Europe’s Upcoming Special Exhibits: Winter 2024-2025

As we say so long to autumn and its jam-packed season of exhibit openings, things get noticeably quieter for museums around Europe amid the holidays. Don’t worry about being left with nothing to see during your trips to and around the continent though. While the calendar may not be as stacked as the rest of the year, there are still exciting new shows to look forward to this winter. As you’re traveling around Europe December through February, consider taking a break from the chilly outdoors to peruse the latest openings—from first solo exhibitions to major retrospectives to large-scale surveys.

England

England is offering plenty to museum-goers throughout winter with its array of special exhibits. At London’s National Gallery, Parmigianino: The Vision of Saint Jerome runs from December 5, 2024 to March 9, 2025. For the first time in a decade, Parmigianino’s masterpiece “The Madonna and Child with Saints” (also called “The Vision of Saint Jerome”) will be on display since its conservation alongside discussions of the Italian artist’s creative process. 

Elsewhere in the city, Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism opens at the Royal Academy of Arts on January 28 and can be seen until April 21, 2025. This exhibition looks at how Brazilian artists were creating a new type of modern art during the early 20th century—one that drew from daily life including the Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian experiences. 

From February 14, 2025 through January 2026, catch PLATFORM: Bethan Laura Wood at the Design Museum in London. This exhibit is the first of the museum’s PLATFORM initiative, which is meant to expand its showcases of leading contemporary designers and studios. Wood’s multi-disciplinary works are on display, including ceramics, textiles, furniture, and lighting.

At the Tate Modern, Leigh Bowery! is on display from February 27 to August 31, 2025. This exhibit celebrates the multi-talented Australian artist who was well-known for embracing the unconventional from his iconic fashion to his outlandish performances. Visitors will have the chance to see Bowery’s looks alongside other artist collaborations.

Hopping over to the Tate St Ives, Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds is on from February 1 through May 5, 2025. With over 200 works, this show marks the first major exhibition of Ithell Colquhoun. Colquhoun is a British artist, writer, and occultist known for creating surrealist pieces and exploring myth and magic.

Germany

Those headed to Germany in the winter are in luck. Visit the country’s famous Christmas markets and a slew of special exhibits on the calendar, particularly in Berlin.

From December 6, 2024 to May 11, 2025, Semiha Berksoy is on at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. Covering six decades of work and featuring over 80 paintings, this exhibit serves as the country’s first comprehensive retrospective of the Turkish visual artist and opera singer.

At the same museum, visitors can see Ayoung Kim, the Korean artist’s first solo exhibition in Germany, from February 28 to July 20, 2025. Kim is known for using video, sculpture, AI, virtual reality, game simulations, and sonic fiction to create fictional universes that examine migration, xenophobia, queerness, and geopolitics. 

Moving to the James-Simon-Galerie in Berlin, Planet Africa: An Archaeological Journey through Time runs from December 6, 2025 through April 27, 2025. Visitors explore two million years of human history through African archaeology. This show is the first stop in its tour across Germany, and it will be displayed in parallel in Ghana, Kenya, and Swaziland. 

More Winter Exhibits in Germany

Across the city at Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg, The Flowers of Evil examines the artistic influence of Charles Baudelaire’s poetry collection “Les Fleurs du mal,” which was considered scandalous at the time of its publishing in 1857. You can see the show from December 12, 2024 through May 4, 2025. There are around 120 works, including Otto Piene’s large-scale installation “Fleur du Mal”— 13 giant, artificial silk flowers that bloom every hour.

From January 24 through June 22, 2025, you can see From Odesa to Berlin: European Painting of the 16th to 19th Century at the Gemäldegalerie. A cooperation project between Germany and Ukraine, this exhibition unites 60 major pieces evacuated before the war from the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art alongside 25 works from the Gemäldegalerie.

If you’re up for a day trip from Berlin, head over to Museum Barberini in Potsdam to see Kandinsky’s Universe: Geometric Abstraction in the 20th Century. With over 100 works by more than 70 different artists across six decades, the show inspects how the artistic form of Geometric Abstraction found its way across Europe and the U.S. The exhibit is on display from February 15 through May 18, 2025. 

