Category: Exhibitions

In the first exhibition to be held in The Frick Collection’s new special exhibition galleries, three works by Johannes Vermeer will be presented from June 18 through September 8, 2025. The unprecedented installation Vermeer’s Love Letters centers on the Frick’s iconic Mistress and Maid, uniting it with two special loans: The Love Letter from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and Woman Writing a Letter, with Her Maid from the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Presented together in a single gallery for the first time, this trio of works will offer visitors the opportunity to consider Vermeer’s exploration of themes of letter writing and epistolary exchange in the context of the seventeenth-century domestic settings for which the artist is renowned.

States Xavier F. Salomon, the Frick’s Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, “On the heels of the museum’s public reopening on April 17, it is fitting that we are debuting our new special exhibition galleries with a closer look at the work of Vermeer, one of the most popular artists in our collection. His Mistress and Maid is the final masterpiece that Henry Clay Frick acquired before his death, making this inaugural show a particularly appropriate tribute to his legacy as a collector.”

 In the 500th year since Lorenzo Lotto’s departure from Bergamo, after 12 years of intense activity, the Carrara Academy celebrates the artist by exceptionally hosting the San Bernardino Altarpiece, a masterpiece from the church of the same name located just 500 meters from the museum, which is currently closed to the public. This is an itinerary that, in addition to celebrating the painter, will include an original photographic intervention by Axel Hütte, who will appropriate Lotto’s painting to tell its story through the contemporary language of photography.

The bee is the popular figure of the 21st century. The major spring exhibition provides a comprehensive insight into the exciting history of the bee in art, from the Renaissance to the present day.

For the first time, this story is being told in an exhibition using top-class works of art. Never before has it been possible to experience the wide variety of roles played by the bee as vividly as in our exhibition. Surprising stories, instructive tales, philosophical ideas and astonishing allegories can be marveled at around this insect. Many of the stories are still touching today, because the bee has always been the inspiration for the visualization of general human feelings and ideals.

In the age of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 – 1669), the biblical Book of Esther was a key source of inspiration for diverse communities in Holland, both Jewish and Christian. Traditionally, the Esther story is read annually on the Jewish holiday of Purim. For immigrant Jewish communities living with new freedom in more tolerant Amsterdam, celebrating Purim—notably through finely produced Esther scrolls and theater productions—became meaningful expressions of Jewish culture. For the Dutch, Queen Esther’s heroism came to represent their emerging nation’s identity. Rembrandt and his contemporaries depicted essential scenes of Esther’s story in paintings, prints, drawings, and decorative arts. This exhibition gives expression to this full range of the Book of Esther’s popularity and meaning in Rembrandt’s time. 

Organised in partnership with Prague’s National Gallery, this exhibition comprises around a hundred works (objets d’art, sculptures, paintings, prints and drawings, scientific instruments, manuscripts, etc.), most of which were commissioned or purchased by Rudolf II for his Kunstkammer. The majority of the works come from Prague collections and the Louvre, but there are also items from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, and the Bibliothèque de l'Observatoire in Paris.

In the art world, the Prague court is still associated with a paroxysm of late Mannerism with its sophisticated allegories, whimsical colouring and doctrines of artificial elegance. Its historical counterpart might be the figure of Rudolf himself: an aesthete and a neurasthenic emperor.

This exhibition aims to shed light on another, lesser-known facet of the art produced at Rudolf II's court. Alongside this ‘mannerist’ influence, there was a second ‘naturalist’ current: this included artists who depicted nature, whether they focused on capturing landscapes like Roelandt Savery, Peter Stevens and Paulus van Vianen, or on representing flowers and animals on parchment, as Hans Hoffmann, Daniel Fröschl and Joris Hoefnagel did, or on panels, as Savery did. 

s mysterious as he is celebrated, Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) is a rare artist. The Condé Museum has the second-largest collection of his works in France after the Louvre – four paintings and six drawings – and this nucleus serves as the starting point for a new exhibition at the Château de Chantilly. Also featuring several loans, it offers a never-before-seen glimpse into the artist’s most important and iconic works, revealing the intimate secrets and studio practices behind his masterpieces. [...]

To present Watteau’s work in its best light, the Condé Museum has restored many of its masterpieces, which will be presented alongside loans of paintings and drawings to shed light on the artist at the height of his career. Leading experts on Watteau have also collaborated on the show, resulting in new discoveries and research. The exhibition explores the sources of Watteau’s inspiration, revealing how he crafted his compositions and the effects he aimed to create, to offer a unique glimpse into the origins of some of the most mysterious paintings ever produced.

Social climbing was a competitive sport in Tudor England, requiring a complex range of skills, strategies, and techniques. How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition invites you into a world of lace ruffs, jousting, hawks, bad handwriting, scandal, and political factions. Experience the playbooks, the people, and the spectacular fails, as courtiers tried to navigate the minefield of working for a boss who could shower you with riches or chop off your head.

