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Kimbell Announces 2026 Exhibitions
The Kimbell Art Museum today announced two special exhibitions for 2026: The Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem in the spring, followed by Photography’s First Century: Masterworks from the Bibliothèque nationale de France opening in the fall. The masterpieces of The Holy Sepulcher have never before traveled to America, while Photography’s First Century will be the Kimbell’s inaugural exhibition celebrating the art of photography.
“The Kimbell’s 2026 exhibitions continue the museum’s tradition of giving its visitors once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to experience great works of art from around the globe,” said Eric M. Lee, the museum’s director. “The Holy Sepulcher will feature dazzling treasures from of one of the holiest sites in Christendom, while Photography’s First Century will draw from what is arguably the world’s most important collection of photography.”
Probably workshop of Domenico Piola, Cope of the Red Pontifical Set of
Vestments of Genoa, Genoa, 1686–97, satin ground, silk thread, and
painting on silk. Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem
Photo: Joseph Coscia Jr.
The Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem
March 15–June 28, 2026
This extraordinary exhibition showcases more than sixty objects in silver, gold, enamel, and precious jewels, given by the Catholic rulers of Europe—the Holy Roman Emperors in Vienna and the monarchs of Portugal, Spain, France, and Naples—to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. For nearly two thousand years, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher has been a site of Christian devotion and pilgrimage built on what is traditionally believed to be the site of Jesus of Nazareth’s death, burial, and resurrection, and its treasures have been used in religious ceremonies for centuries. These objects, including spectacular reliquaries, crosses, candlesticks, chalices, and vestments representing the height of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century craftsmanship, have few equivalents anywhere else in the world. Traveling to only two venues in North America—the Frick Collection in New York and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth—the exhibition represents the first—and possibly only—time these treasures will be seen in the US.
The exhibition is organized by The Frick Collection, in cooperation with the Custodia Terrae Sanctae and Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem. Xavier F. Salomon, director of the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, and former deputy director of the Frick Collection, was the exhibition’s curator, with Benoit Constensoux and Jacques Charles-Gaffiot. Its presentation at the Kimbell is organized by George Shackelford, Deputy Director.
Gustave Le Gray, The Great Wave – Sète – No. 17, 1857, albumen print from
a collodion glass plate negative, legal deposit of the photographer in 1860.
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Photography’s First Century: Masterworks from the Bibliothèque nationale de France
October 4, 2026–January 17, 2027
The Kimbell’s first-ever exhibition celebrating the art of photography will trace the history of the medium’s first century of exploration and discovery, from the rise of the Daguerreotype and the calotype in the 1840s to the age of modernism between the World Wars. The Bibliothèque nationale de France—the country’s great national library—holds one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of photographs in the world. Drawn from these rich holdings, this survey of more than 150 images includes work by Henri Le Secq, Gustave le Gray, Félix Tournachon (Nadar), Édouard Baldus, Louis-Émile Durandelle, Eugène Atget, Sonia Delaunay, André Kertesz, Rogi André, Man Ray, and Brassaï.
Photography’s First Century is organized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Kimbell Art Museum in collaboration with Manifesto Expo and in conjunction with France’s celebration of the bicentennial of the invention of photography. The exhibition’s curators are Madame Sylvie Aubenas, Director of the Department of Prints and Photography and Madame Flora Triebel, curator of the 19th-century photography collection at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Its presentation at the Kimbell is organized by George Shackelford, Deputy Director.
