Venice is known for Pizza, Pasta, Palaces and Popes, and also for VETRO VENEZIANO...Venetian Glass. We explore how Murano became the epicentre of excellence for glassmaking across the world. We begin by exploring the origin of Venice and the building of 189 canals built to create the floating city of Venice, before taking a short gondola ride to the tiny island of Murano. Here we learn of the many enduring styles of Murano glass and delve into the lives of these ancient artisans.

Laurie Wickwire - Biography

With over 35 years in the diamond industry, diamond expert Laurie Wickwire represents the industry across all sectors: mining, sorting, grading and  brokering some of the world’s key rough stones.  

A leader in the industry, Laurie is the On-Air Diamond Expert for the international television shopping channel QVC where her opinion is regularly sought by over a million viewers each week.  

Whether presenting diamond shows on national channels the BBC, ITV and QVC, hosting diamond master classes, filming jubilee specials, or creating the historical jewellery range for both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle gift shops, Laurie’s love of the diamond industry is apparent.  

A graduate of GIA London, IGI Antwerp, and DeBeers Institute of Diamonds, Laurie is both a certified diamond grader and certified pearl grader. Additionally, she holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in International Business & Finance, and a Bachelor of Arts in French.   

Laurie’s industry knowledge has seen her interviewing celebrities at the Cannes Film Festival, publishing articles on Ocean Mining or the British Coronation, guest on numerous internationally streamed podcasts, enrichment lecturer on luxury cruise lines and creating bespoke commissions for the Royal Family. 

Awards, Qualifications & Memberships:

GIA Certified Diamond Grader, IGI Certified Pearl Grader, On Air Luxury Gems Specialist for International Television Shopping Channel QVC, Luxury Cruise Industry Enrichment Speaker, Created the Historical Jewellery Range for Buckingham Palace & Windsor Castle, Crafted Jewellery Item for Duchess of Cambridge (Worn on cover of Hello Magazine) Commissioned in 2006 by Prince Charles to create the 30th Anniversary Item for the Prince's Trust

While many English gardeners have visited China to “collect” plants, few have
gone to look for gardens. The Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship
Scheme funded this six-week trip to visit gardens and meet gardeners, with a
view to building bridges between Chinese & English horticulture. In addition
to examining gardens and gardening, this talk looks at some of the wider
cultural aspects of a country full of contradictions, and some wonderful food,
and the very welcoming people.

Timothy Walker - Biography

Timothy  read Botany at University College Oxford. After graduation, he worked as a trainee at Oxford Botanic Garden, the Savill Garden Windsor, and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. In 1985 I was awarded a Master of Horticulture by the Royal Horticultural Society of London. From 1988 to 2014 I was director (Horti Praefectus) at the Oxford Botanic Garden. Between 1992 & 2000 the OBGHA won 4 gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show London. In 2009 the Botanic Garden was awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for providing imaginative educational programmes for adults, students, children, and the general public, thereby breathing new life into education for people of all ages and enriching their lives. In 2010 I was elected as a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London. In the same year I presented a 3-part series of films on the history of botany on BBC4. Since 2014 I have been a tutor in Plant Biology at Somerville College, Oxford.    

Fashion, Fury & Feathers

When social historian Tessa Boase told the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds she wanted to write their early story, they refused to let her visit their archives. To a former investigative journalist, this was a challenge she could not resist . . . This lecture shines a light on the intriguing story of women’s love affair with plumage ­ – and of the brave eco feminists who fought back on behalf of the birds. Moving from a polite Victorian tea party to an egret hunt in a Florida swamp; from a suffragette ‘monster rally’ to a milliner’s dusty workshop, you’ll be taken back in time to a world where every woman, of every class wore a hat. 

Biography: 

Tessa Boase is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer and campaigner with an interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women from the 19th and early 20th-centuries – revealing how they drove industry, propped up society and influenced politics. She’s the author of three books of social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (2014); Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds (first published as Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather in 2018), and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams (2022). Since uncovering the feminist origins of the RSPB, Tessa has been campaigning for public recognition of its female founders with plaques, portraits and a statue. 

Published in 36 languages, turned into a major feature film, the Girl with the Pearl Earring translates into words the intimate, intense quality of one of Vermeer’s best-loved and most hypnotic paintings. Meticulously researched, Chevalier’s book evokes people and places, crafts, class and submerged tensions with, at its heart, Jan Vermeer, his home and family, patrons and preoccupations. This talk compares the writer’s world with the reality of the age but focuses on a consideration of the short but extraordinary life of Vermeer, and the light, colour and mood of his paintings. It is not necessary to have read the book before the session, though students who have done so may find that it contributes to their enjoyment. 

Nicole Mezey - Biography

Nicole studied Art History at the Universities of Sussex, York and Paris and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Higher Education Academy. She was Senior Lecturer at Queen’s University, Belfast until 2009, working primarily with adults, managing and teaching on both the Part-Time degree and Extra-Mural programmes and conducting annual, international study-tours. She also established and was first Director of the Department of Art History, the first in the north of Ireland. Nicole now lives in central London and is a freelance lecturer, working for organisations such as national museums, universities, the National Trust and private companies. She has been lecturing for the Arts Society since 2011, including two tours of societies in Australia and New Zealand.

Bernini received commissions from an early age, designing architectural features such as the Baldacchino in St Peter’s Basilica, the colonnade of the Piazza, and large fountains across 17th century Rome. It is his figurative sculpture however which ensures his reputation as one of the greatest European sculptors, the equal of Michelangelo, Canova and Rodin. His works were famous in his lifetime, and are credited with introducing the dynamic form of the Baroque in sculpture. Justin discusses Bernini’s life and reputation, and describes several of his key works including Apollo and Daphne, the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, David, and the intriguing character studies of Charles I and of Louis XIV.

Justin Reay - Biography

After officer service in the Royal Navy Justin had a long career in business management. He became Chief Executive of a healthcare company and then Director of Studies for a Japanese executive college in Oxford and Washington DC. He was one of the earliest consultants in knowledge management and e-learning, advising the UK Government, until he retired from business in 2000. Justin then studied the History of Art and Architecture at Oxford, and later studied Islamic art at Oxford and classical culture with the university of Athens. While researching for a doctorate in naval history, Justin was invited to join the Bodleian Library as a senior academic manager, advising researchers and graduate students and editing manuscripts in the Bodleian's collections. He is a published historian. A qualified teacher, he is a tutor in the History of Art and Architecture and classical studies for independent colleges at Oxford and for private graduate students. He is a member of the AI & Arts Interest Group at the Alan Turing Institute, and is currently writing a university preparation course on the history of innovation and the impact of Artificial Intelligence on human creativity. A Fellow of two learned societies, and a member of the Walpole Society and the Arts Society West Oxfordshire, Justin is a frequent lecturer for The Arts Society with a wide range of talks and study days on art history, painting, sculpture and architecture across cultures from antiquity to the modern era.

Some of the untold stories and images of the Napoleonic Wars featuring Nelson's spy, enterprising women and the families left on shore.

Helen Doe - Biography

Helen is a Fellow of the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies at the University of Exeter, where she gained her PhD. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a trustee of the ss Great Britain. She has published extensively on 19th century sail, women in the maritime world, Brunel and his ships and in a departure from her usual maritime themes, she  has written two best selling biographies of WW2 fighter aces. She has just written the official 200 year history of the RNLI, an important and absorbing commission. Her lecturing experience is wide and she is a speaker onboard all three Cunard ships. She has appeared on radio and television, and is a regular maritime expert for programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are? She is based in Hampshire.

This lecture reveals how the USA covertly used both Modernist design and Abstract Expressionism as cold war tools against the Soviet Bloc in the 1950s. In one of the most curious stories in art history, it explores how America's new artists were unwittingly weaponised by the CIA and how Mid-Century Modern design was used in European exhibitions...to demonstrate American cultural superiority to wavering intellectuals. 

The image shown here is "Agony" by Arshile Gorky.

James Vaux - Biography

James Vaux is a researcher and lecturer specialising in Nordic arts, culture, design and history. He has presented extensively on diverse topics throughout his career to demanding audiences across the globe, including CEOs and government ministers. His talks now focus on understanding art through its historic, cultural and political context.  

James aims to question conventional art world narratives about painters, designers and movements, to unveil the hidden forces that lie beneath great art.

James took a law degree at Oxford with First Class Honours and qualified as a solicitor before switching career. As a managing director of the international bank Rothschild, he advised governments and corporates worldwide. He set up and ran the bank’s Nordic operations, living and working in Scandinavia and immersing himself in the countries’ arts, culture and history. James then gained an MA (Distinction) at UCL in Language, Culture and History (Scandinavian Studies). His dissertation was on Swedish design, and he specialised in landscapes, the Viking Age, politics and literature. 

He studied interior design and art history at the Inchbald School, Mid-Century Modern at Sotheby’s Institute and electronic music at Point Blank. He has also been a DJ, promoter, record label owner, hosted a local radio show for four years and ran a pop-up community cinema. He is currently chairman of the Oxford University Society of West Sussex.

He now lectures and provides study days focusing on Scandinavian arts and design, Danish landscape painting and mid-century furniture, Norse mythology, Icelandic culture, the Modern Breakthrough in Nordic painting and the role of modernism in the Cold War. 

To kick off our seasonal celebrations, musician and broadcaster Sandy Burnett is on hand to share his selection of much-loved Christmas tunes. Expect an hour of the finest festive music from across the globe – his selections include sparking moments from Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, a heartwarming ballad from Mel Tormé, something from Soweto, a heavenly chorus from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Leipzig, an illustration of the English carol tradition at its finest - and something more cynical from Eartha Kitt…

Sandy Burnett - Biography

Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. Combining engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise, he devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, is a highly sought after double bassist on the London jazz scene, and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season.

I look at how JMW Turner articulated the dramatic changes taking place in the age of the Industrial Revolution with landscapes which created a new aesthetic of an industrial sublime.

Cindy Polemis - Biography

Cindy Polemis is an art historian, independent lecturer and art guide. She has a BA in Modern History from Oxford University and as a mature student she went back to university to study first for a BA and then for a Masters in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London University. Before that she spent many years as a radio producer and presenter for the BBC World Service working in news and current affairs. Since 2016 Cindy has worked as  a lecturer and an official art guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has also been a trustee at the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum. Cindy has accumulated a wide range of art historical knowledge ranging from 18th European and British art to the contemporary international art scene. She has been an official guide for both Frieze Masters and Frieze Art Fairs in London. She is particularly keen to draw parallels with art and social history and her lectures are accessible and engaging, drawing out the stories of art and artists which are steeped in human emotions and experiences which we all share.

This lecture examines a series of iconic photographs that are embedded in our collective memory. They range from records of historic events, to fabulous portraits and scenes of emotional release and joy. The talk analyses the power of these images, traces the fascinating stories of how they came to be produced, and places them in the context of our appreciation of art.

Brian Stater - Biography

Brian Stater lectured at University College London for 25 years, retiring in 2021 as a Senior Teaching Fellow. His principal academic interest lay in the appreciation of architecture and he has a lifelong enthusiasm for photography. He therefore offers lectures to The Arts Society on each of these subjects. He has written on architecture for a wide range of publications and an exhibition of his own photographs was held at UCL. Brian is a former member of the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography. He works with a range of cameras, including a pre-War Leica as used by his great hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others. Brian is an engaging and amusing speaker who seeks to entertain as well as inform his audience.

I have had a home in Prishtina for 17 years and am happy to share the things I love about this little-known city. Visit the library which qualified for inclusion in a list of the world's ugliest buildings (I love it), the youngest population in Europe (and the creative cafe life and excellent coffee you would expect to go with it) in a majority Muslim city whose main boulevard commemorates Mother Teresa. as one of the country's most famous daughters. Hear the impressions of travellers here in wartime and peacetime: can you work out who is being commemorated in Medlin Olbrajt square - and why?

Elizabeth Gowing - Biography

Studied at Magdalen College Oxford before training as a teacher and working in Lambeth, Hackney and Islington. Moved to Kosovo in 2006 and there worked with the Ethnological Museum in Prishtina and co-founded ‘The Ideas Partnership’, a charity working on education and cultural heritage projects. Speaks fluent Albanian and has translated two books (the unauthorised biography of Yugoslavia’s longest-held political prisoner, Adem Demaci, and the memoirs of one of the leaders of the 1912 uprising). Also the author of four books about Kosovo – Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo (2011), Edith and I; on the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo (2013); The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife; an unlikely friendship in Kosovo (2015) and The Silver Thread; a journey through Balkan craftmanship (2017). Her latest book (2022 - with Robert Wilton) is No Man's Lands: 8 extraordinary women in Balkan history. Regular contributor to Radio 4 (Saturday Live, Excess Baggage, From Our Own Correspondent) and the BBC World Service. She has worked as a member of the advisory board of GuideKS, the NGO for Kosovan tour guides, and of the board of Faktoje, the Albanian fact-checking organisation.

CANCELLED DUE TO LECTURER'S ILL HEALTH - SEE NEW LECTURE!

According to historian Barbara Tuchman, the invention of the ball ranks as highly as the invention of the wheel. Simon Inglis agrees, especially after spending years delving into cubbyholes at pavilions and museums, in workshops and factories, finding out how these apparently simple objects came into being and how their design and manufacture has evolved. He asks, why are marbles glass? Why did the discovery of gutta percha transform golf? Why were games such as lawn tennis and ping pong made possible only in the mid 19th century? Why did some billiard balls explode, and why are rugby balls such an odd shape? In 1853 the ingredients of one manufacturer's cricket balls were listed as cork, worsted, hemp, brown oats, suet, lard, alum, stale ale and dragon's blood. Can this really be true, or is it, perhaps, just a load of old balls? Note: Simon will bring along examples of old balls for passing round.

Simon Inglis - Biography

Writer and historian Simon Inglis specialises in the architecture and heritage of sport and recreation. From 2004-22 he edited the Played in Britain series for English Heritage. He currently acts as an Ambassdor for the Historic Pools of Britain. Although sport and recreation might seem an unlikely subject for The Arts Society, non-sporty types need have no fear. Simon’s themes are architecture, design, heritage and popular culture. Since gaining a history degree at University College London, he has freelanced for various publications, been a regular contributor to radio and television, has edited numerous technical guidelines on stadium design and safety, has travelled and lectured extensively, and written a number of books. Two were shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, while another, on British football grounds, was chosen by journalist Frank Keating as the best sports book of the 20th century. One highpoint in his work for English Heritage was the listing of a 1970s skatepark in Essex, a world first that made the 10 o'clock news.

Blenheim Palace has been used as a filming location in a wide variety of TV adverts and programmes, and has appeared in both Hollywood and Bollywood blockbusters.  It has starred in films such as Hamlet, The Young Victoria, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Gulliver's Travels and more recently, Mission Impossible 5, Spectre and the popular Netfix series, Queen Charlotte and Bridgerton. 

The talk will explain what actually happens at the Palace when Hollywood descends and will also look at how TV documentaries and films are made here sometimes involving the colourful characters who work at the Palace. 

Antonia Keaney

Antonia joined Blenheim Palace in 2008 as a member of the Education Team, later becoming the Palace’s Social Historian and Researcher. Both roles have involved her curating or co-curating a number of Palace exhibitions including A Passion for Fashion – 300 Years of Blenheim Style upon which her recent book is based. Antonia’s latest project has been to produce a series of podcasts - Behind the Scenes at Blenheim Palace - available on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18RwCp7lJVGaweiLYbG8m8 

An experienced public speaker, both virtually and in person, Antonia has delivered a ‘Conversation’ at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor, been ‘In Conversation’ with fashion editor Caroline Issa, designers Stephen Jones and Zandra Rhodes and TV and radio presenter, Sue Perkins.

Antonia has participated in both the Oxford Literary Festival where she presented her children’s book and more recently at Cheltenham where she chaired a discussion between authors Emma Soames and Rachel Trethewey on their respective Churchill related books. Antonia has been a guest on Radio 4’s Saturday Live with the Reverend Richard Coles and has made various TV appearances including Channel 5’s The Cotswolds with Pam Ayres and Blenheim Palace - Behind the Grandeur.    

In her spare time, Antonia enjoys the company of her family and her dogs – particularly Percy, a wire-haired Dachshund, who inspired her to write and illustrate her first children’s book – Percy at the Palace - A Dog’s Eye View of Blenheim.  She is currently researching her next book on Blenheim Palace and World War II.

