What begins with an Alphabet chart, shows off some choice Silverware, portrays Queen Victoria, highlights the horrors of World War I and crosses the Ocean? Oh yes, and also includes a Rabbit, the star of a classic children's book. It's the William Nicholson exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. This is the first major show of Nicholson's work for more than 20 years and it covers the full and very varied range of his art -- including landscapes, portraits, posters and book illustrations -- in a career that lasted from the Victorian age until the middle of the 20th century. Among his paintings, though, it's the still lifes, often featuring glittering silver, that stand out. This Silver Casket and Red Leather Box conveys just how skilled he was at rendering materials and reflections. You can marvel at the accuracy of his reproduction of the silver tea caddy as the original is displayed in a glass case alongside. Of course the reflection i...
Got any plans for the first month of 2021? Zoom call? Vaccination? An exhibition? Well, here's a few that are scheduled to open, if the authorities allow. London's first big-name show of the year is at the Royal Academy. Francis Bacon: Man and Beast looks at how the boundaries between humans and animals are so often distorted in Bacon's violent pictures. Bacon was fascinated by the subject of animal movement throughout his career. This exhibition is scheduled from January 30 to April 18. The previous lockdown meant the curtain failed to go up in November on Noël Coward: Art & Style at the Guildhall Art Gallery, but the show is now slated to begin its run on January 14. The exhibition, including previously undisplayed material, is being staged to commemorate the centenary of Coward's West End debut as a 19-year-old playwright. The writer of Brief Encounter and Mad Dogs and Englishmen had a huge impact on fashion and culture in the...