Daily Brief — 30 September 2026
Three museum exhibitions opening in the coming days bring distinct historical and curatorial frames into view: Margaret Preston’s practice is reconsidered in Melbourne, Bologna assembles a substantial Saint Francis exhibition, and Emden marks its anniversary with a focused presentation of women artists from the 1980s.
Margaret Preston returns to the National Gallery of Victoria with her first retrospective in 20 years. Opening at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia in Melbourne, the exhibition spans still lifes, ceramics and woodcut prints, alongside contemporary responses by First Nations artists. Preston’s engagement with Post-Impressionism, European primitivism, the Arts and Crafts movement and Japanese ukiyo-e shaped a distinctive modernist practice. Her early prints combined ukiyo-e with designs appropriated from First Nations cultural material, while her advocacy for woodblock printing influenced Sydney’s artistic community, including Thea Proctor, whom Preston introduced to the medium. The exhibition runs through 31 January 2027.
Bologna’s Pinacoteca Nazionale marks the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis’s death with Il cielo in terra. San Francesco e Bologna tra Cinque e Seicento, opening 2 October. More than 30 paintings from the museum’s storerooms will be shown after cleaning and restoration, alongside loans from the Galleria Borghese, Musei Capitolini, La Pilotta in Parma and the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. The exhibition brings together works by Francesco Francia, the Carracci, Guido Reni, Guercino and others, with 12 visionary paintings by Mastelletta from the Basilica of San Francesco presented together for the first time. It continues through 10 January 2027.
Image: Kunsthalle Emden
Kunsthalle Emden to Show ‘REBELLINNEN’ in October 2026
Kunsthalle Emden opens its 40th-anniversary exhibition, REBELLINNEN, on 3 October. Running until 28 February 2027, the show is devoted exclusively to women artists who shaped the art scene of the 1980s. The presentation includes Elvira Bach, Miriam Cahn, Jutta Koether, Michaela Melián, Rosemarie Trockel, Bettina Semmer and the group Weibsbilder. Bettina Semmer is both an artist and co-curator. The opening, linked to a gift from the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung, begins at 6pm at the VHS Forum, with the Kunsthalle remaining open until 9pm and admission free.