from artemisia gentileschi in paris to yoshitomo naras u k debut 9 must see european museum shows in 2025

Artnet News highlights nine must-see European museum exhibitions opening in 2025, spanning from Amsterdam to Zurich. Featured shows include Noah Davis's first U.K. museum survey at the Barbican in London, a dual Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Tracey Emin's first major Italian retrospective at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, and a dedicated Artemisia Gentileschi show at Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. Other notable exhibitions cover Marlene Dumas, Yayoi Kusama, and Yoshitomo Nara, among others.

East Africa meets Western Europe as Michael Armitage takes on Venice's Palazzo Grassi

The artist Michael Armitage opens a monographic exhibition titled 'The Promise of Change' at Venice's Palazzo Grassi, featuring 46 large paintings and nearly 100 sketches that survey his past decade of work. At 42, Armitage is the youngest artist to receive a solo show at the palazzo, which is owned by François Pinault and has previously hosted Albert Oehlen, Luc Tuymans, and Marlene Dumas. The exhibition highlights Armitage's fusion of East African and Western European artistic influences, drawing on his upbringing in Kenya and his training at London's Byam Shaw School of Art, the Slade, and the Royal Academy.

jenny saville get under the skin

Jenny Saville, the British painter known for her monumental depictions of flesh, is the subject of her first major U.S. museum exhibition, "Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting," now on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. The show, which previously opened at London's National Portrait Gallery in June, brings together 45 works from across her career, including charcoal drawings and large-scale oil paintings. In a rare interview, Saville discusses seeing older works like *Plan* again and how the Fort Worth museum's architecture suits her largest canvases. The exhibition runs through January 2026, ahead of a major 2026 showcase in Venice.

jenny saville national portrait gallery

British artist Jenny Saville has received her first major solo exhibition at a London museum, titled "Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting" at the National Portrait Gallery. The show spans three decades of her practice across some 50 paintings and drawings, tracing her evolution from a Young British Artist (YBA) known for vast, sensitive paintings of women's bodies to her recent digital-era heads. The exhibition will travel to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas in October. The article also highlights Saville's record-breaking 2018 sale of *Propped* for $12.4 million at Sotheby's London, which made her the highest-selling living female painter at the time, and notes recent auction results including *Juncture* selling for $7.3 million.

Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl’ Portrait Makes Its Museum Debut

Lily Allen's portrait, created by Spanish artist Nieves González for the cover of her album 'West End Girl,' has gone on public display at London's National Portrait Gallery. The painting, which blends Old Master techniques with contemporary fashion, was loaned to the museum by Allen herself and will be exhibited for a year.

john vincler new york gallery guide summer

The article surveys several New York gallery exhibitions during the transition from spring to summer 2025, focusing on how the human body is depicted in contemporary art. Key shows include David Zwirner's "Circa 1995: New Figuration in New York," featuring works by John Currin, Lisa Yuskavage, Marlene Dumas, Luc Tuymans, Laura Owens, and Peter Doig; Skarstedt's "Andy Warhol: Oxidation Paintings," presenting Warhol's urine-reactive abstract works; and Rachel Harrison's "The Friedmann Equations" at Greene Naftali, which explores spectatorship and the somatic through photographs, drawings, and sculptures.

new york exhibition guide

The article is a July 2025 New York exhibition guide from Cultured, highlighting last-chance viewing opportunities for shows across the city. Featured exhibitions include Willem de Kooning at Gagosian, Salman Toor and Jack Whitten at MoMA, Jane and Louise Wilson at 303 Gallery, Chloe Dzubilo at Participant Inc., N.H. Pritchard at Peter Freeman Inc., and Steve McQueen at Dia Chelsea, among others. The guide organizes shows by neighborhood and includes critical commentary on each artist's work.

‘A remarkably tenacious motif’: the many faces of Marilyn Monroe revealed in new book and show

The National Portrait Gallery in London will open "Marilyn Monroe: a Portrait" next month, accompanied by a book edited by curator Rosie Broadley in association with the Marilyn Monroe estate. The exhibition and book feature works by Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty, Marlene Dumas, James Gill, Rosalyn Drexler, and others, exploring Monroe as a persistent subject in visual art beyond film. Highlights include Warhol's 1962 silkscreen "Green Marilyn", de Kooning's 1954 portrait, and lesser-known works by Joseph Cornell and Alex Margo Arden.

marlene dumas pushes the limits of portraiture at tate modern

Marlene Dumas's largest retrospective to date, "The Image as Burden," has opened at Tate Modern, showcasing her uncompromising approach to portraiture. The exhibition features over 200 works, including early ink drawings like "Rejects" (1994-ongoing), political pieces such as "Osama" (2010), and the "Magdalenas" series from the 1995 Venice Biennale. Dumas, a South African painter based in Amsterdam, explores themes of identity, politics, and the female body through her fluid, often dark palette and responses to mass media images.

