Tom Wesselmann’s Studio Opens to the Public This Fall With New Exhibition
3July 24, 2026
The studio of American pop artistTom Wesselmann, known for his preoccupation with the household products and “Great American Nudes,” will open to devotees and for the first time this fall.
Wesselmann worked in his Cooper Square studio from 1994 until his death in 2004. To commemorate the newly established accessibility of the space, a new exhibition will be staged pairing Wesselmann’s work with paintings made byTomakazu Matsuyama, a contemporary Japanese-American artist who shares Wesselmann’s appetite for surreal and kaleidoscopic interpretations of domestic imagery.
The exhibition, “Wesselmann x Matsuyama,” is being presented by the Estate of Tom Wesselmann with support from Almine Rech. It will be open from September 19th to the 27th of this year, and advanced registration to view the show is required. Related Glasgow School of Art Deems Renovating Mackintosh Building Financially Unsustainable Federal Advisory Council to Slacken Rules Around Modifying Landmarks
Wesselmann’s subjects were “not especially significant… until they were isolated and their super-reality potential anticipated,” and the artist’s paintings intentionally magnified the material culture of postwar America for closer inspection. One notable work set to appear in the “Wesselmann x Matsuyama” show is Still Life #35, a four-canvas masterwork that blows up a six pack of Royal Crown Cola, Made-Rite bread, and a can of Libby’s Beef Stew.
The centerpiece Matsuyama piece, will be We the People (2025), a monumental acrylic and mixed media painting that finds the artist reimagining Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Socrates as having taken place in a sparkling supermarket aisle.
Matsuyama and Wesselmann’s art has intersected before: the former was tapped to contribute to the 2024 Louis Vuitton Foundation exhibition Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann &…. Matsuyama submitted the striking acrylic painting “Safety Retrospective,” which depicts a couple of young friends hanging out in a vivid baroque living room.