Warhol, Pollock and other American spaces

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisz

From 21 October 2025 to 25 January 2026

Curator: Estrella de Diego

The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza is organising an exhibition that brings together the work of Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock, two key figures in 20th-century art who focused on issues relating to new spatial strategies. Like other artists of that generation also present in the exhibition, they were united by their interest in changes in the pictorial tradition, spatiality and, in some cases, the use of large formats.

 

The works featured in the exhibition reveal how Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) was not always an “abstract master”, while also presenting a more complex Andy Warhol (1928–1987) than the artist of dispassionately depicted, banal themes from popular culture. Midway between the abstract and the figurative, in their own way both set out to reassess the concept of space and its use as a place of concealment; a space revisited through repetition and seriality. Pollock and Warhol disrupted the notion of background and figure and developed a project which, through its very pictorial strategies, had something of camouflage about it. Frequently present in the works of both artists are traces and vestiges that refer to certain autobiographical aspects. 

 

Jackson Pollock. Direction, 1945. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York)

The exhibition, which has benefited from the collaboration of the Comunidad de Madrid and the City Council of Madrid, features more than one hundred works, many of which have never previously been seen in Spain. Loaned from around thirty institutions in the United States and Europe, they include works by Warhol and Pollock as well as other artists such as Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Marisol Escobar, Sol LeWitt and Cy Twombly. Among them, Brown and Silver I by Pollock, Express by Robert Rauschenberg and Untitled (Green on Maroon) by Mark Rothko are all from the Thyssen collection.

 

The exhibition is presented in six galleries, allowing for a reassessment of the rupture traditionally established in art history between abstraction and the figuration of Pop Art, revealing connections and dialogues between the two approaches to space and between artists, extending beyond Warhol's lifelong fascination with Pollock, who died in a car accident in 1956.

 

The first gallery offers a juxtaposition of a number of early works by Pollock and Krasner, revealing approaches that involve both figuration and abstraction, with two Coca-Cola bottles by Warhol from the early 1960s: the first with brushstrokes that imitate those characteristic of Abstract Expressionism, and the second, executed on a neutral background, influenced by his work as a commercial illustrator. This section is entitled Space as negotiation: figure and ground again.

 

Jackson Pollock. Phosphorescence, 1947. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, Gift of Peggy Guggenheim. 

Focusing on the dialogue between figurative and abstract spaces, the next section, Traces and vestiges, brings together works by Audrey Flack (1931-2024), Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), Anne Ryan (1889-1954), Perle Fine (1905-1988), and Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), as well as Warhol and Pollock. These works reveal figures or their traces, which build a space piece by piece in which figuration is disrupted and camouflaged.

 

The third gallery, devoted to Ground as figure, displays iconic works by Andy Warhol in which figures appear to float on a fading background. Silver Liz as Cleopatra (1963), Single Elvis (1964) and Jackie II (1966) move away from the traditional notion of space through the differentiation between background and figure. A selection of the artist's photographs loaned from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh reveals his most formal exploration of abstraction, with images consisting of extended repetitions of objects. The series of snapshots by Sol Lewitt (1928–2007) and Cy Twombly (1928–2011) and canvases by Hedda Sterne (1910–2011), Krasner and Pollock complete the display in this room.

 

Andy Warhol. Optical Car Crash, 1962. Kunstmuseum Basel. 

The section Repetitions and fragments focuses on the duplications and multiplications of objects which Warhol produced in many of his works and through which he definitively departed from the Western concept of space. His celebrated series Flowers (1964), Skulls (1976), Electric Chairs (1971) and his depictions of car crashes, such as Optical Car Crash (1962) and White Disaster I (1963), follow on from each other in this section, in which each repeated image is different. Furthermore, although these works involve recognisable images, they are superimposed to the point where they saturate the space and ultimately de-structure it.

 

Andy Warhol. Shadows, 1978-79. Dia Art Foundation. © 2025 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP

The fifth section, Spaces without horizons, brings together eight of Warhol's “Oxidation paintings”. Made with his own fluids, they mimic the works Jackson Pollock painted just before his death in 1956 and configure a space without precise boundaries. Displayed alongside them are two works by Helen Frankentaler (1928–2011) characterised by large splashes of colour.

 

The final section, Space as metaphysics, is devoted to Warhol’s series on shadows from the late 1970s, comprising works executed with enigmatic brushstrokes in which it is now impossible to distinguish any figure. They are accompanied by Untitled (Green on Maroon) of 1961 by Mark Rothko, establishing a dialogue between absences.

