Lee Miller : a major exhibition devoted to the renowned photographer at the Museum of Modern Art

The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris has announced a major retrospective of American photographer Lee Miller, scheduled to run from April 10 to August 2, 2026. Featuring approximately 250 vintage and contemporary prints, the exhibition will survey Miller’s multifaceted career, including her early days as a fashion model, her Surrealist collaborations with Man Ray, and her harrowing work as a war correspondent during World War II. The show arrives in Paris following its premiere at Tate Britain and marks the first significant retrospective of the artist in the French capital since 2008.

Banksy, Basquiat, Haring and more coming to Mobile Museum of Art

The Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama announced a major upcoming exhibition titled "Gateway from Graffiti to Gallery," opening September 1 and running for a year. The show will feature 28 works by five iconic street artists: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Banksy, and Kaws, including a room-sized installation by Scharf. The works, never before assembled together, are on loan from collectors and investors worldwide through a collaboration with Masterworks, a company that enables fractional investment in blue-chip art. The museum also revealed plans for a 2027 exhibition of 25 leading female artists from the post-World War II abstract expressionist movement.

19 New Exhibits Coming to the Smithsonian Museums in 2026

The Smithsonian Institution has announced 19 new exhibitions opening across its museums in 2026, including shows at the African American History and Culture Museum, African Art Museum, Air and Space Museum, American Art Museum, American History Museum, and Asian Art Museum. Highlights include Nick Cave's immersive installation "Mammoth" at the American Art Museum, a photography survey of the U.S. Bicentennial, and a major reopening of the Air and Space Museum's final seven galleries after eight years of renovations. Several exhibitions tie into the nation's 250th anniversary, while others explore LGBTQ+ African art, HBCU collections, salsa music history, and contemporary water-themed paintings by Hiroshi Senju and Bingyi.

A Thanksgiving Weekend Art Escape: 3 Must-See Exhibitions in Philadelphia

Philadelphia remains a vibrant cultural destination despite recent turmoil, including the firing of Philadelphia Museum of Art CEO Sasha Suda and the closure of UArts. This article highlights three must-see exhibitions over Thanksgiving weekend: "Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which surveys the surrealist movement from a hemispheric perspective; a new art space blending art, nature, and architecture; and a retrospective of a once-misunderstood artist now gaining recognition.

Albuquerque exhibition depicts German art made during the tragic ascent of authoritarianism

The Albuquerque Museum has opened a landmark exhibition titled "Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945: Masterworks from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin," featuring German and European art from the early 20th century. The show traces the trajectory from the German Empire through World War I, the Weimar Republic, Nazi rule, and World War II, including works by Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Hannah Höch, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, and others. Many pieces were originally condemned as "degenerate art" by the Nazis. The exhibition, which has three U.S. stops, is currently in Albuquerque after appearing at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth and will travel to the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

All you need to know about Klimt’s canvas that is now the most expensive modern artwork

Gustav Klimt's "Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer" (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer) sold for $236.4 million at Sotheby's first auction in its new Breuer building location in New York, becoming the most expensive modern artwork ever sold at auction. The 1914-1916 portrait depicts Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of Klimt's patrons Serena and August Lederer, and was previously owned by Estée Lauder heir Leonard A. Lauder, who died earlier this year. The painting was looted by the Nazis during World War II, returned to the Lederer family in 1948, and later sold in 1983.

Groundbreaking Art Takes Spotlight at O’Donnell Athenaeum Exhibit

A new exhibition titled “Groundbreakers: Post-War Japan and Korea from the Dallas Museum of Art and The Rachofsky Collection” has opened at the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum at The University of Texas at Dallas, running through July 2026. Curated by Dr. Natalia Di Pietrantonio of the Crow Museum of Asian Art, the show features works from three major postwar movements—Mono-ha, Dansaekhwa, and Gutai—using unconventional materials like white glue, bells, wires, tin, and rocks. Highlights include Kazuo Shiraga’s foot-painted canvases, Takesada Matsutani’s vinyl glue sculptures, Atsuko Tanaka’s interactive wire installation, and Do Ho Suh’s translucent polyester corridor inspired by homesickness.

