An exhibition devoted to one artist can be very satisfying: not only do you get to know them and what made them tick, how they developed and changed, but often you also have a history lesson. And all the pictures too. We've been to just such a solo show in Switzerland, and just like Swiss trains, it all worked beautifully. The artist: Félix Vallotton. Vallotton Forever: The Retrospective at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, the city of his birth in 1865, is the culmination of a year of Swiss events to mark the 100th anniversary of his death in 1925. It's an absolutely massive show, bringing together about 250 works from public and private collections. But Vallotton's output was so varied, exploring so many different artistic avenues, that it's a constant voyage of discovery. So where to start? Perhaps in the mid-1890s, when Vallotton, who'd moved to the bright lights of Paris when he was just 16, joined the Nabis , the group of Post-Impressionists ar...
October sees the start of a series of exhibitions that promise to be exceptional, bringing together works of art that may never again be viewable in the same place at the same time. Museums and galleries across Europe aren't stinting on the superlatives. Two of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance come together at London's National Gallery for a show its director describes as "unprecedented and probably unrepeatable". Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini were brothers-in-law, and Mantegna's compositional innovations and Bellini's natural landscapes play a pivotal role in art history. With pictures loaned from around Europe and beyond, it runs from October 1 to January 27. Mantegna inspired Edward Burne-Jones , and Tate Britain is giving the late Pre-Raphaelite his first major retrospective in London for more than 40 years. Over 150 works aim to show how Burne-Jones developed into one of the leading European, and not just British, artists...