American Federation of Arts Announces New Season
of Touring Exhibitions for Fall 2025 through 2027 ‒ Museums in over 11 cities will headline art exhibitions created by
the American Federation of Arts, with more cities to come ‒
The American Federation of Arts (AFA), the leader in traveling exhibitions worldwide since its founding in 1909, proudly announces the new season for the fall of 2025 through 2027. So far, museums in over 11 cities will headline several art exhibitions created by the AFA and its partners, with more cities to come. Throughout its celebrated 116-year history, the nonprofit institution has helped to spearhead the course of art for generations by enriching the public’s experience and understanding of the visual arts.
Pauline Forlenza at the 2024 AFA Gala in New York (Photo by Alycia Kravitz)
“The AFA’s expansive panorama of new exhibitions demonstrates the importance of listening to the input of visual arts leaders nationwide, focusing on what audiences want to see, and continuing our legacy of shining a light on new artists and trends,” says Pauline Forlenza, the Director and CEO of the American Federation of Arts. “Our longstanding commitment to touring art exhibitions, publishing exhibition catalogues with scholarly research, and developing educational programs is vital – now more than ever.”
These traveling museum shows will open doors to creativity for the next sixteen months to museumgoers. Some of the shows include:
Abstract Expressionists: The Women • Alex Katz: Theater and Dance
Civic Virtue in Rembrandt’s Amsterdam: 17th-Century Group Portraits
from the Amsterdam Museum • Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder • Making American Artists: Stories from the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776–1976 • Experimental
Ground: Modernist Printmaking in Paris & New York at Atelier 17
Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection, and more.
Links to all of the AFA’s 2025 through 2027 exhibition tours may be
viewed at: current shows and upcoming tours.
Pauline Forlenza at the 2024 AFA Gala in New York (Photo by Alycia Kravitz)
Some of the museums across the country include: National Museum of Women in the Arts, Wichita Art Museum, Muscarelle Museum of Art, Southampton Arts Center, The Gibbes Museum of Art, Taubman Museum of Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Indianapolis Museum of Art,
New Orleans Museum of Art, Mobile Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, among others.
Since 1909, the AFA has toured more than 3,500 exhibitions that have been viewed by millions of people in museums in every U.S. state,
and in Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
From the Smithsonian – “A vital part of American art history, the AFA was one of the first organizations to develop successfully the concept of traveling art exhibitions on a national and international level. Many arts organizations and museums have followed the AFA’s precedent. This national nonprofit museum service organization is recognized for
striving to unite American art institutions, collectors, artists, and museums.”
“Through the years, the AFA has also had an impact on patronage in the arts. During its 116-year history, the Federation’s exhibitions of contemporary art provided collectors with knowledge of new artists and avant-garde art forms, creating a broader demand and market for this type of work. Museums and collectors began purchasing work by
new or obscure American artists whom they learned about through AFA exhibitions and programs. The AFA also recognizes the importance of the exchange of cultural ideas.”
“Throughout its history, the organization has concentrated on its founding principle of broadening the audiences for contemporary American art, breaking down barriers of distance and language to expand the knowledge and appreciation of art. The touring exhibitions have brought before the public contemporary American artists and craftspeople, genres, and artistic forms of experimentation – exposing viewers to new ways of thinking and expression.”
Highlights from the New Season
View the full list of tours at: amfedarts.org/exhibitions/current and amfedarts.org/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibitions/.
The complete lists of current and upcoming touring museum shows are updated regularly, as new exhibitions and new museum dates are added. Following are highlights of eight of the AFA exhibitions that will be touring during the fall of 2025 through 2027.
Abstract Expressionists: The Women
Explores the vital, under-acknowledged innovation of women artists in
the Abstract Expressionist movement, the first internationally renowned
artistic movement to originate in the U.S. • Featuring 47 works from
The Levett Collection, by more than 30 women artists who worked in
New York, California, and Paris from the early 1940s through the 1970s.
Stove, by Pat Passlof (1959). Oil on linen. © The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation. Courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, the Levett Collection, and FAMM. Photo: Fraser Marr.
Features a never-before-seen grouping of works by Lee Krasner, Joan
Mitchell, Elaine de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Emiko Nakano,
Pat Passloff, Mercedes Matter, Sonja Sekula, and more. • The paintings
of the Abstract Expressionist movement have historically been
associated with male creativity. • Until recently, the historical and
critical reception of Abstract Expressionism has almost uniformly
marginalized its women practitioners • This exhibition upends this
gendered narrative, demonstrating that these women were not merely
acolytes or interpreters, they were ambitious innovators all their own.
Stove, by Pat Passlof (1959). Oil on linen. © The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation.
Courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, the Levett Collection, and FAMM. Photo: Fraser Marr.
Abstract Expressionists: The Women (continued)
“Too often, the canon of art history has relegated women artists to supporting roles in major art movements,” says Pauline Forlenza, the Director and CEO of the AFA. “This exhibition upends that narrative, asserting that women painters were critical contributors to the formulation of Abstract Expressionism from the very beginning.
