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...
The highest-profile opening in London this January? It might well be Francis Bacon: Man and Beast at the Royal Academy. Starting on January 29, this exhibition will focus on Bacon's fascination with animals, featuring pictures in which the boundaries between humans and animals are constantly blurred. Spanning his entire career, the show will include a trio of bullfight paintings never before exhibited together. If your New Year's resolution is to go vegetarian, this one may be a bit on the fleshy side. Until April 17. For something perhaps a bit less unsettling, head to Room 1 at the National Gallery to see Gainsborough's Blue Boy . Thomas Gainsborough's full-length canvas of a child was exhibited at the National for three weeks in 1922 before sailing across the Atlantic to the Huntington Library in California. It's a painting that's long had a hold on the imagination; it's been frequently referenced in Hollywood movies, and now it's being loaned out b...