For art lovers, traveling to view impactful museum exhibitions is a top priority. In 2024, major shows covering art history legends, contemporary masters, and emerging artists will be presented around the world.
This guide covers five of the most anticipated art exhibitions opening next year that are worth planning a trip for. Discover shows featuring iconic creatives like Rachel Ruysch, Frida Kahlo and Henri Cartier in key art capitals like Munich, Berlin and London.
Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
The Alte Pinakothek in Munich will highlight Rachel Ruysch’s remarkable floral still life paintings in this focused retrospective of the trailblazing Dutch Golden Age artist. As one of the most prominent female Old Masters, Ruysch created lush, vivid arrangements that equaled the technical mastery of her male counterparts.
See her intricate works celebrating the wonders of nature up close. She expertly captured the complexity of textures, shadows, and tones in flowers, insects, butterflies and exotic plants. Ruysch’s symbolic still life's stand as meditations on life, death and rebirth.
This exhibition provides an important perspective on a pioneering woman who succeeded in the male-dominated art world of the 17th and 18th centuries. Ruysch, one of Rembrandt’s contemporaries, was inducted into London’s Royal Society of Arts as one of the most esteemed painters of her era.
Frida Kahlo at the Brooklyn Museum
Opening March 2024, the Brooklyn Museum will host the largest US exhibition of Frida Kahlo works in over 40 years. Over 300 objects from her house in Mexico City never before seen in America will be shown. Highlights include personal artifacts, apparel, letters, and early sketches.
This unparalleled exhibition provides intimate insight into Kahlo’s influences, creative process, and personal life. It captures the essence of the trailblazing Mexican artist known for using art to explore identity and resilience.
Watch! Watch! Watch! Henri Cartier-Bresson, Pompidou Centre, Paris
Celebrating street photography pioneer Henri Cartier-Bresson, this Pompidou Centre retrospective covers the sweeping breadth of his work. As one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, he unlocked the power of candid photography as an art form.
See over 500 works spanning his early Surrealist-influenced pieces, iconic candid street photography, and portraits of artistic legends like Giacometti, Dali, and Picasso. Understand how Cartier-Bresson forever changed visual storytelling with his “decisive moment” approach to composition.
This is the first major French retrospective of Cartier-Bresson since the Pompidou Centre's opening in 1977. Discover little-seen early sketches, notebooks, films and more from this giant who elevated documentary photography as an artistic medium.
When We See Us: A Century of Pan-African Figurative Painting, Tate Modern, London
The Tate Modern will present a sweeping showcase of figurative painting from Africa and the diaspora spanning 1920-2020. Experience the stories, perspectives, and voices of Black subjects conveyed powerfully through centuries of portraiture.
Discover how these artists asserted identity, culture and humanity in response to colonialism and oppression. Works range from 1920s Kongo artist Ngongo ya Chintu’s drawings to 21st century pieces by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and many more.
This timely exhibition provides a visual narrative of resistance, celebration and liberation. It establishes generations of influential, politically impactful pan-African artists largely omitted from the Western art canon. Don't miss this revelation of the universality of human experience expressed through African-centred figurative art.
Women Artists in Britain, Tate Britain, London
Starting from 16 May 2024, Tate Britain embarked on an ambitious project showcasing overlooked women artists who were pioneering figures in British art history. Spanning 1650 to now, this exhibition rights past oversights by celebrating 250 years of works across painting, sculpture, photography and video by women largely erased from the dominant narrative.
Encounter Georgian portrait painters like Sarah Stone, Pre-Raphaelites like Evelyn De Morgan, innovative early modernists like Vanessa Bell, mid-century greats like Dame Laura Knight, and Turner Prize winners like Lubaina Hamid and more in this expansive show that makes their enormous contributions. From Renaissance-era artisans to contemporary conceptual creators, discover the astonishing range and impact of British women artists that history books failed to properly recognize.