Lecture

Rome, as we all know, was not built in a day.  It took centuries to construct the eternal city, and Rome’s glorious monuments and those who created them are the focus of this new talk.

Paul Roberts

Dr Paul Roberts OBE is Research Keeper in the Department of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford University.  Paul has been a lecturer with the Arts Society/NADFAS for over twenty years, has travelled extensively to societies across the UK, and has also lectured on numerous cruises in and around the Mediterranean. Like all of us, he enjoys the immediate contact of face to face meetings, but is happy to provide online lectures if desired.  

He studied Classics at the University of Cambridge, and Classical Archaeology at the Universities of Sheffield and Oxford.  He then lived in Italy for several years, teaching and researching.  He has travelled throughout the former lands of the Roman Empire, from Britain to Syria, and has excavated in Britain, Greece, Libya, Turkey and in particular Italy, where he is currently working on a Roman Villa in the Molise region of the Central Apennines. 

His research focuses on the daily life of ordinary people in the Greek and Roman worlds, and he has written books and articles on Greek and Roman daily life, Pompeii and Herculaneum, Sicily, Roman Emperors, mummy portraits, and Greek and Roman ceramics and glass. In 2024 his book "Ancient Rome in Fifty Monuments", looking at the history of Rome through its monuments and the Emperors who built them, was published by Thames and Hudson.   

From 1994 to 2015 he was Senior Roman Curator in the Greek and Roman Department at the British Museum, where he curated the exhibition Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum (2013). Arriving in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2015, in 2019/20  he curated Last Supper in Pompeii, a tribute to the Roman love affair with food and wine. 

He was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours List 2025 for services to Archaeology and Heritage. 

Image: Augustus, the first  Emperor of Rome, around 10 BC. Copyright consent provided.

Lecture

As the people of Norway became Christians from the 11th century, they started building wooden churches. Using particular techniques, they managed to build churches that still stand, some eight centuries later. Their very peculiar and rather extraordinary silhouette adorns the Norwegian landscape here and there and has become a national symbol. We will see how they were constructed and why they look the way they do. We will also examine the decorative elements, sometimes reminiscent of the Viking Age, and others in line with European medieval art.

Caroline Levisse

Dr Caroline Levisse is an art historian based in London. She was born in France where she studied art history before moving to Copenhagen. In Denmark, she focused on research work and completed a PhD on the relations between art and religion in contemporary Scandinavian art. After graduating in 2013, she moved to London and started teaching art history with adult education providers. She has since developed a range of courses focusing on 19th and early 20th century Western art. She has published articles in French and English in academic journals as well as magazines and newspapers, such as Church Times and Arts sacrés.

Image: Heddal Stave Church, Notodden, Telemark, Norway (photo: Micha L. Rieser)

Lecture

The Sacred Art of Francisco de Zubarán.

Isabelle Kent

Isabelle is an academic and educator specialising in the baroque, with a particular focus on Spain and its empire. She received a BA and MPhil in History of Art from Trinity College, Cambridge, where she is currently completing her PhD on the art of Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán. From 2017 to 2019 she worked as a curator at the Wallace Collection and in 2020 her book Collecting Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in Britain and Ireland was published by CEEH. Alongside her academia, Isabelle is an expert guide for a travel company, leading groups around Spain and beyond, and she also teaches regularly for the V&A, Art Fund, Royal Academy, Chelsea Arts Club, Wallace Collection and University of Cambridge.

Image: Public source image by Zubarán

Lecture

Houses made from wool that warm in the depths of winter, carpets that tell stories, woven bands that appease ancestors, embroideries that ward off evil, and kilims that store kitchenware, with everything ready to be packed and carried on yak, or camel at a moment’s notice; the little-known nomadic textile cultures of the Kyrgyz, Turkoman and Karakalpak are explored in this lecture, along with the rise and fall of nomadism and where nomadism fits within the modern world. Chris also shares from his own experience of working with nomadic yak herders in the High Pamirs for three years.

