Four major art exhibitions are scheduled to conclude their London runs on Sunday, April 12, 2026. The closing shows include the high-profile 'Turner & Constable: Rivals and Originals' at Tate Britain, the 'Theatre Picasso' centenary celebration at Tate Modern, and the 'New Contemporaries' showcase of emerging talent at the South London Gallery.
April 2026 marks a significant month for global art exhibitions, featuring major retrospectives and site-specific installations across Rome, Seoul, London, and Paris. Highlights include Gagosian Rome’s exploration of Francesca Woodman’s surrealist photography, a homecoming retrospective for video-art pioneer Nam June Paik in Seoul, and Senga Nengudi’s performance-based sculptures at London’s Whitechapel Gallery. Additionally, Isaac Julien will debut a new moving-image work at The Cosmic House, while the Fondation Louis Vuitton prepares a large-scale exhibition dedicated to Alexander Calder’s kinetic sculptures.
New historical evidence suggests that Vincent van Gogh’s iconic 'Yellow House' in Arles underwent a dramatic color change before its destruction. While Van Gogh famously painted and cherished the building for its yellow facade in 1888, two recently highlighted paintings from the late 1930s by artists Willy Guggenheim (Varlin) and George Tomaziu depict the structure with a blue exterior. This discovery, brought to light by Ukrainian artist Yuri Pikul, indicates the building had been repainted while serving as a café-bar called the Civette Arlésienne.
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has set a new attendance record with its current exhibition, 'Amy Sherald: American Sublime,' which has drawn 52,597 visitors since opening on November 2. The previous record was held by the 'Matisse/Diebenkorn' show in 2016-2017 with about 45,700 visitors. The exhibition, a mid-career survey of Sherald's work, runs through April 5 and is projected to reach 70,000 attendees. It originated at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art before arriving in Baltimore, after Sherald canceled its planned stop at the National Portrait Gallery due to censorship concerns.
The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is presenting "Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea," an exhibition of 40 works by the German artist dating from the 1970s to the present, including 20 recent pieces and five monumental site-specific paintings. Curated by museum director Min Jung Kim, the show features Kiefer's characteristically vast, heavy works built from materials like tar, melted lead, and steel, displayed without stanchions and with minimal labels to encourage immersive viewing. The exhibition was inspired by a conversation between Kim and Kiefer about the confluence of rivers—the Rhine in his native Germany and the Mississippi and Missouri in St. Louis—and makes use of SLAM's grand 1904 World's Fair building.
Irving Stone's 1934 novel *Lust for Life*, a fictionalized biography of Vincent van Gogh, was published as an Armed Services Edition during World War II for U.S. soldiers. These pocket-sized books, measuring 11cm by 17cm, were designed to fit in uniform pockets and withstand harsh conditions. Over 123 million copies of various titles were printed from 1943 to 1947, with distribution including parachute drops to troops on Pacific islands and handouts to soldiers before the Normandy Landings. The surviving copies are scarce and often damaged, with browned pages and covers marked as U.S. government property, not to be resold.
Christie’s 21st-century evening sale at Rockefeller Centre in New York on 19 November achieved $99.5 million before fees ($123.5 million with fees), surpassing last November’s equivalent sale of $106.5 million with fees. The sale featured 45 lots, with only one unsold (a Cecily Brown abstract), resulting in a 2% buy-in rate. Three artist records were set for Firelei Báez, Joan Brown, and Olga de Amaral. A major highlight was the collection of Chicago collectors Gale Neeson and the late Stefan Edlis, comprising 19 lots that realized $40.3 million ($49.2 million with fees), including works by Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, and Diego Giacometti. Other notable sales included Cindy Sherman’s *Untitled Film Still #13* (1978) at $2.2 million with fees, Ed Ruscha’s *How Do You Do?* at $6.7 million with fees, and a Warhol *The Last Supper* (1986) sold to Paris dealer Frederic Larroque for $8.1 million with fees.
Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK) opened its fifth edition at the Kyoto International Conference Center, running until 16 November. The fair, launched in 2021 to connect Japanese and international galleries, has grown to a record 72 exhibitors, half from overseas. Special exhibitions are staged at historic temples across Kyoto, including shows by Isabella Ducrot at Kousei-in, Carrie Yamaoka at Manshu-in, and Shio Kusaka with Jonas Wood at Ryosoku-in. Sales were strong on opening day, with galleries like KAYOKOYUKI, Kurimanzutto, Mendes Wood DM, and TARO NASU reporting brisk transactions.
Van Gogh's drawing 'Sower in a Wheatfield with setting Sun' (July 1888) will be auctioned at Sotheby's New York on 18 November with an estimate of $8m-$10m. The work, which belonged to the late cosmetics heir and collector Leonard Lauder, is expected to set a new auction record for a Van Gogh drawing if it exceeds the $8.8m achieved by 'La Mousmé' in 2021. The drawing was originally made for the artist Émile Bernard and later passed through notable hands including dealer Ambroise Vollard and critic Théodore Duret before entering the Lauder collection. It will be sold alongside 23 other major works from Lauder's collection, including three important Gustav Klimt paintings, in a sale expected to fetch over $400m.
Photography takes center stage at Frieze London and across the city, with major exhibitions of Lee Miller at Tate Britain, Wolfgang Tillmans at Maureen Paley, Arthur Jafa at Sadie Coles, and Marina Abramović stills at Saatchi Yates. At Frieze Masters, Pace Gallery dedicated its booth to Peter Hujar, selling six prints on opening day at prices from $25,000 to $45,000. Commercial galleries like Gagosian and David Zwirner are investing heavily in photography, with Zwirner bringing Diane Arbus to London for the first time in a UK commercial context.
Two new private philanthropic art spaces have opened in London this month: YDP (Yan Du Projects) in Bedford Square, founded by Chinese patron Yan Du, and Ibraaz in Fitzrovia, funded by Tunisian-Swiss banker Kamel Lazaar and run by his daughter Lina Lazaar. YDP focuses on Asian and Asian diasporic art, while Ibraaz centers art of the "global majority," featuring works like Ibrahim Mahama's installation and a library by the Otolith Group. Both founders, in their early 40s, represent a younger generation of patrons prioritizing social impact over legacy.
Christie's will hold a series of modern and contemporary art auctions and events in Paris during late October 2025, coinciding with the fourth edition of Art Basel Paris. The sales feature major works including a monumental Yves Klein monochrome (estimate on request), Alberto Giacometti's 'Femme debout' (€5-7M), Paul Signac's 'La Passerelle Debilly' (€4-6M), and pieces by Pierre Soulages, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others. The week opens on October 23 with 'Moderne(s), une collection particulière européenne,' a private collection of 40 European avant-garde works, followed by the flagship 'Avant-Garde(s) including Thinking Italian' sale.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) will host "The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse from the Dallas Museum of Art" from October 5, 2025, to January 25, 2026. The exhibition, which marks the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, features masterworks by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, Piet Mondrian, Berthe Morisot, and Edvard Munch, drawn from the Dallas Museum of Art's renowned French Impressionist collection. It traveled to Mexico City before arriving in Santa Barbara, the only West Coast U.S. venue for the show, and will later travel to Nashville, Québec, and Richmond.
Silvestre Pestana, a Portuguese artist and poet, is presenting a solo exhibition of his LED text-based works at Galeria Quadrado Azul in Porto. The show, titled 'Silvestre Pestana: The Light of Words', features his pioneering 'Poemas Pornográficos' (Pornographic Poems) from the 1980s and newer LED pieces that transform language into pulsating, illuminated objects.
Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1981 painting *Crowns (Peso Neto)* will headline Sotheby's Contemporary Evening Sale this November, carrying an estimate of $35–45 million—the highest ever for a Basquiat work from that year. The painting, never before offered at auction, debuted at Annina Nosei Gallery in 1982 and was later shown at documenta 7. It will be publicly exhibited in London, Paris, and New York before the sale, which coincides with the opening of Sotheby's new global headquarters in the former Whitney Museum's Breuer Building.
A cyberattack targeted the Dresden State Art Collections (SKD), a network of 15 museums in eastern Germany, on Wednesday. The attack disrupted large parts of the digital infrastructure, including the online shop and visitor services, but the museums remain open and physical security is intact. IT specialists and forensic experts are working to clean up and rebuild systems, with no timeline yet for full restoration. The SKD is cooperating with the Dresden Police and State Criminal Police Office, as confirmed by the Saxon State Minister for Culture and Tourism.
Anish Kapoor will open an exhibition at Palazzo Manfrin in Venice on May 5, focusing on his architectural-scale sculptural projects—both realized and unrealized. The show includes around 50 to 70 models, with highlights such as *Cloud Gate* (2006) in Chicago, the Monte Sant’Angelo Metro Station in Naples, and unrealized plans for a work in outer space. New works include an immersive painting room, and *At the Edge of the World* (1998) has been remade in a dark black paint related to Vantablack. The exhibition runs through August, after which *Descent into Limbo* (1992) will be permanently installed on the Cannaregio site.
The 10th edition of the British Art Show, titled 'A Chorus of Strangers,' has announced its theme and a roster of over 30 participating artists. Curated by Ekow Eshun and organized by Hayward Gallery Touring, the exhibition will explore the relationship between the individual and the 'other' through three thematic lenses: 'Moments of Being,' 'Ways of Living,' and 'States of Nature.' The show is scheduled to launch in Coventry on October 2, 2025, before touring to Swansea, Bristol, Sheffield, and Newcastle Gateshead.
The Denver Art Museum has repatriated a 1,500-year-old marble head of a bearded man to Turkey, following a successful restitution claim. The sculpture, which dates back to the fifth century BCE, was originally unearthed in the agora of the ancient city of Smyrna (modern-day Izmir) and was likely trafficked illicitly before entering the museum's collection. The artifact is now on public display at the İzmir Archaeology Museum.
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London has admitted to removing maps and images from two exhibition catalogs following censorship demands from a Chinese printing firm. Documents revealed that C&C Offset Printing flagged content in the catalogs for the exhibitions "Music Is Black" and "Fabergé: Romance to Revolution" as violating Chinese law. The censored items included a 1930s map of British trade routes and a photograph of Vladimir Lenin, which the printer claimed could not be produced under Beijing’s strict regulations.
Unionized staff at the Louvre Museum in Paris voted unanimously to continue a strike that began on Monday, with hundreds of workers walking out to protest deteriorating working conditions, insufficient staffing, and a proposed dual pricing system for non-EU visitors. The strike has forced partial closures, with the museum offering only a limited 'masterpiece route' featuring works like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Unions rejected a Culture Ministry offer to cancel a planned €5.7 million budget cut, recruit more staff, and raise pay, deeming the proposals insufficient. Workers also oppose a plan to raise ticket prices for non-EU visitors from €22 to €32 to fund renovations, and criticize the use of funds from a brand licensing deal with Abu Dhabi.
Two curatorial teams have won the Hyundai Blue Prize+ 2025, an award organized by Hyundai Motor Company to support curators addressing contemporary issues in an Asian context. The winners are Hyejin and Yoonyoung Park, a Seoul-based duo whose proposal examines AI's reliance on natural resources and labor, and Yifeng Wei and Penny Dan Xu, based in Dublin and London, who invite viewers to reimagine the future of modern technology. Selected from over 160 proposals, the teams participated in a mentorship program and research trip before being chosen by an international jury. Their exhibitions will be held at Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing between mid-2026 and early 2027, with each receiving 800,000 RMB (about $110,000) for production costs.
