New York City in autumn is a perfect time to visit museums and galleries. Cool weather and fall foliage make walking between institutions enjoyable, from Museum Mile on the Upper East Side to downtown and beyond. Below are the standout exhibits currently on view across the city.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Man Ray: When Objects Dream situates Man Ray’s camera-less rayographs within the broader context of his work, with 60 rayographs alongside 100 paintings, prints, and photographs, including Le violon d’Ingres. Other Met presentations include Baseball Cards from the Collection of Jefferson R. Burdick (30,000 trading cards through January 20, 2026), Casa Susanna (photography and publications documenting a cross-dressing community), and Allegory and Abstraction: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints (rotating selections through December 9, 2025).
New York Historical Society
The Gay Harlem Renaissance traces contributions by queer Black artists and writers—Alain Locke, Langston Hughes, Bessie Smith—through photographs, documents, and music, highlighting Harlem’s early-20th-century gay-friendly culture. The New York Sari explores South Asian women’s fashion and influence on New York culture from the Gilded Age onward. The Gay Harlem Renaissance is on view through March 8, 2026; The New York Sari through April 26, 2026.
Brooklyn Museum
Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200 (through February 22, 2026) surveys two centuries of the museum and borough history, the Beaux-Arts building, and Brooklyn’s artistic legacy. Monet and Venice (October 11, 2025–February 1, 2026) pairs 19 Venetian paintings by Claude Monet with works by John Singer Sargent, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
MoMA offers major retrospectives and artist showcases: Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective features 300 works spanning bronze casts, wire sculpture, and more (on view through February 7, 2026). Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream presents roughly 130 paintings and large-scale works (on view through April 11, 2026). Helen Frankenthaler: A Grand Sweep, opening November 18, examines the Abstract Expressionist’s experimental techniques (on view through February 8, 2026).
Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s has moved into the Breuer building (the former Whitney) with an opening exhibition of modern and contemporary art; the space will host works the auction house sells and make them publicly viewable. A selection of van Goghs is also currently on display and available for sale.
Neue Galerie
German Masterworks from the Neue Galerie highlights German art from circa 1890–1940, including works associated with the Brücke and Blaue Reiter groups—expect Kandinsky, August Macke, and nearly 40 student-period works by Erich Heckel. The installation is on view through May 4, 2026.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers fills the rotunda with 90 works—black-soap paintings, large-scale sculptures, film installations—running through January 18, 2026. Collection in Focus: Modern European Currents and Robert Rauschenberg: Life Can’t Be Stopped (a centennial celebration) offer vivid works by artists such as Franz Marc, Natalia Goncharova, and Rauschenberg. Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World opens November 7 with 50 paintings and 19 photographs spanning her career.
The Jewish Museum
Anish Kapoor: Early Works presents 55 early sculptures and drawings, including pigment sculptures—geometric models appearing to sit on the floor and be doused with powdered color. The exhibition is on view through February 1, 2026.
The Studio Museum in Harlem
Reopening November 15 after seven years and a $160 million rebuild, the Studio Museum’s new building on West 125th Street is itself a draw. The reopening features Tom Lloyd, surveying the artist’s 20-year career and revisiting the museum’s 1968 exhibition that first showcased Lloyd’s programmed light sculptures. The show is on view through March 31, 2026.
International Center of Photography (ICP)
Graciela Iturbide: Serious Play is the photographer’s first New York retrospective, with over 200 images documenting life in Mexico—indigenous communities, communal rituals, the Sonoran Desert, and human interaction with nature. On view through January 12, 2026.
Whitney Museum of American Art
Sixties Surreal traces surrealism in the U.S. from 1958 through 1972, reevaluating the decade beyond its pop-art reputation and highlighting artists such as Diane Arbus and Yayoi Kusama. The exhibition runs through January 19, 2026.
Museum of the Moving Image
Mission: Impossible—Story and Spectacle examines the filmmaking craft behind the franchise—costumes, stunt breakdowns, and design—while Lu Yang: The Great Adventure of the Material World offers an avant-garde experience presented both as a projected film and as interactive gameplay. On view through December 14, 2025.
Plan your visits around museum hours and ticketing; many exhibitions have limited runs or require advance reservations. These shows represent a wide cross-section of contemporary, modern, and historical approaches to art across New York City this season.
