See Top Special Exhibitions in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam in 2026

Paintings inspired by Metamorphoses, early fake photos, and Willem de Kooning at Work are the top special art exhibitions in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 2026.

In 2026, special temporary exhibitions will complement the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam’s impressive permanent collections. The top attractions are the 80 masterpieces inspired by Metamorphoses — it will bring mainly paintings and sculptures from all over the world to Amsterdam. At year’s end, Willem de Kooning at work will feature the well-known Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Two special photography exhibitions are also interesting: Fake! confirms that photo manipulation was done from the earliest years of photography, while Ed van der Elsken used himself as a subject long before selfies were a thing.

Special Exhibitions in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 2026

The special exhibitions in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 2026 include:

• 6 February to 25 May 2026 — Metamorphoses
• 6 February to 25 May 2026 — FAKE! Early Photo Collages and Photomontages
• 5 June – 25 October 2026 — Carel Visser Sculptures in the Rijksmuseum Gardens
• 19 June – 13 September 2026 — Ed van der Elsken, the foremost Dutch photographer of the 20th century.
• 9 October 2026 – 17 January 2027 — Willem de Kooning at work
• Ongoing — Operation Night Watch: in-situ restoration of Rembrandt’s and the Rijksmuseum’s most famous painting.

→ See also Tips on Tickets and Visiting the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 2026.

Metamorphoses Exhibition in the Rijksmuseum in 2026

The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam’s major special exhibition in 2026 includes 80 masterpieces inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, one of the most influential literary works of Classical Antiquity. Few texts have ignited artistic imagination so powerfully, with themes of passion and desire, lust and jealousy, cunning and deceit running through centuries of visual art.

Artists ranging from Titian, Correggio, Cellini, and Caravaggio to Rubens, Rodin, Brancusi, Magritte, and Louise Bourgeois are brought together in a dialogue that rivals the poetic force of Ovid himself. Their works reveal how each generation reinterpreted the Roman poet’s vivid stories of transformation.

More than 80 outstanding works will be assembled from museums and collections around the world. The exhibition is the result of close collaboration between the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Galleria Borghese in Rome, underscoring its exceptional scope and scholarly ambition.

Spanning many centuries, the exhibition presents an unusually broad range of media, including painting, sculpture, precious metalwork, and ceramics, alongside contemporary photography and video art. Together, these works show how Metamorphoses has continued to inspire artists across time, styles, and artistic disciplines.

→ See Metamorphoses Exhibition in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam in 2026 for more details on this special exhibition.

Metamorphoses from 6 February to 25 May 2026 in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (buy tickets online) and in a different configuration in the Galleria Borghese from 22 June to 20 September 2026.

FAKE! Early Photo Collages and Photomontages

At a time when image manipulation using AI is attracting widespread attention, this exhibition demonstrates that altering images is nothing new – from the very beginnings of photography, images were being altered using scissors and glue.

Featuring more than 50 historical photographic images from the museum’s own collection, the exhibition shows how photo manipulation developed from the birth of the medium up to the Second World War. Covering the period ca. 1860 to 1940, the exhibition reveals the techniques and motives behind manipulating photos long before everybody could do it on a mobile phone.

One trick that became popular shortly after the invention of photography was to show the same person twice in a single image: first, one half of the plate was exposed; then the subject would move, strike a different pose, and the other half of the plate was exposed. This technique was mostly used for harmless visual jokes, purely for entertainment, but the exhibition also shows how it was sometimes employed with very serious intent.

Exaggeration, humour and incongruous visual combinations also played a major role in political protest. The best-known creator of political photo composites is John Heartfield (pseudonym of Helmut Herzfeld, 1891–1968), who opposed Hitler’s Nazi movement. Several examples of his work appear in the exhibition.

FAKE! Early Photo Collages and Photomontages from 6 February to 25 May 2026 in the Photo Gallery of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Carel Visser Sculptures in the Rijksmuseum Gardens

The 2026 edition of the annual exhibition in the Rijksmuseum Gardens is the first dedicated to a Dutch artist.

Carel Visser (1928–2015) was at the forefront of Dutch sculpture in the second half of the twentieth century. Initially drawing on the pioneering work of artists such as Constantin Brancusi and Alberto Giacometti, he gradually forged a distinctly personal style marked by ever more pronounced abstraction.

The display will include over fifteen works from different Dutch museums, private collections, and public spaces. Visser’s Eight Stacked Beams (1964) is on display at the Rijksmuseum, and in 2024, his Signal 1 and Signal 2 (1964) were given a permanent place in the Rijksmuseum Gardens.

Carel Visser Sculptures from 5 June to 25 October 2026 in the Rijksmuseum Gardens in Amsterdam.

Ed van der Elsken

In summer 2026, the Rijksmuseum will offer a unique perspective on Ed van der Elsken, the foremost Dutch photographer of the 20th century. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to explore his life, his career, and the postwar period through a selection of well-known and never-before-seen photographs, contact sheets, letters, notes, book designs, and film clips from his own archive.

Ed van der Elsken (1925–1990) was a pioneer of street photography who consistently made his own life the subject of his work – a highly unusual practice for the time. He worked intuitively and experimentally, and frequently engaged directly with the people in front of his lens. Van der Elsken took a bold and innovative approach in both his focus on everyday subjects and his extensive darkroom experiments.

In 2019, the Rijksmuseum and the Nederlands Fotomuseum acquired the photographer’s complete archive. Four decades of material allow the Rijksmuseum to illuminate the key moments of his career ‘from within’: from his decision to become an independent photographer to recording the final phase of his life on film.

Ed van der Elsken exhibition from 19 June to 13 September 2026 in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

Willem de Kooning at work

A century after leaving his hometown of Rotterdam as a stowaway bound for the United States, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam presents a landmark exhibition on the work of Willem de Kooning (1904-1997). Featuring around 120 works, it offers a comprehensive overview of his drawings, alongside selected paintings and sculptures.

Tracing de Kooning’s artistic evolution, the exhibition follows his journey from the Netherlands to New York, where his work showed a startling lack of adherence to stylistic norms. He shifted between figuration and abstraction while creating bold works that defined Abstract Expressionism. It continued with decades of vital energy in his Long Island studio that led this colorist through to the perfect integration of drawing and painting.

Through his drawings, audiences gain unprecedented insight into an artist constantly searching for renewal — a modern master whose restless line forever reshaped the language of art.

Willem de Kooning at work from 9 October 2026 to 17 January 2027 in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.