At their annual press conference on February 26, 2026, the Dresden State Art Collections (SKD) took stock of the year 2025, presented programmatic priorities and introduced the exhibition highlights for 2026.
Image above: Dresden State Art Collections, Photo: Jürgen Lösel
The museum association looked ahead with optimism. Against the backdrop of the current budget situation, the SKD are sharpening their focus and deliberately further developing their organization and structure. Research, science, and collection presentation are being strategically interlinked to sustainably ensure relevance and future viability.
“The Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden stand for the highest quality in all areas. Especially in challenging times, we resolutely set priorities, act with agility, and actively shape change,” explains Dr. Bernd Ebert, General Director of the SKD.
With this commitment, the SKD position themselves as a forward-looking museum association, which will increasingly focus on the research, presentation, and mediation of collections, as well as on visitor satisfaction.
Last year, the SKD recorded around 1.8 million visitors. Forty percent of guests came from abroad, 60 percent from within Germany, of which 24 percent were from Saxony.
This year saw a spectacular start with great visitor and media interest already in early February. In cooperation with the Munch Museum in Oslo, a comprehensive exhibition of works by Paula Modersohn-Becker and Edvard Munch, titled “The Great Questions of Life,” is on display at the Albertinum (until May 31, 2026). The occasion is the 150th birthday of the artist, who was born in Dresden.
The next highlight awaits the public in April: with the structural completion of the Large Ballroom and the Propositions Hall, the tour of the state rooms of the Dresden Residenzschloss is complete. In the two newly opened halls in the north wing, the new permanent exhibition “Masks and Crowns: Festive Culture and the Display of Power at the Dresden Court” will be on view (from April 22, 2026). The exhibition presents unique testimonies of festive culture and the display of power, among the most precious works of their kind from the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
The exhibition “Japan on Paper in Dresden” (June 26–September 20, 2026) at the Kupferstich-Kabinett will focus on selected works, including pieces never before shown, from the collection of over 10,000 objects. Featured are works by the most famous woodblock print artists of the 18th and 19th centuries: Kitagawa Utamaro, Katsushika Hokusai, and Utagawa Hiroshige.
The event calendar also holds a special attraction in late summer: the exhibition “Correggio: Touchingly Human” (September 19, 2026–January 10, 2027) is the artist’s first major monographic exhibition outside Italy. The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister dedicates a comprehensive show to this 16th-century painter, so significant for the gallery and Italian art, featuring numerous high-profile international loans.
The term “cryptocurrency” is ubiquitous—but what does it actually mean? The special exhibition “Crypto, What?” (October 3, 2026–August 29, 2027) at the Münzkabinett examines digital currency and asks: where does it come from and how does it work?
In addition to these exhibition highlights, further program highlights await: the Museum of Decorative Arts will celebrate its 150th anniversary with a ceremonial event (September 11, 2026). This will be followed by a conference of the research network of art and design schools at the Japanese Palais.
Great events cast their shadows before them: In 2027, the SKD (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden) will celebrate the 450th birthday of Peter Paul Rubens with a major special exhibition. The show “Rubens. A World Star in Dresden!” (June 25, 2027 – January 9, 2028) honors the diplomat and most famous painter of the European Baroque north of the Alps, whose paintings have shaped the Semper Gallery for centuries.
WHERE?
Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden
Taschenberg 2 (und weitere Orte)
01067 Dresden
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