Spain

The highlight of Spain’s winter offerings is Marina Vargas: Revelations at Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum from February 10 to May 4, 2025. From the Spanish artist known for her feminist lens, this special exhibit centers on the silencing of women throughout history beginning with Mary Magdalene. Visitors will get the chance to see a new work from Vargars on display for the first time. 

Switzerland

In Switzerland, Northern Lights runs from January 26 through May 25, 2025 at Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, close to Basel. The first of its kind in Europe in terms of works on display, this group show is centered on around 80 landscape paintings made by Scandinavian and Canadian artists between 1880 and 1930. The works include masterpieces by Hilma af Klint and Edvard Munch, and the common inspiration throughout is the boreal forest—one of the world’s largest primeval forests, which stretches around the polar circle.

Netherlands

Those visiting Amsterdam can make their way to the Rijksmuseum to see American Photography, running from February 7 through June 9, 2025. With over 200 photographs on display, this exhibit stands as the country’s first major survey exhibition of American photography. Here, you’ll be able to see photographs from names such as Sally Mann, Irving Penn, and Robert Frank.

Sweden

Moving to Sweden, there’s Bonnard and the North from February 20 to May 18, 2025 at the National Museum in Stockholm. Pierre Bonnard was a French artist known as a master of color with far-reaching influence, and this major exhibit showcases his paintings alongside works of other influential Nordic artists.

Also happening in Stockholm is Yet Another Morning: Drawing in the Moderna Museet Collection at—you guessed it—Moderna Museet. Scheduled to run from February 22, 2025 through May 10, 2026. With works from around 100 Swedish and international artists, this exhibition looks at the variety of ways drawing (through multiple materials and methods) is used to observe surroundings and convey the intangible.

Norway

Norway has something special this winter for its visitors too. At The National Museum in Oslo, you can see Gothic Modern: From Darkness to Light from February 28 through June 15, 2025. This exhibition examines the power and associations of the Gothic aesthetic. Artworks from 1875 to 1925 are juxtaposed with art from Europe’s Middle Ages and Renaissance. You can expect works from artists like Edvard Munch, Käthe Kollwitz, Hans Holbein the Younger, Albrecht Dürer, and more. 

Ireland

Kicking off the new year is Turner’s Watercolours: Scotland’s Vaughan Bequest at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. Scheduled for January 1 through January 31, 2025, this show marks the 250th birthday anniversary of J. M. W. Turner—the English Romantic painter—with nearly 40 of his watercolors from the National Galleries of Scotland on display.

Scotland

Scotland is running a parallel Turner exhibition of its own from January 1 through January 31, 2025. At the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, you can see Turner in January | Ireland’s Vaughan Bequest. Here, over 30 of the artist’s watercolors from the National Gallery of Ireland will be on view for the public. This partnership between Scotland and Ireland allows for a greater audience to appreciate Turner’s works. 

Special Mentions

Looking at Austria: At the Lower Belvedere palace in Vienna, there are two openings this winter. First is The World in Colors: Slovenian Painting 1848−1918 from January 30 through May 26, 2025. Presented in collaboration with the National Gallery of Slovenia, this exhibit features paintings from the era of national emancipation (being from the revolution year of 1848 to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1918). In these works, viewers can see a definitive engagement with color from its decorative effect to its symbolism to its extensive technical application.

Then, there’s Gustav Klimt: Pigment & Pixel from February 20 through September 7, 2025. Based on recent technical analysis, this exhibit dives into Klimt’s creative process, particularly how he made his famous gold paintings. Viewers will get to see his iconic work “Judith,” which was one of his first to use gold. Additionally, there are hypothetical reconstructions of Klimt’s Faculty Paintings thanks to work with Google Arts & Culture and artificial intelligence. 

Over in Hungary at Budapest’s Ludwig Museum, there’s Márton Nemes: Techno Zen running from December 20, 2024 through March 2, 2025. Influenced by techno subcultures, Márton Nemes looks at the expansion of painting as a genre. This exhibition fuses painterly and sculptural elements, while incorporating industrial technologies and materials, such as laser-cut steel, projection, and DMX-lights. It features Nemes’ project shown at the Biennale Arte 2024 as well as a selection of his works from the last decade.

Cover photo: John Lewis Marshall

[Written November 2024]