The Akron Art Museum will present a major exhibition titled 'Kent Monkman: History Is Painted by the Victors,' featuring the renowned Cree artist's work. The show will include his signature paintings, installations, and a new, site-specific piece, focusing on his critical re-examination of colonial narratives in North American art history.
Kent County Council is facing sharp criticism for the deaccessioning and sale of 168 lots from its art collection, including a significant archive of 33 photographs by the influential postwar British photographer Tony Ray-Jones. The auction, held at Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers, also features works by Andy Goldsworthy and Sidney Nolan. The council cited financial pressures and a lack of viable storage as the primary reasons for the sale, admitting that the works were not offered to local museums or galleries before being sent to auction.
British painter Rose Wylie is preparing for a landmark solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, making her the first female British painter to receive a solo show in the institution's main galleries. At 91 years old, Wylie continues to work late into the night in her Kent studio, producing large-scale, vibrant canvases that draw inspiration from everyday objects, newspapers, and sports icons. Her work is celebrated for its 'punk' energy and a youthful spontaneity that belies her age.
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) has announced its winter and spring 2025 programming, including exhibitions, events, and activities from February through April. Highlights include the closing exhibitions "Pissarro's Impressionism" (final day February 8) and "A Constant Sky" by Andrea Carlson (through February 16), the opening of photography show "What We’ve Been Up To: People" on February 8, fashion exhibition "Conversation Pieces: Stories from the Fashion Archives" on February 15, and "Space Is the Place: Art & Design in the Atomic Age" and "'Round the Clock: 24 Hours of Colorado in Prints" on March 1. Special events include Slam Nuba's 5th Annual Poetry Slam on February 21, lectures by Didier William and Zora J. Murff in March, and the major exhibition "The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art" opening April 19. The museum also offers free general admission for members and visitors 18 and under.
The Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, VA, has opened “Abstract Expressionists: The Women,” an exhibition featuring nearly 50 paintings by 32 women artists who were pivotal to the Abstract Expressionist movement. Running from January 23 through April 26, 2026, the show draws from the Christian Levett Collection and the FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France, and is organized by the American Federation of Arts. It spans the movement’s development from the late 1930s to 1977, with works by artists such as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, and Grace Hartigan, and is structured around four thematic sections covering New York, San Francisco, Paris, and the artists’ own voices.
A roundup of major international museum openings scheduled for 2026 highlights new institutions and expansions across the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Notable projects include the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, the Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi, Kanal in Brussels, the relocated Memphis Art Museum, LACMA's David Geffen Galleries, and the Design Museum Gent in Belgium, among others.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston unveils a monumental Frida Kahlo exhibition, alongside eight other new art openings across Houston museums and galleries. Shows include Cynthia Isakson's "Anachronous" at Holocaust Museum Houston, "norMAL and unreMARKable" at Throughline, "The Uncanny In-Between" at Blaffer Art Museum, "End Cash Bail" at Lawndale Art Center, and "Magic Mirrors" at Art League Houston, among others, spanning photography, ceramics, multimedia, and social justice themes.
A trio of major museum openings is expected in Los Angeles in 2026: the expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) with its new David Geffen Galleries designed by Peter Zumthor opening in April; the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, founded by filmmaker George Lucas and designed by Ma Yansong, opening on 22 September; and the digital artist Refik Anadol's Dataland, the first museum devoted to AI-generated art, opening in spring. Additionally, the Victoria and Albert Museum opens V&A East in London on 18 April, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, opens an expansion on 6 June.
The Art Institute of Chicago is hosting a special Luminary member event on April 28, 2026, celebrating the exhibition "Matisse's Jazz—Rhythms in Color." The event features curatorial remarks by Emily Ziemba, director of curatorial administration and research curator in Prints and Drawings, followed by exclusive after-hours access to the exhibition. This marks the first time the museum has displayed Matisse's complete Jazz portfolio since acquiring it in 1948, alongside more than 50 paintings, sculptures, and drawings that trace the artist's career-long exploration of color and line.
The Denver Art Museum and the Museum Barberini in Potsdam have co-organized "The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro's Impressionism," an exhibition dedicated to the work of the pioneering Impressionist painter. The show is presented by a wide array of donors including Jana and Fred Bartlit, Barbara Bridges, Bridget and John Grier, the Kristin and Charles Lohmiller Exhibitions Fund, and Craig Ponzio, with additional support from foundations, corporate sponsors, and the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD).
The Denver Art Museum and the Museum Barberini in Potsdam have co-organized a new exhibition titled 'The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro's Impressionism,' which opens with a member preview on Saturday. The show is supported by a wide range of donors, including Jana and Fred Bartlit, Barbara Bridges, Bridget and John Grier, the Kristin and Charles Lohmiller Exhibitions Fund, Craig Ponzio, and many others, as well as by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities and promotional support from CBS Colorado.
