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...
What will be the exhibition highlights of 2025 around Britain and Europe? At the end of the year, Tate Britain will be marking 250 years since the birth of JMW Turner and John Constable with a potential blockbuster. Meanwhile, the Swiss are making a big thing of the 100th anniversary of the death of Félix Vallotton (a real favourite of ours). Among women artists in the spotlight will be Anna Ancher, Ithell Colquhoun, Artemisia Gentileschi and Suzanne Valadon. Here's a selection of what's coming up, in more or less chronological order; as ever, we make no claim to comprehensiveness, and our choice very much reflects our personal taste. And in our search for the most interesting shows, we're visiting Ascona, Baden-Baden, Chemnitz and Winterthur, among other places. January We start off in Paris, at the Pompidou Centre; the 1970s inside-out building is showing its age and it'll be shut in the summer for a renovation programme scheduled to last until 2030. Bef...