This talk very much follows the pattern of part 1. For this one I bring along 8 examples of the horn family which are conch shell, cow horn, clay hunting horn, holed cow horn, straight cornett, curved cornett, the Billingsgate trumpet and a slide trumpet. Then we have the strings which are, lyre, harp, citole, lute, symphony, tromba marina, psaltery, rebec, and a fidel. Then I include a few of the rarer percussion instruments, which are the string drum, Rommel pot, jews harp, and pipe and triangle, and pipe and bell. I play something on each instrument, which varying proficiency, and each is illustrated with images from the art of the period. I also sing what is probably the earliest English love song.

Jonathan Weeks - Biography

I was born into a farming family in Buckinghamshire and was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School. While studying archaeology at Reading University I developed an interest in Medieval Musical instruments, particularly in the crumhorn and shawm. Thus began my collection which now amounts to nearly 50 examples. I began giving informal talks. After 15 years working on the farm I moved to Somerset and began lecturing in earnest principally on the instruments but also on late Medieval paintings. They have a very wide appeal to every type of society from schools to DFAS. In 2018 life changed immeasurably when my house was destroyed by fire. Miraculously most of the instruments survived, but not much else.

Untouchable Art: The Rise of the NFT and Speculation in the Art Market

This lecture/ half study day is for anyone who feels baffled or simply fascinated by the fact that a work of art that doesn't exist in any tangible way can make mega-bucks on the art market. How did we get here? How can something be a work of art when it only exists in cyber-space? The history of high-risk speculation on the art market is a relatively recent phenomenon, driven by the potential profits to be made from investment in contemporary art.

Vivienne Lawes

I am an art historian, curator, author and journalist with over 25 years’ experience in the art market. I teach at several Higher Education institutions, including the University of the Arts London, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, the City & Guilds of London Art School, SOAS (University of London) and Imperial College. In January 2021 I received the Geoffrey Bond Bursary for Art, an annual prize awarded by the Worshipful Company of Educators to an “outstanding educator” nominated by their institution. My articles, essays and reports have been published in numerous specialist journals, newspapers, catalogues, handbooks and websites, aimed at both the academic and general readership in print and online. The title of my current book project is The Bronze Horse: Themes in Equine Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present Day; in Spring 2021 I will embark on a critique and biography of contemporary Filipino artist Andres Barrioquinto. Since 2011 I have been Senior UK Consultant to Singapore gallery One East Asia and have co-curated many exhibitions of Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art in London and Singapore. I am also Head of Education for the London Asian and African Contemporary Art Fair (founded 2020). When time allows I lecture as an on-board art historian for cruise lines.

Art Deco: Celebrating the Centenary of the 1925 Paris Expo

In 1925, 16 million visitors witnessed PARIS’S EXPO - The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. What would we have seen in this landmark exhibition, if we had been one of those visitors? What drew the Crowds? And how did this seminal exhibition play a fundamental role in giving rise to a new international and truly GLOBAL style that we have come to know as ART DECO? 

Pamela Campbell-Johnston

MA Hons Art History, St Andrew's University. 

Over 30 years of lecturing experience to undergraduates, adult groups, and to Friends and Patrons of the Royal Academy of Arts as part of the RA’s Adult Education Department.

Also conducted numerous guided tours, residential trips and focused gallery talks on individual works of art. Specialises in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art - with a particular love for the 1920s and 1930s. A permanent career at Royal Academy of Arts for 12 years.

Work experience also undertaken at Bonhams, Art Loss Register and National Trust. 

Now a freelance art consultant and lecturer. Recently curated a collection for the Lansdowne Club.

The Founders and Treasures of the Wallace Collection

The Wallace Collection - surely everyone's favourite museum of art - contains an outstanding array of paintings, furniture, porcelain, arms and armour, and other works of art, brought together by five generations of one family between about 1760 and 1880. This lecture tells the fascinating story of the Wallace Collection’s formation and also presents many of its finest treasures. It's a story full of wonderful works of art and extraordinary characters, such as the 4th Marquess of Hertford, perhaps the greatest art collector of the nineteenth century, and his illegitimate son whose name (from the age of twenty four) was Richard Wallace.

Stephen Duffy

Formerly Senior Curator of the Wallace Collection where Stephen had particular responsibility for exhibitions and nineteenth-century paintings. He has given countless tours of the Collection for visiting groups as well as many lectures on its art and other art historical subjects at home and abroad. His most recent publication, The Discovery of Paris, is a book on early nineteenth-century watercolour views of Paris by major British artists such as Girtin, Turner and Bonington. He has written many articles and reviews for art magazines.

150 Years of Liberty: Masterpieces of Design

Liberty of London is far more than just a shop; it is also a byword for luxury and innovation.  Founded in 1876, at the height of the 19th century craze for all things Aesthetic and Japanese, it was an immediate success.  Its Oriental textiles, Middle-Eastern rugs, and Artistic accessories and dress were widely admired and the shop was beloved by connoisseurs such as the painter James McNeill Whistler and the critic Oscar Wilde as well as by the cream of London's fashionable elite.  During the 1890s Liberty’s close relationship with designers such as Archibald Knox, Lindsay Butterfield and Charles Voysey cemented the company's association with Art Nouveau which became so strong that the style became known as Stile Liberty in Italy.  The spirit of innovation continued throughout the inter- and post-war years with the shop's promotion of the Art Deco, Op and Pop designs.  Today, collaborations include everyone from Vivienne Westwood and House of Hackney to Hello Kitty and Florence Welch! This lecture marks the 150th anniversary of Liberty and tells the story of a business whose rich history and legacy continues to inspire people all over the world today.

Joanna Banham

Jo Banham is a freelance curator, lecturer and writer. From 2006-2016 she was Head of Adult Learning at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and before that Head of Learning and Access at the National Portrait Gallery, and Head of Public Programmes at Tate Britain. She has also been Curator of Leighton House and Assistant Keeper at the Whitworth Art Gallery. She has published on many aspects of Victorian and early 20th century decoration and interiors. She recently curated an exhibition on William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement for the Juan March Fundacion in Madrid and the Museu Nacional d’Art Catalunya in Barcelona and she is currently writing a book on the History of Wallpaper. She is also Director of the Victorian Society Summer School.

Sicily: Cultural Crossroads

Before the Normans invaded in the 11th century, Sicily had been colonised by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Visigoths and Islamic tribes from North Africa. This lecture looks at the island’s historic role as the crossroads between Europe, North Africa and the Middle East – and how the different cultural strands were woven together by the Normans during their remarkably enlightened rule, which saw Palermo become one of the most important cities in Europe. 

Richard Whincop

Richard is a professional artist who graduated in English and Art History from York University in 1986. From 1988-1994 he lectured at the adult education departments of Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities, and then went on to become a full-time figurative artist, executing large-scale public commissions, and exhibiting widely throughout the UK. He now lives and works in Chichester, West Sussex. 

A Right Royal Christmas. How Our Royal Families Have Celebrated Christmas Through The Ages

Our royal families have celebrated Christmas throughout their long history, from William the Conqueror making sure of his claim to the English throne by being crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. Feasting on a spectacular scale characterised medieval Christmases – we read of extraordinary culinary delicacies served to Henry II, crane’s flesh, peacocks and herons. Present-giving always marked the season, from the extravagant – the City of London presented Richard II with a camel and a pelican – to the witty – Mrs. Thatcher sent the Queen a pair of yellow washing-up gloves having seen Her Majesty doing the dishes without any.

Roger Askew

Roger was a chorister at Wells Cathedral School and a choral scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with an honours degree in English. He combined a teaching career with professional singing in London, and after obtaining a further degree in Music became Director of Music at Daniel Stewart’s and Melville College in Edinburgh. After retiring in 2003 he returned to the south of England. He is President Emeritus of The Stoke Poges Society.

The Jurassic World of Mary Anning

Let me introduce you to 19th century palaeontologist Mary Anning and discover how she searched the Jurassic rocks of England's south coast to unearth what were believed to be sea dragons and we now call marine reptiles. We will look the social history and influences of Mary and the 19th century scientists that she would have worked with. We will not only look at these spectacular fossil remains, but also see how palaeontologists have revealed how these ancient extinct animals lived.

Aaron Hunter

I am a professional scientist and researcher with the University of Cambridge and a prize-winning London Blue Badge Guide, a Green Badge Guide for the City of London and Oxford, and a City of Bath Mayor's Guide. As a palaeontologist, I am an expert on fossils and prehistoric life from the first animals to appear on our planet to the evolution of early humans. I have published research on the origin of marine animals 480 million years to the Jurassic World. After degrees in Geology & Palaeobiology, I gained my PhD from the University of London and went on to pursue an academic career working first as a research fellow in France, Germany and Japan and then as a Senior Lecturer in Malaysia and Western Australia. I have a passion for archaeology, history, architecture and the history of art. I give lectures that encompass these subjects looking at the interface between the arts and sciences.

Making Sense of Portraits in Country Houses

Country houses are often full of historic portraits, but for today’s visitor it is not always clear who the sitters are, why they are there, or why they mattered. Visitors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, would have immediately known how to ‘read’ the portraits and understand their visual cues. Focusing on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century portraits, in this lecture we will look closely at clothes, poses and accessories, and learn how to decode them. Through this, we can understand how they were used to communicate status, networks and identities.

Amy Lim

Dr Amy Lim is an art historian and curator, specialising in British fine and decorative arts from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. She is curator of the Faringdon Collection at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, and of the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham. She is also an exhibition researcher at Tate, contributing to British Baroque: Power and Illusion (2020) and  'Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520-1920' to be held at Tate Britain, 16 May-30 October 2024. Amy has degrees in History and Literature & Arts from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. She runs an online art dealership, and has published articles and essays on a variety of art-related topics from gothic garden monuments to female patronage.

Before the Raj: British Life in India 1775-1845

During the early years of British settlement in India, the nature of the lifestyles to be adopted was uncertain. Looking at portraits and printed material – both serious and satirical – we will examine how the lives of the early settlers were presented to a wider audience. Through this, we will explore some of the tensions between maintaining their Britishness and adapting to local conditions.

Prasannajit de Silva

Prasannajit de Silva completed his doctorate in 2007, researching the art of the British in India during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His lecturing covers British visual culture of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, including art produced in various colonial settings. He is particularly interested in the relationship of aspects of art, architecture, and design to their broader cultural, social, and political contexts, and also teaches courses on the methods and theoretical approaches of art history. His work has included teaching roles at the University of Sussex, at Birkbeck, University of London, and at the WEA. 

Exploring the little known history of Victorian women mountaineers and the clothes they chose to wear on the mountains of Europe. Unlikely stories of some intrepid explorers abound! 

Kate Strasdin has worked as a curator of textiles and dress for over 20 years and is now the Deputy Curator at Totnes Fashion and Textile Museum. She is a Senior Lecturer in History and Theory at Falmouth University and a Special Visiting Lecturer for the DeTao Masters Academy in Shanghai. Publications include An Easy Day for a Lady (Costume Journal, 2008) and Empire Dressing - the Design and Realisation of Queen Alexandra's Coronation Gown (Journal of Design History, 2012). Kate's book on Queen Alexandra's wardrobe was published in 2017 and she is working on her next book, The Secrets of a 19th Century Dress Diary. She is one of the youngest practitioners of the dying art of Honiton lace.

THE FIRST PRIZE: ANGLO SAXON ENGLAND

It seems that many peoples over many centuries have wanted to live in and claim England as their own. Why? For some incoming settlers, England can’t have been the most obvious choice as richer pickings might have been had by heading southwards or eastwards. Here we will see not only who came, but also why. We will look at the many great attractions of England, not just the varied and rich pastures and natural wealth beyond belief today, but also - perhaps surprisingly – unparalleled education, justice and hierarchy: it was a good place to settle upon your heirs. 

Imogen Corrigan

After nearly 20 years in the British army, Imogen went to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History and Art, graduating with 1st class honours, followed by an MPhil from the University of Birmingham. She works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe as well as lecturing on small cruise ships and running study tours and courses on land. Imogen has written Stone on Stone: the Men Who Built the Cathedrals, published 2019. She is a Freeman of the City of London, being a Member of the Company of Communicators.

A MARVEL OF NATURE : THE LIFE AND ART OF PAINTER SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA

Sofonisba Anguissola was a talented and successful Italian Renaissance painter. Her lengthy career included fifteen years painting portraits at the court of King Philip II of Spain. Anguissola was celebrated in her lifetime: her work was admired and discussed by Vasari and when she was in her 90s, Anthony Van Dyck sought her advice on art. This lecture presents Anguissola’s life and career in its historical context and explains how her oeuvre is growing as she is now recognised as the author of paintings hitherto attributed to male artists. 

Angela Smith

PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University. Author of numerous articles and several books including A Timeline of Art History (2013). Experienced lecturer who has taught for several universities. Catalogued paintings in galleries for the National Inventory Research Project. Has led a number of cultural tours on the continent and has lectured for several cruise lines. Regularly runs courses of study days for The Arts Society on subjects including ‘Women artists down the centuries’ and English church art and architecture. Has contributed to television programmes, most recently an episode of Digging up Britain’s Past.

PERCUSSION: USE AND ABUSE

From calling ancient armies to battle to signalling the audience to stand for the National Anthem, drums and percussion have been a part of history well over and above their musical contributions.  Often the icing on the cake and alas sometimes the bottom of the dustbin, we explore how the design, sound and awareness of percussion instruments and the demands of modern composers have developed almost out of all recognition in the last hundred years.  In addition to performance video clips, this lecture contains rare footage from the orchestra pit at the Royal Opera House.

Nigel Bates

Nigel Bates has been a performer for more than forty years in and out of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, including seventeen years as Principal Percussionist with the Orchestra and eight years as the Music Administrator of The Royal Ballet.

 He has worked with many of the leading figures in the classical music industry and was also a producer for both the BBC's Maestro at the Opera and Pappano's Classical Voices documentary series. He is a regular contributor to the printed and online content of the ROH.

He has given lectures for over thirty years, including many arts societies and conservatoires in the UK and across Australia.

NATIONAL TREASURES.

SAVING LONDON'S MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES IN WWII

This is the gripping and sometimes hilarious story of how a band of heroic curators and eccentric custodians saved Britain’s national heritage during our Darkest Hour. As Hitler’s forces gathered on the other side of the Channel to threaten these islands, men and women from London’s national museums, galleries and archives forged extraordinary plans to evacuate their collections to safety. Utilising country houses from Buckinghamshire to Cumbria, tube tunnels, Welsh mines and Wiltshire quarries, a dedicated team of unlikely heroes packed up their greatest treasures in a race against time during the sweltering summer of 1939, dispatching them throughout the country on a series of secret wartime adventures, retold in this talk.

Caroline Shenton

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013 and Mary Beard called it ‘microhistory at its absolute best’. Its acclaimed sequel, Mr Barry’s War, about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, was a Book of the Year in 2016 for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was described by Lucy Worsley as "a real jewel, finely wrought and beautiful". Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in 2017, has appeared at the Cheltenham, Hay and Henley literary festivals and on BBC radio and TV. Caroline’s third book, National Treasures, will tell the extraordinary and sometimes hilarious stories behind the saving of London’s art and museum collections in World War Two.

1685 was an extraordinary year for music. Two of the world’s greatest composers were born 130km and just one month apart. Much of their childhood development mirrored the other – including the tragedy of losing their fathers at the age of ten. Their careers took very different directions, and they never met, despite several near misses. Patrick will reunite these two giants, tracking their lives across six decades, with a special focus on their vocal music, which has inspired his career as both a countertenor and a conductor. 

Patrick Craig is a Vicar Choral at St Paul’s Cathedral. For twenty years he combined this with an international career singing over a thousand concerts with the world-renowned early music consort The Tallis Scholars. He also sings with the award-winning group The Cardinall’s Musick. He founded and conducts this country’s leading all-female professional choir, Aurora Nova. He has conducted concerts for the BBC Proms, the Brighton, Lichfield and Aldeburgh Festivals, and with the City of London Sinfonia.

As a Cambridge history graduate with a lifelong interest in the arts, he has gone on to lead choral workshops for amateur singers across the world, where he places music in its historical and cultural context. He regularly lectures for the St Paul’s Adult Education programme and for John Hall’s Venice Courses, which have allowed him to incorporate his interests in theology, art and poetry. 

In 2020, when his singing and conducting work disappeared overnight as a result of the Covid pandemic, Patrick poured all his experience into online presentations which have raised vital funds for the Help Musicians Charity.

But when first the ice fell on the lake, and the whole lake was frozen…O my God!  What sublime scenery have I beheld. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1799 

During the Romantic period, there was a surge of artistic interest in the season of winter.  The coldest months of the year inspired a number of writers and artists; the poet William Cowper wrote pleasurably about the season from the warmth of his fireside; Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Caspar David Friedrich were both inspired by the sublimity of the winter landscape; while William Wordsworth and Henry Raeburn created iconic ice-skating scenes in verse and painting. This seasonal lecture will explore why Romantic writers and artists were so keen on ‘the frosty season’.  We will learn how their depiction of winter departed from that of earlier times, and how their legacy lives on today in our own ideas about this time of year.  