Chris Aslan

Chris Aslan was born in Turkey and was raised there and in war-torn Beirut. This set him on a course for an adventurous life and he has spent two years at sea, and lived in Central Asia for 15 years. He started off in Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, and becoming the largest non-government employer in town. He was deported as part of an anti-Western purge, and took a year in Cambridge to write A Carpet Ride to Khiva. Chris then spent several years in the Pamirs mountains of Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down. Next came a couple more years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut wood and establishing a wood-carving workshop. Since then, Chris has studied and rowed at Oxford and now divides his time between lecturing for the Arts Society, writing fiction and non-fiction in his mountainous home overlooking the sea in North Cyprus where he is overrun by cats, and returning to Central Asia to lead tours whenever he can, having left a large chunk of his heart there. His latest book is Unravelling the Silk Road.

Image: Chris Aslan on his yak

AGM Meeting at 10:15am.

Lecture

Renoir liked to describe himself as a ‘natural’ painter – an artist who painted life as he found it, without wasting time on reflection or doubt. His work was designed to appeal to the senses rather than the intellect, to show the world not as people construct it in their minds but as they see it with their eyes. But Renoir’s apparent simplicity belied the very real difficulties he encountered in deciding what truth in art meant. This talk concentrates on Renoir’s work during the 1890s, an important period of transition, when the artist sought to draw together all he had learned in previous decades.

Kathy McLauchlan

A lecturer specialising in 19th-century art history, I am currently a course director at the Victoria & Albert Museum, organising courses and study days on the history of art and design. I teach at several institutions, including Art Pursuits. I am a graduate of Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute, with a PhD on French 19th-century painters in Rome. I am available for both individual lectures and study days. In addition to the subjects on my page I can cover: • Sketch and Finish in 19th-century French Painting • Montmartre fin de siècle • Mucha and the Slav Epic • America and the Sublime Landscape.

Image: Pierre-August Renoir, Girls at the Piano - Google Art Project

Lecture

The landscape garden was a great English innovation. In place of the formal patterns, clipped hedges and straight lines that were in vogue throughout Europe, William Kent introduced a new notion in the 1730s: a ‘natural’ garden, full of variety, drama and surprise. Examples are drawn from gardens such as Rousham, Claremont, Painshill and Stowe, and from the ever-ingenious designs of Humphry Repton. But did the origins of the landscape garden lie elsewhere? Also considered are two imperial gardens of 18th-century China, which may have helped to shape the great gardens of Georgian England. 

Patrick Conner

1970-71 Teacher at Marlborough College. 1975-86 Keeper of Fine Art at the Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery & Museums, Brighton. Since 1986 Director of the Martyn Gregory Gallery, London. Author of several books including Savage Ruskin, Oriental Architecture in the West and George Chinnery, artist of India and the China Coast.

Image: "Parterre" Endsleigh

Christmas Lunch and Lecture at the Weald of Kent Golf Course.

Please note the date change from Tuesday 9th to Monday 8th.

Lecture

The foods we eat at Christmas have a long, curious and visually spectacular history. This lecture narrates and illustrates that history from Medieval boar’s head and brawn, by way of highly decorated seventeenth century mince pies to the almost forgotten Twelfth Night Cake. Medieval illuminated manuscripts, paintings and prints from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, and illustrations from cookery books provide us with images of some of the lost glories of the British Christmas feast.

Peter Ross

Peter has a BA in the History of Art, Design and Film, a MA in London history, a PhD in the cultural history of an English criminal, and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.  Until recently Principal Librarian at Guildhall Library, he has for 20 years lectured on a broad range of topics including the history of English books, portraiture, and London history. Peter has appeared on TV and radio as a consultant on the 18th century criminal Jack Sheppard,  on the history of English food, and on Shakespeare’s First Folio. His most recent publication, The Curious Cookbook, was published by the British Library. Peter is currently writing a book on Eating out in Georgian London. 