The article serves as an exhibition guide for 'The Honest Eye' show, focusing on Camille Pissarro's life and work after he moved to Éragny-sur-Epte, Normandy, in 1884. It details how Pissarro settled his family there after struggling to afford rent in Pontoise, painting in his garden, fields, and barn-turned-studio. The guide highlights specific paintings like 'The Delafolie Brickyard, Éragny' (1885), 'View from My Window in Cloudy Weather' (1886–88), and 'Vegetable Garden, Overcast Morning, Éragny' (1901), discussing his techniques, subjects, and personal challenges such as chronic eye infections. It also notes his relationships with neighbors like Delafolie and fellow Impressionist Claude Monet, as well as his role in his children's artistic education.
Petr Pudil, a Czech businessman and co-founder of BPD partners, discusses his journey as an art collector and the opening of Kunsthalle Praha in Prague with his wife Pavlína. The museum, housed in a former 1930s electricity substation, opened in 2022 and features temporary thematic exhibitions from their collection of over 2,000 works, including pieces by Max Ernst, Alicja Kwade, and William Kentridge. Pudil reflects on his acquisition strategy, regrets, and favorite London spots during Frieze week.
On Indigenous Peoples’ Day (13 October), 17 Native artists staged an unsanctioned augmented reality intervention inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American Wing. The project, titled ENCODED: Change the Story, Change the Future (through 31 December), digitally overlays cosmological figures, pow-wow dancers, and ivy onto 19th-century paintings and sculptures, challenging the museum’s narratives. Co-curated by filmmaker Tracy Renée Rector and an anonymous Indigenous co-curator in collaboration with the non-profit Amplifier, the intervention coincides with the American Wing’s centenary.
Princeton University Art Museum will open its new building on October 31, 2025, with two inaugural exhibitions: *Princeton Collects* and *Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay*. *Princeton Collects*, curated by director James Steward and the museum’s curatorial team, features approximately 150 works donated during a “campaign for art” that began in 2021, including pieces by Sean Scully, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, and Zanele Muholi. *Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay* highlights the pioneering ceramic artist and longtime Princeton professor, showcasing her “closed forms” alongside works by her teachers and contemporaries.
Museums across the West are facing a severe funding crisis as governments slash public support. In the U.S., President Donald Trump’s deep cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost funding, while stock market volatility and increased endowment taxes further strain budgets. In Europe, Berlin cut €130 million from cultural funding in December 2024, and other countries face similar pressures, forcing museums to confront dwindling subsidies and shifting philanthropy.
The Syracuse University Art Museum has opened a new exhibition titled “What If I Try This?”: Helen Frankenthaler in the 20th-Century Print Ecosystem, running from August 26 through December 9. Curated by Melissa Yuen, the show features 56 works—including prints, paintings, photographs, and letters—by Frankenthaler and her contemporaries, highlighting her experimental approach to printmaking over nearly 50 years. The exhibition includes 11 prints and process proofs gifted by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in 2023, along with 24 works borrowed from national and area collections, and draws on Frankenthaler’s correspondence with artist Grace Hartigan.
The Canton Museum of Art in Ohio is presenting 'Shattered Glass: The Women Who Elevated American Art,' an exhibition running from November 25, 2025, through March 1, 2026. Curated by Christy Davis and Kaleigh Pisani, the show spans all museum galleries and features over 120 works by 76 female American artists from the 1780s to the present day. Highlights include Audrey Flack's 1977 photorealist painting 'Marilyn,' still-life trompe-l'oeil works by Claude Hirst (born Claudine in 1855), Sister Corita Kent's 'Circus Alphabet' print series, and a photograph of Lee Miller in Adolf Hitler's abandoned apartment. The exhibition aims to spotlight underrecognized women who persevered despite barriers in the art world.
The article lists five major art exhibitions opening in Chicago in September 2025, including a retrospective of Elizabeth Catlett at the Art Institute of Chicago, a summer residency show by Industry of the Ordinary at SoNa, a collaborative exhibition by Mayumi Lake and Bob Faust at the Elmhurst Art Museum, a Helen Frankenthaler print exhibition at the Block Museum, and the third annual Chicago Exhibition Weekend featuring over seventy galleries and public spaces.
A large mural by David Wojnarowicz (1954-92), rediscovered in a Louisville, Kentucky building in 2022, is at risk of being concealed again behind drywall as the building is redeveloped into high-end residences. The site-specific work was created in 1985 for the group exhibition *The Missing Children Show: Six Artists from the East Village on Main Street*, organized by dealer Potter Coe to benefit the Kentucky Child Victims’ Trust Fund. The building's current developers plan to turn the mural's floor into a waiting room for a boxing gym, covering it with sheetrock, though they have guaranteed no damage. The artist's foundation and gallery, PPOW, have proposed covering it with transparent plexiglass instead, but the mural's removal is unlikely due to its size and brick surface.