Annelie Talent - Biography

Following a career in teaching, Annalie spent several years working on education programmes at museums and literary houses across the UK, including the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere; Wordsworth House in Cockermouth; Jane Austen’s House in Hampshire; and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. At Jane Austen’s House, Annalie won 2 Sandford Awards for Excellence in Heritage Education; she also worked with the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and Chawton House Library in promoting Austen’s work to young people.  Annalie’s lectures focus on aspects of Romantic and Victorian literature. She uses her knowledge and personal experience of literary houses - and their collections - to offer a unique perspective on writers and their works. 

Only Matthew and Luke describe Christ’s nativity and their absence of detail led theologians and artists to amplify it. Matthew (2:1-12) tells of wise men and their gifts, Luke (2:1-20) of the infant laid in the manger and the shepherds, led by an angel, who came to worship. By the end of the Middle Ages, legend transformed the wise men from priests into kings accompanied by their retinues, the ox and the ass appeared in the stable, the shepherds bore their own humble gifts and the Virgin knelt in adoration. This lecture explores the Nativity through a discussion of select images, comparing and contrasting artists’ approaches to this theme.

James Lindow 

Dr. James Lindow was the first Renaissance PhD from the Royal College of Art and the V&A. He has convened and presented at international conferences, lectures widely in the UK and overseas and is currently a fine art underwriter in the City. He has written articles on diverse aspects of the Renaissance, and his book entitled The Renaissance Palace in Florence: Magnificence and Splendour in Fifteenth-Century Italy was published by Ashgate Press in 2007 to widespread critical acclaim.

Joseph Paxton was the ultimate Victorian example of rags to riches; he was the child of a Bedfordshire farm labourer and through a combination of good fortune, immense natural talent and sheer hard work, he rocketed through nineteenth century English society to become MP for Coventry, director of several railway companies, creator of The Crystal Palace, knight and, most significantly, boon companion of the Duke of Devonshire. We explore Paxton as architect and gardener, at Chatsworth, where he worked for thirty-two years, as well as projects in England, Ireland and France, culminating in the triumph of The Crystal Palace itself.

James Bolton

Inchbald School of Design 1990 (Dip ISD). Head Gardener, Old Rectory Farnborough 1990-92. Faculty Director, Design History, Inchbald School of Design. Garden Designer 1992-. A lecturer for The Arts Society since 1995. Organiser of The Arts Society's garden study days and tours in UK and Europe. Organises tours to the best private gardens in the UK, Italy, France and South Africa. Garden Mania, a book on garden ornaments, published in 2000.

 ZOOM LECTURE

14 November 2023, at 10:30hrs 

CANCELLED - DUE TO LACK OF UPTAKE 

THE FINAL JOURNEY OF THE UNKNOWN WARRIOR

with Blue Badge Guide Ruth Polling

On the morning of the 11th November 1920 the funeral of Britain's Unknown Warrior took place at Westminster Abbey. This virtual walk follows the route of his funeral procession through Westminster and tells the story of the Unknown Warrior. Along the way we will explore the wider landscape of remembrance in Britain and discover how a nation reeling with collective and personal grief developed elements of remembrance still used today including national and local war memorials, the silence and the poppy. A hundred years later discover how and why Britain still remembers.

 Enjoy this at home with friends and family!

£8 per household/device

Booking by email: solent@theartssociety.org (in order for you to receive the link).

Payment by bank transfer (BACS): 

Account Name: The Arts Society Solent 

Sort Code: 52-41-32 Account:  51909413 

Payment must be made by 1 November 2023 in order for us to run the lecture (cheque or cash can be paid at the October lecture).

 Speak to our Minutes Secretary, Anna Simonsen for further details.

The late Christopher Hitchens, who knew a thing or two about feuds, once wrote that a really first rate bust up requires one of at least two things: a clash of strong personalities, and a conflict of principles. The history of art is peppered with first rate bust ups: between the great early Renaissance artists, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, between Constable and Turner in the early 1830s, between Salvador Dali and the Surrealist leader, Andre Breton in the 1930s and, most recently, between the graffiti artists Banksy and ‘King’ Robbo, who painted out and amended each other’s works. There are many more. They are highly entertaining but they also tell us a great deal about key issues in art history.

Barry Venning is an art historian whose interests and teaching range from the art of late medieval Europe to global contemporary art. He has published books, articles and exhibition catalogue essays on Turner, Constable and European landscape painting, but also has an ongoing research interest in postcolonial art and British visual satire. He works as a consultant and associate lecturer for the Open University. His media work includes two BBC TV documentaries, radio appearances for BBC local radio and abc Australia, and a DVD on Turner for the Tate. 

Marking his tercentenary, this lecture looks at the life and work of Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), the leading portraitist of Stuart and early Georgian England. His ambition was only exceeded by his productivity: there are stories of as many as fourteen sitters in a single day and that at his death, three hundred years ago, there were 500 unfinished portraits in his studio.

Such reliance on assistants produced many rather indifferent works and in 1815 James Northcote dismissed the majority of Kneller’s portraits as ‘hasty slobbers…scarcely fit to be seen’. But the sheer volume of work should not taint our opinion of a painter who produced portraits of seven successive British monarchs, arguably the definitive portrait of Isaac Newton and Christopher Wren, the Kit Kat portraits and the Hampton Court Beauties. Kneller’s achievement as a painter was actually quite remarkable.

Kneller was born in Lubeck, studied with Rembrandt in Amsterdam and by 1676 was working in England as a fashionable portrait painter. He painted seven British monarchs (Charles II, James II, William III, Mary II, Anne, George I and George II), though his portraits of Charles II are no longer in the collection, and in 1715 was the first artist to be made a Baronet (the next was John Everett Millais in 1885). A set of portraits of naval heroes was given by George IV to the Royal Naval Hospital in Greenwich in 1824.

Alan Read

Holds Master’s and First Class Honours degrees in History of Art from Birkbeck College, University of London. Is a gallery guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern and the National Portrait Gallery and has lectured at many galleries including the Dulwich Picture Gallery, Plymouth City Art Gallery and the NPG. He is also a London Blue Badge Guide and City of London Guide.

This lecture tells the remarkable story of the fabled Ballets Russes company which Diaghilev established in Paris in 1909. Building on the achievements of Tchaikovsky and Petipa, Diaghilev and his associates brought about nothing less than a revolution in classical dance, which was dazzling to the eye and would have a lasting impact not only on all the arts. The lecture will discuss how artists of the calibre of Bakst, Goncharova, Picasso and Matisse, worked with composers such as Stravinsky, Debussy and Ravel, choreographers such as Fokine and Balanchine, and dancers such as Pavlova, Karsavina and Nijinsky to create ballet stagings of genius.

Rosamund Bartlett

Rosamund Bartlett a writer, lecturer and translator whose work as a cultural historian ranges across the arts. She completed her doctorate at Oxford and is the author of several books, including biographies of Chekhov and Tolstoy, and a study of Wagner's influence in Russia. She is currently writing a history of the Russian avant-garde. Her new translation of Anna Karenina for Oxford World’s Classics was published to acclaim in 2014. She has written on art, music and literature for publications such as The Daily Telegraph and Apollo, and received commissions from institutions including the Royal Opera House, Tate UK, and the Salzburg Festival. Her lecturing work has taken her from the V&A and the National Theatre in London to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and she contributes regularly to Proms events and opera broadcasts on the BBC.

From the late 1850s to the mid-1870s a new craze gripped the world. Photography had just begun to be popularised, and suddenly nearly everyone could afford a portrait of themselves to share with others. These small photographic portraits mounted on card were shot professionally in studios and handed out like business or greetings cards – just like we share ‘selfies’ on today’s social media. Across nearly two decades, over 400 million cards were estimated to have been printed and shared with friends, family, and fans. We think we invented the ‘selfie’, but we didn’t – welcome to the Victorian carte de visite.

In this highly visual and relevant lecture, we’ll look at the rise and fall of the fashion, learn how these cards were used, and find ways of dating cards from clothing and hairstyles. We’ll examine in detail the hidden meanings behind the poses, facial expressions, backgrounds, and choice of clothes to reveal the fascinating histories behind these cards that were used by everyone from royalty to the man in the street.

Mark Hill

Studied History of Art & Architecture (BA Hons), and began his career as a porter and Junior Cataloguer at Bonhams, before moving to Sotheby's where he was a Specialist in the Collectors' Department. Became director of an internet company forming and running a ground-breaking deal with eBay Live Auctions. Was co-author of the internationally published Collectables Price Guide with Judith Miller from 2002-17. Founded his own publishing company in 2005 and has since published over 12 books on specialist subjects in 20th century design and decorative arts. A Miscellaneous expert on the Antiques Roadshow since 2007, and has co-presented three primetime factual TV series on antiques and collecting for BBC2. Operations Director of Ronati UK, an internet company offering innovative digital services to the antiques industry. Has lectured across the world, including at the V&A in London, and contributed to many newspapers, magazines, radio and TV programmes. A Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and a Freeman of the City of London.

This lecture seeks to provide a balanced insight into the life and achievements of one of the most important women in Chinese Imperial history.

From relative obscurity as a low-ranking consort we explore the events that led to her confirmation as Dowager Empress Cixi in 1861 and her strategy to preserve, then revitalise, imperial rule after a series of humiliating military defeats by Western Colonial Powers plus several brutal ethnic uprisings.

We will trace the distinct cycles of Cixi’s power, as Emperors came and went, whilst the Dowager Empress moved periodically from a position of influence to full authority and then into times of enforced retirement.

Looking beyond Cixi’s desire to force China into the modern world we will gain an insight into her life within her beloved Summer Palace with a focus on her passion for painting, embroidery, fashion design and the extensive gardens. A location where Cixi forged some extraordinarily close relationships with leading western women. 

David Rosier

A Chartered Insurer by profession and a Fellow of the Assurance Medical Society, with extensive international experience as an author and lecturer in Medical Risk Assessment. He has in excess of 25 years of working and living in Asia. Whilst living in Hong Kong (1991-2004) he assembled a collection of approximately 700, predominately Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Imperial and related textiles/costume accessories. Past Committee Member of the Hong Kong Textile Society and frequent speaker on Imperial Insignia and Badges of Rank.

David can organise and lead Imperial Art Tours to China for Societies. In late 2019 the Collection of Imperial Court Costume was acquired, in its entirety, by The Shanghai Musuem, Peoples' Republic of China and displayed in the new annexe of the museum opened in 2021.

Although his name is generally thrown in with the Impressionists, Manet is a quite independent artist whose reputation stands alone.  Elegant, well mannered and fashionable, this sophisticated Parisian absorbed the ideas of the old masters and redefined them in the language of the real world around him: the cafes, the dance halls and cabarets of the city. Crackling with light and energy, and the incomparable brilliance of his brushwork, these paintings shocked and appalled the public at the time but have earned him the unrivalled status in history of being the first painter of the modern world.

Douglas Skeggs

Douglas read Fine Art at Magdalene College Cambridge and has been a lecturer on paintings since 1980. In that time he has given over 8000 lectures to universities, colleges and art societies. He was the director of  The New Academy of Art Studies for three years and is presently a regular lecturer at The Study Center, Christie's course 'The History of Art Studies' and other London courses. Among his more improbable venues for lectures are the bar on the QE2, MI5 headquarters, the Captain's Room at Lloyds, and an aircraft hanger in a German NATO base. Overseas he has lectured in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain, and has taken numerous tours around Europe.

He has written and presented various TV documentaries, notably the Omnibus programme on Whistler and the exhibition video on William Morris. Three one-man exhibitions of his paintings have been held in England and Switzerland. He has published five novels, which have been translated into 8 foreign languages, and his book on Monet, River of Light, has sold 30,000 copies in England, America and France.

In this talk we wind the clock back to the seventeenth century and enjoy an armchair tour of some of Wren’s magnificent structures including City Churches, the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich and, of course, his greatest masterpiece St Paul’s Cathedral. Wren was primarily a mathematician and astronomer and we’ll see how these disciplines are harnessed in his work. We will also look at the origins of the classical orders of architecture and discover how Wren’s love of this ancient system is everywhere to be seen in his legacy.

Ian Swankie

A Londoner with a passion for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral, and gives tours around each venue. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and leads regular tours for various corporations and organisations. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. He is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.

"This talk/demonstration consists of my collection of 18 woodwind instruments of the Middle Ages. These are reedpipes, shawm, bagpipe, double bagpipe, bladderpipe, hornpipe, crumhorn, cornemuse, kortholt, bone whistles, flute, double pipe, gemshorn, pipe and tabor, early recorders, portative organ and small hurdy-gurdy.

I talk about each instrument and its evolution and its place in Medieval life in a lively and amusing manner, I then proceed to play an appropriate tune on each one. Each instrument is accompanied by good images of them in the art and iconography of the age.

 It is an unusual talk that has something for everyone, and the eyes and the ears of everyone. I do not use notes at all (only musical ones!)"

Jonathan Weeks

"I was born into a farming family in Buckinghamshire and was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School. While studying archaeology at Reading University I developed an interest in Medieval Musical instruments, particularly in the crumhorn and shawm. Thus began my collection which now amounts to nearly 50 examples. I began giving informal talks. After 15 years working on the farm I moved to Somerset and began lecturing in earnest principally on the instruments but also on late Medieval paintings. They have a very wide appeal to every type of society from schools to Arts Societies. In 2018 life changed immeasurably when my house was destroyed by fire. Miraculously most of the instruments survived, but not much else."

Darling’s daring rescue of steamship passengers off the Northumberland coast in 1838 brought her international fame and celebrity, and she became the ‘poster girl’ of the RNLI. Discover more about her bravery and short life (died aged 26) and other dramatic rescues and life-saving inventions by Captain Manby and John Dennett pictured by diverse artists. For the first time this talk reveals the full extent of the artistic contribution in keeping Darling in the public eye. It is part of the national events marking the RNLI’s bicentenary across the years 2023-2024.

James Taylor

Studied at the Universities of St Andrews and Manchester, and is a former curator of paintings, drawings and prints, and co-ordinator of various exhibitions and galleries, at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, also lecturer and ships' historian on board cruise ships. Publications include illustrated histories of Marine Painting (1995) and yachting art Yachts on Canvas (1998), The Voyage of the Beagle: Darwin’s extraordinary adventure aboard FitzRoy’s famous survey ship (2008), Careless Talk Costs Lives: Fougasse and the Art of Public Information (2010) and Your Country Needs You: the Secret History of the Propaganda Poster (2013), Dazzle: Disguise and Disruption in War and Art (2016) and Picturing the Pacific: Sir Joseph Banks and the Shipboard Artists of Cook and Flinders (2018). Completed his PhD at the University of Sussex in 2015 on the voyager artist William Westall (1781-1850) who sailed with Commander Matthew Flinders aboard HMS 'Investigator' (1801-1803) the first ship to circumnavigate Australia.

It is not known exactly when Advent was first acknowledged as part of the Church’s calendar, but it appears to be a tradition that was started sometime in the late 5th century.  Etymologically, Advent is derived from the Latin adventus – coming, arrival - and for many people today, as in the past, it is a time for reflection and spiritual preparation for the birth of Christ on 25th December. Over the centuries Advent has attracted many customs and traditions, and has also inspired a wide range of fine prose and poetry, as well as some first class music.  The lecture follows the ever-evolving traditions of Advent and samples a range of inspired poetry and music.

Peter Medhurst

Peter appears in the UK and abroad as a musician and scholar, giving recitals and delivering illustrated lectures on music and the arts. He studied singing and early keyboard instruments at the Royal College of Music and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

Bars, operas and café concerts became popular over the period when people had more time and leisure and some had the money to frequent these spaces. Paris developed a reputation for an excellent programme of music and entertainment and the painters began to depict this exciting subject matter. The men and women performing also provided fruitful material for observation as they danced, sold alcohol, sang and performed circus acts. The audiences and the musicians too were part of this spectacle. However, people also felt the need to get out of the centre of the city and small towns along the Seine provided escapes and havens where it was possible to experience life at a slower pace. Napoleon III had also built suburbs where families could live safely outside the hubbub of the city.

Jacqueline Cockburn

Jacqueline is Managing Director of an art tours company, running residential courses in Andalucía, Southern Spain in the art and culture of the region (www.artandculturetravel.com).  Jacqueline is a course director and lecturer at the V&A and also lectures at The Royal Academy, The Art Fund, The London Art History Society and has toured New Zealand and Australia for The Arts Society. Her specialist field is Spanish Art, but she also lectures on European Art 1790-1950. Her most recent publication is 'A Taste of Art', London (Unicorn Press 2019). Jacqueline films her lectures and is currently delivering lectures, study days and courses online and live.

