The season is structured around three themes: dialogue, female visibility, and light. The curators from the four capitals seem to have agreed to present artists in pairs: Monet alongside Renoir, Lee Krasner alongside Pollock, Vanessa Bell alongside Duncan Grant—transforming painting from an internal monologue into a conversation between spouses, rivals, or collaborators.
The second recurring theme is women stepping out of someone else’s shadow: Mary Cassatt, symbolizing the “choice of independence”; Lee Krasner, who is finally being recognized not merely as “Pollock’s wife”; Louise Bourgeois with her “extreme tension,” and Vanessa Bell as an equal member of the Bloomsbury Group. The third major theme is the return of Impressionism and the southern sun: Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, the French Riviera, Gustave Faye. If you’ve been missing the sun, there will be plenty of it this ZIMA, from Trafalgar Square to the Orsay waterfront.
Through September 15, 2026
In the summer of 1869, the then-young artists Monet and Renoir set up their easels side by side on the banks of the Seine near Paris and painted the same lively scene of fashionable Parisians enjoying their leisure time. Despite the shared subject matter, their works reveal surprisingly different approaches to representation. For the first time in nearly twenty years, the National Gallery is once again bringing together two of these famous paintings, created in La Grenouillère, and displaying them side by side. Now, visitors can closely examine every brushstroke, compare the individual Impressionist styles of both artists, and sense the friendship that helped shape one of the most influential movements in Western art. The exhibition explores how a style is born—through constant comparison with the person standing next to the easel.
October 3, 2026 – January 31, 2027
Renoir once again, the chronicler of intimacy! A new exhibition featuring paintings from the 1860s–1880s reveals the artist’s gift for capturing love, friendship, and everyday emotions—from couples waltzing and lovers exchanging glances to families and friends sharing a drink. On display for the first time in the UK is the iconic *Ball at the Moulin de la Galette* from the Musée d’Orsay, alongside nearly 40 works from collections around the world that invite visitors into the sun-drenched gardens and elegant ballrooms of Paris. Organized by the Musée d’Orsay, the National Gallery, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, offers visitors the chance to savor the tenderness and joy of the artist’s most inspiring paintings and invites them to view his work through a unique lens—the theme of love in all its forms.
November 21, 2026 – April 11, 2027
For the first time in history, all nine known portraits by Jan van Eyck—half of his surviving works—have been brought together: just this once, and only at the National Gallery. It was van Eyck who pioneered portrait painting as we know it—he was one of the first to use oil paint and to demonstrate the luminous effect it produces, and his vision and mastery ushered in an era of incredible realism, where watchful eyes, light stubble, wrinkles, and rosy cheeks make these people—ordinary artisans, merchants, and the artist’s relatives who lived 600 years ago—strikingly vivid and relatable.
February 25 – June 27, 2027
The first-ever exhibition at Tate Modern devoted exclusively to Claude Monet will show how the artist responded to the rapid changes of his era—railroads, industrialization, and the modern city—and how, through series such as “The Poplars” and “Saint-Lazare Station,” he sought to capture fleeting moments. Don’t miss Monet’s later works and his obsession with time—series in which the same scene takes on different life depending on the time of day and the weather. This is the culmination of the season’s “Impressionist wave.”
October 9, 2026 – February 7, 2027
Tim Walker, one of the most “theatrical” photographers of our time, invites you to explore his “Fairyland” through his lens—an exhibition that explores queer identity, community, and love. Over the past five years, he has photographed dozens of activists, artists, and writers in his signature whimsical style, inspired by fairy tales, and combined these portraits with fantastical landscapes in a vibrant celebration of the freedom to be oneself. Tickets are not yet on sale but will be available this summer—subscribe to the gallery’s newsletter to be the first to know when tickets go on sale.
October 2, 2026 – January 31, 2027
The Royal Academy of Arts will explore the love affair between the great innovators of art and… the French Riviera. The light, the water, and the resort-like leisure of the Côte d’Azur have so often served as the driving force behind great art that this relationship truly can and should be examined. For Monet, it was akin to “swimming in blue air”; for Braque, a “joyful revelation”; and Derain compared its azure hues to “sticks of dynamite… ready to explode with light.” More than 160 works—from paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, and Renoir to sculptures, posters, and films—show how, starting in the 1870s, the famous coastline became a refuge from the stifling city and inspired Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and Modernists to reach new creative heights. The perfect escape from the London ZIMA.
