6 Must-See St. Louis Art Exhibitions in 2026

Creativity knows no limit in St. Louis, and this year, the temporary exhibitions at our world-renowned museums promise to leave a lasting impression.

Whether you’re interested in Impressionist paintings, Chinese photography or Roman frescoes, these must-see St. Louis art exhibitions will inspire a new cultural experience.

Want to dive deeper into the local arts scene? Peruse our guide to museums, galleries, public art, theater, dance and other performing arts.

Looking Back Toward the Future: Contemporary Photography from China

February 27 to July 27

More than 40 large-scale photographs created in China between 1993 and 2006 make up Looking Back Toward the Future at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Featuring the work of 14 contemporary artists, the survey represents a wide cross section of the conceptual photography that flourished in the nation in the decades following the 1989 protests and massacre in Tiananmen Square – a pivotal moment of sociopolitical change that signaled the beginning of strict repressive measures and ended democratic social reforms that had been initiated after the death of communist leader Mao Zedong in 1976. The free exhibition is divided into three interrelated thematic sections – The Presence of the Past, East and West and Performance and the Body – which together explore how these artists used performance in conjunction with diverse photographic and aesthetic methods to capture, freeze and criticize the new sociopolitical, economic and cultural environment of China. On view for the first time at the museum, which sits on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, these glossy photographs constitute a significant recent addition to the institution’s holdings of contemporary Chinese art. Created during a tumultuous period of recent history, they together make visible the radical transformations that China underwent during these critical decades, challenging past, present and future.

Dialogues & Conversations

March 6 to August 9

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, founder and board chair Emily Rauh Pulitzer will present a deeply personal exhibition, drawing on her extensive collection as well as the permanent collections of the Harvard Art Museums and the Saint Louis Art Museum, where she began her curatorial career. The milestone project, Dialogues & Conversations, assembles 70 sculptures, drawings, paintings and photographs by artists ranging from Edgar Degas to Medardo Rosso and Alberto Giacometti to Doris Salcedo to examine the nature of artistic influences and exchanges in both art history and everyday life.

Andrea Carlson: Endless Sunshine

March 6 to August 9

Combining intergenerational history, archival research and theories of art and film, Andrea Carlson creates incisive works of resistance and sovereignty that disempower colonial storytelling and practices of erasure. A descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe and Scandinavian settlers, Carlson’s layered, multi-paneled paintings are made with oil, acrylic, gouache, colored pencil, graphite, watercolor and ink. In the pieces, the horizon line is a persistent organizing principle inspired by the ungraspable horizon line of Lake Superior. Viewers are seduced into her intricate collage-like imagery, and yet, beyond the central foregrounded figures, there is an impenetrability into the dense distance. The overwhelming scale of her works also denies us access into the imagined landscapes, preventing a kind of possession of the land. Presented by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Endless Summer is a developing body of work comprised of large-scale paintings on birchbark, which reflects Carlson’s practice of interrogating longing and desire, permission and refusal, as well as themes around Indigenous sovereignty and Land Back.

Ancient Splendor: Roman Art in the Time of Trajan

March 14 to August 16

Majestic marble sculptures, vivid plaster frescoes, bronze artifacts and glass vessels chronicle life at the height of the Roman Empire in this ticketed exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Ancient Splendor: Roman Art in the Time of Trajan speaks to the enduring power of art as a political and social tool, showcasing how Emperor Trajan invested in art and architecture to shape civic life in the ancient world. The second of the “Five Good Emperors” of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty, Trajan was known for granting citizenship – and the rights that came with it – to people from the far-reaching provinces that his forces conquered, expanding and fundamentally changing the concept of what it meant to be Roman. The 2026 exhibition brings unprecedented loans – most of which have never left Italy – to the U.S. from the renowned antiquities collections of the Vatican, the National Roman Museum and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

Picturing Independence

June 12 to January 24

Marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, this exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum features more than 50 works created between 1770 and 2018. Featured works include silver by Paul Revere, paintings by George Caleb Bingham and Benjamin West and prints by Norman Akers and Jacob Lawrence. Picturing Independence is arranged in two sections: Picturing Revolution, which depicts the American Revolution and military service, and Symbols of the New Nation, which juxtaposes the development and response to national symbols such as the U.S. flag, the bald eagle and the Statue of Liberty.

Women Impressionists and the Land

October 17 to January 10

Women Impressionists and the Land is the first exhibition to focus on nature imagery in the work of women Impressionists. Rather than concentrating on the domestic subject matter of these artists, the ticketed exhibition organized by the Saint Louis Art Museum explores the less-documented outdoor spaces painted by key figures such as Marie Bracquemond, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot and Blanche Hoschedé Monet. Comprising 70 works, the show explores the way in which nature imagery contributed to the rise in status of women artists in France from 1860 to 1910 and examines favored iconographical themes, including gardens, parks, farms and marine scenes.