In the context of our World War centenaries, anniversaries and the current debate about statues and monuments, the subject of this talk is hugely relevant. In this country, relatively little is known about Germany’s complex post-WW2 process of ‘coming to terms with’ the atrocities of its recent past and the counter memorial movement that started in the eighties and continues to this day.

Germany’s very specific situation rendered all traditional concepts of monuments and memorials irrelevant and inappropriate. Instead of commemorating their own losses, German artists created art forms that responded to questions of apology and atonement: How does a nation of former persecutors mourn its victims? How do you remember what you would rather forget?

The idea behind counter memorials is to keep the memories and lessons of the past alive in the individual psyches of the people. The results are extraordinary, brave and inspiring.

With her Anglo-German roots, artistic background and years of research, Angela is in an ideal position to give insights into Germany’s fascinating and on-going efforts to find artistic forms to remember and apologise for one of history’s darkest periods.

Angela Findlay

Angela Findlay is a professional artist, writer and freelance lecturer with a long career of teaching art in prisons in Germany and England. Her time ‘behind bars’ and later as Arts Coordinator of the London-based Koestler Arts, gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation. Though novel, her ideas were effective and in 2016 she was invited by the Ministry of Justice to support the case for the arts to be included in new, progressive programmes of rehabilitation and education. Brexit unfortunately reversed the direction of prison policy but art's role is still vital. 

In the past decade Angela’s Anglo-German roots led her to research Germany’s largely unknown post-WW2 process of remembrance and the extraordinary culture of 'counter memorials' and site-specific artworks that emerged to express national shame and apology. With the current debates on statues and monuments, the ways Germany has tried to deal with its dark past is more relevant and inspiring than ever.   

Angela has a BA(Hons) in Fine Art, a Diploma in Artistic Therapy (specialising in colour) and her paintings are widely exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her book - In My Grandfather’s Shadow - expanding on the above subjects and published by Penguin Transworld is available in bookshops and online from July 2022.

The definitive lecture on Britain’s favourite artist, by the author and lecturer who knows him best. Jacky has written the authoritative monograph on Grayson’s work, a bestselling book now in its third edition and covering the artist’s life and work, his loves and artistic inspirations, from his earliest student projects of the 1980s to his very latest work. She has been a close collaborator of Perry’s for more than a decade, interviewing him numerous times and enjoying exclusive access to his archive, and in this talk she reveals his techniques and sources, his favourite themes and subjects, and the diverse artworks he has produced across ceramics, tapestry, print-making, sculpture and architecture. How did Perry, almost unknown until his mid-40s when he unexpectedly won the Turner Prize, come to be Britain’s favourite artist since David Hockney and Lucian Freud? And where might this peculiarly British National Treasure be going next?

Jacky Klein

Jacky Klein is an art historian, publisher, writer and broadcaster, specialising in modern and contemporary art. After studying at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she worked as a curator at a number of leading galleries: Tate, the Barbican, the Courtauld and the Hayward. In 2008, she moved sideways into the world of art publishing, first as Commissioning Editor at Thames & Hudson, then as Executive Editor at Tate Publishing and subsequently as Director of HENI Publishing, a small independent arts publisher. She is the author of a bestselling book on British artist Grayson Perry (Thames & Hudson, 3rd edition 2020) and co-author of a number of other titles including Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe (Ben Uri Gallery / Alfred Cohen Art Foundation, 2020), Body of Art (Phaidon, 2015) and What is Contemporary Art?, a children's guide to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which has been translated into 11 languages. 

Jacky has presented and contributed to a range of television programmes for the BBC, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's arts review programme, Front Row. She has appeared on Channel 5, the Travel Channel and Bloomberg TV, and has written and presented a number of online films and livestreams for Tate, Christie's, HENI Talks and the Art Fund. An experienced lecturer in museums, galleries and at literary festivals, she has taught at a number of arts institutions including University College London, Christie’s Education, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts. She is a Trustee of the UK Association for Art History, and is currently Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute on their Masters programme, 'Curating the Art Museum'.

This lecture charts the rise of the precocious youth that was Albrecht Dürer who was born in Nuremberg in the Holy Roman Empire on 21st May 1471. It will explore his early life and works, and also the long lasting influence that Dürer had on the Italian Renaissance, not to mention the influence that the Italian Renaissance had on Dürer. The years following the early Renaissance in Europe opened up a world of cultural, artistic and intellectual exchange for the gifted and the curious. The map of Europe at that time was determined by the reach of the Holy Roman Empire and the countries that we know of today as Germany and Italy did not exist as such but were groups of city states which shared aspects of language and culture. Trade between all parts of the Empire was the norm, allowing for the spread of goods and ideas to flourish and. It was into this world that Albrecht Dürer was born. He left a vast body of autobiographical writings with the understanding that posterity would want to know about him, his art and his life. He was one of the very first artists to write about themselves, if not the first. He also wrote extensively on art practice including treatises on measurement and human proportion in order to educate future German artists, as he was determined to counter the Southern European view of Germans as being ‘a race of savage drunkards from a wild country with a poor climate, responsible for the destruction of ancient Rome’.

Leslie Primo

Holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. Was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and 2007, gave lectures and guided tours, plus special talks, at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery for 18 years. Currently he lectures at the City Literary Institute, Imperial College, London, and has presented a series of talks at the National Maritime Museum and the Courtauld Institute.

Aristocrat, politician, rake and revolutionary: William Cavendish, 4th Earl and 1st Duke of Devonshire, is certainly one of the more colourful of seventeenth-century noblemen. So wicked was he, that an Italian visitor to Restoration England described him as ‘the most dissolute man in London’. Yet Cavendish is also remembered as one of the great saviours of English civil liberties, part of a small group of aristocrats who overthrew James II and brought William of Orange and constitutional monarchy to the throne. In addition, he remodelled his Elizabethan family seat and transformed it into one of our greatest country houses and a monument to his success, Chatsworth in Derbyshire. So this is a lecture about depravity, politics and fine architecture, as we look at Cavendish’s morals, his political redemption and his wonderful house and gardens: truly, ‘a Palace for a Prince’.

Gillian White

Dr Gillian White specialises in the history and visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England. After beginning her career at the Warwickshire Museum, she then worked for the National Trust as Curator/Collections Manager at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, about which she wrote her PhD at Warwick University. Since that she taught part-time at Leicester University in the Centre for the Study of the Country House and continues to teach History of Art in the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University and elsewhere.

Picture credit: A portrait of John Ruskin as a young man after the watercolour by George Richmond R.A. c.1843. Credit : The Wellcome Collection.

Arguably the greatest Victorian polymath, Ruskin stoutly defended both Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. A patient and enthusiastic teacher of drawing, he was a significant collector of paintings and a perceptive critic. A scholar of the northern gothic, he also elucidated the evolution of Venetian architecture. Generous with his treasures, he endowed a museum for working men at Sheffield, supported the Working Men’s College in London and did much to encourage the education of women. In the arts and crafts he advocated high quality workmanship, whilst criticising exploitative industrialists. His books influenced Tolstoy, Gandhi and the founders of the National Trust.

David Cross

Hon. Research Fellow, Durham University. Founder of the Cumbrian Biographical Project. Past President of Cumbria DFAS. Author of biography of George Romney. Specialises in Lake District artists of all genres. Art history lecturer to undergraduate and adult classes at Universities. Catalogue of Paintings in Durham Castle (2002). In recent years has lectured on cruises in the Mediterranean and Baltic. He has edited two volumes of the illustrated letters of Percy Kelly (1919-1993). His volume in the national series on public sculpture is Public Sculpture of Lancashire and Cumbria and was published in 2017.

The glittering twelfth-century illuminated manuscript Bible in Winchester Cathedral is at least an arguable candidate for the greatest work of art made in Britain. Its scale and quality of gilded decoration are astonishing. It is, however, still a very mysterious book, abandoned unfinished probably in the early 1170s. The lecture presents a new and unpublished explanation of who commissioned the manuscript and why, and it provides for the first time a datable chronology for the various artists brought to Winchester from across Europe, and it recounts how some of the illuminations are missing and might still be rediscovered.

Christopher de Hamel

“Immerse yourself in the medieval world of Christopher de Hamel” (Sir David Attenborough’s advice on life, quoted in The Evening Standard on his 90th birthday). Christopher de Hamel, FSA, is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He has doctorates from both Oxford and Cambridge. He was a director of Sotheby’s for 25 years, responsible for illuminated manuscripts, and then librarian of the Parker Library in Cambridge for 17 years. His very many books on medieval manuscripts include the best-selling Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, which won the Wolfson History Prize. He is widely known as a lecturer across six continents.

Why do some paintings retain their glowing colours for centuries whilst others darken or fade in a matter of years? How do artists become good craftsmen and women? Does craft still matter in an age of synthetic pigments and digital reproduction? This lecture describes and explains the materials painters use, the various techniques they employ to preserve their work and what happens when things ‘go wrong’. We explore in detail the technical, practical and historical aspects of the painter’s craft, from choosing the correct support, pigments and medium, through to varnishing, framing and conservation.

Steven Barrett

BA(Hons) in Fine Art, Liverpool School of Art; MA in History of Art, Birkbeck College, London. Lecturer at the National Gallery since 2004. Has lectured on the history of European art and architecture at Somerset House, taught courses on art and architecture at London colleges (The City Literary Institute and Bishopsgate Institute) and is a regular gallery and museum guide for U3A. Steven is also a painter.

I wandered lonely as a cloud/That floats on high o’er vales and hills…           

Wordsworth’s Daffodils is one of the most famous poems in the English language. Frequently anthologised and oft quoted, it’s the poetic equivalent of Constable’s Hay Wain; it is instantly recognisable, even by people who don’t like poetry. Its life beyond the page includes being used to advertise a famous beer and being performed as a rap by a giant squirrel.   

This lecture takes us back in time to tell the true – and often surprising - story of Wordsworth’s best-known poem. We begin by exploring its creation; far from being the work of a lone genius, it was the result of collaboration between Wordsworth and his family; in particular, his sister Dorothy. We learn how the poem challenged its first readers and explore the story of its increasing fame, including the role the poem has played in Lakeland literary tourism. Finally, we consider the poem’s relevance to our lives today, at a time when we are increasingly turning to nature for consolation and delight.

Annalie Talent

Following a career in teaching, Annalie spent several years working on education programmes at museums and literary houses across the UK, including the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere; Wordsworth House in Cockermouth; Jane Austen’s House in Hampshire; and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.   At Jane Austen’s House, Annalie won 2 Sandford Awards for Excellence in Heritage Education; she also worked with the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and Chawton House Library in promoting Austen’s work to young people. 

This lecture will examine how the peculiar geniuses of these two very different men, W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, came together under the guiding hand of the impresario, Richard D’Oyly Carte, to create one of the most individual and enduring forms of theatrical entertainment. The Savoy operas, with their gentle satire, celebrate the quirks and foibles of the British nation, and are as alive today as in the 1880s. The lecture is fully illustrated with musical examples. 

Roger Askew

Roger was a chorister at Wells Cathedral School and a choral scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with an honours degree in English. He combined a teaching career with professional singing in London, and after obtaining a further degree in Music became Director of Music at Daniel Stewart’s and Melville College in Edinburgh.

After retiring in 2003 he returned to the south of England. He is President Emeritus of The Stoke Poges Society and Joint Chairman of the Arts Society Windsor.

The Impressionist Movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries produced some of the finest snow paintings in the history of art. Although the 17th century Dutch masters had painted snow, it was not a common subject amongst landscape painters until its rediscovery by the Impressionists. Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley all painted snow, often standing for hours in the open air to capture the subtleties of light and colour produced by a recent snow fall. They were helped by a series of cold winters in Europe in 1879-1880 and 1890-1891, but they were by no means the only Impressionists who painted snow and ice. 

This is a lecture rich in wonderful images which combines paintings by both well known and lesser known artists.

Julian Halsby

Studied History of Art at Cambridge. Formerly Senior Lecturer and Head of Department at Croydon College of Art. Publications include Venice - the Artist's Vision (1990, 1995), The Art of Diana Armfield RA (1995), Dictionary of Scottish Painters (1990, 1998, 2001, 4th edition 2010), A Hand to Obey the Demon's Eye (2000), Scottish Watercolours 1740-1940 (1986, 1991), A Private View - David Wolfers and the New Grafton Gallery (2002). Interviews artists for the Artist Magazine and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and The Critics Circle. A practising artist, he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1994 and appointed Keeper in 2010.

In 1951, up and down the country, the nation celebrated. It celebrated with events from the lavish displays on the South Bank of the Thames and at Battersea to the events held on village greens and in village halls across the land.  A nation still recovering from the physical, financial and mental struggles of the recent World War decided to hold a party for the country. This talk will consider the reasons why the Festival was held, some of the characters involved, what motivated them and the resulting events and the wonderful design, art and architecture that flourished during the Festival year.

Matthew Denney

I have worked with the fine and decorative arts all my life. I have worked as an auctioneer and valuer with a number of firms. I am currently a senior valuer and head of department at Lawrences in Crewkerne, one of the country's leading provincial auctioneers. I have also worked in Higher Education as Course Leader and a Senior Lecturer on the no longer extant Fine Arts Valuation Degree at Southampton Solent University. I taught on a range of subjects including furniture, silver art and design history. I completed a PhD in the Arts and Crafts Movement and have written on design history for a number of publications. I have current research interests in ‘Great Exhibitions’, ‘Post War Design and Architecture’ and ‘The Crafts in Post War Britain’.

Michael Harris was one of the innovators of the international studio glass movement and transformed 20thC glass and its creation. His pioneering work at Mdina Glass on Malta and, later, at Isle of Wight Studio Glass is examined, including influences, production techniques, major ranges and the heritage he left behind.

Mark Hill

Studied History of Art & Architecture (BA Hons), and began his career as a porter and Junior Cataloguer at Bonhams, before moving to Sotheby's where he was a Specialist in the Collectors' Department. Became director of an internet company forming and running a ground-breaking deal with eBay Live Auctions. Was co-author of the internationally published Collectables Price Guide with Judith Miller from 2002-17. Founded his own publishing company in 2005 and has since published over 12 books on specialist subjects in 20th century design and decorative arts. A Miscellaneous expert on the Antiques Roadshow since 2007, and has co-presented three primetime factual TV series on antiques and collecting for BBC2. An auctioneer running 20th century design auctions in partnership with Dawsons Auctioneers. Has lectured across the world, including at the V&A in London, and contributed to many newspapers, magazines, radio and TV programmes. A Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and a Freeman of the City of London.

One of the most extraordinary Spanish artists from Valencia; Joaquin Sorolla has become better known more recently. He lived from 1863 to 1923 and created a world full of light and colour which delights the senses. Sometimes a social painter he was more concerned with capturing light falling on bodies and sea-scapes and his wonderful technique will be considered in this colourful lecture. His final work Vision of Spain now in New York will also be shown.

Jacqueline Cockburn

Jacqueline is Managing Director of an art tours company, running residential courses in Andalucía, Southern Spain in the art and culture of the region. Jacqueline is a course director and lecturer at the V&A and also lectures at The Royal Academy, Christies Education, The Art Fund, The London Art History Society and has recently toured New Zealand for The Arts Society and Australia fror ADFAS, where she will return next year. Her specialist field is Spanish Art, but she also lectures on European Art 1790-1950. She has recently published A Taste of Art, London (Unicorn Press 2019). Jacqueline films her lectures and is currently delivering lectures, study days and courses online.

Shrines, stupas, cave temples, colonial grandeur and modernist architecture – a look at the history of this beautiful island through its intriguing art and culture. For much of Sri Lanka's past Buddhist and Hindu have lived alongside each other peaceably and much of its culture is evidence of this spirit of tolerance and generosity. This talk examines the fascinating story of Sri Lankan art and the original minds, talents and spirits that created this unique visual world.

GEORGINA BEXON

Georgina is an art historian specialising in South Asian art who has lived and worked in the UK, USA and Singapore. Her practice includes lecturing, writing, consulting and collecting and she has developed a network of gallery and artist connections in Europe, the USA and India, which she visits regularly.  

Consultant Art Historian at the Oriental Club in London and an official tour guide at Tate Modern, Georgina is also a guest speaker on luxury cruise ships for whom she has developed a series of art talks relating to Asian and Pacific destinations. She has been a visiting lecturer at UK universities, presents talks at leading art institutions including Christie’s Education New York and the Museum of Modern Art, Moscow and speaks at international art conferences, most recently in New York, Paris, London and Lisbon.