Jenny Saville Is Getting a Landmark Exhibition in Venice

Jenny Saville will be the subject of a major new exhibition at Venice’s International Gallery of Modern Art at Ca’ Pesaro, opening March 28, 2026 and running through November 22, 2026, alongside the 61st Venice Biennale. The show will feature around 30 paintings spanning her career from the 1990s to the present, including seminal works like *Hyphen* (1999) and *Reverse* (2002–13), and will conclude with a new series created in homage to Venice. The exhibition is curated by Ca’ Pesaro director Elisabetta Barisoni and supported by Gagosian.

National Portrait Gallery to stage landmark Marilyn Monroe exhibition.

The National Portrait Gallery in London will open a landmark exhibition this June celebrating Marilyn Monroe's 100th birthday. The show features portraits by artists including Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty, and Marlene Dumas, alongside works by over twenty major 20th-century photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, and Eve Arnold. Monroe's personal effects, including books, scripts, and clothing, will also be displayed.

Our pick of the shows to see in the world's great art cities in 2026

The article presents a curated selection of upcoming art exhibitions across major global cities in 2026, highlighting key shows in Paris, New York, and Tokyo. In Paris, notable exhibitions include a Georges de la Tour show at the Musée Jacquemand-André, a Renoir retrospective at the Musée d'Orsay, and a Henri Rousseau exhibition at the Musée de l'Orangerie. New York features solo shows of Egon Schiele at the Neue Galerie, Thomas Gainsborough at the Frick Collection, and Paul Klee at the Jewish Museum, while Tokyo focuses on women artists from the 1950s and 60s at the National Museum of Modern Art and a centennial exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

In Toscana il borgo di Monte San Savino si apre all’arte contemporanea con una mostra itinerante e di genere

The Tuscan hill town of Monte San Savino launched a contemporary art exhibition titled "Art Gender Gap" on International Women's Day, featuring 40 female artists and 53 works across multiple historic venues including the GAS, Chiesa di Santa Chiara, Palazzo Ciocchi di Monte, and the Renaissance Cisternone. Curated by Giuseppe Simone Modeo, Nicoletta Castellaneta, and Domenico de Chirico, the show includes loans from the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington (via its Italian committee president Claudia Pensotti Mosca), the Christian Levett collection, and the FAMM Museum in Mougin, France—a museum dedicated exclusively to women artists. Participating artists range from historical figures like Louise Bourgeois, Carol Rama, and Sonia Delaunay to contemporary names such as Kiki Smith, Pipilotti Rist, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, and Mona Hatoum.

The best exhibitions of 2025, as chosen by curators and museum directors

Curators and museum directors from leading institutions worldwide selected their favorite exhibitions of 2025, highlighting a diverse range of shows. Standouts include Wolfgang Tillmans at Centre Pompidou, Paris, praised for its generous scope and integration of the library space; 'Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum' at Barbican Art Gallery, London, noted for its dialogue across time; and Ithell Colquhoun's retrospective at Tate St Ives, which repositions the artist from a Surrealist footnote to a major figure. Other acclaimed exhibitions include Noah Davis at Barbican Art Gallery, Linder at Hayward Gallery, Hamad Butt at Whitechapel Gallery, and Caroline Walker at Hepworth Wakefield.

DESTE’s Summer Convergence Offers the Art World a Rare Pause Between Market Frenzies

The article covers the DESTE Foundation's summer convergence on Hydra, Greece, which offers the art world a respite between market frenzies. It highlights works by Greek artists Sofia Rozaki and Danae Io, whose pieces explore identity, memory, and the impact of politics and economics. The foundation's exhibition "In a Bright Green Field" builds on its legacy of promoting contemporary Greek art, alongside other Athens shows like Marlene Dumas's "Cycladic Blues" at the Museum of Cycladic Art and Michael Rakowitz's "Allspice" at the Acropolis Museum.

Marlene Dumas becomes first contemporary woman artist to join Louvre's permanent collection

Marlene Dumas has become the first contemporary woman artist to join the Louvre's permanent collection. Nine site-specific paintings by the South African-born artist were unveiled at the Paris museum last Thursday, now on permanent display in the Porte des Lions atrium. The series, titled Liaisons, depicts faces that draw on the "horrors" of the world today, as described by the artist. Dumas collaborated with Donatien Grau, the Louvre's head of contemporary programmes, and was selected by director Laurence des Cars, who called her the "obvious choice" for the commission.