 

EXHIBITION DETAILS 

Title:Warhol, Pollock and other American Spaces.
Organised by: Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.
Venue and dates: Madrid, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, 21 October 2025 to 25 January 2026
Curator: Estrella de Diego.
Technical coordinator: Laura Andrada, Curatorial Department, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.
Number of works: 106. Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Audrey Flack, Anne Ryan, Marisol Escobar, Perle Fine, Hedda Sterne, Helen Frankenthaler, Sol LeWitt, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg y Mark Rothko.
Publications: Catalogue produced with support from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, with texts by Estrella de Diego and Patrick Moore (former director of the Warhol Museum) and the transcript of a conversation between Estrella de Diego, the Argentinean painter Guillermo Kuitca and Guillermo Solana, artistic director of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. 

Images

Jackson Pollock
Brown and Silver I, ca. 1951
Enamel and silver paint on canvas. 144.7 x 107.9 cm. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. © 2025 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, VEGAP, Madrid, 2025

 

Andy Warhol
Yarn Painting, 1983
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, 137 x 523 cm. Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Permanent loan of STAFF Stiftung Lemgo. © 2025 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP

 

Jackson Pollock
Number 27, 1950, 1950
Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas, 124.6 x 269.4 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. © 2025 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, VEGAP, Madrid, 2025

 

Audrey Flack
Abstract Expressionist Landscape (with Clouds), 1951
Oil on canvas, 74.9 x 101.6 cm. Museo FAMM, Mougins (The Levett Collection). Photo: Fraser Marr


Robert Rauschenberg
Express, 1963
Oil, silkscreen ink and collage on canvas, 184.2 x 305.2 cm. Museo Nacional Thyssen- Bornemisza. © The Estate of Robert Rauschenberg/ VAGA, New York/ VEGAP, Madrid, 2025

 

Marisol Escobar
Untitled, 1960
Crayon and cut-and-pasted paper on paper, 70.2 x 100.2 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist, 1963. © MARISOL, VEGAP, Madrid, 2025. Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence.

 

Cy Twombly
Detail of Pan, (Bassano in Teverina), 1980
Color dry-print, 38.1 x 30.5 cm. Larry Gagosian Collection. © Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.

 

Andy Warhol
Madrid Circus Poster 1976-1986, 1986
Gelatin silver prints sewn with thread, 69.9 x54 cm. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. © 2025 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP

 

Andy Warhol
Single Elvis, 1964
Silkscreen on canvas, 209 x 107 cm. Ludwig Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest. © 2025 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP. Photo: József Rosta / Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art

 

Jackson Pollock
Phosphorescence, 1947
Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas, 111.76 x 71.12 cm. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, Gift of Peggy Guggenheim. © 2025 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, VEGAP, Madrid, 2025. Photo: Bridgeman Images

 

Andy Warhol
Optical car crash, 1962
Silkscreen ink on canvas, 208 x 208.5 cm. Kunstmuseum Basel, adquisition 1970. © 2025 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP. Photo: Martin P. Bühler

 

Andy Warhol
Piss painting, 1977-1978
Urine on canvas, 198.5 x 492.8 cm. Collection Thaddaeus Ropac, London, Paris, Salzburg, Seoul, Milan, Salzburg. © 2025 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP. Photo: Ulrich Ghezzi

 

Helen Frankenthaler
Milkwood Arcade, 1963
Acrylic on canvas, 219.7 x 205.1 cm. Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, New York. © Helen Frankenthaler, VEGAP, Madrid, 2025. Photo: Florian Kleinefenn

 

Mark Rothko
Untitled (Green on Maroon), 1961
Mixed media on canvas 258 x 229 cm. National Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid. © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko, VEGAP, Madrid, 2025

 

Andy Warhol
Shadows, 1978-1979
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, 193 x 132 cm. Dia Art Foundation, New York. © 2025 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / VEGAP. Photo: Jordan Tinker, courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York

Toulouse-Lautrec, a journey through the Paris of the Belle Époque

 Museo degli Innocenti 

September 27, 2025 to February 22, 2026 

The Museo degli Innocenti is hosting a new temporary exhibition delving into the figure of one of the most emblematic artists of the Belle Époque: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Paris, late 19th century. It is the age of carefreeness and progress, of art invading the boulevards, of cafes frequented by painters, writers and dancers, of the first electric lights and the birth of mass society. In this cultural ferment Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), a unique figure in the European art scene, was born and established himself. A painter, illustrator and graphic innovator, Lautrec captured the nightlife and bohemian spirit of Montmartre Paris with an ironic and profound gaze.

An assiduous frequenter of venues such as the Moulin Rouge, Lautrec was able to transform the world of the night - made up of shows, theaters, café-concerts and marginal figures such as prostitutes, dancers and chansonnier - into art. His advertising posters, created with an innovative lithographic technique, not only revolutionized the concept of promotional graphics, but also became true visual icons of the Belle Époque.

