A surge of gallery exhibitions in New York this January focuses on deceased artists and estates, including shows for Marcia Marcus at Olney Gleason, Hung Liu at Ryan Lee, and Lynn Geesaman at Yancey Richardson. This trend reflects a broader shift toward historical reappraisals, with young dealers increasingly taking on artist estates and museums doubling their share of solo shows for dead artists from 18% in 2019 to nearly 50% in 2025.
CULTURED reports that in 2025, nearly 50 percent of solo exhibitions at New York museums featuring modern and contemporary art focused on deceased artists, more than double the 18 percent share in 2019. Major institutions like MoMA, the Broad, ICA Miami, and the Whitney have programmed posthumous shows for figures such as Wifredo Lam, Helen Frankenthaler, Ruth Asawa, Robert Therrien, Joyce Pensato, Richard Hunt, and Roy Lichtenstein. The article traces this trend to a confluence of factors: ongoing scholarly revisionism, a cultural swing toward equity during the Biden administration, and the long lead times for museum exhibitions that have landed in a more polarized political climate under Trump II.