Lecture

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in America, explore 25 iconic works including Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic,’ Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother,’ Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks,’ of American art. Trace the history of America through paintings, sculptures, land art, and photography that exemplify vital moments in American history like the Gold Rush, the Civil War, Civil Rights movement, and so forth; key styles/movements like the Hudson River School, Regionalism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art; and showcase ground-breaking artists from the indigenous Native American peoples through to virtuoso portrait painter John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Warhol, Kara Walker and many more.

Marie-Anne Mancio

Trained as an artist before gaining a PhD in Art and Critical Theory from the University of Sussex. Has lectured in art history for the City Lit, Tate Modern, the Course, Art in London, London Art Salon, Dulwich Picture Gallery, HENI films; also runs art history study tours abroad for ACE and is a Director of InFems art collective for whom she curates exhibitions and writes.

Image: John Singleton Copley's "Watson and the Shark" 1778. Public Domain.

Lecture

Fresco is the supreme medium in which one can track the ideas and the accomplishments of the Italian Renaissance, from Giotto’s work in the Arena Chapel to Michelangelo’s painting for Popes in the Sistine Chapel. For secular leaders, wall painting cycles created the opportunity to create a virtual world which enhanced their status, in the church they brought a new immediacy and impact to the presence and meaning of the divine story, but what was their appeal for the artist? Why did they consider it "the sweetest and most subtle form that exists."? Why was this particular form so perfectly suited to the aspirations of the age? This lecture illustrates the complex technique involved and explores some of the great projects of the age to understand the fascination and significance of fresco for rulers, clergy and painters. 

Nicole Mezey

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.

Image: Giotto Arena Chapel, Padua (c1305) Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Lecture

Staatliches Bauhaus was an art school founded under Weimar Republic by the architect Walter Gropius. From 1919 to 1933 its tutors combined crafts and the fine arts in a radical new approach to design education. Less well known is the influence of the Bauhaus and other German design schools on design and art education in Britain in this period. As the impact of the economic ‘Slump’ of c.1929-34 hit British manufacturing sales, many in local and national government to the view that Britain’s struggling industrial base could be improved if moves were made to provide for better design education. This lecture looks at some the work of the key artists involved in improving British design in this period – including Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry; and at Unit One – formed by Paul Nash in 1933 to promote modern art, architecture and design.

Julia Musgrave

Julia Musgrave got her first degree in Chemical Engineering and went on to become a Chartered Information Systems Engineer and IT project manager. In 2008 she decided that life was too short for just one career and decided to become an art historian. She now has a Graduate Diploma in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an MLitt in ‘Art, Style and Design: Renaissance to Modernism, c.1450 – c.1930’ from the University of Glasgow. She gained her PhD at the University of York for her research into the involvement of Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group and the social networks of the British art world in the development of the Contemporary Art Society from 1910 to 1939. She teaches Art History at the City Literary Institute (City Lit) and is Co-Director of The London Art Salon.

Lecture

This lecture focuses on the work and achievements of, and challenges faced by leading sculptors based in Britain in the 20th century. They comprise Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Caro, Elisabeth Frink and Antony Gormley. In their different ways, they all embraced modernism, but some more than others. Some looked to African, Oceanic and pre-Columbian cultures, while others looked to Paris. Some embarked on direct carving, while others modelled or shaped their materials. Some embraced social and humanitarian themes, while others opted for abstraction. For all these differences, the seven sculptors each produced bodies of work that will have a lasting effect on future generations. Mind you, sculpting can be a cut throat business, and there will be clashes and quarrels to tell you about too. The lecture will also feature a discussion of the difference between a sculpture and an installation, and how some modern artists did one or the other – or both! This lecture can be booked either as a stand-alone lecture or as a study/special interest day when linked to other lectures of your choosing. It can also be expanded into a study/special interest day in its own right.

