By arts editor Helen Musa

In a recent show-and-tell, National Gallery of Australia director Nick Mitzevich took a select group of journalists on a preview tour of the gallery’s plans for 2026.

Mitzevich reminded the group that his background is in art education. “I’m a teacher by trade,” he said, “and I’m addicted to galleries.” 

Nothing delighted him more than promoting the program and reaffirming the gallery’s purpose which, over its 58 years of collecting, has been “elevating perspectives and helping Australians get a sense of identity”.

Frequently pausing in front of sculptures and works on paper or canvas, he explained that several of the upcoming exhibitions aim to elevate women artists under the Know My Name project, while others grapple with the ever-present questions surrounding First Nations art and the ongoing need to reinterpret Australian art history.

While the fifth national triennial, After the Rain, would continue into the early months of the year, the 2026 program would offer a heady mix of exhibitions. 

Jumping well ahead, the 2026-27 summer season will open with Full Throttle – a pop-culture study of the car in Australian life curated by Mitzevich himself, his first such project since joining the gallery in 2018. 

Featuring contemporary artists who interrogate the myths built around cars, the exhibition ranges from post-apocalyptic imagery to suburban realism, exploring the car as connector and divider, saviour, destroyer and muse.

A major highlight for Canberrans will be a never-before-exhibited suite of 20 Arthur Boyd tapestries, part of his Life of St Francis series. 

Created in Portugal at the Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre and acquired by the National Gallery in 1975, the works form the centrepiece of a major winter exhibition.

Woven from enlarged slides of Boyd’s paintings, the series reveals what Mitzevich called “the splendour of tapestry”, stitch by stitch, in smooth gradations of colour. One especially striking image shows St Clare revealing her shaved head to her family as a sign of her devotion to St Francis.

Another significant exhibition will be a retrospective of Rosalie Gascoigne, who lived and worked in Canberra and maintained a close friendship with the gallery’s founding director, James Mollison.

Born in New Zealand in 1917, Gascoigne moved to Australia to marry astronomer Ben Gascoigne; the couple lived for many years at Mount Stromlo.

She burst on to the art scene with a 1974 exhibition at Macquarie Galleries, Canberra, and went on to represent Australia at the 1982 Venice Biennale, becoming the first female artist to represent Australia there. 

Senior curator Deborah Hart described how Gascoigne’s isolated life shaped her art, allowing her to engage deeply with the local landscape and to make a radical leap from “my little ikebana” to large-scale assemblages. “I didn’t paint or draw – I assembled. I moved things about,” Gascoigne said.

Mitzevich also flagged new touring shows celebrating the gallery’s photographic collections, including Max Dupain and Ansel Adams: In Search of Perfection and Photography in the 1980s. Throughout 2026, visitors will also see new acquisitions by Albert Namatjira, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda (Sally Gabori) and Trent Parke, and from abroad, works by Dana Schutz, Julie Mehretu and Raven Halfmoon.

Ongoing, he said, is his mission as director to “bring Colin Madigan’s beautiful building back to life – to make the architecture’s total style sing”. 

The National Gallery’s 2026 artistic program

Blueprints for Temples. An exploration of the relationship between the body and architecture. April 2 -January 2027

Ngura Pulka. Paintings by senior First Nations artists sharing stories, Country and Tjukurpa from the APY Lands and beyond. April 11-August 23.

Migration and Modernism: Émigré Artists in Post-War Australia. May 23-March 2027

Tapestries from the National Collection. May 30-November 1.

Arthur Boyd: Tapestries. June 20-October 18.

Blossom: Country in Bloom. Works by First Nations women artists inspired by the floral and botanical impressions of Country. August 22-February 2027

David Hockney: Portraits in Print. September 5-February 14 2027

History of Drawing: 1901 to Today. October 3-February 7 2027

Supporting the National Collection: Gordon and Marilyn Darling. A display honouring their support for more than 8000 works on paper. August 1-January 2027

Rosalie Gascoigne. October 31-February 7 2027

Full Throttle. December 5- March 29 2027

Max Dupain and Ansel Adams: In Search of Perfection. Touring, from March

Of This Earth: Transforming Culture and Country Through First Nations Ceramics. Touring, from March

Photography in the 1980s. Touring, from September

Continuing exhibitions

Trent Parke: The Christmas Tree Bucket, until September 6

Body Adorned. Celebration of the NGA’s jewellery collection. until February 2027

Richard Lewer: Steve. A gentle exploration of a family responding to a dementia diagnosis through animation and intimate tabletop paintings. until July