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...
The big new show in London this month is Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance at the Victoria & Albert Museum, starting on February 11. Donatello created a revolution in sculpture in 15th-century Florence, and this show, with some 130 objects, includes much work that has never been seen in the UK before. It's the last in a series of interlinked exhibitions following shows in Florence and Berlin that were highly praised. On until June 11. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford takes us to ancient Crete beginning on February 10 for Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth & Reality . The palace of Knossos was the centre of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization, and legend had it that an enormous labyrinth was built there to hold the Minotaur, a creature half-man, half-bull. This exhibition includes more than 100 objects that have never left Greece before as well as two immersive experiences. It runs until July 30. Curiously, the new show at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is also about the a...