Raymond Warburton

Ray has had a life-long love of art. However, in his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. These studies led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. But all that changed in 2011, when Ray became a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Then from 2014 to 2017, he studied art history at the Open University, and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he gained an MA in the History of Art. And to cap it all, Ray became an Arts Society lecturer in 2017. Ray also knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of lectures as he is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

Lecture

The Hindu temple complex of Angkor in Cambodia is the greatest archaeological site in Asia. Within an area of 400 square kilometres there are dozens of temples, many covered in jungle, but the most important of them all is Angkor Wat. Built in the 12th century, Angkor Wat is the biggest religious monument in the world and measures a square mile. This mystical temple is a recreation on earth of the Hindu cosmos, brilliantly constructed to align with the sun and moon and covered with exquisite carvings. This illustrated lecture will focus on the artistic heritage and religious symbolism of Angkor.

Denise Heywood

Denise Heywood is an author, lecturer, photographer and journalist. She worked in Cambodia for three years in the 1990s and has been a scholar of Southeast Asian art ever since. Her books include Ancient Luang Prabang, also in French, and another on Cambodian Dance Celebration of the Gods, with a foreword by Princess Buppha Devi, daughter of King Sihanouk.

Now based in London, she is a lecturer for The Arts Society (formerly NADFAS), The Art Fund and The School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) on their post-graduate Asian Art Course. She has lectured all over Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, South Africa and Europe at universities, colleges, schools, travel societies and art institutions ranging from The Courtauld Institute to The British Museum, The National Trust and The Royal Geographical Society.

She writes for many art, literary and travel publications, has appeared on television and radio, leads art tours to Southeast Asia and Europe and lectures on cruise ships.

Lecture

From the early Kosovan silver mines which are mentioned in 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. Its most intricate tanglings are in the country’s cultural capital, Prizren, where a seventh generation of filigree artisans use ‘filum’ and ‘granum’, zigzags, ‘mouse-tooth’ designs and other twists and turns to magic lacy creations from dull sticks of raw material. The results – in boxes, buttons, jewellery, religious ornamentation and the talismans of superstitition – 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. 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.

Lecture

2024 marks the bicentenary of the founding of the National Gallery.This lecture tells the story of the establishment of the NG collection beginning in 1824 when Lord Liverpool’s government purchased 38 paintings for £57,000 from the collection of businessman and philanthropist John Julius Angerstein. The paintings were initially displayed at 100 Pall Mall, Angerstein’s townhouse and by 1838, it was decided that a purpose built building was required, giving us the William Wilkins designed building we know and love on Trafalgar Square. During the course of the lecture we examine some of the high (and low) points of the early years of the gallery including suffragette sabotage, bombs and theft. We also take a close up look at some of the original "Angerstein 38” paintings.

Simon Whitehouse

Simon is a (recovering) actor, lecturer, presenter, Alexander Technique and voice teacher and award winning London Blue Badge guide. He has worked as a guide lecturer in house at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Opera House, the BBC and the National Gallery guiding both public and private tours. He is on the faculty of Ithaca College and also lectures for the Blue Badge Guide training course on the performing arts and English literature. Simon’s specialisms and passions are theatre, literature, fashion and art history but whatever the subject, Simon will weave a wonderful story from it.

The fears and anxieties of Vienna in the final years before the outbreak of the Great War found expression in the writing of Freud, the music of Gustav Mahler and the haunting paintings of Klimt, Kokoschka and Schiele. Shimmering portraits flecked with gold; hypnotic landscapes of vibrant brushstrokes; erotic dreams of decadence and death reveal a society in search for salvation at a time when mankind had lost faith in its future. The lecture traces the course of this brief, often dark but always dazzlingly inventive period of art.

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.

A members feedback:

A splendid lecture! It went far beyond whatever we might have expected from ‘A Kiss for Allington the World’, taking us on a journey from Klimt, with Loos, Mahler, Koloman Moser, Olbrich, Otto Wagner, Kokoschka, Schiele, etc, through the Vienna Secession and those defining and highly creative years. It highlighted their personal lives and connections, linking art, architecture, and music, in a most enlightening, interesting, and enjoyable way. Douglas Skeggs managed to deal with the technical issues with very good humour and keeping everyone’s attention focused on his fascinating topic. Thank you!

