Fort Worth’s Modern Art Museum opens 'In the Making,' a changing portrait of its collection

A collection, seen differently

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth opened In the Making: Stories from the Collection on 31 October 2026. Occupying two floors and running through 15 August 2027, the project offers an alternative to a conventional chronological display: its focus is how artists develop ideas, images and materials.

The museum describes ten stories that will unfold over the exhibition's run. They trace themes including colour, mark-making, material experimentation, the human figure and the landscape across roughly eighty years of modern and contemporary art. Crucially, this is an evolving presentation. The institution does not say that all ten chapters will appear in their final form on opening day.

Familiar names, fresh connections

The Modern holds more than 2,000 works, chiefly dating from after 1945. Among the pieces associated with the exhibition is Pablo Picasso's Femme couchée lisant (Reclining Woman Reading, 1960), an important early acquisition bought at auction in 1967. Another is Ed Ruscha's Standard Station (1966), an eight-colour screen print that makes an everyday American roadside image into an unusually concentrated composition.

Seven recently acquired contemporary works are also expected to figure in the presentation. Their presence matters: rather than treating the collection as a finished canon, the museum is making a case for the relevance of collecting today and for revisiting older works alongside new arrivals. This is a museum exploring its own decisions, not simply showing off famous names.

Why an exhibition that changes?

A conventional retrospective often follows the development of one artist. In the Making lets works from different generations speak to one another through shared formal questions: how a surface holds colour, how gesture leaves a mark, how an artist makes a figure or landscape feel new. Its ten sections are stages in a single changing presentation, not ten stand-alone exhibitions.

In a report published on 30 October, Fort Worth Magazine said that the exhibition spans both museum floors. The report also places the project in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of the museum's Tadao Ando-designed building in December 2027. The architectural anniversary should not be confused with the far older institution itself.

Visiting details

The Modern is at 3200 Darnell Street, Fort Worth, Texas. Official dates are 31 October 2026 to 15 August 2027. Because the installation will evolve, visitors should check the museum's current listings before travelling. The programme does not establish that every named work will be on view simultaneously.

Sources: The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth's official exhibition announcement; Fort Worth Magazine, 30 October 2026.