Beyond the Fair Booths — Our Guide to the Best Art Hunting in Dallas This April

On the art hunt? After basking in the booths of the Dallas Art Fair, here’s our guide for where to be and who to see during Dallas Arts Month.

Dallas Museum Must-Sees This April

Come fair time, Dallas’ four eminent museums shine as the city rolls out its most elevated art fare for international, national, and Texas visual seekers. At the Nasher Sculpture Center, don’t miss “Sarah Sze.” We last covered Sze’s pandemic-era turn at Fondation Cartier; now this Venice Biennale-exhibited American artist — who’s acclaimed for her installations, with a MacArthur Fellowship to prove it — investigates memory and time via a barrage of deconstructed imagery. Praised by artist/critic Peter Plagens in The Wall Street Journal for its “almost breathtaking” craftsmanship, Sze’s take on modern sculpture at the Nasher mirrors our dizzying 24/7 news and social-media cycles, breaking them down into quiet moments to contemplate and savor (through August 18) …

While you’re in the Arts District, check out the Dallas Museum of Art’s “Impressionist Revolution: From Monet to Matisse” (through November 3). The DMA’s Dr. Nicole R. Myers digs into the museum’s expansive trove of Impressionist treasures to curate a fresh take on the revolutionary movement that continues to enthrall the public, positing that Monet, Cassatt, Degas, and Renoir laid the foundation for the 20th century’s radical innovators that followed. Bask in light- and nature-suffused canvases including Monet’s The Water Lily Pond (Clouds), Renoir’s Blonde Braiding Her Hair, and Caillebotte’s The Path in the Garden, all in the DMA’s permanent collection thanks to the largesse of Dallas’ grand patroness, the late Margaret McDermott …

At SMU’s Meadows Museum, decorative art is the focus. In a museum first, the au courant field of contemporary tapestries receives its due in an avant-garde look at a Spanish talent of warp and woof in “Meadows/ARCO Artist Spotlight: Teresa Lanceta” (through June 16). A recipient of the 2023 Spanish National Prize for Fine Arts, Lanceta questions notions of domesticity while bridging craft and high art with her large-scale fiber and textile work …

Wrap your art banquet at Dallas Contemporary, where three engaging shows explore planetary systems at the eve of a total solar eclipse (“Brian Freeze: View Finder,” through May 5); Los Angeles’ Latinx, Filipinx, and BIPOC scenes told through luscious neon, paint, and vinyl (“Patrick Martinez: Histories,” April 3 – September 1); and a quartet of diverse figurative artists boldly confronting gender politics and fraught social issues, all making their Texas museum debut at the DC (“Who’s Afraid of Cartoony Figuration” featuring Karolina Jabłonska, Sally Saul, Tabboo!, and Umar Rashid, April 3 – September 22).