Highlights to Look for at TEFAF New York 2026

Anchoring a busy week of art fairs, The European Fine Art Foundation’s (TEFAF) New York edition returns May 15—19 with its signature blend of museum-quality works, connoisseurship, and cross-disciplinary dialogue. Set against the refined backdrop of the Park Avenue Armory, the fair positions itself as a site of curatorial rigor and discovery. This year, nearly 90 leading dealers from 15 countries will showcase some of the rarest and most coveted offerings of art and design. 

“What defines TEFAF is the standard; the bar is set incredibly high, both in terms of the material and the level of presentation,” says Edith Dicconson, founder of Dicconson Fine Art. “A key part of that rigor is the vetting process. Every object is reviewed on site before the fair opens by TEFAF’s vetting committees, composed primarily of independent experts, including curators, scholars, and conservators.”

In addition to exceptional artwork, the fair will bring together impressive offerings of jewelry, including a fan-shaped brooch of diamonds with shakudo and bronze accents by the high jewelry house Forms. And, of course, no edition of TEFAF would be complete without stunning design objects, like an ivory tea trolley by Lina Bo Bardi that epitomizes Brazilian modernism, presented by Gomide&Co. 

These will be on view alongside noteworthy finds from antiquities, part of the fair’s remit of exhibiting works that span millennia. This year, a remarkable 3,300-year-old Egyptian limestone stele for Thutmose IV anchors David Aaron Ltd.’s booth. “That breadth gives the fair a real texture and depth that feels unique, complementing the more contemporary focus you see at other fairs,” Dicconson says. 

The result is a fair that rewards slow looking with paintings that echo sculptural concerns, design objects that blur into fine art, and antiquities that feel startlingly contemporary. It’s this layering of perspectives that continues to set TEFAF New York apart, reinforcing its reputation as one of the most intellectually engaging fairs on the calendar.

Below, find Galerie’s top highlights to look out for at TEFAF New York 2026:

A Futuristic Set of Drawers

At Carpenters Workshop Gallery, a tightly curated presentation of contemporary metalwork underscores the material’s expressive and technical range. A highlight of the booth will be Marc Newson’s Pod of Drawers, a seminal work defined by its aerodynamic silhouette and gleaming, riveted aluminum skin stretched over a fiberglass core. “This example of Marc Newson’s Pod of Drawers is exceptional as it is a rare 1987 prototype,” says Loïc Le Gaillard, co-founder of Carpenters Workshop Gallery. “It captures a pivotal moment of experimentation in the artist’s early career. Its aerodynamic, sculptural form—created by hand-beating and riveting aluminum over a fiberglass shell—combines extraordinary craftsmanship with a futuristic vision, while unique details like its original resin feet make it a historically significant, one-of-a-kind example of this work.” The piece seamlessly incorporates five drawers into its fluid form, exemplifying Newson’s ability to merge sculpture with function. 

Contemporary Mosaic Shines 

Meticulous craft and artistry merge in Sean Kelly’s booth. The gallery will bring The Hour Glass (2025), a stunning, luminous mosaic by Shahzia Sikander, “one of the pivotal artists of her generation,” says Jeffrey Grove, the gallery’s director of museums and publications. “Her practice has profoundly reshaped the visual landscape of South Asian histories through a rigorously contemporary, feminist lens.” The motifs in the mosaic evolved out of the artist’s 2024 drawing Migrant Love, in which the central figures represent themes of layered cultural histories and intersectional identities. “In this new iteration, Sikander reconfigures this motif with striking material use and formal precision, speaking to a continuously evolving practice and her exploration of multiple mediums,” Grove adds.

An Abstract Silver Sculpture by Anthony Caro

Yares Art continues its thoughtful exploration of creative pairings, centering compelling dialogues: a dynamic exchange between Robert Motherwell and David Smith, and a parallel conversation uniting Helen Frankenthaler with Anthony Caro. The booth will have a particularly strong selection of sculptures by Caro. Bringing the artists in conversation, the presentation “illuminates a broader four-way constellation of iconic artist-friends whose exchanges extended well beyond personal affinity, shaping one another’s approaches to structure, color and space,” says Dennis Yares, the gallery’s founder. “Inspirational to each other’s creative processes, their dialogue across painting and sculpture reflects a shared commitment to abstraction as an evolving experimental language, and situates Caro’s work at the center of a transatlantic conversation that remains fundamental to our exhibition’s premise.”

Eva Helene Pade’s American Debut 

At Thaddaeus Ropac, rising Danish painter Eva Helene Pade makes a compelling U.S. debut with a presentation of three monumental canvases arranged as a triptych. Building on the momentum of recent solo exhibitions, Pade explores the volatile psychology of crowds, staging nocturnal scenes where bodies, smoke, and fire blur into one another. Installed on metal supports, the works envelop the viewer, creating an immersive encounter that collapses distance between observer and subject. Drawing on the legacy of French hunting painting, particularly artists like Alexandre-François Desportes, Pade interrogates how violence is aestheticized and remembered. In Jagt (Hunt) (2026), jumbled nude figures emerge, their forms obscured by shadow and haze. The result is both seductive and unsettling, a meditation on how images can simultaneously reveal and conceal collective acts of brutality.

A Roman Head of Athena

Antiquity finds a powerful voice in Galerie Chenel’s booth in the form of a commanding Roman marble head of Athena dating from the 1st–2nd century AD. Depicted with her signature Corinthian helmet pushed back, the goddess of wisdom and warfare exudes both strength and serenity. The unknown maker’s skills working in marble are exceptional, seen in the carving of the hair and the fine treatment of the pattern on Athena’s garment, which is adorned with a snake. The work is remarkably well-preserved, and traces of 18th-century restorations speak to Europe’s longstanding fascination with classical antiquity, adding another historical layer to this already resonant work.

Tony Cragg’s Abstract Sculptures Soar 

Exploring distinct approaches to abstraction, Lisson Gallery is pairing sculptures by Tony Cragg with paintings by Sean Scully. Cragg’s innovative designs underscore his enduring exploration of material and form. Anchored by two works from his Incident series, Cragg’s practice reveals a continual rethinking of how sculpture can embody movement and transformation, meditating on the relationship between object, space, and the viewer. 

Rising in dynamic, almost anthropomorphic verticality, these forms appear to twist and evolve as they ascend, dissolving distinctions between interior and exterior, solidity and fluidity. The contrasting materials (one sculpture is Corten steel and the other is gleaming stainless steel) heighten this effect: the matte weightiness contrasts with the stainless steel that reflects its surroundings, shifting with light and the viewer’s perspective. 

An Icon of Danish Modern Design

You don’t have to be a design aficionado for Finn Juhl’s iconic Chieftain Chair (1949) to catch your eye. Though if you are well-versed in design, this will surely be a delight to view in person. On view in Modernity Stockholm’s booth, the chair is widely regarded as a pinnacle of Danish modern design and the height of Juhl’s career. The sculptural teak-and-leather form broke decisively from strict functionalism. Instead, Juhl embraced an organic, almost anthropomorphic language inspired by modern art and international design. The chair’s enduring influence was reaffirmed when it received the Danish Design Award Classic in 2012.