Image: The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. Location: Belvedere Palace Vienna in the Upper Belvedere permanent collection. Gustav Klimt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lecture

The 2023 exhibition in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam showcasing 28 of Vermeer's 37 known paintings has shown us there is more to Vermeer than his tranquil, peaceful, still and meditative genre paintings. Experimental brushstrokes, quickly painted in a wide range of topics, loved and collected by women. In this lecture by Dutch art historian Mariska, will introduce Vermeer the person, the city in which he lived, the range of topics he covered, his beliefs, his patrons and his legacy.

Mariska Beekenkamp-Wladimiroff

A Social Psychologist by trade, it took until the birth of her children to take up her love for the arts again. Heavily pregnant with number 3, Mariska finished her MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, in Dutch Baroque Art. Soon after this she was lucky enough to lecture for the most wonderful group of students. She decided this was what she wanted to do, and set up Art Historical London offering art historical lectures, courses, tours, travel and events from London. Over the years this has expanded to events in New York and Amsterdam, and since March 2020 online.

Image: The Milkmaid, by Johannes Vermeer, c. 1660. (Google Art Project)

Lecture

In the Renaissance, Christmas was a popular time to hold jousts, tournaments and courtly spectacles. In the dark, dead of winter, a colourful, glamorous celebration of chivalry very much took on the role of a kind of sixteenth-century 'festival of light'. In England, Christmas jousts became especially popular under that famous lover of armour and fighting, King Henry VIII. Such events were a kind of performance art, which fused real armoured combat with fantastical, mythological and allegorical themes. In this lecture, we explore this rich history through the personal experiences of the lecturer, an academic specialist but also one of the world’s foremost jousters and medieval martial artists.

Tobias Capwell

Toby is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London and an internationally-acknowledged authority on Medieval and Renaissance weapons. He is the author of numerous books on the subject of arms and armour, including Masterpieces of European Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection (2011; Apollo Magazine Book of the Year 2012); The Noble Art of the Sword: Fashion and Fencing in Renaissance Europe 1520-1630, ex. cat. (2012); Armour of the English Knight 1400- 1450 (2015; Military History Monthly Illustrated Book of the Year 2017); and most recently Arms and Armour of the Medieval Joust (2018). Toby also appears regularly on television, most recently on A Stitch in Time (2018; BBC4); as presenter and armour advisor on Richard III: The New Evidence (2014; C4), and as the writer and presenter of Metalworks: The Knight's Tale (2012; BBC4). In 2015 Toby had the unusual honour of serving as one of the two fully armoured horsemen escorting the remains of King Richard III, from the battlefield at Bosworth to their final resting place in Leicester Cathedral.

Lecture

Ukrainian born Repin (1844-1930) trained at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg, but broke early on with its foreign inspired classicism to form a new realist school that would reflect the life of ordinary people. He became close to the famous personalities of his era, from Leo Tolstoy to Modest Mussorgsky, joining them in a quest to capture the soul of ‘Mother Russia’. Repin returned regularly to his birthplace and channelled its heritage into his epic paintings. As he made it his mission to portray the social and political changes of a country in turmoil, his surviving work forms an invaluable testament to the empire’s final years. 

Cynthia Coleman Sparke

Cynthia is an independent researcher, author and lecturer on Russian pre- Revolutionary works of art, consulting regularly on Fabergé for auction houses. Having periodically grown up on and off in Moscow within a family of Russian art collectors, she was destined for a career in Russian art. Previously, Cynthia ran the Russian Department for Christie’s in New York and worked for Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens in Washington DC. This was followed by a restoration project at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, Nicholas II’s last residence. Her book Russian Decorative Arts was published in 2014 by the Antique Collectors’ Club.

