A new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK, called Made in Ancient Egypt, reveals untold stories of the people behind a host of remarkable objects, and the technology and techniques they used. The Art Newspaper’s digital editor, Alexander Morrison visits the museum to take a tour with the curator, Helen Strudwick. One of the great revelations of the past two decades in scholarship about women artists is Michaelina Wautier, the Baroque painter active in what is now Belgium in the middle of the 17th century. The largest ever exhibition of Wautier’s work opened this week at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and travels to the Royal Academy of Arts in London next year. Ben Luke speaks to the art historian who rediscovered this extraordinary painter, Katlijne Van der Stighelen, who has also co-edited the catalogue of the Vienna show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Robert Rauschenberg’s Bed (1955), one of the most important works of US art of the post-war period. It features in the exhibition Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, which this week arrives at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. We speak to Yilmaz Dziewior, the co-curator of the exhibition.

Made in Ancient Egypt, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, 3 October-2 April 2026

Michaelina Wautier, Painter, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

30 September-22 February 2026; Royal Academy of Arts, London

27 March – 21 June 2026.

Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany,

3 October-11 January 2026

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The Art Newspaper’s chief contributing editor, Gareth Harris, has just published a new book, Towards the Ethical Art Museum, which explores a range of issues affecting museums in the 21st century, from questions of provenance and restitution to funding and governance and responsibilities to staff and the communities the museums serve. He joins Ben Luke to discuss the book. One of the exhibitions of the year has just opened in Florence in Italy: the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco are jointly presenting Fra Angelico, devoted to the great 15th-century Florentine master. Our digital editor, Alexander Morrison talks to Carl Brandon Strehlke, a curator emeritus of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and curator of the exhibition. And this episode’s Work of the Week is PsychoBarn (Cut-Up) by Cornelia Parker, an installation first made in 2023 and relating closely to the British artist’s 2016 project for the roof commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Transitional Object (PsychoBarn). The work is in a major new group exhibition at the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Ghosts: Visualising the Supernatural and Luke speaks to its curator, Eva Reifert.

Towards the Ethical Art Museum, by Gareth Harris, published by Lund Humphries, out now in the UK, £19.99 (hb), published in November in the US and Canada, US $34.99, CA $46.99.

Fra Angelico, Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco, Florence, 26 September-25 January 2026.

Ghosts: Visualising the Supernatural, Kunstmuseum, Basel, until 8 March 2026.

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Kerry James Marshall: The Histories at the Royal Academy of Arts in London is the largest ever European retrospective of the work of the US artist and has been greeted with universal critical acclaim. Ben Luke takes a tour of the exhibition with Mark Godfrey, its curator, and visits a related exhibition of Marshall’s graphic novel project, Rythm Mastr, at The Tabernacle in Notting Hill, London, with the co-curator of that show with Godfrey, Nikita Sena Quarshie. Last week, the National Gallery in London announced that it will build a major new extension, at a cost around £400m, of which £375m has already been raised. Project Domani, as it is called, is billed by the National as the largest transformation since it was founded, 200 years ago. The National will also expand its collecting boundary beyond 1900 in a major shift in the division of UK national collections. The Art Newspaper’s digital editor, Alexander Morrison, talks to the director of the National Gallery, Gabriele Finaldi. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Three Dancers by Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest of all the many thousands of works by the Spanish artist. The painting was made in 1925 and Tate Modern is celebrating its centenary with an exhibition, Theatre Picasso, in which The Three Dancers is the centrepiece. Ben talks to Natalia Sidlina, co-curator of the exhibition, and to Enrique Fuenteblanca who, with the artist Wu Tsang, has designed the radical staging of the exhibition.

Kerry James Marshall: The Histories, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 20 September-18 January 2026; Kunsthaus Zürich, 27 February-16 August 2026; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, 18 September 2026-24 January 2027;

Rythm Mastr: The Chronicles, The Tabernacle, London, until 14 December.

Theatre Picasso, Tate Modern, London, until 12 April 2026.

Student subscription offer: stay connected to the art world from your first lecture to your final dissertation with a three-year student subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £99/$112/€105. Gift, quarterly and annual subscriptions are also available. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-student?offer=4c1120ea-bc15-4cb3-97bc-178560692a9c

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