'Monuments' is the most significant American art museum show right now

The article reports on "MONUMENTS," a major exhibition jointly organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles and the nonprofit Brick. The show features 10 decommissioned Confederate monuments, some splashed with protesters' paint, alongside works by 20 contemporary artists including Hank Willis Thomas and Karon Davis. It was assembled by curators Hamza Walker, Hannah Burstein, Bennett Simpson, Paula Kroll, and artist Kara Walker, and has been in development for nearly eight years, spurred by events such as the 2015 Charleston church massacre, the 2017 Charlottesville riot, and the 2020 George Floyd protests.

Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds

The Art Institute of Chicago is presenting "Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds," an exhibition running from March 29 to July 13, 2025. It focuses on Kahlo's first and only trip to Europe in 1939, where she fell ill and convalesced at the home of American avant-garde bookbinder Mary Reynolds. The show features approximately 100 objects, including paintings, book bindings, and letters, drawn from the Art Institute's Mary Reynolds Collection and loans from the US, Mexico, and Europe.

Skeletons, Tears and Lobsters: Schiaparelli Exhibition to Open in 2026

The Victoria & Albert Museum in London will host "Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art" at the Sainsbury Gallery from March 21 to November 1, 2026. The exhibition traces the legacy of founder Elsa Schiaparelli from the 1920s to the present, under current owner Diego Della Valle and creative director Daniel Roseberry. It will feature over 200 objects spanning Paris, London, and New York, including garments, accessories, jewelry, paintings, photographs, and archive material. Highlights include the Skeleton dress (1938) and the Tears dress (1938), created in collaboration with Salvador Dalí. The show also explores Schiaparelli's relationships with clients like Wallis Simpson and artists such as Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and Man Ray.

The tale of a French psychiatric asylum that harboured Second World War resistance fighters—and where patients became artists

An exhibition catalogue from the American Folk Art Museum's 2024 show traces the story of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole, a French psychiatric asylum that sheltered Spanish Republican refugees and resistance fighters during World War II. Under Catalan psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles, patients were encouraged to create art from found objects, producing works that later influenced Jean Dubuffet's concept of Art Brut. The asylum became a haven where hierarchies between doctors and patients were leveled, and patients bartered their creations for food during wartime austerity.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painting thought to be lost for decades goes on display in Basel

A long-lost Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painting, *Tanz im Varieté* (Dance at the Varieté, 1911), has gone on display at the Kunstmuseum Basel after being rediscovered and purchased at auction. The work, previously known only through photographs, was sold at Ketterer Kunst in Munich for around €7 million to the Im Obersteg Foundation, which loans its collection to the museum. The painting depicts a cakewalk dance and had not been exhibited since 1923 in Berlin. Its provenance includes ownership by a German collector during the Nazi era, when Kirchner's art was deemed 'degenerate,' and damage by French soldiers who discovered it in a crate after World War II.

‘Art is an important way of depicting these atrocities’: London show shines a light on sexual violence in conflict

The Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London has opened "Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict," the first major UK museum exhibition to address the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Featuring video testimony from journalist Christina Lamb, the show draws on the IWM's collections and new testimonies from survivors, including propaganda posters, photographs by Lee Miller, and a newly acquired miniature Sonyeosang statue. Curators Maeve Underwood and Helen Upcraft re-examined the museum's holdings to uncover hidden narratives of sexual slavery and humiliation from World War II to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Key member of Die Brücke art movement gets museum in hometown

A new museum dedicated to Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, a founding member of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke, has opened in his hometown of Rottluff, a village on the western edge of Chemnitz. The Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Haus, acquired by the city in 2023 and opened in April, displays works spanning the artist's entire career, including early pieces never before shown publicly. The museum also features works by fellow Brücke artists and a secretly painted 1944 self-portrait created in the same house during the Nazi era, when Schmidt-Rottluff was branded a degenerate artist and banned from painting.