From September 27, 2025 all this will be the world of "Toulouse-Lautrec. A Journey through the Paris of the Belle Époque," the major exhibition at the Museo degli Innocenti in Florence.
Among the most famous works on display-exceptional loan from the Wolfgang Krohn Collection in Hamburg-will be color lithographs (such as Jane Avril, 1893), advertising posters (such as Troupe de Mademoiselle Églantine from 1896 and Aristide Bruant in his cabaret from 1893), pencil and pen drawings, promotional graphics and newspaper illustrations (as in La Revue blanche, 1895) that have become emblematic of an era inextricably linked with the images of the aristocratic Viscount Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, some of them from the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Alby.

To make the experience even more immersive, the exhibition also features works by other major figures of the Belle Époque and Art Nouveau periods. It is a true visual journey between elegance and innovation, where Alphonse Mucha's seductive female figures, Jules Chéret 's vibrant and colorful posters-considered the pioneer of modern advertising-and Georges de Feure's evocative atmospheres stand out. Completing the itinerary are the exquisite works of Frédéric-Auguste Cazals, Paul Berthon and other extraordinary artists who were able to transform graphics into art. A unique opportunity to immerse oneself in the vibrant spirit of an era that made style and creativity its most recognizable signature.

Complementing the display is a rich array of period photographs, videos, costumes, and furnishings, transporting visitors on a multisensory journey to Paris between 1880 and 1900. A time when art, technology, freedom of expression and new forms of entertainment laid the foundations of the modern world.

A window on the Belle Époque

The exhibition is not only a tribute to Toulouse-Lautrec, but also an opportunity to explore the Belle Époque in all its facets: an era of contrasts, dreams and cultural revolutions. While Europe was experiencing a period of relative peace and progress, Paris became the capital of pleasure and the avant-garde, where architecture, painting, furniture, sculpture and music were invaded by references to nature, the plant world and a new image of the female figure. Regarded as an international current, it was based on a break with nineteenth-century eclecticism and historicism and represented a modern response to an increasingly industrialized society.

Conceived of as total art, Modern Style became Tiffany in the United States, Jugendstil in Germany, Sezession in Austria, Nieuwe Kunst in the Netherlands, Art Nouveau in Italy, Modernism in Spain, and quickly established itself in England, home of the movement's leading theorists, and came under the name Art Nouveau in France. The exhibition rooms tell the story of this unique climate, interweaving art, society and visual culture.

With Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Belle Époque, Florence celebrates not only an extraordinary artist, but also an unrepeatable historical moment that still continues to influence our aesthetic imagination today.

Under the patronage of the City of Florence, the exhibition is produced and organized by Arthemisia once again alongside the Museo degli Innocenti, in collaboration with Cristoforo, theErnst Barlach Museumsgesellschaft Hamburg and BridgeconsultingPro and is curated by Dr. Jurgen Dopplestein with Gabriele Accornero, project manager of the Collection.
The exhibition has Ricola as special partner , partners Mercato Centrale Firenze, Unicoop Firenze and La Rinascente, mobility partner Frecciarossa Treno Ufficiale, media partner CityNews, educationalpartner LABA. The catalog is published by Moebius.

ANDERS ZORN Sweden’s Superstar

 

 Hamburger Kunsthalle

26 September 2025 to 25 January 2026

Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid

19 February to 17 May 2026.

The Hamburger Kunsthalle is presenting the multifaceted oeuvre of the Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860–1920) for the first time in a large-scale exhibition. One of the most famous artists in the world around 1900, Zorn enjoyed a meteoric rise in Europe and achieved fame in the United States with portraits of prominent members of high society and even of two Presidents. Sweden still recognises him today as one of the country’s premier artists. Here in Germany, museum-goers now have the rare opportunity to discover the work of the painter, graphic artist and sculptor in this survey show. 

The over 150 exhibits include major works such as Midsummer Dance (1897), arguably Zorn’s most well-known painting and one that is still often used today to convey a characteristic picture of Sweden or to promote the country. Also on view, however, are rarely shown paintings and watercolours as well as the artist’s impressive etchings and a few small sculptures. Alongside portraits, the exhibition also features Nordic landscapes, everyday views of Zorn’s Swedish homeland and scenes from European cities, and also nudes depicted in natural surroundings.

At the invitation of Kunsthalle director Alfred Lichtwark, Zorn visited Hamburg in the winter of 1891/92 and created several atmospheric harbour scenes, which can be seen in the show. Lichtwark hoped to expand the »Collection of Pictures from Hamburg« he had launched in 1889 by inviting acclaimed artists to visit the city, and Zorn was the first non-German artist thus honoured.

The roster of institutions and private collections that have lent works for the exhi- bition attest to the Swedish artist’s high international standing. Works have made their way to the Kunsthalle from Berlin, Boston, Florence, Geneva, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Mora, New York, Stockholm and Washington, among other places. Around 30 etchings and a drawing by Zorn from the museum’s own collection are also on display.

