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...
As London's Courtauld Gallery closes for a makeover , some of its highlights are making the short trip up the Strand for a show at the National Gallery. Courtauld Impressionists , which runs from September 17 to January 20, brings together works purchased in the 1920s by the industrialist Samuel Courtauld for his own collection as well as Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings he helped acquire for the National Gallery. Manet, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat and Bonnard are represented and tickets are a modestly priced £7.50. There are two new exhibitions at the Royal Academy. The first traces the career of Renzo Piano , architect of the Shard, and it's on from September 15 to January 20. The second, starting September 29 and running until December 10, looks at the indigenous art of Oceania , marking the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific. Huge canoes and stunning god images are promised among the 200 artefacts. Dulwich...