Read a book, flip off a Nazi: when reading meant resistance – in pictures

A new exhibition at Poster House in New York, titled "Reading Under Fire: Arming Minds & Hearts During Wartime," showcases vintage posters from World War I and World War II that promoted reading and book donations to support troops. The posters, drawn from the collections of the American Library Association, the YMCA, and other organizations, encouraged the public to supply soldiers with reading material as a form of morale-boosting and education. The exhibition runs until 1 November and is curated by Molly Guptill Manning.

us holocaust museum acquires rare world war ii captain america comics

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has acquired a rare original copy of Captain America Comics No. 1, donated by Riot Games co-founder Brandon Beck. Published in 1940 by Jewish creators Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, the issue is iconic for its cover art depicting Captain America punching Adolf Hitler. The acquisition also includes Captain America Comics No. 46, which features one of the earliest pop-culture depictions of a concentration camp liberation.

estonian museum director russian prison

Maria Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova, the director of the Narva Museum in Estonia, was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison by a Russian court. The charges stem from her hanging banners on Narva Castle that label Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” including one that fuses Putin’s face with Adolf Hitler’s and another showing a bloodied mug shot of Putin. The court cited laws against disseminating “war fakes” and “rehabilitating Nazism.” Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova has been displaying such banners since 2023 on Russian Victory Day, and Russian authorities have projected Victory Day parades toward Narva from the nearby town of Ivangorod.

ohio dutch paintings looted nazis monuments men foundation

The auction of two 17th-century Dutch still-life oil paintings of flowers was halted at Apple Tree Auction Center in Newark, Ohio, after the Monuments Men and Women Foundation and the Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project identified them as Nazi-looted art. The paintings, originally part of Adolphe and Lucie Haas Schloss's collection, were seized in 1943 and later stored in Hitler's Führerbau before being looted again. Foundation founder Robert Edsel traveled to Ohio to alert the auction house, which cooperated by removing the works from sale and placing them in a vault. The consignor's identity remains undisclosed, and the foundation is working to return the paintings to the Schloss family.

italian politicians protest return of altarpiece slovenia

A 16th-century altarpiece by Vittore Carpaccio, *Madonna and Child Enthroned with Six Saints* (1518), has been returned to the Slovenian town of Piran, where it was originally commissioned for the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. The painting was removed in 1940 and placed in Padua for safekeeping during World War II, remaining in the Basilica of Sant’Antonio for decades. Following pressure from Franciscan friars in Padua, the work was quietly transferred back to Piran on September 4, days before Italian President Sergio Mattarella’s state visit to Slovenia. Slovenian Culture Minister Asta Vrečko hailed the return as the result of long-standing efforts.

nazi looted painting disappears argentina home

A Dutch newspaper, Algemeen Dagblad, discovered a Nazi-looted Baroque painting by Giuseppe Ghislandi (also known as Fra Galgario) listed in a real estate ad for a home in Mar del Plata, Argentina. The painting, which once belonged to Jewish dealer Jacques Goudstikker, was later removed from the listing and disappeared from the house, prompting a police investigation involving Interpol. The work had been in the possession of SS officer Friedrich Kadgien, who fled to Argentina after World War II.

world war ii documents and artifacts auction

Boston's RR Auctions is offering a sale of over 170 World War II autographs and artifacts, live through June 11. Highlights include a German Enigma I Cipher Machine (estimated at over $200,000), a Navy ensign flag that flew on D-Day, and a letter of surrender signed by Reich President Karl Dönitz on May 6, 1945 (estimated at over $100,000). The sale also features handwritten drafts of radiotelegrams from Colonel General Alfred Jodl and a mimeograph copy of General Dwight D. Eisenhower's victory announcement, signed by him as a souvenir.

Zóbel pieces headline Leon Gallery’s ‘The Spectacular Mid-Year Auction’

Leon Gallery's 'The Spectacular Mid-Year Auction' in Makati City features several key artworks from the Zóbel de Ayala family collection, including Fernando Amorsolo's 'The Burning of Manila'—one of the largest Amorsolo paintings ever auctioned—and multiple pieces by Fernando Zóbel, such as 'Versión en Toledo', 'Variante Sobre Un Tema de Cassatt', 'Talgo', and 'Pequeño homenaje a Stravinski'. Other notable lots include Anita Magsaysay-Ho's 'Water Carriers', Vicente Manansala's 'From the Market', and Hernando R. Ocampo's 'Miners'. The auction, scheduled for June 7, 2025, marks Leon Gallery's 15th anniversary in the art business.

This New Britain art exhibit is a call to decolonize Puerto Rico

Artist Pablo Delano has brought his provocative installation, “The Museum of the Old Colony,” to New Britain, Connecticut, a region with a significant Puerto Rican population. The exhibition utilizes enlarged archival photographs, historical texts, and consumer goods to document the United States' colonial relationship with Puerto Rico since 1898. By juxtaposing derogatory 19th-century media captions with images of mass sterilization, military enlistment, and the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Delano challenges viewers to confront a legacy of systemic racism and exploitation.