The tomb of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, one of the largest in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, has reopened to the public after a 20-year renovation led by a team from Waseda University in Tokyo. Discovered in 1799 by French engineers and looted in antiquity, the tomb features newly restored wall paintings depicting the pharaoh with ancient Egyptian gods, the structural frame of his sarcophagus, and burial chambers for his two wives. The reopening took place on October 4, 2025.
Auckland Art Gallery is presenting 'Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now,' a major survey of Chinese contemporary art featuring 67 works by 42 artists, running from May 2 to August 23, 2026. The exhibition includes Xiao Lu's iconic 1989 work 'Dialogue,' which she famously shot with a gun hours after its opening, an act later linked to the Tiananmen Square protests. Xiao Lu comments on the political resonance of the show in New Zealand amid global shifts in democracy and US-centric world order.
Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert presents a focused exhibition of Patrick Heron's early works from 1950 to 1954, tracing the British modernist's decisive shift from figuration to abstraction. The show brings together pieces from the artist's estate, including several never before exhibited, alongside loans from museums and private collections, highlighting a formative moment in post-war British art. Key works such as 'Christmas Eve: 1951' and 'Black Fish on Blue Table' demonstrate Heron's evolving visual language, influenced by the School of Paris and encounters with Braque, Matisse, and Bonnard.
The Los Angeles-based collective Diva Corp is challenging traditional art world hierarchies through a series of provocative interventions and exhibitions. Their recent solo show at Pio Pico, titled 'The Meeting,' gained notoriety for requiring visitors to surrender their phones before viewing a single painting, 'Untitled (Young adults are having less sex than ever), 2026.' This practice, alongside performances designed to circulate through digital retelling and social rumor, highlights the group's focus on the 'afterlife' of an artwork and the social friction it generates.
Toyota Tsusho Corporation and its subsidiary CFAO SAS have announced the five inaugural winners of the Toyota Tsusho CFAO African Art Award. Zimbabwean mixed-media artist Moffat Takadiwa received the Grand Prize, while Gosette Lubondo and Unathi Mkonto were honored with Distinguished Awards. The selection process involved 35 international art professionals who nominated 100 artists, eventually narrowing the field to 12 finalists before selecting the five winners across various categories including painting and photography.
The UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art is hosting "Overshare," the first major North American survey of French conceptual artist Sophie Calle. Organized by the Walker Art Center and curated by Henriette Huldisch, the exhibition spans five decades of Calle’s career, utilizing photography, text, and installation to explore the boundaries between public and private life. The show is organized into thematic sections—the Spy, the Protagonist, the End, and the Beginning—highlighting her voyeuristic projects and autobiographical narratives.
A flurry of gallery activity is scheduled for the week of February 2-8, 2026, in New York City. Numerous exhibitions are opening, including "Interstice: Whirled Music" at Kiang Malingue, "Everything She Touches" by Alix Vernet at Eric Firestone Gallery, and "Anima" by Felipe Baeza at Print Center New York. Concurrently, many shows are in their final days, such as "A Retrospective by Ruth Asawa" at the Museum of Modern Art, "FDR Drive Musel, 1984" by Keith Haring at Martos Gallery, and "West Coast Women of Abstract Expressionism" at Berry Campbell.
The article features a conversation between Los Angeles-based artist Sam Falls and Edoardo Zegna, chief marketing, digital and sustainability officer at the Italian luxury menswear brand Zegna, during Miami Art Week. Falls creates works that blend Land Art and plein air photography by leaving materials in natural environments, while Zegna discusses the brand's century-long stewardship of Oasi Zegna, a 100 sq. km forest in the Italian Alps. Zegna has created an invitation-only pop-up space called Villa Zegna in the Design District showcasing Falls's works, and Falls also has pieces at 303 Gallery's stand at Art Basel Miami Beach and in the Ruinart Lounge.