Equally talented and visionary, the female artists featured in this show helped put American art on the map,” adds Forlenza. The exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts from the Christian Levett Collection and FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France. This exhibition is curated by Ellen G. Landau, PhD,
Andrew W. Mellon Professor Emerita of the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University.
17th-Century Group Portraits from the Amsterdam Museum
The large group portraits in this exhibition have rarely left
Amsterdam since they were commissioned in the 1600s, and have
never traveled in the U.S. as a group. • The show traces how life
in the largest and most important city of Holland was based on
the collective responsibility of the burghers, who combined their
mercantile wealth with political power. • Amsterdam’s economic
success, however, was the result of ruthless trade wars within
Europe, colonization and enslavement overseas. • Artists include
Adriaen van Nieulandt, Gerrit Berckheyde, Ludolf Bakhuizen,
Frederik Jansz, Dirck Santvoort, Ferdinand Bol, Bartholomeus
van der Helst, Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, Jan Victors, and of
course, Rembrandt van Rijn. • By governing and guarding the
city, by organizing and managing a social safety net for the poor and needy, and by stimulating scientific and industrial developments, the burghers contributed to making Amsterdam the most prosperous city in Europe.
The Osteology Lesson of Dr. Sebastiaen Egbertsz, artist unknown (1619). Oil.
Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder
100 photographs by 70 artists. • Explores the concept of presence through the tenderness of portraits, the awe within landscapes, the clarity of reportage, and the spontaneity of cityscapes. • Works by Merry Alpern, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Irving Bennett Ellis, Nan Goldin, Dorothea Lange, Danny Lyon, Sally Mann, Susan Meiselas, Helmut Newton, Ruth Orkin, Gordon Parks, Edward Steichen, Joyce Tenneson, James Van Der Zee, Todd Webb, Edward Weston, and more. • Photographs can be imprinted with the totality of human experiences, and this exhibition embraces that totality, examining the deeply
humanistic history of photography.
Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, New York, by Norman Seeff (1969). Archival pigment print. Portland Museum of Art, promised gift from the Judy Glickman Lauder Collection.
Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts, 1776–1976
Presenting more than 100 of the most acclaimed and recognizable works of American art. • New narratives of the history of American art, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color, alongside iconic works traditionally associated with PAFA. • Women artists participated in PAFA’s exhibitions as early as 1811, and
this show includes paintings by Sarah Miriam Peale, Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, Alice Neel, and May Howard Jackson (the first African American woman to receive a scholarship to attend PAFA, in 1895). • By 1900, PAFA acquired its first work by a Black artist, Henry O. Tanner. PAFA educated African American artists and acquired their works
throughout the twentieth century, and this show features works by Joshua Johnson (one of the first professional Black artists in America), Dox Thrash, Laura Wheeler Waring, Edward Loper, and Barkley L. Hendricks.
Curated by Anna O. Marley, PhD., a scholar of American art and material culture from the colonial era to today.
Alex Katz: Theater and Dance
Above: Paul Taylor Dance Company’s Sunset, with set design by Alex Katz (1983). Photo by Johan Elbers. © 2025 Alex Katz/Licensed
by VAGA at Artists Rights Society. Courtesy of the Paul Taylor Archives and American Federation of Arts.
The first comprehensive museum presentation of Katzʼs highly collaborative and playful work with choreographers, dancers, and members of avant-garde theater ensembles over six decades. • Showcases Katz’s deep and lasting influence on the history of the American performing arts. • Rare archival materials, major sets
and paintings, and previously unexhibited sketches from more than two dozen productions. • Spotlights fifteen productions that Katz produced with Paul Taylor, exploring their creative partnership that generated some of the most significant postmodern dance and art of the twentieth century. • Artworks from the show are drawn from the Alex Katz holdings at the Colby College Museum of Art (home to a collection of nearly 900 works by the artist), from Paul Taylor Dance Archives, and from the artist’s studio.
• Provides an innovative kind of retrospective: that of an artistic sensibility. • Attesting to the intertwined histories of painting and stage design in Katzʼs works. • Curated by Levi Prombaum, former Katz Consulting Curator, Colby College Museum of Art.
Willie Birch: Stories to Tell
Chronicles Birch’s unique vision of the Black American experience and examines the interconnected nature of global art forms. • The first ever career retrospective brings together groundbreaking works from the early 1970s to the present.
Throughout his career, the artist has explored how African traditions have been retained in music, art, and culture in America and beyond. • Birch was raised in New Orleans and trained in Europe, Baltimore, and New York. • His work as an artist, community organizer, and cultural provocateur questions why certain things are retained and not others,
unearthing uncomfortable truths about American identity, but also offering possibilities for greater cultural awareness.
Left to-right: Memories of the 60’s, by Willie Birch (1992). Papier mâché, mixed media. Courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans. • Uptown Memories (A Day in the Life of the Magnolia Project), by Willie Birch (1995). Painted papier-mâché and mixed media. New Orleans Museum of Art, Gift of Frederick R. Weisman.