A Berkeley couple’s collection of women artists showing at BAMPFA

Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser, a Berkeley-based couple, are debuting their private collection of women artists at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). Titled "Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection," the exhibition features highlights from a half-century of collecting, including works by Marlene Dumas, Nicole Eisenman, and Jacqueline Humphries. The show coincides with the couple's significant donation of nearly 150 artworks to the museum, marking the first time these pieces have been displayed outside their home.

Noah Davis's exhibition

The Philadelphia Museum of Art announces a landmark survey of the late American artist Noah Davis (1983–2015), bringing together over 60 works across painting, sculpture, works on paper, and curating. The exhibition marks the final stop of an international tour organized with DAS MINSK in Potsdam, the Barbican in London, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Highlights include "40 acres and a unicorn" (2007), "Isis" (2009), "Savage wilds" (2012), and the "Pueblo del rio" series (2014). Curated by Eleanor Nairne and Wells Fray-Smith, the show is accompanied by a catalog co-published by Prestel with contributions from Tina M. Campt, Claudia Rankine, and others.

The Woman Question 1550–2025 The City of Women

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw) will launch two concurrent exhibitions, "The Woman Question 1550–2025" and "The City of Women," running from November 21, 2025, to May 3, 2026. Featuring nearly 200 women artists from around the world—spanning from Artemisia Gentileschi and Frida Kahlo to Yoko Ono and Tala Madani—the shows aim to present five centuries of art by women, curated by Alison M. Gingeras and a team of researchers including Julia Bryan-Wilson, Michalina Sablik, Vera Zalutskaya, Karolina Gembara, and Wiktoria Szczupacka. The exhibitions include works borrowed from major international institutions such as the Uffizi Gallery, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, and the Nasjonalmuseet.

New York exhibition seeks to raise funds for LGBTQ+ youth centre

The Ali Forney Center (AFC), an LGBTQ+ youth organization facing a funding drop of over $400,000 from lost corporate sponsors, is holding a benefit exhibition titled "Toward the Light: Artists for the Ali Forney Center" at David Zwirner’s West 19th Street gallery in Chelsea from October 28 to November 1. Organized by art adviser Stephen Truax for the second year, the show features 38 works by artists including Doron Langberg, Jenna Gribbon, Jake Grewal, Ilana Savdie, Anthony Cudahy, Wolfgang Tillmans, Julie Mehretu, and Katherine Bradford, with proceeds supporting AFC’s housing and care for over 2,000 queer youth. Previous editions with Sotheby’s raised over $350,000 and $370,000 respectively.

‘Studio Iron’ to Launch at Saatchi Yates, Blurring the Boundaries Between Art and Design

Saatchi Yates is partnering with creative director and makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench to launch Studio Iron, a new design gallery whose inaugural exhibition opens April 30 and runs through June 7, 2026. The show presents a dense, post-industrial landscape dominated by steel and iron, featuring works by artists including Jannis Kounellis, Paul McCarthy, Jordan Wolfson, Anne Imhof, Marina Abramovic, Nico Vascellari, and others. Furniture, sculpture, installation, and painting collide in a space that resists categorization, hovering between function and non-function, utility and image.

In Venice two new cultural realities in the Civic Museums circuit: a contemporary art center is born in Mestre and the Wagner Museum enters the network

A Venezia due nuove realtà culturali nel circuito dei Musei Civici: nasce un centro d’arte contemporanea a Mestre e entra nella rete il Museo Wagner

The Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE) has opened a new contemporary art museum called MUVEC (Casa delle Contemporaneità) at the Centro Candiani in Mestre, inaugurated on April 24. Simultaneously, MUVE has signed an agreement with the Casinò di Venezia and the Associazione Richard Wagner to bring the Museo Wagner in Ca' Vendramin Calergi into its network starting in 2027, expanding the MUVE circuit to 14 museums (excluding MUVEC). MUVEC features a permanent collection spanning from 1948 to the present, drawn from the Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Venezia Ca' Pesaro, and will host temporary exhibitions including a 2026 show on Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and the body.

New Pioneer Square art gallery focuses on immigrant art

Saina Heshmati and Amir Amini have opened ANTiPODE Art Gallery in Seattle’s Pioneer Square, a new space dedicated to showcasing the work of immigrant artists. Located in a basement shared with the Seattle Jazz Fellowship, the gallery functions as a multi-modal hub for cultural exchange, hosting art exhibitions alongside film screenings, tea ceremonies, and experimental music. The founders, both Tehran natives, aim to bridge the gap between Seattle and distant global cities through diverse programming that emphasizes the intersection of different artistic disciplines.