Georgina holds a BA in Art History from Southampton University, an MA in Arts Management and Policy from City, University of London and an MA in Art History from SOAS, University of London. Georgina is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Asiatic Society

Speed! Technology! Destruction! The battle cry of the Futurists WWI heralded the appearance of the car as a powerful symbol in avant-garde art. Soon the Art Deco masterpieces of the great car builders came to epitomise style, luxury and craftmanship, works of art in their own right. 

The romance of speed continued to be a major theme in how cars were depicted in art, but, since the 1950s the car has become art, used as a canvas for artists as celebrated as Peter Blake, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst.  

This lecture will showcase the beautiful and the bizarre, celebrating the dynamic, creative, and sometimes unsettling relationship between cars and art.

JULIAN RICHARDS

Studied archaeology at Reading University and has since worked as a professional archaeologist, in commercial archaeology, for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent. Elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992 and is being awarded an honorary doctorate. Has been involved in teaching and outreach projects, lecturing widely in continuing education, to groups and societies and to special interest tour companies. A career in broadcasting involved researching and presenting Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4. Author of a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and landscape. Guest curator of Wish you were here, an exhibition of his own extensive collection of 'Stonehengiana' which is currently on display at the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre. Also curated an exhibition for the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in Vienna, in 2016. 

The subtle science and Exact Art of Colour in English Garden Design

In 1888 Gertrude Jekyll wrote a short but seminal article in The Garden in which she urged the readers to “remember that in a garden we are painting a picture”. As an accomplished watercolour artist, Miss Jekyll was familiar with the principles of using colours, but she felt that in gardens these principles “had been greatly neglected”. This talk looks at how to apply these principles in designing a border, but it also looks at the ways in which a border is different from a painting. However, it goes further than this and looks at how contemporary work of the likes of Turner, Monet, Rothko, Jackson Pollack, and Hockney evolved in parallel with ideas about what a garden or border should look like.

Mr Timothy Walker

Since 1986 I have given 1,500 public lectures. This was originally part of my work as director of the Oxford University Botanic Garden from 1988 to 2014. Botanic gardens are often described as living museums, and garden curators lecture about them in the same way as museum curators talk about their collections. Since 2014 I have been a college lecturer and tutor at Somerville College Oxford. Gardens are often thought of a place where science and art meet on equal terms. My lectures investigate this relationship.

Wonderful Things : Ancient Egypt’s royal Treasures of Tanis

zoom Lecture at 10.35 am

In the Ancient Egyptian city of Tanis in the Nile Delta, an entire complex of royal tombs was discovered during the 1939-1940 excavation season by the French Egyptologist Pierre Montet – three were still intact! The treasures uncovered there are one of the greatest, and most beautiful, archaeological discoveries of all time, rivalling even those of Tutankhamun.But because of its discovery during World War II it went unnoticed. This lecture covers the exciting discovery of the tombs of the pharaohs with explanations and   images of the gold and silver treasures, fine jewellery and artefacts which are now housed in Cairo’s  Egyptian Museum.

See more HERE

Eileen Goulding

Eileen has an MA from the Department of Archaeology at the University of London, is a published author and an authority on the ancient cultures of the world. She specialises in the History, Culture, Myths & Legends of the Ancient Worlds and is a keen Maritime Historian specialising in piracy in the Caribbean and the South Seas. She spends her time giving lectures to the Arts Society, on cruise ships and to various local organisations.

Her first book “What Did the Poor Take with Them? “ is an academic treatise on Ancient Egyptian funerary goods, while her second book “Understanding Ancient Egypt” is a more accessible introduction to the subject.

Eileen has recently featured as an Egyptologist in a documentary, Neferatri: The Life of an Egyptian Queen (full documentary) published on YouTube by the South African film producer Curtis Ryan Woodside during the summer 2020 covid lockdown.

There's more to the world of street art than Banksy, Hidden Canvases is a beginner's guide to the biggest art movement since pop art. 

Street art is visual art created in public locations, usually unsanctioned artwork executed outside of the context of traditional art venues. The term gained popularity during the graffiti art boom of the early 1980s and continues to be applied to subsequent incarnations. The terms ‘urban art’, ‘guerrilla art’, ‘post-graffiti’ and ‘neo-graffiti’ are also sometimes used when referring to artwork created in these contexts. Traditional spray-painted graffiti artwork itself is often included in this category, excluding territorial graffiti or pure vandalism.

From train writing in New York to interactive technology that brings murals to life, the concept of un-commissioned public art is a very different beast to that which it once was.  Hidden Canvases explores the key stages in street art's growth examining the different elements and styles that comprise the scene with no rules.  From the international superstars to the local underground heroes you're guaranteed to leave knowing your Invader from you Aryz and who knows you might even start looking at the world a little differently.

Doug Gillen

Doug Gillen is heavily involved in documenting the street art scene in London and abroad through his project Fifth Wall TV, which focuses heavily on street art, stories, movements and events around London.  He makes the case for the art we see on our streets and can offer a genuine insight into this world. Previously lectured for London Art and More, and when not filming he is an East End tour guide for Alternative London, specialising in culture and art.

on zoom at 10.35 am

Jonathan has written over 100,000 words in the Financial Times Weekend on craftspeople: their passions, skills and materials. Some of them believe they are the last practitioners of their craft.

How and why do people transform raw materials into works of art?

How do their hands and tools transform raw materials into works of utility and beauty?

And how do they see their prospects as inheritors and conduits of hand-crafted tradition in an industrialised world of mass production ?

Dr Jonathan Foyle

Dr Jonathan Foyle was Chief Executive of World Monuments Fund Britain for eight years, and a Curator of Historic Buildings at Hampton Court for as long, during which time he took his 2002 PhD on reconstructing Wolsey's palace. He is a frequent feature writer for the Financial Times on issues of architecture, history and craft, and is approaching his fourth published cathedral monograph: Canterbury, Lincoln, Lichfield - now Peterborough. A presenter of numerous television series including BBC4's Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? and BBC2's Climbing Great Buildings, he lectures frequently on a range of art-historical topics. He brings teaching experience as a former Course Director for the University of Cambridge Summer Schools and is an Honorary Professor in Conservation at the University of Lincoln.

THE MAGIC OF PANTOMIME               on Zoom at 10.35 am

Pantomime is an enduring and peculiarly British institution, yet its beginnings go back a very long way and are in fact anything but British!  We look at the origins of panto and examine many of the traditions (and superstitions) that have become attached to it over the years, interspersed with personal anecdotes from years of working and appearing in pantomime. 

The history of this enduring and peculiarly British institution, from its origins in 16th century Italian commedia dell’arte through the influence of 19th century music hall, to the family shows that are still much loved today. 

On the way we examine the origins of some of the stories used in pantomime as well as such traditions as the (female) principal boy and the (male) pantomime dame. 

he talk is interspersed with personal anecdotes from the speaker’s years of working (and appearing) professionally in pantomime.

Mr Ian Gledhill

Ian Gledhill has had a very varied career, from designing underground railways as an engineer for London Transport, to appearing in pantomime with Julian Clary. In between he has worked in travel and tourism, music publishing, television, and especially the theatre, where he has been an actor, director, set designer, stage manager and opera translator. His main interests include architecture, history, transport and classical music, especially opera and operetta, and these are reflected in the wide ranging list of subjects for his lectures. He began giving lectures in 1997, and now gives on average around 140 a year. 

An invitation to join this "Zoom" lecture will be emailed to you, and a day or two before with the "Zoom" link. All you need to do is click on the link in the email, at the appropriate time, and you will be automatically connected. You need do nothing more. Please remember to check in your "spam" email folder just in case our email is misdirected into it.

The image shows Ian (on the right) as King Crumble in "Jack and the Beanstalk" at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton in 2012, with Jeffrey Holland (from Hi-di-Hi) as Dame Trott.

 "by courtesy of QDOS Entertainment".

BEAUTY IN TRUTH - THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF BOTANICAL ART AND ILLUSTRATION

'The greatest flower artists have been those who have found beauty in truth; who have understood plants scientifically, but who have yet seen and described them with the eye and the hand of the artist.'

Wilfrid Blunt - 'The Art of Botanical Illustration'

Many people now carry a phone with a camera capable of taking very high-quality pictures, and yet the painting of botanical specimens persists with new Florilegium Societies still being formed. Why is a drawing and painting still considered to be superior to a digital image? This talk looks at the history of botanical illustration from drawings made on rocks 20,000 years ago to the present day, taking in the lives of both the artists and the plants immortalised in the artwork.

Since 1986 Timothy has given over 1500 public lectures. Originally this was part of his work as director of the Oxford University Botanic Garden from 1987 to 2014. Botanic gardens are often described as living museums, and garden curators lecture about them in the same way museum curators talk about their collections. Since 2014 Timothy has been a college lecturer and tutor at Somerville College Oxford.

Gardens are often thought of as a place where science and art meet on equal terms. His lectures investigate this relationship.

BOOK

IMAGE

https://www.simplymadebyrebecca.com/2015/02/03/21-free-botanical-prints/

Empty Chair in art from Van Gogh to Ai Weiwei

We all use chairs! But over the past 150 years, artists across the world have been using the humble chair as a conduit for profound ideas on themes from protest, absence and memory to domestic or everyday life.

In Europe, Egon Schiele, René Magritte, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys used empty chairs for personal expression, while in America, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Kosuth and Bruce Nauman used chairs to develop the exciting new artistic movements arising in the sixties.

The Palestinian artist, Mona Hatoum, adapted chairs to explore female identity and the Columbian artist, Doris Salcedo, stacked 1,550 between two buildings to remember anonymous victims of war.

These are just some of the many diverse artists and uses of chairs we will be looking at in this talk. And as in all my lectures, my personal connection as an artist, who has worked with chairs throughout her career, will aim to bring the subject to life.

Angela Findlay

Angela Findlay is a professional artist, writer and freelance lecturer with a long career of teaching art in prisons in Germany and England. Her time ‘behind bars’ and later as Arts Coordinator of the London-based Koestler Trust, gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation. Her ideas were novel but effective and in 2016 she was invited to the Ministry of Justice to present the case for the arts to be included in their new rehabilitation and education policies. Since Brexit, the direction of prison policy has reversed. In the past decade Angela’s Anglo-German roots led her to research Germany’s largely unknown post-WWII process of remembrance. So completely different to the British one, the arts once again play a huge and vital role, this time in expressing the apology that underlies the country’s unique culture of counter memorials.  Angela has a BA(Hons) in Fine Art, a Diploma in Artistic Therapy (specialising in colour) and her paintings are widely exhibited both nationally and internationally. 

STONE ON STONE - THE MEN WHO BUILT THE CATHEDRALS.

"Standing in the nave of Ely cathedral when I was 14, I stopped listening to the guide saying how long and how high and started wondering how on earth ordinary human beings created sky-scraping, dizzyingly high buildings on which even the top-most parts were delicately decorated. How, why and for whom were my questions. For God, for personal redemption and to make a living are the answers to the last two of those, but the "how" was harder to fathom."

In this lecture we meet the Master Masons who both designed the buildings and ran the site. They commanded everything whether it was sourcing the vast quantities of wood and stone, recruiting the workforce or knowing enough about their various trades to be able to create heaven on earth out the cacophony of thousands of chisels and hammers. These men were charismatic leaders, but they were continually checked by their fellow Master Masons in the interests of making a building as strong as possible - we only see their successes, after all. They were real people who got into trouble with the law, who occasionally cheated on contracts, who liked to start a job but not to finish it. On the other hand, their creations remain to this day, some breathtakingly beautiful in their exquisite detail causing us, centuries later, to stand in a nave and wonder.

Imogen Corrigan

After nearly 20 years in the British army, she went to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History and Art and graduated with 1st class honours, followed by an MPhil from the University of Birmingham. She works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe as well as lecturing on small cruise ships and running study tours and courses on land.

Has written Stone on Stone: the Men Who Built the Cathedrals, published 2019.

In June 1520 Henry VIII and Francis 1 meet to ratify an Anglo-French alliance and celebrate the betrothal of Henry’s daughter Mary to the Dauphin. The two handsome ‘Renaissance Princes’ are in their 20’s with similar reputations in military prowess, sport and patrons of the arts.  Both have imperial ambitions and are eager to display themselves as magnificent nobleman and warrior kings.  Each brings an entourage of 6,000 to a field south of Calais for 18 days of various events and entertainments staged to display the skill and splendour of each King and country.  The logistics of transporting, accommodating, ordering, feeding and watering, protecting and entertaining the English contingent for this spectacular event is staggering and the supply chain, often through the City of London Guilds, is equally fascinating. 3,217 horses shipped across the ‘Narrow Sea’ to Calais; a vast quantity of wood sourced from Flanders and floated along the coast; a huge temporary palace is built on stone foundations with brick and timber-framed walls reaching to 40 feet.  Royal palaces were virtually emptied of their silver, gold, tapestries and furniture to decorate the temporary palace, other principal tents and a chapel (with an organ); gold and silver cloth, velvet and sables, jewels and pearls were imported to ‘dress and impress’.

Jo Mabbutt 

Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers and Freeman of the City of London. Originally a trained singer, pianist and orchestra administrator, Jo is now a decorative artist who gilds antique lace and crochet, often combining with hand printing and painting.  She works to commission, sells through galleries and exhibitions and collaborates with other designers. 

Jo trained in wood graining, marbling, gilding, specialist paint finishes and interior design and was awarded the City & Guilds Silver Medal for Excellence in 2000.  She taught in further education for 8 years on Art & Design National Diploma and Foundation courses then up-skilled at Central St Martin's College of Art & Design developing her own practice. She now divides her time as a designer/maker, lecturer and tutor running workshops for specialist groups.

Arguably the greatest Victorian polymath, Ruskin stoutly defended both Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. A patient and enthusiastic teacher of drawing, he was a significant collector of paintings and a perceptive critic. A scholar of the northern gothic, he also elucidated the evolution of Venetian architecture. Generous with his treasures, he endowed a museum for working men at Sheffield, supported the Working Men’s College in London and did much to encourage the education of women. In the arts and crafts he advocated high quality workmanship, whilst criticising exploitative industrialists. His booksinfluenced Tolstoy, Gandhi and the founders of the National Trust.

Photo - a portrait of John Ruskin as a young man after the watercolour by George Richmond R.A. c.1843. Credit: The Wellcome Collection.

David Cross

Hon. Research Fellow, Durham University. Founder of the Cumbrian Biographical Project. Past President of Cumbria DFAS. Author of biography of George Romney. Specialises in Lake District artists of all genres. Art history lecturer to undergraduate and adult classes at Universities. Catalogue of Paintings in Durham Castle (2002). In recent years has lectured on cruises in the Mediterranean and Baltic. He has edited two volumes of the illustrated letters of Percy Kelly (1919-1993). His volume in the national series on public sculpture is Public Sculpture of Lancashire and Cumbria and was published in 2017.

In the Ancient Egyptian city of Tanis in the Nile Delta, an entire complex of royal tombs was discovered during the 1939-1940 excavation season by the French Egyptologist Pierre Montet - three were still intact! The treasures uncovered there are one of the greatest, and most beautiful, archaeological discoveries of all time, rivalling even those of Tutankhamun. But because of its discovery during World War II, and published only in French, it went unnoticed. This lecture covers the exciting discovery of the tombs of the pharaohs Psussenes 1, Sheshonq 11, and Amenope with explanations and images of the gold and silver treasures, fine jewellery and artefacts which are now housed in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.

Eileen Goulding

An Egyptologist, author and lecturer, Eileen specialises in the pharaohs and people of Ancient Egypt, their history, language, art, religion and funerary practices and has a keen interest in the Myths & Legends of the Ancient World. She is a guest speaker on cruise ships and lectures to Egyptology Societies throughout the UK. Her first book What Did the Poor Take with Them? published in 2013, is an academic treatise on Ancient Egyptian grave goods, while her second book Understanding Ancient Egypt published in 2014, is a more accessible introduction to the subject.

Many people now carry a phone with a camera capable of taking very high-quality pictures, and yet the painting of botanical specimens persists with new Florilegium Societies still being formed. Why is a drawing and painting still considered to be superior to a digital image? This talk looks at the history of botanical illustration from drawings made on rocks 20,000 years ago to the present day, taking in the lives of both the artists and the plants immortalised in the artwork.

Timothy Walker

Since 1986 I have given 1,500 public lectures. This was originally part of my work as director of the Oxford University Botanic Garden from 1988 to 2014. Botanic gardens are often described as living museums, and garden curators lecture about them in the same way as museum curators talk about their collections. Since 2014 I have been a college lecturer and tutor at Somerville College Oxford. Gardens are often thought of a place where science and art meet on equal terms. My lectures investigate this relationship.

