzied series of churning seascapes, divided opinion spectacularly. One review called it 'magnificent', one art critic who shall remain nameless, brought out his hatchet " ‘If she’s a painter, I’m Rembrandt’. Loathsome" Her four metre scallop on Aldeburgh Beach caused quite the stir, launched a petition for its removal and was satirised mercilessly in Private Eye.

Hambling may be a shapeshifter, but her work is shot through with foreboding, and motifs of war and death. One of her most famous works is a charcoal drawing of her partner Henrietta Moraes, lying on her death bed.

And the artist is returning to drawing, moving away from the abstraction that has dominated her recent work. A new exhibition at the British Museum, Touch, will concentrate specifically on works on paper. The title addresses the profound connection between the sitter and artist / "I believe the subject chooses the artist, not vice versa", Hambling has said. "The challenge is to touch the subject, with all the desire of a lover."

The exhibition will contain over forty works, including a life-size charcoal portrait of the writer, artist and Soho dandy Sebastian Horsley, in nothing but a silk scarf. Work from the '60s and '70s will be on show, as will more recent work made in 2015, from a new series entitled Edge.

We're looking forward to this quiet, meditative exhibition.