Our critic’s highlights included spotlit Vermeer, mouse-fur beauty spots, Donatello saints, Alice Neel’s New Yorkers and the reopening of an underloved institution
1. Vermeer
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; February
Show of the year, if not the decade: 28 of the 37 known works spotlit in a sequence of darkened chambers, some of them beautifully solo, this was the chance of a lifetime to see Vermeer’s mind laid out in his painting. Exhilarating and revelatory, especially about the spiritual versus secular mysteries of his art. And beautifully filmed, in perpetuity, for the Rijksmuseum website.
2. Philip Guston
Tate Modern, London; October (runs until 25 February)