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The RA has been a home for artists and art-lovers for over 250 years. Although our doors are closed, we're determined to continue to share art with you, now more than ever.

We'll be bringing you a dose of inspiration, escapism and creativity straight to your inbox every week.

From ways to explore our collections and exhibitions online, tips and tricks on how to keep creative, or blogs to get lost in a world of art history, we hope you'll stick with us until we can welcome you back to the building.

Coronavirus  - In view of increasing numbers of Coronavirus in the UK and the risks to members the decision has been made to cancel the March meeting on Tuesday 17th March. The situation will be kept under review and in the light of government advice we will keep you informed about the April meeting. Nicky Zaki Chairman

The speaker has written over 100,000 words in the Financial Times Weekend on craftspeople: their passions, skills and materials. Some of them believe they are the last practitioners of their craft. How and why do people transform raw materials into works of art? How do their hands and tools transform raw materials into works of utility and beauty? And how do they see their prospects as inheritors and conduits of hand-crafted tradition in an industrialised world of mass production?

Dr Jonathan Foyle was Chief Executive of World Monuments Fund Britain for eight years, and a Curator of Historic Buildings at Hampton Court for as long, during which time he took his 2002 PhD on reconstructing Wolsey's palace. He is a frequent feature writer for the Financial Times on issues of architecture, history and craft, and is approaching his fourth published cathedral monograph: Canterbury, Lincoln, Lichfield - now Peterborough. A presenter of numerous television series including BBC4's Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? and BBC2's Climbing Great Buildings, he lectures frequently on a range of art-historical topics. He brings teaching experience as a former Course Director for the University of Cambridge Summer Schools and is an Honorary Professor in Conservation at the University of Lincoln.

Prague is one of the great treasure houses of Europe. Reduced to a near ruin under the communists, it has now been restored to its former glory, a unique blend of Gothic, Baroque and Art Nouveau architecture. The lecture looks at the rich fabric of Prague’s  past, its legends and its history, as well as the artists, composers, statesmen and rogues that have illuminated this fairy tale city.

Douglas Skeggs

Cambridge Fine Arts. Writer, Artist, TV Presenter. Lecturer to many London art courses. Director of the New Academy of Arts. Author of 6 Novels.

The lute holds a special place in the history of art: painters of the Italian Renaissance depicted golden-haired angels plucking its delicate strings, evoking celestial harmony; in the sixteenth century, during the rise of humanism, the lute was a becoming pastime of educated courtiers, as depicted by the likes of Holbein and Titian; throughout the seventeenth century, the instrument continued to play a key role in emphasising the intimate, debauched and transient pleasures of interior scenes by Jan Steen and portraits by Frans Hals. This lecture looks at the lute, and other musical instruments, as devices to express various aspects of the human character throughout the ages.

There will be live solo lute music during this lecture.

Adam Busiakiewicz is an Art Historian, lutenist and lecturer. After completing his Bachelor’s Degree in History at UCL in 2010 he held the position of Head of Historical Interpretation (curator) at Warwick Castle. He left the castle in 2013 after winning a full AHRC studentship to pursue a Master’s Degree in Fine and Decorative Art at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in Art History at Warwick University after winning a CADRE Postgraduate Scholarship in 2017.

December 2014 he became the youngest Guide Lecturer at the Wallace Collection, where he regularly gives talks, tours and lectures to both public and professional audiences. He has also given lectures at the National Gallery, London including a series of talks on the lute in paintings in 2018.

Adam is currently planning a publication on the Grevilles of Warwick Castle, and has had articles published by the British Art Journal, The Sidney Journal and Hispanic Lyra. He was also the Editor of the Georgian Group's 80th Anniversary Exhibition catalogue entitled Splendour! Art in Living Craftsmanship (2017).

For a great many members of The Arts Society, the cartoonist Carl Giles was as much a part of the festive season as the Christmas tree, crackers and the Queen's Speech. So popular were the Giles annuals as Christmas presents that they helped to make him Britain's best loved, most successful and wealthiest cartoonist. The talk looks at Giles's life and work with a particular emphasis on his seasonal cartoons, particularly those featuring Grandma and the Giles family. They include some of his funniest cartoons but, as the art historian William Feaver pointed out, they also demonstrate that he had few equals when it came to representing Britain in Winter. 

Barry Venning

An historian of British art with a particular interest in the work of JMW Turner, on whom he has published widely, including the volume on Turner in Phaidon's Art & Ideas series, and several catalogue essays for exhibitions in the UK, Germany, Italy and Poland. He was the BBC's script consultant on Turner's Fighting Temeraire and has recently taken part (2013) in a BBC documentary called The Genius of Turner: Painting the Industrial Revolution. He has also published a study of John Constable's paintings. His interests and his teaching extend from medieval architecture to contemporary British art. He is currently Associate Lecturer with the Open University and lecturing on a freelance basis for The Arts Society, Christie's Education and other organisations.

The critic Herbert Read once famously described the group of avant-garde artists centred around Henry Moore in Hampstead in the 1930s as “a nest of gentle artists”. When world events demanded, however, Moore was quick to put his art at the service of harsher realities. Prompted by the recent exhibition at Tate Britain, this lecture will trace an unfamiliar aspect of Moore’s oeuvre, from his response to the Spanish Civil War through his work as an official war artist during World War Two to his response to the Holocaust, the Cold War and the continued threat of atomic warfare in the 1960s. 

A not so gentle lecture!

Monica Bohm-Duchen

London-based freelance lecturer, writer and exhibition organizer. Has lectured for Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Open University, Sotheby's Institute of Art and the Courtauld Institute of Art. Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck College since 2005, and has led many tours. Publications include Understanding Modern Art (1991), Chagall (1998/2001), The Private Life of a Masterpiece (2001),The Art and Life of Josef Herman (2009) and Art and the Second World War (2013). She is the initiator and Creative Director of the nationwide Insiders/Outsiders arts festival (see https://insidersoutsidersfestival.org/), and contributing editor of the companion volume, Insiders/Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their Contribution to British Visual Culture (2019).

Image :Echoes of the past: Henry Moore in his Hertfordshire studio - https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01581/moore1_1581202c.jpg

A Passion for Fashion tells the story of 20th century fashion design, tracing how clothes, textiles and accessories were influenced by contemporary history.
It includes the elegant fashions of the Edwardian era, the glamour of the 1920s and 1930s, the austerity of the 1940s, the futuristic fashions of the 1950s, the liberating styles of the 1960s and the avant-garde fashions of the 1970s to the present day.

Dr Sally Hoban has lectured extensively on art, design and antiques throughout the UK and at The University of Birmingham. She has broadcast on BBC Two, BBC Four and BBC Radio 4 and her publications include Miller’s Collecting Modern Design. She has an Honours certificate in public speaking from The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and is a freelance arts journalist for local, national and international media. Sally has a PhD in the history of art and design from The University of Birmingham.

From the early Kosovan silver mines mentioned by Dante, through the twentieth century politics over Kosovo’s mines which resulted in both a war and a golf course, a silver thread winds through Kosovo’s history. Filigree artisans magic lacy creations from dull sticks of raw material - the resulting articles are a fine narrative of Kosovo’s history and traditions.

Elizabeth Gowing

Studied at Magdalen College Oxford before training as a teacher and working in Lambeth, Hackney and Islington. She moved to Kosovo in 2006 and there worked with the Ethnological Museum in Prishtina and co-founded ‘The Ideas Partnership’, a charity working on education and cultural heritage projects. Speaks fluent Albanian and has translated two books (the unauthorized biography of Yugoslavia’s longest-held political prisoner, Adem Demaci, and the memoirs of one of the leaders of the 1912 uprising). Also the author of four books about Kosovo – Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo (2011), Edith and I; on the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo (2013); The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife; an unlikely friendship in Kosovo (2015) and The Silver Thread; a journey through Balkan craftmanship (2017). ELizabeth is a regular contributor to Radio 4 (Saturday Live, Excess Baggage, From Our Own Correspondent) and the BBC World Service.

From the wax seal to the microchip, man has exploited the skill of the artist and artisan in his attempt to manufacture a forgery-proof document. Taking you through three centuries of passport design, this lecture explains the overt and uncovers the covert to illustrate the defences built into the passport and the tricks the forger uses to defeat them. You will never see your passport in the same light again!

Martin Lloyd

Has been lecturing to various groups, including U3A, National Trust, historical societies, Gresham College and business groups since 2008. Previously worked for HM Immigration Service, and has broadcast on local and national television and radio.

At the turn of the last century, Vienna was the capital of a vast empire and one of the most exciting artistic laboratories in the world. It produced painters such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, architects like Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos and Josef Hoffman, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the composer Gustav Mahler and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Looking at these and other figures in the context of the society in which they worked, this talk asks how and why the City of Dreams became a cultural hotbed around 1900.

Gavin Plumley

A writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to The Independent on Sunday and The Guardian. Lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries, including to the National Gallery, the British Museum, the V&A, the Southbank Centre, the Tate and the Neue Galerie, New York, as well as for history of art societies and The Art Fund. 

Where did mixer taps and fitted kitchens come from? Angle-poise lamps and strip lighting? The answer is The Bauhaus. This is the story of Germany’s most famous design school, bitterly attacked in its day during the 1920s, but one which has had a profound effect on modern buildings and their interiors ever since.

Anthea Streeter

Studied the Fine and Decorative Arts in London and continued her studies at Harvard University. It was while at Harvard, where there was great enthusiasm for American design, that she became interested herself in 20th century architecture. Since returning from America she has taught on courses in Oxford and London, lectured on the Country House course in Sussex, and for several private groups around the country. Special interest in the architecture and design of 20th century. 

Years of working as an artist within the Criminal Justice System in England and Germany have given Angela unique insights into the destructive and costly cycle of crime, prisons and re-offending. Using slides of art projects and prisoners’ art, she demonstrates how, within the process of creating art of any discipline, there are vital opportunities for offenders to develop key life skills essential to leading a positive and productive life.

Angela Findlay

A professional artist, writer and freelance lecturer with a long standing interest in the role the arts and the creative process can play in bringing about changes, on a personal level or within societies. Her long career of teaching art in prisons and Young Offender Institutions in Germany and England, followed by her role as the former Arts Coordinator of the Koestler Trust in London, gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation. She is currently advising the Ministry of Justice and presenting the case for the arts to be included in their new rehabilitation and education policies.

Angela has a BA(Hons) in Fine Art, a Diploma in Artistic Therapy (specialising in colour) and her paintings are widely exhibited both nationally and internationally. 

Renowned for its dullness, Basingstoke is distinguished only by its numerous roundabouts and absurd modernist architecture. Rupert explains that the post-war planners, who inflicted such features as ‘the Great Wall of Basingstoke’ on the town, were politically motivated and bent on destroying all traces of its past. He reveals the nobler Basingstoke that is buried beneath the concrete, and the few historic gems that have survived.

Rupert Willoughby

A prize-winning historian who specialises in the domestic and social life of the past. A graduate with First Class Honours in History from the University of London, he is the author of the best-selling Life in Medieval England for Pitkin, of guides to castles owned by English Heritage and Hampshire County Council, and of a series of popular histories of places, including Chawton: Jane Austen’s Village and Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture. He contributes regular obituaries to The Times and The Daily Telegraph, writes privately-commissioned histories of houses, and is an experienced lecturer - and occasional broadcaster - on a broad range of topics, with a particular interest in architecture, interior decoration and costume.

The City of London churches are astonishing in their variety, yet often overlooked by visitors and workers in the City, who regularly pass them by, unaware of the treasures that lie within.  Not only are the churches of great architectural significance, they are also guardians of the City’s history, holding countless stories of  medieval kings and queens, famous statesmen, religious leaders, poets, playwrights and novelists, explorers, academics and even modern film stars and other celebrities.
This lecture explores a wide range of these churches, from St Bartholomew the Great, a survivor from Norman times, through to the classical designs of Wren and Hawksmoor.  Photographs are featured to illustrate the magnificent steeples and domes as well as the craftsmanship of the great woodcarvers, stonemasons and plasterers who created such beautiful interiors.

Describing the immense variety of the Norman, Gothic, Wren and post-Wren churches in the City of London. In addition to their architectural merit, these churches contain hidden treasures – the monuments, paintings and woodcarvings of great craftsmen of the time. Tony also includes stories of the many people connected with the churches: medieval kings and queens; religious leaders; great statesmen and explorers; poets, playwrights and novelists; and modern film stars and personalities.

Tony Tucker

MA in Modern History from Oriel College, Oxford, Qualified City Guide and former Chairman of the City of London Guide Lecturers Association and Trustee of the Friends of the City Churches (FCC). Lectures to various City institutions, the FCC, U3A, and various historical associations.  Leads regular guided walks for the City of London Corporation, the Friends of the City Churches and numerous private groups. Publications include The Visitor’s Guide to the City of London Churches  (2006) and regular contributions to Cityguide magazine and the FCC Newsletter.

Everyone is aware about ‘1066 and all that’ without necessarily knowing the exact facts about this momentous event. This lecture will present in detail the historical, cultural and artistic aspects of that unique masterpiece, the Bayeux Tapestry, which provides posterity with such a startling testimonial of peoples’ lives in the late Viking age.

Eveline Eaton

BA Hons Courtauld Institute; Diploma: Study Centre for the History of Fine & Decorative Arts. Freelance lecturer in Fine Arts and tour-guide to Berlin, Dresden, Munich. Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Dresden Trust.

Where better to spend yuletide than in snowy Russia? Imagine yourself wrapped in furs, speeding along in a troika, bells ringing, as you come home from church after celebrating the end of the 40 day Christmas fast. This lecture explores the traditional religious and folk customs associated with Christmas in Russia before the revolution; the secular celebrations introduced to Russia by Peter the Great; the drastic changes introduced in Soviet times by Stalin; and what Christmas means to Russians today.

Dr Rosamund Bartlett

Rosamund has a Doctorate from Oxford and has held senior university posts, most recently at the European University Institute in Florence. She specialises in comparative study of art, music and literature, and is currently writing a book on the Russian Avant-Garde and European Modernism. She is the Author of several books, including biographies of Tolstoy and Chekhov, whose works she has also translated for Oxford World's Classics. Rosamund has extensive experience lecturing in Russian cultural history at venues such as the V&A, the National Theatre and Covent Garden, and broadcasts regularly on the BBC. She is often invited to lecture on tours, and is founding Director of the Anton Chekhov Foundation, set up to preserve the writer's house in Yalta.

The Romans have left us with a remarkable artistic record of their lifestyle, beliefs, achievements and entertainment, in the form of beautiful mosaics. From the best museums and collections around the world we see how they developed earlier Greek designs; the cities in which they lived; the Gods and myths in which they believed; and the exotic and indulgent lives of the Romans themselves - from Britain to Sicily, and from Morocco to Syria.

Christopher Bradley

Expert in the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa. As a professional tour guide and lecturer Christopher has led groups throughout the Middle East and Asia. He has written extensively on Arabia and is the author of several guide books to the area. As a photographer he has pictures represented by four photgraphic libraries. As a film producer and cameraman he has made documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic TV and Channel 4.

Following the trauma of the English Civil War came the Restoration, a period of loucheness and scandal. With the return of a King and the arrival of the first English actresses, Giles looks at how the theatre of the day reflected society in this most saucy of eras.

Giles Ramsay

Giles is an independent theatre director and producer who specializes in creating new work with artists in developing countries. He is the Founding director of the charity Developing Artists, a Fellow of St. Chad's College, Durham University and Course Leader in Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Giles has run many theatre projects abroad including, amongst others, in Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Palestine, Mexico and Zimbabwe. He regularly lectures on the history and practice of theatre on the Queen Mary 2 as it sails from New York to the UK. Giles combines academic analysis with hands on experience to bring a unique insight to the world of theatre

Stonehenge is unique, a national treasure and a global icon.

Julian Richards will explore the investigation and interpretation of Stonehenge and its surrounding landscapes. ‘How was it built?’, ‘Who built it?’ and most intriguingly, ‘Why was it built?’ But beyond archaeology the iconic structure of Stonehenge has inspired painters, potters and poets with Blake, Turner, Constable and Moore amongst those who have been drawn to this magnificent ruin.

Julian Richards will examine its architecture, the production of stone tools, and the beliefs that may have driven its development. Perceptions and understanding of Stonehenge have changed, while it has constantly has inspired worshippers, writers and musicians. He will also take a light-hearted look at some of the stranger souvenirs it has inspired.

Mr Julian Richards BA FSA

Julian is an archaeologist who ran the Stonehenge Environs Project, a detailed study of Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape. This gave him his first experience of the media, where he contributed parts to programmes about Stonehenge. He was asked to contribute to a TV programme about the construction of Stonehenge. His ideas led eventually to the programmes “Meet the Ancestors” and “Blood of the Vikings”. In addition, he has written books to accompany both series.

