The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Spring 2026 Exhibition Program

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its slate of exhibition programming through June 2026. The upcoming exhibition season features over a dozen new displays, including the first comprehensive US presentation of works by Raphael, the spring Costume Institute exhibition which inaugurates a new suite of galleries, and the first major exhibition to explore the relationship between musical instruments and the body.

Highlights of the season include (through June 26), the first comprehensive, international loan exhibition in the United States on Renaissance master Raphael, widely considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time. The exhibition brings together more than 200 of the artist’s greatest masterpieces and rarely seen treasures to offer a fresh perspective on this defining figure of the Italian Renaissance, presenting his renowned masterpieces alongside rarely seen treasures to reveal an extraordinarily creative mind. In May, The Met will stage Costume Art (opening May 10) the spring Costume Institute exhibition which will examine the centrality of the dressed body, juxtaposing objects from across the Museum’s vast collection with historical and contemporary garments and will be the first exhibition in The Met’s new nearly 12,000-square-foot Galleries adjacent to the Great Hall. Come June, Musical Bodies (opening June 7) will be the first major exhibition to explore the multifaceted relationship between musical instruments and the human body, bringing together some 120 works from around the world and across time, including musical instruments, paintings, sculptures, and drawings from The Met collection along with important domestic and international loans.

The Met’s will also present Lillian Bassman: Bazaar & Beyond (through July 26) which introduces audiences to one of the most inventive figures in twentieth-century fashion photography and editorial design, bringing together rare vintage prints, unique collage designs, and unpublished experiments produced for Harper’s Bazaar and its short-lived sister publication Junior Bazaar; Flip Sides: Seeing Korean Art Anew (through May 31, 2027) a display which will offer multiple views of the inside, reverse, or hard-to-see aspects of treasured Korean objects in a variety of mediums, to give us a fuller picture into each object’s unique form; Gothic by Design: The Dawn of Architectural Draftsmanship (opening April 16), the first-ever exhibition to examine Gothic architectural drawings in an art historical context, illuminating the significant impact the practice of drawing had on stylistic developments in Europe between the 13th and 16th century; and Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas (opening May 18, 2026 at The Met Cloisters) which will bring art of the ancient Americas to The Met Cloisters for the first time to explore depictions of fantastic, hybrid beings in the visual arts over the course of a millennium, illuminating the parallel but independent traditions of Europe and the Americas between 500 and 1500 CE.

The slate of exhibitions join previously announced upcoming projects this fall including The Genesis Facade Commission: Liu Wei (opening September 17, 2026), the seventh installation for the historic exterior, the artist’s first major project in the United States; and Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous (opening October 4, 2026) a major exhibition that charts the full arc of the careers of Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock in parallel, examining the distinct yet connected practices of these artistic peers and life partners.

The Museum also announced a new season of scheduled festivals and programs, including the 12th edition of the annual Teens Take The Met! on May 15, 2026.

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