Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series: Selections from the Phillips Collection (Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Ave., up through Jan. 6). A rare opportunity for New Yorkers to see seventeen of the thirty Phillips-owned panels from Lawrence’s unforgettable sequence of paintings about the Great Migration of rural southern blacks to the big cities of the north. (The other half of the sequence is owned by MoMA.) The Phillips usually only shows a handful of Lawrence panels at any given time, but all thirty will be on display starting May 3. A word to the wise: visit the Whitney now, then go to Washington this summer (TT).

Trio Solisti, Pictures at an Exhibition. The “filler” is the highlight: a flawless performance of Ravel’s luscious A Minor Piano Trio by the group that to my mind has now succeeded the Beaux Arts Trio as the outstanding chamber-music ensemble of its kind. The main event is an ingenious arrangement of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece by the members of the trio. It’s fun to hear but ultimately inessential–all Pictures needs to make its effect is a single pianist. The Ravel, on the other hand, is worth twice the price of the album all by itself (TT).

Jules Olitski: The Late Paintings, a Celebration (Knoedler & Company, 19 E. 70, up through Jan. 5). The final canvases of the once-fashionable American color-field abstractionist who outlived his fame but kept on painting–brilliantly. I’ve been a passionate admirer of Olitski’s work ever since I finally caught up with him two years ago. This much-needed show will give you a chance to see where he wound up at the end of a long, excitingly unpredictable career (TT).

Martin Puryear (Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53, up through Jan. 14). A forty-five-piece retrospective by the American Brancusi, a master woodworker whose elegantly crafted creations, by turns playful and mysterious, allude subtly to political matters without once bowing to the tyranny of the idea. Is there a better sculptor anywhere? Not in my book (TT).

The Devil’s Disciple (Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 W. 22, extended through Feb. 10). My favorite off-Broadway company has just extended the run of its incisive small-scale production of George Bernard Shaw’s 1897 play, a sneaky piece of theatrical prestidigitation in which the shell of an old-fashioned Victorian melodrama is stuffed with decidedly un-Victorian notions about morality. Tony Walton’s staging is brisk and unpreachy, and the cast responds to his lightness of touch with acting to match (TT).

Pygmalion (Roundabout/AA, 227 W. 42, closes Dec. 16). George Bernard Shaw’s greatest comedy, lavishly and immaculately revived for the first time on Broadway since 1987. Claire Danes makes her professional stage debut as Eliza Doolittle and belts it out of the park, with Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife) giving a comparably dazzling performance as Henry Higgins, the fanatical phonetician who means to make Eliza a lady by erasing her Cockney accent. Great staging, great supporting performances, great sets, great lighting. Even the incidental music, all of it by Elgar, hits the bull’s-eye. This one is already a tough ticket, but do your damnedest (TT).

William Bailey (Betty Cuningham, 541 W. 25, up through Nov. 24). New table-top still lifes and nudes by the controversial American painter whose “realism” is tinged with subtle but unmistakable touches of abstraction. I wrote the introductory essay for the exhibition catalogue: “Today Bonnard is widely acknowledged as the major master he always was, and Morandi and Diebenkorn seem well on the way to achieving similar recognition. William Bailey will likely prove a harder sell, not just because of the American obsession with ‘cutting-edge’ art but also because his paintings never raise their voice….They give nothing away: you must come to them.” Here’s your chance to do just that (TT).

Sérgio and Odair Assad, Jardim abandonado (Nonesuch). A new CD by two brothers whose guitar playing is so virtuosic and mutually intuitive as to suggest a single musician with four arms and twenty fingers. The fare is ingeniously varied–Debussy, Jobim, Milhaud, Adam Guettel, even an idiomatic transcription of Rhapsody in Blue–and the performances breathtakingly sensuous (TT).