Author of a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and landscape. Guest curator of Wish you were here, an exhibition of his own extensive collection of 'Stonehengiana' which is currently on display at the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre. Also curated an exhibition for the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in Vienna, in 2016. 

This lecture explores the way in which Leonardo acquired his knowledge of anatomy from experience through human dissection and ties it in with the chronology of his travels and well known artistic acheivements. It is illustrated with examples of anatomical drawings and reflects the extraordinary accuracy of his findings.

GUY ROOKER  comes to The Arts Society not with a background in the arts but from the world of science in general, and surgery in particular. He describes himself as a retired surgeon with a lifelong passion, fascination, and admiration for the work of Leonardo da Vinci. He considers that the contribution Leonardo da Vinci has made to both the world of art and the investigation of scientific concepts to be quite unique and extraordinary in the way that so many of his pioneering investigations have contributed to the understanding of our world today.

LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM

From the East Indies to Indonesia: legacies of colonialism and fine art in Indonesia 1830 to the present day.

The change of name from the East Indies to Indonesia in the postwar period is symptomatic of the changes in fine art practice that accompany the notion of independence, looking towards native artisanal tradition rather than Western (particularly Dutch) fine art.

Looking at the effects of colonialism and postcolonialism, the lecture traces the move from the imitative practice of an early Indonesian painter like Raden Saleh (working in the first half of the 19th century) to that of the Mooi Indies school of the pre-war period, to the boldly native forms of the 1970s, finishing with the internationalism that defines contemporary art.

Vivienne Lawes

Studied History/History of Art at York University, followed by an MA in Fine and Decorative Art at Sotheby's Institute, London. A lecturer, writer and curator, working in the visual arts field for the last 25 years; teaches at several institutions in London. Faculty staff member at the City & Guilds of London Art School, teaching History of Decorative Style c. 1400-1950 and the Classical Tradition in Western Sculpture; also lectures on 17th and 18th century East-West trade, and modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art at Sotheby's Institute and the Institut d'Etudes Supérieures des Arts (IESA), London. Senior UK Consultant for One East Asia, a Singapore-based art gallery, art advisory and education centre, and has co-curated regular exhibitions of Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art in London since 2011. Writes as an arts journalist for publications including The Art Newspaper, Art + Auction, Country Life, the Guardian and the Antiques Trade Gazette. Author of a forthcoming book, Horse: a History of Equine Bronze Sculpture, to be published by the Sladmore Gallery, London. Currently working part-time towards a PhD at the University of East Anglia on the teaching practices and institutional developments in post-war British art school education.

Faber and Faber – its history and designs

Since its foundation in 1925, Faber and Faber has built a reputation as one of London’s most important literary publishing houses. Part of that relates to the editorial team that Geoffrey Faber and his successors built around them - TS Eliot was famously an early recruit - but a large part is also due to the firm’s insistence on good design and illustration.

This lecture traces the history of Faber and Faber through its illustrations, covers and designs. Early years brought innovations like the Ariel Poems – single poems, beautifully illustrated, sold in their own envelopes. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was an emphasis on typography, led by the firm’s art director Berthold Wolpe; his Albertus font is still used on City of London road signs. In the 1980s, the firm started its association with Pentagram, responsible for the ff logo. Along the way, it has employed some of our most celebrated artists as cover illustrators – from Rex Whistler and Barnett Freedman to Peter Blake and Damien Hirst.

Slides will range from book covers, advertisements and photos of key individuals, to illustrations of the concepts behind the designs. The talk will also be peppered with personal insight and anecdote. Faber and Faber is the last of the great publishing houses to remain independent. As the grandson of its founder, I grew up steeped in its books. I was managing director for four years and I remain on the board. I am passionate about the firm’s success, and intensely proud of my association with it.

A persuasive introduction to buying antiques and integrating and using them in today’s homes. The state of the antiques market and the different meanings of the word value are considered, and we take a look at what current and future generations of collectors are buying, why they are buying it and how they are displaying it.

Mark Hill studied History of Art & Architecture (BA Hons), and began his career as a porter and Junior Cataloguer at Bonhams, before moving to Sotheby's where he was a Specialist in the Collectors' Department.

He became director of an internet company forming and running a ground-breaking deal with eBay Live Auctions. Was co-author of the internationally published Collectables Price Guide with Judith Miller from 2002-17. Founded his own publishing company in 2005 and has since published over 12 books on specialist subjects in 20th century design and decorative arts.

A Miscellaneous expert on the Antiques Roadshow since 2007, and has co-presented three primetime factual TV series on antiques and collecting for BBC2. An auctioneer running 20th century design auctions in partnership with Dawsons Auctioneers. Has lectured across the world, including at the V&A in London, and contributed to many newspapers, magazines, radio and TV programmes. A Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and a Freeman of the City of London.

CAMILLE PISSARRO & HIS WORLD

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter, was born on the island of St. Thomas in the West Indies.

Paying tribute to this “Dean of Impressionist Painters” the lecture discusses the developments of Pissarro’s works during the second half of the nineteenth century with his important contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

Examining his letters, ideas, drawings and his role as a teacher.

The influence of his balanced, kind and warm-hearted personality, was appreciated by not only the Impressionists, but all four of the major Post-Impressionists, Seurat, Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin.   
 

LUCIAN FREUD & DAVID HOCKNEY. WHICH IS THE GREATEST?

This talk will look at the careers of both men from Freud’s legacy of being brought up in Berlin and the grandson of Sigmund, and of Hockney’s journey from Bradford to Swinging 1960s London, his move to California and finally back to Bridlington with his ambitious and extraordinary recent paintings of the Yorkshire Wolds.

David Hockney

David Hockney has succeeded over the years in appropriating and revitalising the old tradition of landscape painting. From early on he developed his own singular colour code that has very little to do with reality, and yet is strangely recognisable as real. This is precisely what confers a joyful familiarity to his works, creating the effect that looking at blossoming blue hawthorns is suddenly perfectly natural. Pursuing a life-long fascination for pastoral painting, the artist is also taking up a genre cherished by generations of masters, Sunday painters, and in 2012 Royal Academy celebrated this through their exhibition David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture.

Abandoning the radiant hills of California, Hockney has now settled in his native East Yorkshire where he painted many landscapes between 2004 and 2011, which were on display at the Royal Academy’s exhibition. This show opened with a grandiose room where you could admire seasonal versions of Three Trees Near Thixendale (2007-8). The rest of the collection included more oil paintings, charcoal drawings, sketchbooks, digital video works and no less than 51 iPad drawings: the 74 year-old Hockney has been praised for embracing technology.

Hockney’s work is renowned for the large, bright and beautiful characteristics of the landscapes he paints, making him an unmistakably exquisite colourist and draughtsman. His fecundity and constant self-renewal as an artist have helped him revisit his boyhood countryside with mindfulness and exuberance.

Lucien Freud

Like many great artists, Lucian Freud’s work surged in popularity after his death 2011. In February 2012, Christie’s auctioned off several Freud etchings, Blain/Southern inaugurated their LUCIAN FREUD | DRAWINGS exhibition and Jane McAdam Freud showed a large sculpture of her father at the eponymous museum. Also in 2012, the National Portrait Gallery put on the first major exhibition that concentrated on his portraits and figure paintings. The show featured more than 100 works that span seven decades from the early 1940s to his death in July 2011.

Freud loved to work from life and once claimed that he could never put anything into a picture that wasn’t actually there in front of him. He was known to hold a predatory gaze over his subjects, intensely observing them for hours before laying them bare on the canvas. It is thus conceivable to approach Freud’s portraits as ‘natures mortes’: still human flesh, variegated, repellent, almost alienated from reality. Once he found his trademark hefty hog’s hair brushstroke in the 1950s, Freud seemed to have sublimely applied it to most of his sitters from rodents to the Queen and to other celebrity commissions. Freud’s recurring themes include sex and power, as shown in Girl With a White Dog (1950-1) or in the flexible and erotic posture of Leigh Bowery. His works sit ambiguously between realism and expressionism, and in the same way, they both enthral and horrify.

‘Astonish, disturb, seduce, convince’ was the artist’s credo when painting the various people in his life. Although his visually aggressive and awkward paintings rarely seduce, their strangeness deeply captivates and haunts us. They also express the psychological tensions – even the perversity – between artist and subject.

By Mélissa Leclézio

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL - THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF A MASTERPIECE

Begun in 1220 the cathedral at Salisbury, built to replace a smaller building at Old Sarum, was completed in as little as 38 years.  It is the first and most complete early English cathedral in the country.  Then came the tower and spire which were added after 1315.  Built on the existing foundations which are only four feet deep, the spire reaches just over 400 feet, the tallest in England.

The glory of the building was captured by both Constable and Turner just as it was being unsympathetically restored by James Wyatt, “the Destroyer”.  The building was subsequently “re-restored” to its’ medieval glory by George Gilbert Scott after 1860.  This lecture explores the different phases of the cathedral’s history through the centuries and focuses on the 18th and 19th century restoration and the controversies generated.

Christopher Rogers read Geography at Oxford.  Formerly Head of Geography, Downe House School, Newbury.  Became interested in country house architecture whilst at Oxford and has lectured on the subject ever since.  Regular 5 day summer school courses at Marlborough College Summer School.  Lectures for the National Trust.

We will be shown  how artists have treated the Christmas Story through the ages. Rich imagery from 1260 up to mid 1600 will be discussed with fabulous stories of much admired saints. Caroline will reference Christmas images for altarpieces, tender and moving work from Rembrandt and discuss Western European Art development in Italy and the Netherlands.

CAROLINE MACDONALD-HAIG A Design and Decorative Arts journalist and author. A London Blue Badge Guide, specialising in themed tours for American Museums and Art Galleries. Her specialist subjects include the history of glass and London's history, galleries, museums and architecture. She is a freelance lecturer for Adult Education Groups. Enjoys devising tours, lecturing and study days based in and around London.

This lecture will highlight the broad range of Heatherwick's designs with his innovative approach in worldwide demand. We will be shown how his blend of architecture, sculpture and engineering have produced such elegant results, including  the giant ring of fire rising up from the centre of the Olympic Stadium.

Thomas Heatherwick has won many awards and honours.

2010 UK Pavilion, Shanghai. Photo by Iwan Baan

In 2004 he was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry; he won a Gold Medal for his British Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010, and in the same year he was designer of the year in Japan. Sir Terence Conran spotted his talent early on and has described Heatherwick as “the Leonardo da Vinci of our times”.

2014 Bombay Sapphire HQ

In 2004 he was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry; he won a Gold Medal for his British Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010, and in the same year he was designer of the year in Japan. Sir Terence Conran spotted his talent early on and has described Heatherwick as “the Leonardo da Vinci of our times”.

Heatherwick’s work received world-wide coverage in 2012 when with his studio team he designed the Olympic Cauldron at the London Olympics. The giant ring of fire rising up from the centre of the Olympic Stadium was a memorable sight, and in the lecture we’ll look at how they achieved that spectacular moment. The Heatherwick Studio also designed the new red London bus, the first re-design of such an iconic symbol of London for 50 years.

Heatherwick’s approach is multi-disciplinary, and with his colleagues he blends architecture, sculpture and engineering to produce elegant results, from large urban spaces to individual items such as his Zip Bag for the French firm Longchamp. As well as the conversion of the Coal Drop buildings at King’s Cross into a shopping area, the Studio has major projects underway in Cape Town, Shanghai and New York. In New York, it is involved in four concurrent projects, two forming part of the development of West Manhattan: Pier 55 and The Vessel – a great achievement for a British designer.

Heatherwick’s innovative approach is now in demand all over the world, and the lecture will highlight the broad range of his designs.

Anthea Streeter  Studied the Fine and Decorative Arts in London and continued her studies at Harvard University. It was while at Harvard, where there was great enthusiasm for American design, that she became interested herself in 20th century architecture. Since returning from America she has taught on courses in Oxford and London, lectured on the Country House course in Sussex, and for several private groups around the country. Special interest in the architecture and design of 20th century.

Bernard Leach and His Influence on 20th & 21st  Century Studio Ceramics.
Diana will discuss Leach's training as a potter in Japan. His early earthenware, stoneware and fine porcelain will be shown. Covered also will be his students who helped spread his influence,  the arrival of Lucie Rie in England and her important friendship with Leach.

Diana Lloyd Is a freelance lecturer in ceramic, glass and the history of interior decoration in Europe, North and South America. She lectures at the Inchbald School of Design, the Interior Design School and for American University Groups, NT and Antiques Societies and Christie's Education. She guides groups through museum collections and country houses. She collects ceramics and glass and has a Diploma with Distinction in the Fine and Decorative Arts from the Inchbald School of Design.

This talk charts the progress over 3,000 years of movements and people through a beautiful part of France - Provence. It follows stories of the Romans, the early Christians, 19th Century painters such as Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin, 20th Century writers such as Edith Wharton and Somerset Maugham.

Ever since the Romans established it as their first province beyond the Alps, Provence has beguiled its visitors; artists especially extol its wonderful light.

Burgundy didn’t form part of France until its annexation by Louis XIV in 1674. In early days, monks travelled in huge numbers to the famous monasteries in the region. The talk explores the stories of some of the literary and artistic figures who have lived in these two lovely regions of France.

Lecturer: Caroline Rayman has lectured for many years to universities and art organisations in America and on cruise boats. She was an official guide at the British Museum and has published articles on samplers. Her lectures range from the role of royal mistress in history to more scholarly lectures such as this one on Frederick the Great of Prussia.

Using illustrations from carvings, wall paintings, pottery, mosaics, sculpture,stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, and 18th and 19th century paintings, Sarah traces the history of one of the world’s most ancient and beloved musical instruments from thousands of years BC, to it’s arrival in northern Europe, including the huge developments and improvements during the renaissance and 19th centuries that created the highly mechanised and beautiful instrument we see played in orchestras and as solo instruments today. Performing on her own reproduction and antique instruments, Sarah will demonstrate the development and evolving sound and repertoire of the harp throughout its history.

Sarah started her professional life after leaving the Royal Academy of music where she was a prize winner and gained her LRAM and LGSM performance diplomas and played with orchestras such as the Bournemouth symphony, BBC symphony, Tenerife Symphony, Ulster orchestra as well as theatre orchestras such as Festival Ballet, Ballet Rambert, Bolshoi ballet and the English music theatre orchestra at the Aldeburgh festival. She also performed solo recitals at arts clubs across the UK, and on television and radio.

http://www.harp-lute.co.uk/

High in the mist-shrouded mountains of northern Laos, cut through by the broad Mekong river, is Luang Prabang, a town of glittering Buddhist temples and barefoot monks. Remote and serene, Luang Prabang is often referred to as a Shangri La. It is a treasure-trove of Laos's artistic heritage, with ornately carved wooden temples covered in golden frescoes dating back to the 14th century Kingdom of Lane Xang, the 'Land of a Million Elephants', and colonial architecture from the French protectorate, a unique fusion of the urban styles of 19th century Europe with Lao motifs.

Denise visited Laos numerous times while living in Cambodia, exploring Vientiane, the quiet riverine capital, and travelling to the far north and the border with China. She visited villages where hill-tribes such as the Hmong, Yao and Akha live traditional lives, the women adorned with silver head-dresses and heavy necklaces, and silk and linen costumes woven by hand.

But this was almost a lost paradise. In the 1970s Laos was drawn into the war with Vietnam, and this landlocked country, with a population of only 4.5 million, became the most heavily bombed nation on earth. After the communist takeover in 1975, it was closed to visitors.

In the 1990s Laos cautiously reopened and Denise was among the first visitors to discover its fragile culture, spectacular scenery, and a way of life hardly touched by the modern world.

Her stunning digital photographs and excellent narrative unfold the history of Luang Prabang, the former royal capital set high in mountains of northern Laos, and a treasure trove of 32 glittering, wooden Buddhist temples covered in frescoes and gold leaf, filled with statues and dating back to the 14th Century kingdom of Lane Xang, the Land of a Million Elephants.

The lecture also explores the legacy of elegant French colonial architecture with Laos motifs, a unique fusion of east and west. It includes the hill tribes living traditional lives, and shows the revival of their silk weaving, handed down through generations, with intricate patterns and symbols in a wealth of styles and glorious colours.

http://www.deniseheywood.co.uk/publications.html

In 2010 a metal detectorist, Dave Crisp, prospecting near Frome found what became known as the Frome Hoard – 52,503 Roman coins. Six years later, with conservation work almost complete, the story that these coins reveal adds to the excitement of the original find. They open a new dimension to a fascinating story of Roman West Country, one of the wealthiest regions in the Roman Empire north of the Alps. The overwhelming significance of the Frome Hoard is the new light that it casts on the life of the emperor Carausius – Britain’s ‘forgotten emperor’.

