The art autumn of 2026 has a focus on painting: several major exhibitions featuring works by renowned painters are running in Vienna and Salzburg. Most will be on view well into 2027. Those wanting to visit them before the end of this year have plenty of time. Here's an overview of what to see and who's behind it.

Albertina: Picasso meets Bacon

The Albertina is showing Picasso – Bacon. What It Feels Like to Be Human until 31 January 2027. It brings together two painters who are regarded as the great figurative artists of the twentieth century. The focus is on the human body, pain, desire and vulnerability. The young Francis Bacon was strongly impressed by Pablo Picasso and saw him as an artistic role model. This forms the basis for the exhibition's dialogue. There are varying figures for the number of works: one event portal mentions more than 100, another around 70 key works.

Several other exhibitions are also running at the Albertina:

  • Shara Hughes – Sink In: The exhibition has been running since 9 October until 28 February 2027. Hughes was born in 1981 in Atlanta. Her landscapes are symbolically charged, and her use of colour is reminiscent of Fauvism and Expressionism.
  • Otto meets Albertina: Comedian and artist Otto Waalkes reinterprets well-known works from the collection until 10 January 2027.
  • Her Story. Artists of the Albertina: Opens on 30 October and runs until 14 February 2027. Graphic art, painting and printmaking by female artists from various periods are on display. Featured artists include Louise Bourgeois, Maria Lassnig, Valie Export and Meret Oppenheim.
  • Monet to Chagall – The Batliner Collection: This is set up as a permanent presentation. A highlight is Claude Monet's Water Lily Pond from 1917 to 1919.

Arnulf Rainer: Retrospective from November

On 13 November, the Albertina opens a retrospective of Arnulf Rainer. It runs until 25 April 2027. The Albertina website lists the opening date as 13 November, although other sites sometimes mention 12 November. Around 70 works span the arc from his early overpaintings to the Face Farces, the crosses and his later overpaintings. According to its own information, the Albertina holds approximately 600 works by Rainer from all periods of his creative life, making it one of the largest public collections of his work.

Rainer was born in 1929 in Baden and died on 18 December 2025 at the age of 96. He was one of the best-known Austrian painters of Informal art. In 1950, he founded the Hundsgruppe with Ernst Fuchs, Arik Brauer and Josef Mikl. Later, blackenings, overpaintings and masking of images and photographs became characteristic of his work.

The Arnulf Rainer Museum in Baden opened the exhibition Arnulf Rainer & Hermann Nitsch on 24 October. The duration is not evident from the sources consulted.

Leopold Museum: Herbert Boeckl in dialogue with a sculptor

The Leopold Museum in the MuseumsQuartier is showing Herbert Boeckl – Hans Josephsohn. Archetypes of the Figural until 10 January 2027. More than 80 paintings, sculptures and graphic works are on display. For the first time, Austrian painter Herbert Boeckl (1894–1966) is being shown together with Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn (1920–2012). The two never met. Both remained committed to the human figure despite the rise of abstraction, reducing it to its essentials. From the 1920s onwards, Boeckl developed a distinctive painting style in which the effect of colour became increasingly important. One of his major works in the museum is Group at the Forest's Edge from 1920. The curator is museum director Hans-Peter Wipplinger.

Belvedere: Two Modern artists

Two solo exhibitions are on view in the Lower Belvedere:

  • Erna Rosenstein – Beyond Silence: until 10 January 2027.
  • Erika Giovanna Klien – Everything is Movement: until 31 January 2027. Klien (1900–1957) was an artist and art educator with Austrian-American roots.

Salzburg: Kokoschka and his painting backgrounds

The Museum of Modern Art Salzburg has been showing Kokoschka's Backgrounds at the Rupertinum in the Old Town since 23 October. The exhibition runs until 30 May 2027. Oskar Kokoschka is considered one of the most significant painters of Expressionism in the German-speaking world and was born in 1886 in Pöchlarn. Along with Egon Schiele, he is one of the main exponents of Austrian Expressionism. With his "X-ray vision", he wanted to see beyond the outer façade of those he portrayed.

The exhibition shows how his painting backgrounds developed. Initially, they were dark, flowing fields of colour that surrounded those depicted like an aura. Later they became lighter and more narrative. Early paintings are shown in comparison with works from the late 1930s to the 1970s, along with drawings and prints from the museum's collection. The curators are Barbara Herzog and Aglaja Kempf. Seven works are on loan from the Fondation Oskar Kokoschka. Kokoschka has close ties to Salzburg: in 1953, he founded the Salzburg Summer Academy together with Friedrich Welz.

More recommendations

  • musa, Vienna: Condensations by Heliane Wiesauer-Reiterer, showing abstract paintings among other works until 29 November.
  • Heidi Horten Collection: To Shoe or not to Shoe. Warhol and others runs from 21 October to 18 April 2027.
  • Kunsthistorisches Museum: Bernini. Painting and Marble runs from 2 December to 4 April 2027. The focus is on the recently discovered "Portrait of an Old Man" by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from the museum's collection. It will be shown in the Theatre Museum.

In brief

The Albertina is open daily from 10 to 18:00, with extended hours on Wednesdays and Fridays. The Leopold Museum is open daily except Tuesdays from 10 to 18:00. Before visiting, it's worth checking the websites of the museums, as opening hours and dates – especially around public holidays – may change.

Sources: albertina.at, www.ganz-wien.at, www.vienna.at, www.albertina.at, en.wikipedia.org, www.arnulf-rainer-museum.at, www.museumdermoderne.at, www.museumdermoderne.at