Lecture

What skills did it take for a woman to become a painter in 17th century Europe? Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654) was by no means the only woman painter of her period, but she is a rarity, and she also ranks amongst the greatest painters of the 17th century. Her career spanned a time of great change in Italian taste, from the power and earthiness of Caravaggio, to the more elegant classicism of Reni and Domenichino. Her family connections meant that she moved between a number of different centres in Europe - Rome, Florence, Naples and London, and her work reflects the different tastes of these centres. This lecture considers her training in the very male world of the roman studio, and explores her skills in painting in a style which is both individual but which also put her in the forefront wherever in Europe she found herself working.

Chantal Brotheton-Radcliffe

MA in History of Art from Edinburgh, PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University. With 40 years' experience as a lecturer, Chantal has taught at Sotheby's Institute of Art on the MA in Fine and Decorative Arts since 1989, and as a freelance lecturer for a number of societies and institutions in London, including the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection. Having also trained as a paintings conservator, she brings an understanding of the making and the physical painting to her lectures and study sessions.

Lecture

From hotels, restaurants and tube stations to apartment blocks, offices, picture houses and lidos, the British public fell in love with Art Deco architecture of the 1920s and 1930s and embraced it whole-heartedly. After decades of closure, 2022 marks the unveiling of the restored and instantly recognisable Battersea Power Station which commenced its construction in 1929.

This lecture considers a selection of iconic Art Deco buildings both in our capital city and around Britain, exploring our continued love affair with one of the most fascinating of architectural styles. Although numerous modern-day pastiches exist today, this country is still rich with original examples of this ‘architecture of luxury’. We will review the architectural features and impact of such buildings as Du Cane Court, Claridges, Embassy Court in Brighton, Eltham Palace, Glasgow’s restaurant Rogano, the Midland Hotel in Morecombe and the former Daily Express Building in Fleet Street.

We will explore the development of this architectural style within the context of its social and economic environment and how, during a challenging interwar period, Art Deco architecture promoted such great civic pride as well as such luxury for its personal clients. And of course, we will continue our love affair with Battersea Power Station following its recent restoration.

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 Adult Education Department's programme of events. Also conducted numerous guided tours and focused gallery talks on individual works of art. Specialises in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art. Over 12 years' experience at the Royal Academy. Work experience also undertaken at Bonhams, Art Loss Register, National Trust. Now a freelance art consultant and lecturer. Recently curated a collection for the Lansdowne Club.

Lecture

The Edo period (1603-1868) was the highpoint for crafts of all kinds including woodblock prints. Of all the artists working in Edo, Hokusai and Hiroshige were the most innovative and prolific, creating extraordinary and beautiful images that are still revered today.

Suzanne Perrin

An independent researcher and historian specialising in Japanese History, Art & Culture, and founded Japan Interlink in 1995 to promote the understanding of Japan in the UK. Suzanne studied Nihonga traditional Japanese painting at Nagoya University of Arts and gained a certificate there, and reached Level 3 in Japanese Language at the Japan Foundation in London.

Suzanne has lectured to a wide range of institutions including universities, museums and adult education groups in the UK and overseas. She taught Japanese History & Culture at Richmond American International University in London for over ten years, lectures for the Arts of Asia course at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, for the British Museum and London Institute Universities, the University of Cape Town, and University of Brighton Art & Design School; has given lecture tours for DARTS in South Africa, ADFAS in Australia and for The Arts Societies in Europe (Spain, Germany, Malta, Belgium). Suzanne has organised exhibitions of Japanese arts and crafts including Kimono exhibitions for demonstration and display.

Suzanne has published articles on Japanese culture and contemporary living for various magazines, and published her first book in 2016 titled: Bridges: Anglo-Japanese Cultural Pioneers 1945-2015. She is working on her second book on Japanese craftspeople in Kyoto, and visits Japan regularly to continue her research.

Image  

The Kisokaido at Seba by Hiroshige.