November 12, 2026 – April 11, 2027
This fall, Tate Britain will host a major exhibition featuring Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant—two key figures of the Bloomsbury Group. The exhibition explores their extraordinary relationship and creative partnership, which spanned more than half a century, through over 300 works: vivid portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and decorative art. Special emphasis is placed on a unique reconstruction of their studio from their home in Charleston and on how these artists, committed to freedom and radical experimentation, forever changed British art. Another “duo” of the season—and an opportunity to reexamine Vanessa Bell’s role as an artist in her own right, rather than merely a companion to the group.
October 7, 2026 – January 25, 2027
This coming fall and ZIMA, the Napoleon Hall will host “Sculpture of Color”—masterpieces from the National Sculpture Museum in Valladolid, on display alongside the Zurbarán exhibition. Spanish Baroque sculpture—the kind that lived in churches rather than museums, with its pronounced physicality and vibrant colors—will help visitors understand the atmosphere of the era of Velázquez, Murillo, and Zurbarán, when painting and sculpture were closely intertwined. The centerpiece is a monumental ensemble by Gregorio Fernández, along with other major works never before exhibited in France, including pieces by Alonso Cano, Pedro de Mena, and Luisa Roldán.
October 6, 2026 – January 31, 2027
For the first time in the history of French national museums, the Musée d’Orsay is dedicating a major exhibition to Mary Cassatt, an American artist among the French Impressionists who painted women and children without sentimentality and asserted her right to an independent creative path—in honor of the centennial of her death. Nearly 80 paintings, pastels, and prints from European and American collections trace her journey through the lens of independence: from her study of the Old Masters to her pivotal role in Impressionism, where, at the invitation of Edgar Degas, she participated in the “Independents” exhibitions. This is a new portrait of an artist who, while remaining “American to the core,” lived in France for six decades and forever changed art on both sides of the Atlantic. The title speaks for itself—this is an exhibition about independence as a choice.
October 20, 2026 – February 21, 2027
The National Library of France (Richelieu Site) will host the exhibition “Louise Bourgeois: Extreme Tension,” dedicated to her drawings and prints. For the first time since 2008, the museum is showcasing the artist’s graphic legacy, revealing how drawing, printmaking, and sculpture fed into one another in her deeply personal creative style. At the center is the monumental 2007 series “Extreme Tension,” which explores the aging body and pain, alongside early works, “Woman-House” and her final works in red, symbolizing flesh, blood, and motherhood. Bourgeois at her limit: anxiety, memory, the body, family, and gender boundaries—themes she transformed into sculpture and printmaking with almost surgical precision. “Extreme Tension” is an exhibition about how art helps us endure the unbearable.
September 23, 2026 — January 17, 2027
Yet another artistic dialogue, this time between us, the viewers, and Cézanne. The Grand Palais will host the exhibition “Cézanne and Us”—featuring about 180 works, 70 of which are by Paul Cézanne himself. The exhibition will tell a twofold story: his fundamental influence on art from the 1880s to the present day, and how generations of artists—from his early followers to the postwar abstract movement—made him “the father of us all,” as Picasso called him. It is a dialogue between Cézanne and other creators and artists who, through him, reinvented painting, and a look at his role in the postmodern era.
October 9, 2026 — March 8, 2027
The Louis Vuitton Foundation offers a glimpse into modernism through the eyes of a collector: Gustave Faye collected icons of modern art and was himself an artist and designer. Faye—a collector and designer—remained in the shadows for a long time. For the first time in a century, more than 250 works from his scattered collection have been brought together, including 10 paintings by Vincent van Gogh, 78 canvases by Gauguin, and hundreds of items from his collection—ceramics, rugs, textiles, and watercolors—many of which have been specially restored. The exhibition reveals how Faye, one of the earliest advocates of the avant-garde, combined collecting, creativity, and the decorative arts, demonstrating that a collector’s taste is also a form of authorship.
October 25, 2026 – February 27, 2027
The Museum of Modern Art in New York will present a major retrospective of Constantin Brancusi’s sculptural legacy through the lens of his Paris studio on Impasse Ronsin. For more than forty years, this studio served as his home, workshop, meeting place, and exhibition space, where he blurred the boundaries between pedestal and object, form and surroundings. Interestingly, Brancusi considered his studio to be part of his artwork. Visitors will see rare sculptures alongside films, photographs, and archival materials from the Centre Pompidou’s Atelier Brancusi—a unique opportunity to experience the artist’s world in its entirety. The exhibition explores where sculpture ends and the space around it begins.