Verge, a human-resources and recruiting agency, has launched a new membership program offering museums and art organizations a proprietary employee survey called the Workplace Advancement Instrument (WAI). The survey assesses organizational health across areas like communication, compensation, retention, and psychological safety. Members receive results, access to workshops, and an annual benchmarking report, with early adopters including the Dia Art Foundation, Corita Art Center, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, and Denniston Hill. The program costs $5,000 per year and grew out of Verge's recruitment work, which found that many arts workers of color were leaving jobs due to unsupportive workplace cultures.
The Denver Art Museum is hosting 'Kent Monkman: History is Painted by the Victors,' a major exhibition of the Cree artist's provocative, large-scale paintings that challenge Western art history through an Indigenous lens. The show, co-organized with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, runs until August 17 before traveling to Montreal in September. It has drawn widespread critical acclaim and emotional visitor responses, with reviewers praising its blend of humor, beauty, and political urgency.
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and its Art Bridges Foundation have acquired 90 contemporary works by Indigenous artists from the John and Susan Horseman Collection. Art Bridges will receive 81 works for long-term loans across the U.S., while nine pieces will join Crystal Bridges' permanent collection. Artists include Kent Monkman, George Morrison, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Cannupa Hanska Luger. The acquisition is part of a broader strategy to expand the museum's holdings in Indigenous and craft art, with works set to debut in exhibitions starting November 2024.
William Kentridge's latest exhibition, 'A Natural History of the Studio,' at Hauser & Wirth in New York presents over 70 drawings from his nine-part film series 'Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot,' alongside new sculptures. The works, created during the pandemic, explore self-portraiture through charcoal, pastel, and collage, often featuring doppelgängers that argue and disagree, reflecting the artist's engagement with theater and the materiality of his forms.
The California African American Museum in Exposition Park has opened 'Ode to ’Dena: Black Artistic Legacies of Altadena,' a free exhibition celebrating the deep Black artistic heritage of the Altadena neighborhood. Curated by Dominique Clayton, the show features over 20 Black artists with ties to the area, including a wall of archival family photos, works by 98-year-old Betye Saar, and pieces by Kenturah Davis and her family. The exhibition was organized rapidly after the Eaton Fire, incorporating debris from the disaster, such as a scorched flugelhorn and a charred sound bowl, to reflect loss and resilience.
William Kentridge presents his first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in New York, titled "A natural history of the studio." The show features his acclaimed episodic film series "Self-portrait as a coffee-pot" (completed in 2024) alongside over seventy works on paper and sculptures. Spanning two floors at 542 West 22nd Street and extending to the gallery's 18th Street location, the exhibition includes charcoal drawings used in the film's animation, Paper procession sculptures, and the animated video "Fugitive words" (2024). The installation, designed by longtime collaborator Sabine Theunissen, evokes Kentridge's Johannesburg studio environment.
Josh Basseches, director and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), announced on June 5 that he will step down at the end of 2025 after a decade in the role. Under his leadership, the museum underwent three renovations and one expansion, including the reopening of the Weston Entrance, the creation of the Willner Madge Gallery Dawn of Life, and the launch of the C$130m OpenROM renovation project. Notable exhibitions during his tenure included Christian Dior, Kent Monkman: Being Legendary, and Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.
A new museum of contemporary art, Muzej Lah, will open in the Slovenian town of Bled next summer. Designed by David Chipperfield Architects, the 5,000 sq. m building will house the Fundacija Lah art collection, built over 30 years by Slovenia’s sixth richest family, Igor and Mojca Lah. The collection includes over 800 post-war works by artists such as Anselm Kiefer, William Kentridge, and Zoran Mušič, as well as pieces from the political art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). The museum will feature galleries, a library, research centre, restaurant, and spaces for performances and educational initiatives.
Kent Monkman's exhibition "History is Painted by the Victors" is on view at the Denver Art Museum (DAM) through August 17, before traveling to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on September 27. The show centers on Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, a fictional narrator who appears throughout Monkman's work to disrupt false narratives about Indigenous history and colonization. The article excerpts a catalog essay explaining how Monkman created Miss Chief as a campy, humorous, and empowering figure who infuses Indigenous perspectives into art history, often inserting her into iconic artworks to subvert colonial tropes.
The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University held its first benefit gala in over twenty years in New York City on May 12, 2025. The event honored Lizbeth Krupp, longtime Chair of the museum's Board of Advisors, and acclaimed artist Hugh Hayden, whose major survey "Hugh Hayden: Home Work" is currently on view at the museum. Co-chaired by Sara Friedlander and Abigail Ross Goodman, the gala raised over $900,000 toward a new $2 million Exhibition Endowment Fund, seeded by a lead gift from Krupp, to support future contemporary art exhibitions.