With a raffish appearance, a keen awareness of his image and a desire to make the most of sporting occasions, the Roman general Carausius was the first independent emperor of Britain. New light on the character of the previously little-known Roman figure, who set up his own breakaway fiefdom in the third century, has been shed by research into the Frome Hoard discovery.
Read more at http://www.somersetlive.co.uk/et-tu-boris-frome-hoard-resemblance/story-25822341-detail/story.html#soSYcqlDTxZZBTz7.99

Dr Sam Moorhead is currently National Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman Coins with the Portable Antiquities Scheme at the British Museum and oversees coin finds made across England and Wales. He is writing a major new edition of the Roman Imperial Coinage series for the British emperors Carausius and Allectus. He is currently a Trustee of the Association of Roman Archaeology.

Dr Moorhead was  awarded the 'Archaeologist of the Year' award at the Current Archaeology Live 2011 conference at the British Museum.
 

Art critics and experts are often hilariously lampooned, and in this lecture we focus on the bafflingly mysterious Polish Rider in the Frick to evaluate a decades-long project to settle just which paintings Rembrandt did. That’s ended up as much a study of the trickiness of attribution as of Rembrandt. Right now, world Leonardo authority Martin Kemp is utterly convinced he has discovered a new work by the master – but many specialists beg to differ. We review a number of controversies, and feel the fury of judges listening to connoisseurial assertions, when questions of quality come to court. But the minefields facing experts need not deter the rest of us from making artistic judgments justbased on life experience we all have.

David Phillips studied History at Oxford, and from 1968–82 worked for Nottingham Castle Museum. From 1982–98 he was a lecturer in Museum Studies and Art History at University of Manchester. He has published a book about museum practice with Manchester University Press, ‘Exhibiting Authenticity’, 1997, and lectures on art, forgery and psychology.
 

http://www.galleryintell.com/artex/polish-rider-rembrandt-van-rijn/

From the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, from the Napoleonic wars to soldiers on the front line during World War One or the public sheltering in London’s underground stations during the Blitz, war has inspired grand, patriotic ‘history’ painting and strong protest art as well as some of the most poignant evocations of the world of peace. Not only have artists recorded their impressions of war but they have also registered the uncertainty, pain and opposition felt by those caught in its crossfire.

Picasso tellingly remarked, ‘Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.’ This lecture considers some of ways in which visions of the ‘heroic’ have changed over the years.

Sarah is a guide and lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She studied art history as part of her first degree at Harvard.  After a further degree in English at Cambridge and a career as a teacher of English literature in both the United States and England, she has returned to the world of art history where her special interests are in British and post-1900 art as well as the connections between literature and the visual arts. 

Inns and public houses are a rich part of Britain’s heritage. Their signs provide us with an abundantly illustrated guide to both our history and our cultural heritage. In this colourful lecture we are shown some of the most interesting and distinctive signs and the fascinating stories behind the origins of some of their peculiar names.

Why there are so many pubs called The Red Lion or The White Hart?

Who could fail to be intrigued by stories behind The Drunken Duck or The Cow and Snuffers, the Bucket of Blood,  the Eager Poet, or even the I am the Only Running Footman (the longest pub name in London)?  and, who on earth was Blind Jack?

John Ericson was formerly a lecturer at the University of Bath where he was Director of Studies in the School of Education with responsibility for the professional development of teachers. He has worked extensively overseas as an educational consultant and this has given him the opportunity to give lectures and presentations at conferences all over the world. In 2008 and again in 2011 he undertook extensive lecture tours of Australia and he has been a popular speaker on the NADFAS circuit for a number of years. In his professional life he has developed a particular interest in presentation skills including the role of pictures in learning and the appropriate use of PowerPoint. This coupled with his ability to relate well to people of all ages and backgrounds makes him an impressive and confident public speaker. All his talks are entertaining, highly informative, very well illustrated and presented with warmth and humour.

Wall paintings are a unique art form, complementing, and yet distinctly separate from, other religious imagery in churches. Unlike carvings, or stained glass windows, their support was the structure itself, with the artist's "canvas" the very stone and plaster of the church. They were also monumental, often larger than life-size images for public audiences. Notwithstanding their dissimilarity from other religious art, wall paintings were also an integral part of church interiors, enhancing devotional imagery and inspiring faith and commitment in their own right, and providing an artistic setting for the church's sacred rituals and public ceremonies.

ROGER ROSEWELL was educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University. A former journalist, he is a Director of a private European art foundation and the news editor of the online stained glass magazine, VIDIMUS.

Medieval Wall Paintings (2014) is the latest of Roger Rosewell’s Shire publications.  This excellent guide to mural painting in England, Wales and Scotland, examines imagery from the Romanesque period to the post-Reformation era.

Highlights include the high-quality and detailed photographs, largely taken by Rosewell himself, who is a member of the Royal Photographic Society.  This book is highly-recommended for wall painting novices and experts alike.

Rosewell has also written: Stained Glass (Shire 2012) and The Medieval Monastery (Shire 2012).

Read the report of his lecture to another NADFAS group:

http://www.cranleighdfas.org/rev1403.htm

"Having read a number of works on medieval wall paintings I was looking forward to another detailed exploration of this overlooked artform. When I first opened this stunning book I realised that everything that had gone before paled into true insignificance. The images, over 250 of them, are all reproduced in full colour and are, quite simply, superb. In particular, the images of Ewelme and those from Eton College Chapel, neither of which have truly been seen before, are breathtaking. The author has also done something that no other author dealing with the subject has previously managed. Not only is the text well constructed and scholarly - it is also highly entertaining and evocative. Chapter six, in particular, brings alive the troubled sixteenth century reformation of the English parish church in a way that makes it both moving and saddening. One of the other great glories of this work, and it has many, is the fact that the whole work is accompanied by a gazetteer and subject guide. Invaluable for anyone wishing to actually see these medieval masterpieces in their original setting. This book will, without doubt, become THE reference work on the subject."

This lecture starts at 1430 hrs

The Bible gives us little information about the Wise Men bearing Christ gifts of gold, frankincense & myrrh. All reference to them is housed in the opening chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel and what information is given is surrounded by ambiguity and approximation. However, by contrast, there is no shortage of music, poetry & art inspired by these men. Peter examines the impact of the Three Kings on the culture of later generations.

Music performed includes: The Three Kings – Cornelius,

The People that Walked in Darkness from Messiah – Handel

The Coventry Carol – Traditional,

I Saw Three Ships – Traditional,

Where is He that is Born King of the Jews? from Christus – F Mendelssohn

Peter Medhurst appears in the UK and abroad as musician and scholar, giving recitals and delivering illustrated lectures on music and the arts. He studied singing and early keyboard instruments at the Royal College of Music and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

See more about him at

http://petermedhurst.com/profile/

The most impressive surviving Roman frontier system in the world. Neil will discuss why the defences were built, how they worked, what it was like to be stationed there, the army's presence on the natives and the success of the defences in 'separating the Romans from the Barbarians'.
 

Neil Faulkner lectures widely on archaeology, ancient history, classical civilisation, modern history and current affairs. He is editor of “Military History Monthly” and an honorary research fellow at Bristol University. He is a broadcaster and the author of numerous articles, academic papers and other publications. His latest work, “Lawrence of Arabia’s War” was published in April 2016.

He is a Research Fellow at Bristol University and a specialist in Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and First World War archaeology. He is involved in fieldwork projects in Norfolk, Jordan, and Slovenia. Neil is interested in processes of long-term change, and researches the relationships between humans, landscapes, and material culture in social transformations. He also works as a historian with a special interest in revolution and war, a role that includes editorship of Military History Monthly. He is a regular contributor to TV documentaries in the UK.

Neil’s publications include:

Faulkner, N. 2008. Rome: Empire of the Eagles. Harlow: Pearson Longman.

Faulkner, N. 2012. A Visitor's Guide to the Ancient Olympics. London: Yale.

Faulkner, N. 2013. A Marxist History of the World: from Neanderthals to Neoliberals. London: Pluto.

 An expert's view of Italian gardens

 The last two decades of the nineteenth century reverberated with a row amongst gardeners and architects. At a stroke, the problem was solved by the partnership between Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens, so that a house by Lutyens with a garden by Jekyll became an Edwardian ideal. Together they designed gardens with a strong architectural background, softened by luxuriant planting in the natural style advocated by Robinson. Their partnership thrived in the brash, new-moneyed Edwardian era, but the First World War ended that golden afternoon and as Lutyens became distracted by the creation of New Delhi and Miss Jekyll, almost blind, became more and more reluctant to leave Munstead Wood, so the gardens they designed together were fewer and further between. 

James Bolton

James Bolton lives in Gloucestershire. He set up his garden business in 1992, following two years as a head gardener at The Old Rectory Farnborough. He previously trained with the Direction des Parcs et Jardins in Paris. From 1992-99 he was Faculty Director, Design History, Inchbald School of Design. He now lectures extensively on garden history for NADFAS, the NACF (National Arts Collections Fund), The Victorian Society and other groups.

He specialises in garden history in England from 1600 and history of French and Italian gardens.

The Glasgow Boys revolutionised painting in Scotland by bringing it into the mainstream of European art.

‘The Boys’ were young Scottish artists who looked to France for their inspiration – ‘the auld alliance’ – and many of them studied in Paris. One group met up in Grez-sur-Loing where they painted together using the ‘square brush technique’ influenced by Jules Bastien Lepage. Other members of the group came togther through old friendships – Paterson and MacGregor had known each other at school, while Guthrie and Walton were old friends.

They soon established a vigorous style of oil painting using large square brushes and thick paint with bold colours. Watercolour also played a major part with works by Walton, Lavery, Henry and Crawhall. Maybe the finest watercolourist of all was Arthur Melville. Japanese prints were an important influence and Henry and Hornel actually visited Japan to paint its landscape and people.

The work of the Glasgow Boys is surprisingly fresh and modern and is very popular today – as witnessed by the success of the recent exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Julian Halsby was born in London in 1948 and after Highgate School studied History of Art at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He then joined the staff of Croydon College of Art lecturing in the History of Art and Design and rose to become Senior Lecturer and Head of the Conservation Department.
Julian has written seven books on art history including ‘Scottish Watercolours 1740 -1940’, the biographies of Diana Armfield RA and David Wolfers, owner of the New Grafton Gallery, and a Dictionary of Scottish Artists. He has also written hundreds of articles including the current series of ‘In Conversation’ for ‘The Artist’ magazine and many articles on art criticism. Julian currently lectures for NADFAS and other adult education organisations and is chairman of Artslink, a local community arts education charity.

During the 1980s Julian ran Highgate Gallery with his wife, Miranda,  and they now jointly run Newland Gallery, situated behind their medieval house in Sherborne.

The seafaring mercantile families of the 15th  century re-established themselves as farmers in the 16th century and required notable buildings to show their status. The most sought after architect was Palladio. This lecture looks at the legacy of the architecture of their villas and Palladio's continuing influence on design and global architecture.

The Palladio trail begins an hour from Venice, in Vicenza, a small but still handsome city, thanks largely to the many surviving stone palazzi by Palladio. The showiest building in town, the Palazzo della Ragione, was Palladio's first grand commission, awarded in 1545, when he was already 37. Oddly, the palazzo (known informally as the Basilica) is less a building than a skin or buttress to support a collapsing congeries of buildings and loggias. As his reputation grew, Palladio received commissions elsewhere, particularly in Venice, but he continued to work in Vicenza. At the time of his death in 1580 he had embarked on the Teatro Olimpico, which became the earliest permanent indoor theater of the Renaissance.

But among the Palladio buildings in Vicenza, the one not to miss is La Rotonda, on the outskirts of town. Most of Palladio's villas were built as agricultural estates or suburban manors, but La Rotonda is a case apart. More a belvedere than a year-round dwelling, it was commissioned as a party house by a retired monsignor, Paolo Almerico, in 1566. Though it's essentially a cube topped by a dome, it is exceptional in that Palladio gave equal care to all four façades.

Head of History of Art at Wycombe Abbey School, Dan is also a senior lecturer for Art History Abroad and is an award-winning travel guide throughout Italy as well as in Paris and London. He studied at the University of Manchester, and has over 10 years of lecturing experience including talks to the Art Fund, Pembroke College, (Cambridge University), Art History Society (Durham University) and many prestigious independent secondary schools in the UK.

Villa Rotonda by Andrea Palladio (1566) on the outskirts of Vicenza, Italy

The so called Degenerate Art Exhibition staged by the Nazis attempted to show that certain modern masters contributed to the decline of German culture. Shauna will discuss how the works later made their way to the art market and the repercussions on contemporary restitution. She will also discuss the recent Gurlitt case , in which over 1,200  looted works were discovered in Germany: many of these masterpieces once considered degenerate.

Shauna Issac studied at the Courtauld Institute and Birbeck College. She runs an art recovery company and serves on the advisory board of the European Shoah Legacy Institute.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24819441

The extraordinarily rich hoard found at Sutton Hoo dates to the early C 7th and tells us a great deal about the wealth of the country at the time, inter-action with other cultures and status within Anglo-Saxon society. What we cannot yet prove is who was buried within the ship in the mound although the popular theory is that it was King Readwald of East Anglia.

This lecture uses images of the treasures found as well as Old English poetry to discuss kingship and power in Anglo-Saxon England.

Imogen was in the army for 20 years and then turned to a life-long interest with the result that in 2004 she graduated from the University of Kent with a 1st class honours degree in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval History. She has returned to studying to research The Development and Function of the Foliate Head in English Medieval Churches (Green Men in usual parlance) at Birmingham.

She has been lecturing and running study tours on Anglo-Saxon and Medieval history for some years and  uses art – usually church art – as the evidence in her research as much as possible.

She is a NADFAS lecturer as well as being a speaker for the Kent Federation of History, East Kent National Trust amongst others, and is on the Churches Committee for the Kent Archaeological Society and a member of the British Commission for Military History.

Goya designed tapestries, produced hundreds of etchings, and political works on a broad canvas, but in his powerful and original portraits he turns his critical eye on to his contemporaries. His sitters came from many walks of life: politicians, aristocrats, actresses, bullfighters, as well as friends and relations and the extraordinarily unattractive members of the Spanish Royal Family. How did he manage to get away with such daring and provocative work?

Gail is an historian, art historian and painter who lectures regularly for The Art Fund, Cambridge University International Summer Schools, the Courtauld Institute and the V&A, among others. She has lectured in the Prado and Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. 

Todays playing cards go back to 1337.  They become especially interesting when the King and Queen are recognisable: Yasha describes how there is then the possibility to communicate political or educational messages. The beauty and variety of playing cards designed by different artists is also illustrated.

Lynne celebrates the theme of love and courtship, through paintings from the Age of Chivalry to the Modern Age. This lecture looks at blossoming courtly love of the Middle Ages, the amorous gods and goddesses of the Italian Renaissance, the Puritanical Dutch , the Prudish Victorians, the flirtatious fun of the Rococo artists and the Femme Fatale of the Belle Époque.

This lecture looks at  the well preserved Greek splendours such as the ruins in Agrigento, Syracuse and Segesta. The Romans, in their turn, left beautiful public buildings in Syracuse and Taormina. Paul concludes with the legacy of Norman Sicily,  notably the wall and ceiling mosaics of its churches. 

Bertie examines the profound mystery of perception, the ambiguous state of seeing things which are not there and discusses that period when magic was common place with the boundary between the possible and the impossible blurred. We will be shown how Optical illusion, used in art since Roman times creates a range of effects on the viewer.

This lecture illustrates fascinating developments in fresco & icon painting, emphasizing  the religious significance of the  decorative features of Bulgaria's well-preserved mediaeval monasteries. John includes the prehistoric Thracian Tombs, public buildings from the Roman period and vernacular architecture from the Ottoman period beautifully conserved in Bulgaria's towns and villages.

Two of the greatest figures of the 18th century, never met in person but their relationship involved art, patronage and politics. Catherine was a passionate anglophile and patron of the arts. She commissioned England's most innovative potter and entrepreneur to make a dinner service for her new country palace, each piece individually decorated with a topographical view of a country house, garden or landscape. Deborah will discuss this visual record of Great Britain in the 18th century.

The fame of the Queen of Sheba has lasted across intervening centuries, since she made her epic journey with 120 talents (four and a half tons) of gold from her distant land to the court of King Solomon in Jerusalem. In this talk Louise looks at how the Queen has captured the imagination of great artists and how she has recently discovered the ancient goldmines in northern Ethiopia.