The Best Art Exhibitions in New York Right Now (November 2026)
Pollock and Krasner at the Met, Brancusi at MoMA, Pop at the Guggenheim and a new Vermeer conversation at the Frick. Here’s what’s on, what closes first, and what opens this month.
If you see one show, make it Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous at the Met (through Jan 31) or Brancusi: The Artist and His Studio at MoMA (through Feb 27). Closing first: MoMA’s Architects of Liberation (Jan 2) and Guggenheim Pop (Jan 10). Opening this month: Kent Monkman’s response to a Vermeer at the Frick (from Nov 12).
How this list works. We checked the title and dates of every show below on the museum’s own website on November 4, 2026, and we update this page every month. It covers art exhibitions at New York’s major museums, grouped by when they close. We describe what each show is and why it might be worth your time. We don’t star-rate shows we haven’t seen.
Going to London or Paris instead? See the best exhibitions in London and in Paris.
Closing soon: see these by mid-January
Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa
Museum of Modern Art · through Jan 2, 2027
After Ghana’s independence in 1957 and the seventeen independences of 1960, new West African nations used modern architecture to present a forward-looking image of themselves. The first major museum show on that story, told through drawings, models and photographs. The first to close on this list.
Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses
Brooklyn Museum · through Jan 3, 2027
The Dutch designer’s couture, which blends traditional handwork with new technologies. The show looks at the body, clothing and the space around them. A good pick if you think fashion shows aren’t for you.
Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum · through Jan 10, 2027
Six decades of Pop and its descendants, up the rotunda ramp. Highlights include Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, the banana taped to a wall, and a Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrored Room on loan.
The Lost World: The Art of Minnie Evans
Whitney Museum of American Art · through Jan 10, 2027
Minnie Evans made her first drawing in 1935, prompted by dreams and visions, and kept going for decades. Radiant crayon drawings, paintings and collages mixing Afro-Caribbean imagery, mythology and religion.
Costume Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · through Jan 10, 2027
The Costume Institute’s 2026 exhibition pairs garments from the Met’s collection with paintings and sculpture to explore how clothing and the body have been depicted together.
Ecologies of Painting
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · through Jan 17, 2027
How painters including Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Nicolas Poussin pictured humanity’s relationship with nature.
Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450–1500
The Frick Collection · through Jan 18, 2027
About forty Renaissance bronzes from Siena, many never shown outside Tuscany before. Small, exquisite objects in one of the city’s most beautiful museums.
The Surrealist Book: Tomorrow Lives in Mirrors
Museum of Modern Art · through Jan 23, 2027
Surrealism on the page, from a book bound with shards of glass to love poems merged with solarized photographs. Breton, Cahun, Dalí, Ernst, Toyen and Zürn, from the 1920s to the 1960s.
The big shows: on into 2027
Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · through Jan 31, 2027
Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock together, in the first major New York presentation of either artist in more than 20 years. The headline show of the season.
Art of Manga
Brooklyn Museum · through Jan 31, 2027
More than 600 original manga drawings, including pages from Inuyasha and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It’s billed as the first major exhibition in the Americas to treat manga as an art form.
Brancusi: The Artist and His Studio
Museum of Modern Art · through Feb 27, 2027
Constantin Brancusi’s sculpture seen through his Paris studio, where he lived, worked and staged his pieces until the studio became a work of art in itself. Includes Bird in Space, which US customs once refused to accept as art.
Orientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · through Feb 28, 2027
The Met’s first exhibition with Orientalism as its central subject: how European and American artists pictured North Africa and the Middle East, and what they invented.
Chasing Clouds
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · through Feb 28, 2027
Clouds as artists and scientists have studied them, from symbols of the sublime to weather observed. A quieter show to pair with a bigger one.
Taryn Simon: Father Country I Do Love You
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum · through Mar 14, 2027
Nearly a decade in the making, a project tracing one woman’s real life, with interactive works including a sculpture based on an ancient election machine.
Cézanne to Modigliani: Gifts of Modern Art from the Pearlman Collection
Brooklyn Museum · through Apr 18, 2027
More than 50 modern European works, by Cézanne and Modigliani along with Degas, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Soutine, from one of the most important gifts in the museum’s history.
Roy Lichtenstein: Like New
Whitney Museum of American Art · through May 10, 2027
Lichtenstein’s breakthrough Pop paintings, made from comic-book and newspaper images that he reworked and enlarged. Pairs naturally with Guggenheim Pop.
Yoko Ono: IMAGINE PEACE
Museum of Modern Art · through spring 2027
An installation of Ono’s peace messages, which she has spread on billboards, postcards and clothing since the WAR IS OVER! campaign she started with John Lennon in 1969. MoMA lists the closing date only as spring 2027.
Charles Burchfield: Elemental
Whitney Museum of American Art · through spring 2027
Five decades of watercolors of wildflowers, insects, storms and changing seasons by a painter who called nature a “tremendous force”.
Opening this month
Kent Monkman: Officer and Laughing Girl
The Frick Collection · Nov 12, 2026 – Feb 22, 2027
New paintings by the Cree artist Kent Monkman, who reworks European art history from an Indigenous perspective, responding to Vermeer’s Officer and Laughing Girl, one of the Frick’s three Vermeers. See it next to the original.
Off the main track
A Living Vision: The Sorolla Gallery at 100
Hispanic Society Museum & Library · through May 27, 2027
An outdoor exhibition on Audubon Terrace marking a century since Joaquín Sorolla’s monumental Vision of Spain murals were installed, with photographs and sketches. It’s worth the trip uptown for the murals themselves.
Tips for exhibition-going in New York
- Book timed tickets for the big shows, especially at weekends. Many exhibitions are included with admission, but popular shows still sell out time slots.
- Pair shows by neighborhood. The Met, the Guggenheim, the Frick and the Neue Galerie are all on or near Fifth Avenue. MoMA is in Midtown, the Whitney sits by the High Line, and Brooklyn needs half a day of its own.
- Check the closing date, not the opening buzz. Shows get the most attention when they open and the biggest crowds in their final weeks. Mid-run weekday mornings are the calmest time.
- Check the dates again before you go. Museums occasionally extend shows or close galleries at short notice. Every link above goes to the museum, so confirm there.
Frequently asked questions
What are the biggest art exhibitions in New York right now?
Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous at the Met (through January 31, 2027), Brancusi: The Artist and His Studio at MoMA (through February 27, 2027), Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now (through January 10, 2027) and Roy Lichtenstein: Like New at the Whitney (through May 10, 2027).
Which New York exhibitions close soonest?
MoMA’s Architects of Liberation closes January 2, Iris van Herpen at the Brooklyn Museum on January 3, and Guggenheim Pop, Minnie Evans at the Whitney and the Met’s Costume Art all close on January 10, 2027.
Do I need a separate ticket for exhibitions in New York museums?
It depends on the museum and the show. Many exhibitions are included with general admission, while some major shows need a timed ticket. Check the exhibition page before you go, and book ahead for weekends.
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