The Exhibitions to See in Tuscany in Fall 2026: 15 Shows Not to Miss
There’s something especially pleasant about seeing an exhibition in the fall. The days get shorter, cities settle into a different rhythm after the summer, and spending a few hours wandering through museum galleries becomes a good way to take a break from everyday life.
This year, Tuscany offers plenty of chances to do just that. You can step into Edward Hopper’s silent America, rediscover Artemisia Gentileschi’s 17th-century Florence, make your way through Joseph Beuys’s artistic provocations or let the many languages of contemporary photography surprise you.
And you don’t have to stay in Florence. From Pisa to Siena, from Prato to Lucca, all the way to Arezzo and Pistoia, fall 2026 brings a calendar of exhibitions spanning very different eras, styles and disciplines.
We’ve picked 15 exhibitions to see in Tuscany between October and December 2026: some have already opened, others arrive in the coming weeks. Fifteen good reasons to walk into a museum or plan a day trip out of town.
1. Broken. The Power of the Fragment –
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence
From September 25, 2026 to January 24, 2027
What makes a statue missing an arm so captivating? Why do we keep admiring works that time has worn down, damaged or left unfinished?
These are the questions behind Broken. The Power of the Fragment, the big fall exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi, devoted to the relationship between art and whatever survives of it.
The show moves through centuries of sculpture, from antiquity to the present day, to show how a fragment can preserve, and sometimes even amplify, the expressive power of a work.
What’s missing becomes part of its story. A break can tell of an event, a transformation, the passing of time. And an incomplete sculpture can keep suggesting forms and meanings that go far beyond the material that remains.
It’s an exhibition that invites you to look at art with different eyes, setting aside for a moment the idea that beauty must always mean perfection.
Where Palazzo Strozzi, Piazza degli Strozzi, Florence.
Useful info Palazzo Strozzi – exhibition, hours and tickets.
2. Artemisia Gentileschi and Her Florentine Years –
Museo degli Innocenti, Florence
From October 21, 2026 to April 4, 2027
Florence was a turning point in Artemisia Gentileschi’s life. When she arrived in the city in 1613, the painter found an environment in which to develop her talent, build important connections and establish herself professionally in a world dominated by men.
She was the first woman admitted to the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Florence’s academy of the arts of drawing, and she worked for the Medici court, leaving a significant mark on 17th-century painting.
The Museo degli Innocenti is devoting a major exhibition to the artist’s Florentine years, reconstructing a defining chapter of her career.
The show offers a closer look at the expressive force of her work: intense female figures, theatrical compositions and a use of light that reveals her dialogue with Caravaggio’s painting.
The exhibition has also announced two works by the Lombard master himself, adding further context to the artistic world in which Artemisia developed her own language.
A chance to look again at 17th-century Florence through one of the most extraordinary figures in its art history.
Where Museo degli Innocenti, Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, Florence.
Useful info Museo degli Innocenti – exhibition and tickets.
3. Ferdinando Sarmi. Da Firenze alla Fifth Avenue –
Palazzo Pitti, Florence
Through December 31, 2026
Before Made in Italy became a label recognized all over the world, a few Italian designers had already conquered America.
One of them was Ferdinando Sarmi, a Florentine designer who, in the 1950s and 1960s, made his name in New York high fashion, dressing some of the most famous women of his time.
The Museo della Moda e del Costume, Palazzo Pitti’s fashion and costume museum, is dedicating Ferdinando Sarmi New York – Un viaggio nella moda da Firenze alla Fifth Avenue (A Fashion Journey from Florence to Fifth Avenue) to him, an exhibition that traces his career through garments, photographs and archival material.
His creations won over the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Barbra Streisand and Pat Nixon, helping to spread across the United States an idea of elegance rooted in the Italian tailoring tradition.
The exhibition also tells the story of an era when fashion, film and society shaped one another, turning designers into interpreters of taste and cultural change.
An interesting stop for fashion lovers, but also for anyone curious about a Florentine figure who left his mark across the ocean.
Where Museo della Moda e del Costume, Palazzo Pitti, Florence.
Useful info Gallerie degli Uffizi – the exhibition at Palazzo Pitti.
4. Edward Hopper. New York e oltre –
Palazzo Blu, Pisa
From October 14, 2026 to March 7, 2027
A lit window in the dark, a deserted street, a house looking out over the ocean. In Edward Hopper’s paintings it always seems that something is about to happen, or has just happened.
And yet, more often than not, nothing happens at all.
It’s precisely in this apparent stillness that much of the American painter’s appeal lies, and he is the star of the big fall exhibition at Palazzo Blu in Pisa.
Edward Hopper. New York e oltre (New York and Beyond) brings together more than 150 works and materials, including paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints and archival documents, tracing the different phases of his artistic journey.
