“Experimentation and heightened creativity characterized the European avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century, as artists pursued multifaceted stylistic innovations. Modern European Currents examines this dynamic period through nearly twenty paintings and watercolors from the Guggenheim’s holdings by influential figures from the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian Empires—including Natalia Goncharova, Vasily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Liubov Popova, and Egon Schiele. The exhibition invites audiences to engage with celebrated collection highlights, such as Franz Marc’s Yellow Cow (1911), as well as hidden gems, among them Heinrich Campendonk’s Farmer with Horse and Wagon (1918), which has not been shown since entering the collection in 1948. This Collection in Focus presentation illuminates a seismic moment of transnational interchange and transformation, when artists tested new possibilities for visual representation.” — Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Installation views, Collection in Focus | Modern European Currents, July 15, 2025– March 6, 2026, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Photos: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

As curator Vivien Greene notes, “The Collection in Focus series foregrounds beloved collection artworks and prescient new acquisitions. Modern European Currents, in particular, showcases a rotating cycle of delicate works on paper that the museum rarely exhibits due to their fragility.” Cocurator Megan Fontanella adds, “Some of these luminary exemplars of early twentieth-century European modernism have not been on view in a decade or more.” 

Title image: Franz Marc, Yellow Cow (Gelbe Kuh), 1911. Oil on canvas, 55 3/8 × 74 1/2 in. (140.7 × 189.2 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection 49.1210. Photo: Ariel Ione Williams, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 

Images courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.