ART SHOWS THAT BEGUILED

HERE WAS no shortage of engrossing art with which to engage in Southern California museums during the past year, although the considerable majority of it had been made only within the past 50 years or so.

- CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT ART CRITIC

Art's global history before the Second World War continues to play a decided second fiddle to contemporary art in special exhibitions.The chief exception: the Getty, where its Brentwood anchor and Pacific Palisades outpost accounted for three of the 10 most engrossing museum exhibitions in 2025, all 10 presented here in order of their opening dates. (Four are still on view.)

Art museums across the country continue to struggle in attendance and fundraising after the double-whammy of the lengthy COVID-19 pandemic shutdown followed by culture war attacks from the Trump administration. That may help explain the unusually lengthy, sevento 14-month duration of half of these shows.

GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE:PAINTING MEN

Getty Center

An emphasis on men’s daily lives is very unusual in French Impressionist art. Women are more prominent as subject matter in scores of paintings by marquee names like Monet, Cassatt and Degas. But homosocial life in late 19th century Paris was the fascinating focus of this show, the first Los Angeles museum survey of Gustave Caillebotte’s paintings in 30 years.

GUADALUPE ROSALES —TZAHUALLI: MI MEMORIA EN TU REFLEJO

Palm Springs Art Museum

Vibrant Chicano youth subcultures of 1990s Los Angeles, during the fraught era of Rodney King and the AIDS epidemic, are embedded in the art of one of its enthusiastic participants. Guadalupe Rosales layers her archival work onto pleasure and freedom today, as was seen in this vibrant exhibition, offering a welcome balm during another period of out-sized social distress.

DON BACHARDY:A LIFE IN PORTRAITS

The Huntington