The Triumph of Nature: Art Nouveau from the Chrysler Museum of Art — Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 31 October 2026 – 24 January 2027

The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, holds one of the deepest Art Nouveau collections in the United States, built largely from the gifts of Walter P. and Jean Chrysler, whose homes were once the showrooms for these objects. From 31 October 2026 a selection of 127 works from that collection — paintings, prints, jewellery and furniture — travels to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art under the title The Triumph of Nature.

The exhibition is arranged in five sections that follow the movement from its sources to its end. It opens with Japonisme, the European fascination with Japanese prints and decorative arts that taught a generation to look at line and flat colour differently. It moves to Siegfried Bing and the Maison de l’Art Nouveau, the Paris gallery that opened in 1895 and gave the style its name. A section on the École de Nancy covers the Lorraine glassmakers and cabinet-makers who turned regional flora into a design language. The core of the show, The Triumph of Nature, gathers the sinuous plant and insect forms that most people recognise as Art Nouveau. The last room, From Nouveau to Deco: The Triumph of Industry, shows the turn towards geometry and the machine after the First World War.

Among the artists represented are Louis Comfort Tiffany, Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha and Aubrey Beardsley. The exhibition is organised by the Chrysler Museum of Art and toured by International Arts & Artists of Washington, DC.

Practical details

• Dates: 31 October 2026 – 24 January 2027
• Where: Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive, Oklahoma City, OK 73102, United States
• Organised by: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC; presented by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
• Admission: adults $14.95 plus tax; seniors (62+) and college students $12.95 plus tax; active and retired military $7.95 plus tax; members and children 17 and under free

Cultural Heritage Online lists this exhibition for readers who follow Art Nouveau outside Europe. The Chrysler collection is rarely seen away from Norfolk, and the five-part arrangement makes the show a compact history of the style from its Japanese sources to its Art Deco afterlife.