10 Must See Museum Exhibitions for this Winter
From the divine to the secular with many stops—and many mediums—in between, Gotham’s art show calendar is full of “must go” events as the temperatures get colder.
| 19 Nov 2025 | 02:19
From “Divine Egypt,” at the Met: Statuette of falcon-headed Horus, seated Osiris, and Isis, wearing sun disk and horns. Made of glass, gold, and lapis lazuli, it dates from ca. 872 to 837 BCE. About 4 inches tall, it is on loan to the Met from the Musée du Louvre. (
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Inside the Frick Collection’s “To the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum.” (
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“Chanting Clerics,” from the 13th-century English Windmill Psalter, on view in “Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life” at The Morgan Library & Museum. (
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Some 30 stunning examples from the collection of hundreds of American quilts are on view at the American Folk Art Museum. (
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Milton Glaser’s Dylan poster from 1967 will be part of the “Art of Noise” exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt. The exhibition was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. / © Milton Glaser, permission of the estate of Milton Glaser (
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The fall season in New York heralds the best and brightest, and our art museums are stepping up with extraordinary exhibitions. Here are 10 shows worth visiting.
Divine Egypt: through Jan. 19, 2026
Most will agree that Egyptian art from the Pharaonic period is divine. This exhibition looks beyond the gold and lapis to probe the roles of the various gods of Egypt. Hundreds of divinities touched countless worshipers, bringing health, fertility, and safety through both public and private devotion. Look for more than 250 falcon-headed, feline-faced, canine, and human-looking deities from collections around the world.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave.
To the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum: Through Jan. 5, 2026
Art lovers in New York know that if you wait long enough, treasures come to your doorstep. The Frick Collection offers a chance to see more than 40 rare objects on loan from the Terra Sancta Museum of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Though they are luxurious, precious and richly decorated, it’s the spiritual essence that make these works, used and protected by Franciscan monks for hundreds of years, resonate.
The Frick Collection, 1 E. 70th St.
Helen Frankenthaler: A Grand Sweep: through Feb. 8, 2026
“I follow the rules until I go against them all,” Helen Frankenthaler once stated. Going against them, she created a new way of painting. A founder of the Color Field movement, Frankenthaler pioneered the “soak stain” method, pouring thinned paint onto raw canvas, creating ethereal floating forms. See how her soaring vision fills the Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium in her first solo show at MoMA since 1989.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St.
Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life: Through Jan. 4, 2026,
A visit to this Morgan Library exhibition—created after years of research into the history, religious significance, and spiritual impact of illuminated Psalters (Books of Psalms)—brings a deeper understanding of both secular and religious daily life from the 6th to the 16th century. But it’s the ravishing works of brush and pen, capturing the heavens and Earth in miniature, that will stay with you. They’re inches across, but miles deep.
The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Ave.
High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100: through March 2026
Bring the kids, but don’t forget your own childlike sense of joy when you head in to see “High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100.” It’s an iconic work. It’s one of the central pieces of the museum’s collection. But mostly, it’s a delight to see how Alexander Calder’s unique vision comes to life.
Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort St.
Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective: through Feb. 7, 2026
Ruth Asawa started drawing with her toes in the dirt behind her father’s plow. She never stopped. “A line,” she once said, “can go anywhere.” In her hands, lines become marvels of space, light, depth, and delicacy. Unable to create with pen and paper the complex ideas she envisioned, she learned from Mexican women how to weave wire basketry. In her exquisite works, lines become like clouds or webs or neurons firing off new thoughts. They have to be seen, and this is the place to see them.
Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St.
An Ecology of Quilts: The Natural History of American Textiles: through March 1, 2026
For the majority of the world, for the majority of human history, the majority of works of art that touched people’s lives were domestic arts, mostly created by women. Quilts and fiber arts haven’t had the attention that paintings, sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, and stained glass have enjoyed, but they’ve been there all along, sometimes took more hours to create, tell complex stories, and are visually stunning. The museum displays 30 exquisite examples from its vast collection.
American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square
Graciela Iturbide: Serious Play: through Jan. 12, 2026
Poetic, dreamlike, yet often gritty and down-to-earth, the images Graciela Iturbide has been capturing or conjuring in her photographs for more than 50 years are full of history, culture, feminism, and empathy. She traveled widely across Latin America, picturing the lives of indigenous people and the landscape that sustains them, and then headed across the United States, Europe, and India, finding universal echoes. This is her first New York retrospective exhibition.
The International Center of Photography, 84 Ludlow St.
Anish Kapoor: Early Works: through Feb. 1, 2026
Minimalist? Maximalist? Conceptualist? Hard to tell? Anish Kapoor’s simplified, pared-down forms in these iconic but rarely exhibited early works are enlivened by intense primary colors of a vibrancy that really has to be seen to be perceived. This is the first American museum show focusing on Kapoor’s pigment sculptures from the 1970s and ‘80s.
The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave.
Art of Noise: Dec. 12 through July 19, 2026
Tune your eyes and ears in to this look at sound. “Art of Noise” focuses on how design has influenced what we hear and how we perceive it. From concert posters to album covers, record players, transistor radios, and a 21st-century interactive sound environment, more than 300 outstanding examples of technology, sound, and art offer a glimpse and a listen. Head in and see what you hear.
The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2 E. 91st St.