A New Year in Art: Winter & Spring 2026 Museum Guide

A New Year in Art:

Winter & Spring 2026 Museum Guide

Happy 2026! This new year welcomes a host of fantastic museum exhibitions across New York.

We are pleased to share Artmuse’s first art guide of the new year, with our selection of historic and contemporary museum shows that promise 2026 to be an exciting year in art.

INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

Rodin’s Egypt

Now on view at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World is a fascinating exhibition highlighting Rodin’s fixation with ancient Egypt. Curated by Bénédicte Garnier, a curator at Paris’s Musee Rodin, and presenting over sixty works borrowed from Musee Rodin alongside items from the Met, this exhibition features Egyptian artifacts Rodin himself collected and the sculptures he made that were inspired by them.

Through March 15

15 East 84th Street

JEWISH MUSEUM

Joan Semmel: In the Flesh

In her career spanning over five decades, the boundary-pushing artist Joan Semmel upended the idea of the “nude” as a figurative painter with her bold, gestural, and hyperreal representations of the body. In the Flesh puts together monumental paintings by Semmel from across her career alongside works pulled from the Museum’s collection. Together, these pieces form a dialogue around ideas of beauty, agency, and self-perception and highlight precisely why Semmel was a pioneering feminist artist alongside her peers Judith Bernstein, Louise Bourgeois, Joyce Kozloff, Hannah Wilke, and others.

Through May 31

1109 5th Avenue (at 92nd Street)

Joan Semmel, "Sunlight," 1978, oil on canvas, 60 × 96 in. (152.4 × 243.8 cm). The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Fine Arts Acquisition Fund, 2010-35 © 2025 Joan Semmel / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

THE MET

Raphael: Sublime Poetry

Though the Renaissance titan Raffaello di Giovanni Santi (1483-1520)—better known as Raphael —only lived 37 years, his works across painting, design, and architecture would cement his name as one of the greatest artists to ever live and color the idea of a “Renaissance man." Raphael: Sublime Poetry is the first comprehensive exhibition on Raphael in the United States and will unite over 200 world-class works from around the world that highlight this legendary artist’s brilliant ability to capture emotion, depth, spirituality, and the human condition across mediums.

March 29-June 28

1000 Fifth Avenue

THE GUGGENHEIM

Gabriele Münter: Countours of a World

A leading figure in the European modern art movement of the early 20th-centur, Gabriele Münter was known for her vivid experimentations across portrait, lanscape, and still life painting. A founder of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter, Münter lived and worked alongside Wassily Kandinsky but resisted the lure into pure abstraction like her counterparts and instead favored an original, colorful, and formal way of painting that catapulted her to the forefront of Munich’s avant-garde scene. The expansive exhibition at the Guggenheim presents over fifty paintings presented alongside nineteen photographs taken by the artist, revealing a life filled with curiosity about her community and the world around her.

Through April 26

1071 Fifth Avenue (at 88th Street)

Gabriele Münter, Portrait of Anna Roslund (Bildnis Anna Roslund), 1917. Oil on canvas, 37 3/16 × 26 15/16 in. (94.5 × 68.5 cm). Leicester Museums and Galleries, Purchased from Sotheby’s with the assistance of the National Art Collections Fund, MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the Museum Fund, 1991. © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: Reproduced courtesy of Leicester Museums and Galleries

MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

Robert Rauschenberg’s New York: Pictures from the Real World

Celebrating the 100th birthday of Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), Robert Rauschenberg’s New York: Pictures from the Real World explores Rauschenberg’s radical integration of photography and found objects into his artworks. Combining many works that re-contextualize Rauschenberg’s pioneering photography practice, this exhibition will also highlight the artist’s deep engagement with the realities of urban life—shedding light on Rauschenberg’s complex relationship with New York City in particular.

Through April 19

1220 Fifth Avenue (at 103rd Street)

STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM

From Now: A Collection in Context

Composed entirely of works from the Studio Museum’s significant collection of artworks inspired by global Black experiences, From Now is a shifting installation of works put in conversation with one another. Evolving over the course of this year, From Now will explore the many voices, generations, and perspectives of artists of African descent. Artworks that are rarely on view will be exhibited alongside iconic works, highlighting the vitality of Black culture and the prowess of the Museum’s collection.

This expansive exhibition includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Sanford Biggers,Jordan Casteel, Melvin Edwards, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Lyle Ashton Harris, Barkley L. Hendricks, Juliana Huxtable, Isaac Julien, Titus Kaphar, Jacob Lawrence, Deana Lawson, Simone Leigh, Ralph Lemon, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Chris Ofili, Lorraine O’Grady, Jennifer Packer, Gordon Parks, Faith Ringgold, Deborah Roberts, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Malick Sidibé, Lorna Simpson, Martine Syms, Henry Taylor, Alma Thomas, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Deborah Willis, Fred Wilson, Jack Whitten, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and many others.

Through August 16

144 West 125th Street

Barkley Hendricks, Lawdy Mama, 1969.

THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL

Old Masters, New Amsterdam

Opening this spring, Old Masters, New Amsterdam spotlights delightful works by the Dutch Old Masters wherein these canonical artists turned their eyes to a new Dutch settlement in America called New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. This extraordinary exhibition will feature the work of Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, and Jan Steen, among others, and spotlight early scenes of this amazing city.

May 1-August 30, 2026

170 Central Park West (at 77th Street)

Peasants Merrymaking Outside an Inn, Jan Steen (1626-1679). Courtesy of The Leiden Collection, New York

MoMA

Marcel Duchamp

Though Marcel Duchamp is one of the most famous artists of the twentieth century, there has not been a retrospective on the artist’s work in the United States since 1973—until now! Featuring over 300 artworks and providing a sweeping account of Duchamp’s career from 1900 to 1968, Marcel Duchamp will provide a meaningful look at this artist’s profound impactful across Dada, Surrealism, Cubism, Pop Art, and the very meaning of art itself.

April 12-August 22

11 West 53rd Street

THE MORGAN LIBRARY

Come Together: 3,000 Years of Storytelling

Combining over 130 works of drawings, paintings, photographs, printed books, manuscripts, artifacts, comics, and more from the Morgan’s expansive collection, Come Together: 3,000 Years of Storytelling explores how beloved stories shape our world. Tracing the trajectory of legends and myths from across history, this exhibition will examine the importance of cultural transmission. This exhibition will feature artifacts, texts and artworks by a range of artists, including Henry David Thoreau, Kara Walker, Philip Guston, Nancy Spero, and many others.

January 30-May 3

225 Madison Avenue (at 36th Street)

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

Whitney Biennial 2026

The longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States, the Whitney Biennial will present its 82nd edition this year with the work by 56 artists (and counting!) that reflect upon our current moment. This year, the Biennial will deeply examines relationships—from familial ties to geopolitical entanglements—as it provides a picture of American art today.

Opening March 8

99 Gansevoort Street

NEW MUSEUM

In early 2026, the New Museum will reopen to the public with a doubled exhibition space after its 60,000-square foot expansion. Marking the museum’s new chapter will be new commissions by contemporary powerhouses Tschabalala Self and Sarah Lucas, a site-specific sculpture by Czech artist Klára Hosnedlová that draws on Eastern Bloc architecture and craft traditions, as well as the exhibition New Humans: Memories of the Future that explores the ever-evolving relationship between technology and humans.

235 Bowery