From his early work to the cityscapes of New York and the suspended atmospheres of New England, the show follows the evolution of a way of seeing that has deeply influenced film and photography too.
Hopper knew how to turn everyday American life into something universal, made of waiting, distance, silence and solitude.
For lovers of 20th-century painting, this is easily one of the most anticipated exhibitions of the Tuscan season.
Where Palazzo Blu, Lungarno Gambacorti, Pisa.
Useful info Palazzo Blu – exhibition, hours and tickets.
5. Lorenza Longhi. Villa Delizia –
Centro Pecci, Prato
From September 19, 2026 to January 10, 2027
Textiles, advertising, consumer goods and references to design. Lorenza Longhi’s work moves through territory where contemporary aesthetics meet material culture and the contradictions of consumer society.
Prato’s Centro Pecci presents Villa Delizia, an exhibition that takes shape through large-scale textile works and installations, some of them made in collaboration with local manufacturers.
The artist uses salvaged materials, images and familiar visual languages to build environments that play with the notion of taste, the idea of luxury and the viewer’s expectations.
The result is a world in which the decorative becomes a tool for reflecting on production, desire and the value we place on objects.
In a city like Prato, whose history is deeply tied to the textile industry, the project takes on an added meaning, connecting artistic research with one of the area’s most important manufacturing identities.
Where Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Viale della Repubblica, Prato.
Useful info Centro Pecci – Villa Delizia.
6. Karen Kilimnik. Abracadabra –
Centro Pecci, Prato
From November 21, 2026 to March 29, 2027
Castles, romantic landscapes, aristocratic characters, film references and pop culture imagery. Karen Kilimnik’s artistic universe seems to belong to a dimension where different eras and imaginations can meet without any need for explanation.
Starting November 21, the Centro Pecci dedicates the exhibition Abracadabra to the American artist, a journey through paintings, photographs, drawings and installations.
Kilimnik builds her works by mixing references to art history, fashion, film and literature, creating scenes that swing between elegance, irony and a subtle sense of unease.
Her images often feel familiar, but you only need to linger on the details to realize that the rules of traditional storytelling have been completely rewritten.
An exhibition to mark on your calendar if you love contemporary art that can surprise you and play with our collective visual memory.
Where Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Viale della Repubblica, Prato.
Useful info Centro Pecci – Abracadabra.
7. Oltre il Rinascimento. Tra Dürer e Parmigianino –
Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence
From September 10, 2026 to January 5, 2027
The Renaissance wasn’t only an extraordinary flowering of the arts: it was also a season of technical and formal experiments that paved the way for new visual languages. That richness is exactly the focus of Oltre il Rinascimento. Tra Dürer e Parmigianino (Beyond the Renaissance: Between Dürer and Parmigianino), the exhibition at Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence.
The show explores European Mannerist printmaking and the relationship that Georg Baselitz, one of today’s leading contemporary artists, has built with the 16th-century masters over more than sixty years of research and collecting.
It brings together a selection of works from Baselitz’s private collection and from the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, setting up a dialogue between artistic sensibilities that lie centuries apart but share a search for form, technique and the expressive possibilities of the image.
Setting the printmaking tradition against the eye of a contemporary artist becomes a way to reread the past not as something frozen, but as a living source of inspiration and experimentation.
Promoted by the Metropolitan City of Florence and organized by Fondazione MUS.E, the exhibition is a worthwhile stop for anyone who wants to dig into the connections between old and contemporary art.
Where Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Via Cavour 3, Florence.
Useful info Palazzo Medici Riccardi – official website.
8. Victor Man –
Museo Novecento, Florence
From September 26, 2026 to March 7, 2027
Enigmatic figures, suspended atmospheres and images that seem to surface from somewhere outside of time. The painting of Victor Man, a Romanian-born artist, moves between memory, symbolism and echoes of European art history.
Florence’s Museo Novecento devotes an exhibition to him with around 25 paintings, offering an overview of his most recent work and the themes that run through it.
The show takes on recurring subjects such as motherhood, portraiture and self-portraiture, still life and the female figure. Works on view include Lelkek temetoje, der Friedhof der Seelen (2019), Girl with Goya’s Skull (2021), Maternity with Legend (2024) and Maternity (2025), alongside more recent pieces such as Curve delle Anime (2025), Reclining Maiden – Prelude of Equinox (2025–2026) and Transfiguration, Cassa Oscura (2025–2026).
The exhibition is rounded out by five paintings from the series Luminary Petals on a Wet Black Bough, which widen the dialogue between image, symbol and an intimate dimension.
Man’s painting asks for a careful eye: his works don’t offer instant readings, but invite you to linger on details, ambiguities and the relationships between figures and space. The result is a visit that steps away from linear storytelling and leaves room for layered sensations and meanings.
An exhibition worth seeing to discover one of the most compelling voices in international contemporary painting and its relationship with the figurative tradition.