Public domain.

Post event article

June 14th, 2024 brought The Arts Society Mid Kent to Bearsted’s Holy Cross Church for a special interest day attended by 43 members of the society. A lively and colourful scene of tables covered with batiks, fresh flowers, art napkins and postcards emerged as participants wound their way up Church Lane and entered the church to hear two outstanding lectures on light and mood in European art.  Presented by Nicole Mezey, a gifted and professional Arts Society lecturer, the two themes were illustrated with 25+ stunning images of famous and not-so-famous paintings.  Between the first and second lectures, a sumptuous lunch was served by Bearsted’s Fabulously Fed Cafe and Catering, on extra tables generously loaned by Bearsted and Thurnham Memorial Hall. There was keen interest in the history and architecture of the church and many members suggested that we should return to this lovely spot of tranquility and green beauty. The entire TASMK committee plus several interested volunteers and willing church parishioners made this day a resounding success.

Lectures

1st Lecture - Light in the World - How does light affect the way we see the physical world? Reflections, the haze of morning, candle, gas or limelight, realistic form and the atmosphere of great landscapes - all these depend on the mastery of subtle effects to create the artistic illusion.

2nd Lecture - Mood We are primitive creatures. Artists from Leonardo to Rembrandt knew that we respond emotionally both to darkness and to light and we explore how these are used to intensify the mood of their work, drawing us in to share and empathise with their deeper meanings.

Tickets are £30   Please sign up at our January or February lecture. We request an initial £10 deposit at the time you sign up (The deposit will be refunded if the lectures are cancelled for any reason).

Image E Manet - Title: Claude Monet in his Floating Studio (1874) (Public Domain

Lecturer  

Nicole Mezey   She who gave us such a brilliant lecture on Feasts and Fantasy in May 2023.

Timetable for the Day and Location

10:00 - 10:30 Registration, Coffee, tea and biscuits

10:30 - 11:45 Lecture One: Light in the World plus Q&A

12:00 - 13:00 Luncheon of salads, sandwiches, (vegetarian options), juices and a glass of wine

13:00 - 14:30 Lecture Two: Mood plus Q&A

Location: Holy Cross Church, Bearsted. 

Just 14 mins from Sutton Valence Village Hall, with ample Parking.

Address: Church Lane, Bearsted, Maidstone, ME14 4EE.

Directions:   https://w3w.co/author.trails.thank

Lecture

This lecture examines a sometimes overlooked area of Italian art, architecture and culture - the nineteenth century. It traces the most important works of art and architecture and looks at the way in which they echoed the growing sense of national identity during the period before, during and after Italian unification. It looks at particular artists such as Francesco Hayez whose paintings embodying a romantic medievalism often contain hidden allusions to Italy’s growing national consciousness. The lecture (which aims in some small way to prove that the story of Italian art did not end with the Renaissance or the Baroque). 

Christopher Garibaldi

Independent Researcher. 2010–2019 Director of Palace House, Newmarket (National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art: ). 2008–2010 Co-Director of the Attingham Summer School for the Study of Historic Houses and Collections. 1998–2003 Senior Curator & Assistant Keeper of Art (Decorative Art) at Norwich Castle Museum: co-curator of Flower Power – The Meaning of Flowers in Art and Eat, Drink and Be Merry, the British at Table 1600 to 2000. 1994–1997 Catalogued the silver in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and other royal residences.

Image 'Triste Presentimento' ('Sad Foreboding') by Gerolamo Induno, 1862 (Public Domain)

Lecture

The Alhambra of Granada, the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Alcazar of Seville are the three most impressive monuments to the architectural creativity of the Moors in Spain, but there are many other examples worthy of mention too.

The classical origins that influenced the Moorish style are less well-known, but fascinating to explore, as too is the unique interior decorative style developed by the Moors, which gives their architecture its beauty and exotic appeal – an appeal so strong that the Christians sometimes copied it, even as they slowly reconquered the territory from its Islamic rulers. This lecture provides a comprehensive introduction to the peninsula’s Moorish architecture.

