By Adelaida Salamanca. Cover image “Santa Maria Maddalena che legge” circa 1610-1620 at Cera una volta. The Medici and the Art of Wax, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence.
Known as one of the centers of the Renaissance, Florence is deeply connected to the history of art, shaped by renown figures like Michelangelo, Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci. This legacy can still be appreciated through its unique streets and architecture, where every corner holds something worth noticing. The city’s commitment to art remains evident, not only in its permanent collections but also in its Florence exhibitions 2026, where upcoming shows are carefully curated to connect past and present.
As seasons change, this becomes even more apparent. With longer days and warmer temperatures, visiting art exhibitions in Florence becomes one of the best ways to experience the city, offering a broader perspective on its cultural landscape.
Rothko in Florence at Palazzo Strozzi
From March 14 to August 23, 2026, the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation presents one of the most important exhibitions dedicated to Mark Rothko, a master of modern American art. Curated by Christopher Rothko and Elena Geuna, the exhibition celebrates the bond between artists and Florence, using the palace and the city itself as an ideal medium for human expression.
In spring, Florence takes on a more expansive and slower rhythm, and within this atmosphere Rothko’s works can be fully experienced and understood. His paintings invite color to shift in relation to light and space, becoming an immersive experience that encourages reflection on both his art and the surrounding architecture.
Discover the complete guide to the exhibition here
Ottone Rosai. Poeta innanzitutto at Museo Novecento Florence
From March 7 to October 4, 2026, the Museo Novecento Firenze presents a dialogue between Ottone Rosai’s paintings and works from the Alberto Della Ragione Collection, offering a more layered understanding of Ottone Rosai (1895–1957). Curated by Sergio Risaliti, the exhibition Ottone Rosai. Poeta innanzitutto explores Rosai’s practice through the people who surrounded him and the Florence he lived in. For Rosai, relationships with writers, poets, publishers, and artists were a vital space of exchange that shaped his vision and his understanding of art as an exercise in honesty. For visitors seeking a different perspective on the city, the exhibition transforms streets, hills, and quiet corners into deeply personal landscapes, offering an intimate and at times solitary vision of a city often perceived as crowded and monumental. These works evoke an atmosphere suspended between presence and memory, inviting a slower and more attentive form of looking.
Avanti, Georg Baselitz at Museo Novecento Florence
From March 25 to September 13, 2026, the Museo Novecento Firenze presents Avanti, a major retrospective dedicated to Georg Baselitz, curated by Sergio Risaliti. The exhibition brings together around 170 works, including paintings and sculptures, with a significant focus on his graphic production, offering an insight into more than six decades of artistic practice.
Baselitz’s work emerges from a deeply personal and historical context. Born in 1938 in Germany and shaped by the aftermath of World War II, his practice confronts history through a language that is deliberately raw and anti-academic. His well-known inversion of the human figure disrupts perception and resists any fixed meaning, turning painting into a constant act of destabilisation. The exhibition also highlights the deep connection between the artist and Florence, a city that played a decisive role in his formation. Baselitz lived in Florence for approximately six months in 1965 after winning the Villa Romana Prize, during which he engaged with the anti-classical and Expressionist tendencies of Italian sixteenth-century art. Between 1976 and 1981, he returned to the city several times, culminating in his solo exhibition in 1988 in the Sala d’Arme at Palazzo Vecchio.
A key chapter in understanding his artistic language, and a return to a city that helped shape it.
Toulouse-Lautrec. A Journey into Belle Époque Paris at Museo degli Innocenti
Spring in Florence is the perfect moment to revisit Belle Époque Paris, transporting visitors back to the late 19th century, amid dazzling lights, grand boulevards, and streets filled with artists, writers, and dancers. The exhibition “Toulouse-Lautrec. A Journey into Belle Époque Paris”, hosted at the Museo degli Innocenti and on view until June 7, offers an insight into the life of the painter, illustrator and innovator who so vividly captured Parisian nightlife. A regular at the Moulin Rouge and café-concerts, he transformed the Parisian night into art. The exhibition is the ideal place to explore some of Toulouse-Lautrec’s most iconic works, allowing visitors to fully experience the spirit of this extraordinary period. It also expands the narrative of the Belle Époque through works by other leading artists of the time, including Alphonse Mucha and Jules Chéret, among others.
Beyond the artworks, the show features photographs, videos, and period furnishings, creating an immersive journey into a cosmopolitan, vibrant, and deeply artistic world that forever transformed visual culture and design.
Medici Wax Art at the Uffizi: Cera una volta Exhibition in Florence
Finally, Florence presents over 90 works, including paintings, sculptures, and hardstones, returning to the city after centuries. On the ground floor of the Gallerie degli Uffizi, until April 12, 2026, Cera una volta. The Medici and the Art of Wax will be on display.
This exhibition is the first ever dedicated to the Florentine collections of wax sculpture from the 16th and 17th centuries. Curated by Valentina Conticelli, Andrea Daninos, and Simone Verde, it aims to revive a forgotten art form. The production of wax figures by highly skilled Renaissance sculptors and Baroque artists captures faces and bodies with extraordinary precision, translating the passage of time through the shaping — and dissolution — of the human form. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to encounter works that have not been seen for centuries, bringing back to light a fragile and extraordinary artistic heritage.