October 4, 2026 – January 31, 2027
Another highlight—and perhaps the most important theme of the season—is that artist Lee Krasner is recognized as an equal, rather than merely a shadow, of her husband, Jackson Pollock. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present the first major New York exhibition of both artists in more than twenty years—“Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous.” More than 120 works trace the couple’s journey for the first time: from their meeting in 1941 and their life in Springs to the personal and artistic intertwining that gave rise to the defining genre of American art—Abstract Expressionism. The exhibition shows how Pollock, with his dripping (his signature technique of splattering paint), and Krasner, with her exploration of abstraction, nature, and color, influenced one another, — and how today both rightfully stand at the center of mid-20th-century art.
September 2026 – January 2027
New York’s premier showcase of emerging art: the triennial that serves as a barometer for where the contemporary art scene is headed. The New Museum in New York has announced a major exhibition program for the “Fall 2026–ZIMA 2027” season, which will take place in the museum’s recently expanded building. The fall program includes the largest retrospective to date of the renowned media artist Arthur Jafa, the first New York solo exhibition by Italian director Diego Marcon, and a historical project dedicated to the 500-year evolution of Bowery Street. The season will conclude in January 2027 with the New Museum’s sixth Triennial, bringing together young artists from around the world under the theme of exploring systemic change and alternative forms of collaboration.
October 22, 2026 – February 7, 2027
The Other Side of the Gilded Age: Working Sketches from the Tiffany Studios. Nearly 120 watercolor sketches from the 1880s–1920s reveal for the first time in detail how the era’s famous stained-glass windows, lamps, mosaics, and interiors for mansions and public buildings came to be. Alongside the original sketches are the finished works—many of which have long been lost or were never realized—revealing the collective effort of the artists at the Tiffany studio. “Design as Craft and Industry” is an exhibition offering a rare opportunity to see how luxury was conceived and brought to life.
October 9, 2026 — January 25, 2027
In the fall of 2026, the Berlinische Galerie will present a major exhibition titled “Lovis Corinth. Then Came Berlin!”, dedicated to the virtuoso of German Modernism, whose bold, expressive paintings have inspired generations of artists, from Georg Baselitz to Lucien Freud. The exhibition will explore the artist’s meteoric rise on the Berlin art scene and showcase his lifestyle, which was remarkably progressive for its time. A special focus of the exhibition is Corinth’s private life: the artist attached great significance to creating domestic, intimate scenes, in which his wife, Charlotte Berend-Corinth, served as his primary muse and protagonist.
September 13, 2026 – May 30, 2027 (opens September 12, 2026)
The KINDL Center for Contemporary Art in Berlin will host a large-scale installation by renowned conceptual artist Misha Kuball. The artist will transform the impressive space of the former boiler house (Kesselhaus) into an immersive light installation that connects the site’s industrial past with its present. Using light, Kuball reinterprets the architecture and socio-political contexts, transforming the building into a living statement. The opening reception will be hypnotically complemented by a discussion program and live sets featuring electronic sounds on the clarinet and cello.
September 11 – October 24, 2026
The Sprüth Magers gallery in Berlin will host the exhibition “Let’s Get Married, Let’s Get Lost”—the first showing of Walter Dan’s works since his death in 2024. Dan’s works examine the visual ideologies of art and everyday life, posing existential questions. The project, timed to coincide with Berlin Art Week, pays tribute to the pioneer of “bad painting” and co-founder of the Mülheimer Freiheit group. The exhibition covers key stages in the career of an artist who reimagined postmodern painting through the lens of music, popular culture, and the exploration of visual ideologies.
October 22, 2026 — February 28, 2027
In this anniversary year, works from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries—all drawn from a single collection—are on display across all three floors of the Old National Gallery. Nineteenth-century classics engage in a lively dialogue with works by contemporary artists—from Miró and Warhol to Andreas Gursky. The exhibition invites visitors to view the works associatively, without rigid boundaries between eras. Don’t miss these unexpected encounters across time—they’re worth seeing with your own eyes.
So, we’re in for a season where it’s easier than ever to plan an itinerary around a single theme—whether it’s Impressionist light, a reevaluation of women artists, or art created by two artists, whether in collaboration or in competition. Choose whatever takes your fancy!
And if you’d like to know our picks—here’s what you can’t miss:
• For a unique experience: “Krasner and Pollock” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art;
• For the light: “Painting the French Riviera” at the Royal Academy or late Monet at the Tate;
• For something rare: Spanish Baroque sculpture at the Louvre;
• For a glimpse into the future: the New Museum Triennial;
• For women’s voices: Cassatt at the Orsay, Bourgeois at the Richelieu, and Vanessa Bell at Tate Britain.
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