This fall and winter, a diverse range of art exhibitions will open across the United States, showcasing established and emerging artists as well as thematic explorations spanning different cultures and historical periods.

Kicking off the season on the West Coast, Suzanne Jackson’s first major retrospective will run from September 26 to January 18 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Known for her ethereal, light-filled paintings, Jackson has also worked as a dancer, poet, set designer, and gallerist. Concurrently, conceptual artists Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins will be featured in a show titled "The Poetic Jump" at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Upper Manhattan through February 7, 2026. The couple’s works include drawings, sculptures, and unconventional architectural designs aimed at challenging viewers’ perceptions and bodily experiences.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters will also host a yearlong series of exhibitions inspired by the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse. The relay begins on September 26 with Christopher Williams and will continue through July 3, 2026, highlighting participating artists such as Monika Baer, Aria Dean, and Abraham Cruzvillegas.

Art exhibitions honoring particular artistic legacies and cultural histories will also take center stage. The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles will present a retrospective of Lebanese-born painter and designer Huguette Caland from September 27 to February 28. This exhibition marks her American debut and features a large selection of her vibrant, erotic works, following earlier shows in Madrid and Hamburg.

October will see multiple notable openings, including the Studio Museum in Harlem’s presentation of its 2026 Artists in Residence—Derrian Pharr, Simonette Quamina, and Taylor Simmons—running through January 3, 2026. At the Brooklyn Museum, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art will display more than 100 items, including 53 painted cottonwood Hopi kachina dolls, exploring the life cycle of Hopi women and girls from October 2 through June 27, 2026. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will open a wide-ranging exhibition from October 3 to February 7, 2026, that brings together modern and contemporary Korean art from the private collection of Kim Namjoon, known as the rapper RM, alongside pieces by Rothko, Matisse, and Agnes Martin.

Other significant mid-fall exhibitions include “Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography,” opening at the Milwaukee Art Museum on October 23 and running into mid-January 2026, which documents nearly 200 years of mining through photography. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will host “Brancusi: The Artist and His Studio,” an exhibition of Constantin Brancusi’s iconic sculptures and bronzes from October 25 to February 27, 2026, during renovations at his Paris studio. The Baltimore Museum of Art’s "Woven Monuments," opening the same day and running through March 7, 2026, features monumental tapestries reflecting Senegal’s post-independence graphic culture alongside contemporary works by American artist Diedrick Brackens.

In late October, the Morgan Library will display the first U.S. exhibition of neoclassical Swedish artist Johan Tobias Sergel’s intricate drawings and sculptures, running through January 31, 2026.

November highlights include “Hard Art,” opening November 5 at MoMA PS1, which features 40 Black artists, including Raymond Saunders, Frank Bowling, Nikita Gale, and Carolyn Lazard, focusing on abstraction in various media from the 1970s to the present. The American Museum of Natural History will unveil Jim Hart’s monumental wooden carving "Three Watchmen" on November 13, while the Detroit Institute of Arts reopens its modern art galleries with a major rehang on November 15.

The winter season includes Art Basel Miami Beach from December 4-6, a major international art fair featuring hundreds of exhibitors. Also opening in early December is "States of Listening," a restaging of 1970s audio works by Eliane Radigue at Dia Chelsea, alongside live performances. The Dallas Museum of Art will host "Journey Through Pompeii," showcasing ancient Roman artworks and artifacts on a rare American tour from December 13 to May 2, 2026.

The Memphis Art Museum, formerly the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, will reopen its newly designed cultural campus on December 6 with a major exhibition of 20th-century photographs by Black Tennesseeans from Hooks Brothers Studio and a series of smaller shows covering geometric abstraction, medieval forms, and visual art connected to jazz.

These exhibitions collectively offer a broad spectrum of artistic perspectives, from historic to contemporary, local to global, reflecting a dynamic season in the American art world.