The exhibition features more than 60 objects from the Folger’s collection to demonstrate the “rules” for how to be a successful courtier. They show how historical and literary figures ranging from royal advisors to household staff used cunning, cutthroat, and creative means to acquire power and curry favor with the Tudor monarchs.

Art played a pivotal role during the dawn of European natural history in the 16th and 17th centuries. Advancements in scientific technology, trade, and colonial expansion allowed naturalists to study previously unknown and overlooked insects, animals, and other beestjes, or “little beasts.”  Artists such as Joris Hoefnagel and Jan van Kessel helped deepen and spread knowledge of these creatures with highly detailed and playful works that inspired generations of printmakers, painters, decorative artists, and naturalists.

A delight for all ages, this exhibition features nearly 75 of these paintings, prints, and drawings in a unique presentation alongside specimens and taxidermy from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Learn about the rich exchange between artists and naturalists that sparked a fascination with earth’s living creatures, big and small. See how this intersection of art and science continues to inspire us today in a new film by artist Dario Robleto.

 This exhibition will draw from the Center’s rich holdings of the artist’s work, encompassing all media and phases of his nearly sixty-year career. This is the first show at the YCBA to focus on Turner in more than thirty years, displaying the complete arc of his radical artistic evolution. The exhibition will examine the contradictory nature of this revolutionary figure, who was as inspired by the past luminaries of the European landscape tradition as he was determined to surpass their greatest achievements.

“We are thrilled to welcome visitors back to the museum to reconnect with our extraordinary collections,” said Martina Droth, Paul Mellon Director. “Turner is an artist whose groundbreaking works continue to inspire. His work has long been a cornerstone of our collection and we are excited to show our returning and new visitors the full range of our Turner holdings.”

In the wake of the important studies by Carlo Knight (who recently passed away) and the great exhibition at the British Museum in 1996, the Gallerie d'Italia - Naples is dedicating its 2024 autumn exhibition to William Hamilton, His British Majesty’s ambassador at the  court of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon and his wife Maria Carolina of Hapsburg. Diplomat, antiquarian and volcanologist, Hamilton, with his multifaceted personality, found fertile ground in the “Enlightened” Naples of the second half of the 18th century to affirm and develop his great passions, antiquity and science.

The sections through which the exhibition will unfold will highlight his great interest in volcanology, landscape painting, music, and collecting, as well as the role he played in Neapolitan society of the time, amplified by the sometimes legendary figure of Lady Emma Hamilton. In reconsidering and promoting the extraordinary human, political and intellectual story of a man who was undoubtedly one of the greatest interpreters of his time, leaving a profound mark on the city, the exhibition will also trace the fruitful cultural and artistic exchanges that took place between Italy and the United Kingdom at a key moment in European history.

Technical art history brings together art historians, conservators and scientists to gain deeper insights into works of art and the methods and intentions of their makers. A new exhibit opening Jan. 30 at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke, “On the Same Wavelength: Art, Science and Conservation,” explores the challenges and many accomplishments of these efforts.

Using microscopes, specialized cameras, scanners, and different wavelengths of light, the team examined objects from the Nasher Museum’s permanent collection, ranging from ancient American ceramics to a contemporary artwork made from found plastic.

Through the ever-evolving lens of technical art history, On the Same Wavelength presents the discoveries about these objects’ materials, original uses, and the techniques used to create them. This exhibition also highlights the role of the museum in navigating challenges related to an object’s condition, display and evolution over time because of aging and conservation.

Pablo Picasso’s prolonged engagement with paper is the subject of the groundbreaking exhibition Picasso and Paper, organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in partnership with the Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Showcasing nearly 300 works spanning the artist’s career, the exhibition highlights Picasso’s relentless exploration of paper. His appreciation of and experimentation with the material is revealed in the works ranging from collages of cut-and-pasted papers to sculptures from pieces of torn and burnt paper, manipulated photographs, drawings in virtually all available media, and prints in an array of techniques. The exhibition’s highlights include Femmes à leur toilette (1937–38), an extraordinarily large collage (9 13/16 x 14 1/2 feet) of cut-and-pasted papers, which will be exhibited for the first time in the United States; outstanding Cubist papiers collés; artist’s sketchbooks, including studies for his best known paintings, including Les Demoiselles d’Avignon; constructed paper guitars from the Cubist and Surrealist periods; and an array of works related to major paintings and sculptural projects.

A selection of approximately 40 paintings, prints, and drawings from the BMA’s collection explores the role of water and landscape in defining the early modern Dutch Republic.

The water’s edge was a site of rich and often fraught ideas, where environmental, economic, political, and social narratives came to the fore. It also served as a site of immense inspiration for Dutch artists such as Frans Hals, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Salomon Van Ruysdael, among many others. Landscapes depicting harbors, trade, travel, and leisure abounded, as did the production of maps, still lifes, and portraits. Together, these images offer insight into the identity of the young Dutch Republic.

Presented as part of the Turn Again to the Earth environmental initiative.