Nazi-Looted Portrait Surfaces in Home of Descendants of Dutch SS Leader

A Nazi-looted painting, *Portrait of a Young Girl* by Dutch artist Toon Kelder, has been discovered in the home of descendants of Hendrik Seyffardt, a Dutch SS collaborator who aided the Nazis during World War II. The work, stolen from the renowned Goudstikker collection, was allegedly displayed for decades by Seyffardt's family. An anonymous descendant contacted art detective Arthur Brand after learning of his family's past and seeing the painting in the hallway of Seyffardt's granddaughter. The family member told Dutch newspaper *De Telegraaf* that he feels "deep shame" and insists the painting must be returned to the Jewish rightful heirs.

Van Cleef & Arpels cashes in on lucrative secondary market for vintage jewellery

Van Cleef & Arpels has capitalized on the growing secondary market for vintage jewelry through its Heritage Collection, launched in 2007. The collection offers around 150 curated 20th-century pieces, authenticated and restored by the maison, allowing clients to buy directly from the jeweler rather than through auction houses like Sotheby's, Christie's, and Artcurial, which sold over €120 million in Van Cleef jewels in 2024.

Yoshiko Shimada: Selfless Devotion / Loving Care @ Ota Fine Arts

嶋田美子：滅私｜愛護 @ オオタファインアーツ

Ota Fine Arts in Tokyo is hosting a solo exhibition by Yoshiko Shimada titled "Selfless Devotion / Loving Care," running from March 14 to May 16, 2026. The exhibition features a significant selection of Shimada’s seminal works from the early 1990s, including "A Woman Shooting II," "A House of Comfort," and "Tied to Apron Strings." These pieces utilize photography, installation, and found objects to confront difficult historical narratives.

Rare Gates of Paradise replica restored and on display at the BYU Museum of Art

The BYU Museum of Art (MOA) has unveiled a meticulously restored gypsum cast replica of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Renaissance masterpiece, the "Gates of Paradise." The restoration project spanned a decade and involved approximately 13,000 hours of labor, largely performed by BYU students who repaired damage and applied gold leaf to the ten ornate panels. The restored work is now the centerpiece of the exhibition "Gilded Paradise," which features immersive projections of Florence and will remain on view through October 2026.

Kimbell Art Museum to Exhibit Rare Ancient Roman Sculptures

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth will host "Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection" from September 14, 2025, to January 25, 2026. This exhibition features 58 marble masterpieces from the Torlonia Collection, the world's greatest private collection of ancient Roman sculpture, many of which have never left Italy. It marks the first time these works are displayed in North America, and the Kimbell is one of only two U.S. museums to receive this honor. The sculptures range from the fifth century B.C. to the early fourth century A.D., with thematic sections exploring mythology, imperial power, and restoration.

US participation in 2026 Venice Biennale in limbo amid Trump's arts defunding

The United States' participation in the 2026 Venice Biennale is in jeopardy due to the Trump administration's campaign to defund the arts. According to a Vanity Fair report by Nate Freeman, the US government's preparation is behind schedule, with the typical 18-month planning timeline now reduced to just 12 months before the opening. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) faces funding cuts, staff reductions, and a vacant position for coordinating biennale affairs, while the application process has been altered to emphasize "American values" and remove references to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Immediately after the Second World War, how did six exhibitions attempt to make sense of the atrocities?

Berlin's Deutsches Historisches Museum has opened an exhibition titled "On Displaying Violence: First Exhibitions on the Nazi Occupation in Europe, 1945-48," which revisits six post-World War II exhibitions that attempted to process the atrocities of the war. These shows took place in venues ranging from the Grand Palais in Paris to a Czech villa formerly occupied by a Nazi official, and included displays such as the UK's Daily Express "The Horror Camps" (1945), the French traveling show "Hitlerian Crimes" (1945), "Warsaw Accuses" (1945) at the National Museum in Warsaw, and "Our Path to Freedom" (1947) at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The Berlin exhibition uses original objects, film footage, photographs, and recordings to recreate the experience of these early post-war shows.