Where Museo Novecento, Piazza Santa Maria Novella 10, Florence.
Useful info Museo Novecento – Victor Man.
9. Fuori Mercato. Abitare l’inabitabile –
Mercato del Porcellino, Florence
Friday, October 23, 2026, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
What if a storeroom for market goods became, even just for a few hours, a space for contemporary art? That temporary transformation is the starting point for Fuori Mercato – Abitare l’inabitabile (Off the Market – Inhabiting the Uninhabitable), an exhibition organized by young artists and curators working in and around Florence.
The show takes over one of the storerooms used by the vendors of the Mercato del Porcellino, the market under the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo named after its bronze boar, at Via Chiasso Cornino 5/r. A space usually reserved for storing crates and stalls opens to the public for six and a half hours, becoming a place for meeting and artistic experimentation.
The title of this first edition points to a reflection on the relationship between art, urban space and the possibility of actually living in the city. At a time when finding places to share and make culture keeps getting harder, the storeroom temporarily becomes an accessible space, open to new kinds of connection.
The show is curated by Andrea Francesco Riccobono, Sara Parente, Alice Silei, Adrianna Nataliya Bezhovets, Giuseppe Gusmeroli and Sophie Diemoz. Participating artists include Antonio Vasquez, Michele Bernardini, Giulia Ribet, Jacques Boverod, Marta Fumanti, Gioia Castroni, Elena Coli and Francesco Cappelli.
The short run is part of the project itself: at 5:30 p.m. the storeroom goes back to its everyday use. Fuori Mercato thus offers a fleeting exhibition experience in which art slips into the daily rhythms of the city, taking over a space that normally goes unseen and turning it into a chance to meet.
Where Storeroom of the Mercato del Porcellino, Via Chiasso Cornino 5/r, Florence.
When Friday, October 23, 2026, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Info Instagram – Fuori Mercato. Abitare l’inabitabile.
10. Figure del ’900. Da Balla a Severini, de Chirico e Oppi –
Casa Museo Ivan Bruschi, Arezzo
From October 14, 2026 to May 31, 2027
Twentieth-century Italian art was swept by artistic revolutions that radically changed the way the world was depicted.
From Futurist dynamism to the enigmatic atmospheres of Metaphysical painting, artists experimented with new languages to portray a society in constant transformation.
Arezzo’s Casa Museo Ivan Bruschi devotes Figure del ’900 (Figures of the 1900s) to this period, an exhibition of around thirty works from the collections of the Gallerie d’Italia – Intesa Sanpaolo.
The show moves through the research of artists such as Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Giorgio de Chirico and Ubaldo Oppi, offering a look at the different ways they interpreted the human figure and reality.
Conceived by Carlo Sisi and curated by Paolo Bolpagni, the exhibition offers a close-up view of some of the key moments in Italian art from the first half of the century.
It’s also a chance to discover the Casa Museo Ivan Bruschi itself, one of the most interesting cultural spaces in Arezzo’s historic center.
Where Casa Museo Ivan Bruschi, Corso Italia, Arezzo.
Useful info Fondazione Ivan Bruschi – exhibition and visits.
11. L’immagine di Francesco. Dal Medioevo al Novecento –
Arezzo
From October 3, 2026 to January 10, 2027
2026 marks eight hundred years since the death of Saint Francis of Assisi, a figure who has run through Italy’s religious, cultural and artistic history, leaving an extraordinary mark.
Arezzo joins the celebrations with L’immagine di Francesco. Dal Medioevo al Novecento (The Image of Francis, from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century), an exhibition on how the saint has been portrayed over the centuries.
The show brings together around sixty works, including paintings, illuminated manuscripts, sculptures and stained glass, showing how artists from different eras interpreted his figure, his gestures and his message.
From medieval images, tied to devotion and the spread of the Franciscan cult, to more recent interpretations, the exhibition explores the relationship between art and spirituality through a subject who has inspired generations of artists.
The exhibition is split between two venues in town, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea and the Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio, which also makes it a chance to walk through Arezzo’s historic center.
Where Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Piazza San Francesco, and Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio, Arezzo.
Useful info Discover Arezzo – exhibition, hours and tickets.
12. Remember Joseph Beuys –
Santa Maria della Scala, Siena
From September 13 to November 15, 2026
For Joseph Beuys, art could change society. It wasn’t meant as a provocation, but as a conviction that ran through all of his work and made him one of the most influential figures of the 20th century.
Sculpture, performance, installations and collective actions were, for him, tools for questioning the relationship between the individual, politics, nature and community.
Siena’s Santa Maria della Scala museum complex dedicates Remember Joseph Beuys to him, an exhibition housed in the spaces of the Magazzini della Corticella.
The exhibition is an opportunity to get closer to the legacy of an artist who helped redefine the very boundaries of artistic practice, taking it beyond traditional categories.