The artist who would become one of the foremost talents of the century grew up in modest circumstances in the central Swedish province of Dalarna and already caused a sensation during his student years at the Stockholm Art Academy. Stra- tegically adept, Zorn found in his partner and later wife Emma Lamm someone who could mediate important contacts and help plan his career. He indulged his wanderlust at an early age, travelling in the 1880s to France, Spain, North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. 

The artist gained a foothold in the English art market during a few years spent in London (1882–1885), experienced the breakthrough of Impressionism first-hand in Paris (1888–1896), and took the USA by storm in 1893. A flair for contemporary themes coupled with unrivalled technical facility assured Zorn tremendous success. Imbued with lightness and buoyancy, his works exude a fascinating spontaneity – belying an elaborate and carefully calculated working process. After initially working almost exclusively with watercolours, Zorn increasingly concentrated on oil painting from 1887 until the end of his career. In 1896 he settled permanently in Mora with his wife, where he died in 1920 at the age of only 60.

In eight exhibition chapters, viewers can discover Anders Zorn as a dazzling, highly versatile artist. Along- side Impressionist elements in paintings such as Mother Dressing Her Child (1888) and Omnibus I (1890), other facets of his work betray the influence of diametrically opposed artistic tendencies of the period, such as salon painting, for example in the portraits In Mourning (1880) and Elizabeth Sherman Cameron (1900). 

Cosmopolitan scenes form a thread running through Zorn’s oeuvre, such the painting Girl with a Cigarette (ca. 1892), but these are interspersed with motifs from his swedish home region of Dalarna, as in the painting Midnight (1891), which depicts a woman rowing. Such subjects come to the fore in his later work, which evokes the matter-of-fact harmony of human and nature, a theme that increasingly shaped his artistic self-image as well as his identity.

The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue (312 pages, Hirmer Verlag) featuring high- quality colour illustrations of all works on view as well as a number of essays exploring the current state of research on Anders Zorn. The catalogue is available for 39 euros in the museum shop or at www.freunde- der-kunsthalle.de at the bookstore price of 49,90 euros.

The exhibition is a cooperative project with the Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid, where it will be presented from 19 February to 17 May 2026.

Curator: Dr. Markus Bertsch Assistant Curator: Jana Kunst Research Assistant: Michelle Adler

IMAGES

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) Mitternacht, 1891
Öl auf Leinwand, 69 x 103 cm Zornmuseet, Mora © Zornmuseet, Mora

Anders Zorn (1860–1920)
Im Freien, 1890
Öl auf Leinwand, 69 x 101,5 cm Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki
© Foto: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Aaltonen

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) Spitzensaum, 1894
Öl auf Leinwand, 42 x 48 cm Zornmuseet, Mora © Zornmuseet, Mora

Anders Zorn (1860–1920)
Die lesende Emma Zorn, 1887 Öl auf Leinwand, 40,2 x 60,6 cm Zornmuseet, Mora
© Zornmuseet, Mora

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) Hamburger Hafen, 1891
Aquarell auf Papier, 46,5 x 67 cm Nationalmuseum, Stockholm © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm Foto: Cecilia Heisser

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) Elizabeth Sherman Cameron, 1900 Öl auf Leinwand, 147,5 x 113,5 cm Privatsammlung
© Amells Fine Art Gallery, Stockholm Foto: Patric Evinger

Anders Zorn (1860–1920)
Die Kirchenbucht bei Lidingö, 1883 Aquarell und Goache, 35,4 x 25,2 cm Zornmuseet, Mora
© Zornmuseet, Mora

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) Rauchende junge Frau, um 1892 Radierung, 15,9 x 12,0 cm Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett © Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk Foto: Christoph Irrgang.

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) Selbstporträt in Rot, 1915
Öl auf Leinwand, 120 x 90 cm Zornmuseet, Mora © Zornmuseet, Mora

Anders Zorn (1860–1920)
Stephen Grover Cleveland,
1899
Öl auf Leinwand, 122 x 91,5 cm National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington Schenkung des Reverends Thomas G. Cleveland

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) Mittsommertanz, 1897
Öl auf Leinwand, 140 x 98 cm Nationalmuseum, Stockholm © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm Foto: Cecilia Heisser

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) Omnibus I, um 1890
Öl auf Leinwand, 99,5 x 66 cm Nationalmuseum, Stockholm Ankauf 1985, Peter and Malin Beijer Fonds
© Nationalmuseum, Stockholm Foto: Anna Danielsson

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) Hirtin, 1908
Öl auf Leinwand, 121 x 91,5 cm Zornmuseet, Mora
© Zornmuseet, Mora