March's must-see exhibitions: Edvard Munch, Roman marvels and an overlooked artist who ‘revolutionised’ sculpture

As the art world regroups after Frieze Los Angeles—and the city's artists continue to work to recover from the recent wildfires—museums and galleries around the world open shows designed to tempt audiences right through spring and into summer. These are the exhibitions opening in March that caught our eye.

Ian Hamilton Finlay, National Galleries of Scotland Modern Two, Edinburgh

8 March-26 May

Poet, sculptor, printmaker, gardener, designer… Ian Hamilton Finlay defied categorisation. The artist died in 2006, but the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh is staging an exhibition to mark the centenary of one of its genuinely maverick sons. More

Changing Times: Egon Schiele’s Last Years, 1914-18, Leopold Museum, Vienna

28 March-13 July

The Austrian artist Egon Schiele was only 28 when he died in 1918, but he left behind about 400 paintings and around 3,000 works on paper. This show features around 130 works, including the artist’s very last painting, Portrait of the Painter Albert Paris von Gütersloh (1918), and his best-known image of the period, the pencil-and-gouache Seated Woman with Bent Knees (1917). More

Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

15 March-29 June

A North American tour of Roman sculptures from the Torlonia Collection—considered to be the finest group of Greco-Roman antiquities still in private hands—begins on 15 March at the Art Institute of Chicago, marking the first time these works have been shown outside of Europe. The show will feature 58 pieces from the Torlonia Collection, with works dating from around the fifth century BC to the early fourth century AD. More

Medardo Rosso: Inventing Modern Sculpture, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

29 March-10 August

Medardo Rosso: Inventing Modern Sculpture presents a comprehensive survey of an artist whose influence is matched only by his remarkably persistent anonymity. Rosso’s rejection of the classical sculptural tradition, and his focus on light and atmospheric effects, has inevitably drawn comparison with the Impressionists, confirmed perhaps by his self-proclaimed “preoccupation with the impression, the intuition of life, and the neglect of matter”. More

Edvard Munch Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London

13 March-15 June

Edvard Munch Portraits is the first UK show to focus on Munch’s portraiture, defined as work he made “from a particular person in the moment”, explains its curator Alison Smith. It explores the artist’s family life and time spent in Bohemian circles in Kristiania (present-day Oslo), Paris and Berlin, along with a further spell in Germany and his later years after returning to Norway. More