From Old Masters blockbusters to overdue reevaluations, 2026 is shaping up to be an exceptionally strong year for museum-going in the United States. Across the country, institutions are mounting ambitious shows that revisit canonical figures from new angles. Here we’ve compiled a list of the most compelling exhibitions to have on your radar—from New York and Detroit, to Houston and Atlanta.

“Containing Multitudes” at the Minneapolis Institute of Art
December 20, 2025–August 2, 2026

On America’s 250th year, the Minneapolis Institute of Art is bringing together 95 photographic works from its collection that illustrate the nation’s diversity, beauty, and contradictions. Taking a page from Walt Whitman—whose quote “I contain multitudes” gives the exhibition its title—the show will unpack a sense of pluralism through works by pioneers including Robert Frank, Walker Evans, and Ansel Adams, as well as contemporary practitioners such as Dawoud Bey, Catherine Opie, and Carrie Mae Weems. Long beloved pieces will shown alongside new acquisitions (including a group of images by anonymous amateur photographers, recently gifted to the museum by collector Peter J. Cohen) to expand what MIA curator Casey Riley terms “our understanding of what America is and might be.”

—Josh Niland