2026 is shaping up to be a great year for art lovers across Europe, with a series of major exhibitions that offer more than just familiar names on museum walls. From long-overdue recognition to fresh, overlooked angles on well-known masters, this curated selection invites visitors to rediscover art through new lenses and unexpected pairings, as well as ambitious curatorial ideas. If one city emerges as the clear winner in 2026, it is Paris.
Late winter: Paris, then Amsterdam
At the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Gerhard Richter (until 2 March 2026) presents a major survey of a career that has relentlessly questioned painting’s relationship to history, memory, and perception, moving between abstraction and realism with unmatched intellectual rigour.
Paname by Bilal Hamdad, at the Petit Palais (until 8 February 2026), extends these concerns into the contemporary city, exploring how painting and photography engage with urban identity, political context, and lived experience.
After Paris, Amsterdam feels like the natural way to close the winter chapter and anticipate spring with Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh’s Favourite Colour (13 February–17 May 2026), at the Van Gogh Museum. The exhibition approaches Vincent Van Gogh through a chromatic lens rather than biography, exploring how yellow shaped art, fashion, music, and literature around 1900, and culminating in a light installation by Olafur Eliasson.
Spring: northbound with Munch, south to Florence and Venice
With longer days returning north and spring flowering in the south, Germany and Norway offer two complementary perspectives on Edvard Munch, while a rare new angle on Mark Rothko emerges in Italy.
At Kunstsilo in Norway, the exhibition, Edvard Munch – Portraits at Kunstsilo (5 February–10 May 2026), explores Munch’s work through the lens of portraiture and social relationships. It reveals him to be an artist embedded in a wide network of friends and patrons, challenging the myth of the solitary genius. Meanwhile, in Hamburg at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (27 March–30 August 2026), Munch is paired with Maria Lassnig, shifting the focus to bodily sensation, emotional intensity, and lived experience.
Tuscany, green and warm but not yet overcrowded, is at its most inviting in the spring.
At Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (14 March–23 August 2026), Rothko in Florence explores how the artist absorbed the city’s frescoes, architecture, and sacred spaces during his visits in the 1950s, particularly the influence of Fra Angelico and Michelangelo.
From Florence, the journey naturally extends east. The Venice Biennale (9 May–22 November 2026) offers a seamless continuation from spring to autumn and is a must-visit for anyone interested in the contemporary European art scene.
Summer: Paris
Back in Paris for the summer, it is but a small step from Renaissance Italy to a Renaissance woman. Lee Miller is finally granted a well-deserved full-scale retrospective (3 April–26 July 2026) at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. The exhibition reframes the former model, who worked closely with Man Ray, before forging her own path as a fashion photographer and war correspondent, as a courageous artist who navigated the upheavals of the 20th century with an unflinching eye, from Vogue studios to the front lines of history.
Autumn: London
The year concludes in London, with two exhibitions that explore identity, power, and cultural change. At Tate Britain, The 90s (from 1 October 2026 to 14 February 2027), curated by Edward Enninful, examines a decade marked by creative freedom and rebellion, when photography, fashion, art, and music converged to reshape British culture in the wake of political and social shifts. Nearby, Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style at the King’s Gallery (10 April–18 October 2026) interprets fashion as a form of soft power. The exhibition brings together around 200 garments to trace Britain’s evolving identity over the course of the Queen’s 70-year reign. It showcases the work of court dressmakers and modern couturiers, highlighting continuity, symbolism, and restraint.
Together, the exhibitions offer a layered snapshot of Britain and provide a fitting conclusion to a year spent travelling for art.