Image Copyright of New Orleans Museum of Art / Photo: Roman Alokhin.
Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection
Reveals the intergenerational relationships fostered among women artists over the last eight decades, assembling over 70 works made by 60 women artists between 1946 and today. • Sculpture, painting, installation, textiles, pottery, and mixed media works all converge. • Pioneering examples of post-war abstraction —including early works by Janet Sobel, Judy Chicago, and Mary Corse — are shown alongside compositions by leading contemporary artists such as Julie Mehretu, Lorna Simpson, and Aria Dean. • Paintings and mixed media works by Christina Quarles, Tschabalala Self, and Firelei Báez blur the boundaries between abstraction and figuration. • Connections between the handmade and digital emerge in the various forms of piecework employed in Faith Ringgold’s quilts, Howardena Pindell’s collages,
and the pixelated, hypermediated canvases made by Jacqueline Humphries and Anicka Yi.
Works by the Freedom Quilting Bee, Françoise Grossen, and Sheila Hicks explore irregular geometries and eccentric abstractions via fabric and fiber. • Curated by Cecilia Alemani of High Line Arts in New York City. Sisters, by Tschabalala Self (2021). Velvet, felt, tulle, marbleized cotton, craft paper, fabric, and digitally printed, hand-printed, and painted canvas on canvas. Collection of the Shah Garg Foundation.
Crisscross, by Sarah Sze (2021). Oil, acrylic, acrylic polymer, and ink on composite aluminum panel, with wood support. Collection of the
Shah Garg Foundation. Counterculture B, by Rose B. Simpson (2022).
Carved New Mexico pine, twine, clay and acrylic. Collection of the Shah Garg Foundation.
Experimental Ground: Modernist Printmaking
In Paris & New York at Atelier 17
The first large-scale survey of original prints made at Atelier 17 to tour
the U.S. in 50 years. • This revolutionary printmaking workshop (1927
to 1988) was famous for its impact on the development of modern art.
Kaleidoscopic Organism, by Fred Becker (1946). Softground etching.
Courtesy of O’Brien Art Project Foundation.
It served as a hub of artistic and intellectual exchange — first for
Surrealists in interwar Paris, and after World War II for the exploration of abstraction and other modernist styles. • Commemorates 100 years since the founding of the studio. • Presents works by notable artists who
gained formative skills at Atelier 17, such as Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy,
Louise Bourgeois, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Louise Nevelson, and
Krishna Reddy, among many other artists who participated in intense
collaborations at the studio. • Atelier 17 attracted hundreds of
international artists, drawn to the radical vision of printmaking as a mode for experimentation rather than reproduction.
About the American Federation of Arts
The American Federation of Arts (AFA) is the leader in traveling exhibitions in the U.S. and worldwide. One of the first to successfully tour art exhibitions on a national and international level, the organization unites American art institutions, collectors, artists, and museums.
The AFA has toured more than 3,500 exhibitions that have been viewed
by millions of people in museums in every U.S. state, and in Canada,
Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
A nonprofit organization founded in 1909, AFA is dedicated to enriching
the public’s experience and understanding of the visual arts through
organizing and touring art exhibitions for presentation in museums
around the world, publishing exhibition catalogues featuring important
scholarly research, and developing educational programs.
Abstract Expressionists: The Women is organized by the American Federation of Arts from the Christian Levett Collection and
FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Ellen G. Landau. It is generously supported by Berry Campbell Gallery, Betsy Shack Barbanell, Monique Schoen Warshaw, Christian Levett, and Clare McKeon and the Clare McKeon Charitable Trust. Additional support has been provided by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Every Page Foundation.
Making Art, Making History: 200 Years of American Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Lead support was provided to PAFA by the William Penn Foundation, with additional support from the Richard C. von Hess Foundation and donors to PAFA’s Special Exhibitions Fund. In-Kind support is provided by Christie’s and Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames, New York. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Alex Katz: Theater and Dance is organized by the American Federation of Arts and Colby College Museum of Art. This exhibition is curated by Levi Prombaum, former Katz Consulting Curator, Colby College Museum of Art. The 2022 presentation of Alex Katz: Theater and Dance was organized by the Colby Museum with curatorial guidance
from Robert Storr.
Willie Birch: Stories to Tell is co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Major support for the exhibition and catalogue is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Henry Luce Foundation, Wyeth Foundation for American Arts, and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection is organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Shah Garg Foundation. The exhibition is curated by Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director and Chief Curator of High Line Arts in New York City.
Experimental Ground: Modernist Printmaking in Paris & New York at Atelier 17 is organized by the American Federation of Arts. This exhibition is curated by Ann Shafer and Christina Weyl. Civic Virtue in Rembrandt’s Amsterdam: 17th-Century Group Portraits from the Amsterdam Museum is organized by the American Federation of Arts.
Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder is co-organized by the Portland Museum of Art, Maine, and the American Federation of Arts.
Untitled. abstract expressionism- oil on canvas Jarrod Barker 2021
For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.