His work still raises questions today about the role of the artist and the power of creativity to step into public life.
It adds depth to Siena’s fall calendar, in a city where historic heritage increasingly sits side by side with contemporary languages.
Where Santa Maria della Scala, Piazza del Duomo, Siena.
Useful info Santa Maria della Scala – Remember Joseph Beuys.
13. Siena Awards Photo Festival –
Siena and Sovicille
From October 10 to November 29, 2026
More than 40,000 photographs submitted from 163 countries and three international competitions: the Siena Awards Photo Festival returns to Tuscany with a program that brings together some of the most compelling names in contemporary photography.
For almost two months, Siena becomes a hub for photographers, curators, professionals and enthusiasts, with a calendar that weaves together exhibitions, talks and in-depth events devoted to the many languages of the image.
Alongside the winning shots from the international competitions, the program features exhibitions by Cinzia Canneri, James Nachtwey, Jasper Doest, Pierpaolo Mittica and Uğur Gallenkuş, photographers who, each in their own way, capture the complexity of today’s world, from photojournalism to documentary research and visual experimentation.
The program also includes Fractures – Between Two Silences, hosted in nearby Sovicille, which takes the festival beyond the city limits.
The Siena Awards is a chance to discover how photography can become a tool for reading reality, telling stories often far removed from our daily lives and opening new perspectives on social, environmental and cultural issues.
One to mark on your calendar if you love photography and want to make the most of the fall with a trip to Siena, pairing the exhibitions with a stroll through the historic center.
Where Siena, with events in Sovicille as well.
Useful info Siena Awards Photo Festival – program and updates.
14. Francesco. Assisi e il respiro del sacro nella fotografia di Elio Ciol –
Lucca
From November 28, 2026 to January 6, 2027
Some photographers can turn a landscape into an inner experience. Elio Ciol is certainly one of them.
A master of Italian photography, known for his extraordinary use of black and white, Ciol has devoted a large part of his work to portraying places, spirituality and the relationship between light and landscape.
The exhibition Francesco. Assisi e il respiro del sacro nella fotografia di Elio Ciol (Francis: Assisi and the Breath of the Sacred in the Photography of Elio Ciol), presented by Photolux at the Complesso di San Micheletto, brings together 59 photographs of Assisi and the places linked to Saint Francis.
In Ciol’s images, architecture, landscapes and human presence take on a contemplative quality, built through light, silence and spare composition.
The streets of Assisi, its basilicas, the Umbrian hills and the pilgrims become the protagonists of a story that moves through places and people, capturing the atmosphere of a town deeply bound to Franciscan spirituality.
The exhibition is part of the celebrations for the eight hundredth anniversary of Saint Francis’s death, offering a photographic reading of his legacy.
It’s a chance to discover an artistic sensibility very different from that of the big painting exhibitions, but just as capable of moving you.
Where Sala dell’Affresco, Complesso di San Micheletto, Via Elisa 8, Lucca.
Useful info Photolux – the Elio Ciol exhibition and hours, tickets and guided tours.
15. In Visita | Carol Rama –
Palazzo de’ Rossi, Pistoia
From October 3, 2026 to February 14, 2027
Carol Rama made her way through 20th-century Italian art on a path entirely her own, often far from the artistic and social conventions of her time.
Self-taught, independent and provocative, she built a visual universe in which the body, desire, illness and identity take center stage in intense, at times disturbing images.
Pistoia Musei is dedicating to her the fifth edition of its In Visita (On Visit) project, hosted at Palazzo de’ Rossi.
The work of the Turin-born artist is a chance to engage with a body of research that anticipated many of today’s reflections on how the body is represented and on freedom of expression.
Unusual materials, hybrid figures and compositions charged with tension convey the character of an artist who earned international recognition mostly in the final part of her career.
An exhibition that offers a chance to get to know one of the most original and nonconformist voices in 20th-century Italian art.
Where Palazzo de’ Rossi, Via de’ Rossi, Pistoia.
Useful info Pistoia Musei – In Visita, Carol Rama.
A Fall of Art, Photography and New Discoveries
Fifteen exhibitions, seven cities and many different ways of looking at the world.
Tuscany in fall 2026 lets you move from 20th-century American painting to experiments in contemporary art, from Italian fashion to photography, all the way to the great names of art history.
Some exhibitions are worth planning ahead. Others can be the perfect excuse for a day trip, maybe to a city you haven’t visited in a while.
Because an exhibition can be many things: an encounter with an artist we already know, the discovery of a forgotten story, or simply a couple of hours spent looking at something that makes us shift our perspective.
And sometimes that’s all it takes to come home feeling like you’ve been on a little journey.
The dates listed refer to the programs announced by the organizers. Before your visit, we recommend checking hours, tickets and any updates on the venues’ official websites.
