LONDON — Simultaneously helming Dior and his own brand, JW Anderson; partnering with film director Luca Guadagnino — plus, he has a fun Instagram. What could possibly be left for Jonathan Anderson to daydream about?
Perhaps an exhibition.
The designer has co-curated “Dreams of the Everyday: Paintings by Winifred Nicholson and Andrew Cranston” at the Holburne Museum in Bath with gallerist Richard Ingleby.
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The exhibition runs from Oct. 3 through Jan. 11, 2026. The show finds beauty in the pastel-washed humdrum of domestic life through the artists’ intimate paintings of soapy baths and children nibbling on fruit.
“I had just seen this amazing picture by Winifred Nicholson of ‘The Warwick Family,’ and you know I have always adored Andrew Cranston’s work,” said Anderson. “There was something about the knife and the plate in the foreground and I thought: what a beautiful synergy it could be to see them together in a show.”
“There’s something about the freedom and efficiency of the brush stroke within two different types of language, and I think for me it was this idea of looking at the still life, interiors, the domestic scene — I thought, there’s two of my favorite artists in one room,” he added.
While the painters might have been from different worlds — Nicholson was born in 1893 and resided in Cumbria, while Cranston, born in 1969, lives in Scotland — their work both revels in intimacy’s imperfections.
“There’s a certain hesitancy in [Winifred Nicholson’s] touch, doubt even, that is so gentle,” said Cranston. “A warm human wobble.”
“I see it in the paint of Chardin and Corot and Bonnard, and Vuillard and Morandi, and Gwen John and Christopher Wood too. It’s a company of quiet painters that don’t always make major statements but nevertheless are perhaps more powerful because of that,” he said.