Ian Cockburn

Art historian with a BA (Birkbeck College) in art history and an MA (Courtauld Institute of Art) in medieval Spanish art history. Specialist in the nearly 800 years of Moorish occupation and Christian reconquest of medieval Iberia. Founder and director of an art tours company, specialising in guided cultural tours in Spain, plus lecturing in London at institutions such as the V&A, SOAS, Christies Education, and the London Art History Society. 

Image Alhambra Patio de los Leones

Lecture

We are all familiar with Alfons Mucha as an icon of fin-de-siècle Paris, the poster designer who made actress Sarah Bernhardt immortal, and who turned advertising into an art form.  Less well known is the work to which Mucha devoted over twenty years of his later career, and which he himself regarded as his greatest accomplishment.  This was the Slav Epic, a series of 20 enormous canvases first shown in 1928, which presented a visual history of the Slavs from their mythical past to a visionary future.  Mucha conceived his work as a gift to Prague and the Czech people: "I wanted", he said, "to talk in my own way to the soul of the nation".  Find out if he succeeded. 

Dr Kathy McLauchlan

A lecturer specialising in 19th-century art history, I am currently a course director at the Victoria & Albert Museum, organising courses and study days on the history of art and design. I teach at several institutions, including Art Pursuits. I am a graduate of Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute, with a PhD on French 19th-century painters in Rome. 

Image

Slav Epic No.1 by Alphonse Mucha. Location: Prague City Gallery.

Alphonse Mucha, Public domain, Google Art Project

Lecture

This constantly changing lecture features a wide variety of work from the RSN Collection and from current and recent students. Showcasing many embroidery techniques this lecture will open eyes as to just what can be achieved with a needle and thread.

No prior knowledge of embroidery is needed to enjoy this lecture that shows the imagination and skill of RSN students in creating everything from selfies in stitch to a White Walker for Game of Thrones and from realising children’s stories to crafting jewellery.

Susan Kay-Williams

Susan is the chief executive of the Royal School of Needlework and curator of the 150 Years of the Royal School of Needlework: Crown to Catwalk exhibition. She is the author of An Unbroken Thread: Celebrating 150 years of the Royal School of Needlework, published this April by ACC Art Books. Among her Arts Society talks are Treasures of the Royal School of Needlework, Painting with a needle: 18th-century embroidery for gentlemen and botanists and The stitching queens: embroidery in the Tudor period.

Lecture

This lecture tells the story of men's tailoring over the past 200 years, told through the lives of the men who commissioned and created and wore it. Tailors, shirtmaker, hatters and other craftspeople in London’s west end, especially around Savile Row & Jermyn Street have shaped the way men dress since the Regency. How did men such as Beau Brummell, The Duke of Windsor, Tommy Nutter, Montague Burton, Alexander McQueen and John Stephen create their signature looks which influenced the mens fashion? This lecture also looks at the wider cultural shifts since the early 19th century to the present day and how they affected the way that men present themselves.

Russell Nash

Russell trained and worked as an actor, writer, puppeteer and theatre maker for 15 years. He also spent time as a journalist, jewellery business owner and writer. In 2015 he qualified a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide. Around this time he rekindled his love of art and art history. He now regularly guides the major art galleries and museums in London including the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tates Modern & Britain and the British Museum. He has delivered lectures for institutes and museums, as well as numerous U3A groups and other societies.

Lecture

Join Margaret for a seasonal hour of Christmas bygones and entertainment as she brings to life the joy of music through the ages at this time of year.

Keeping to a brief history of the harp, she concentrates more on the incredible pedal mechanism invented for the harp and demonstrates on her own instrument through a variety of music. Exploring some of the old Christmas Carols and their origins, Margaret will play a selection of festive favourites to get you in the mood for Christmas. 

Margaret Watson

Margaret has played for Royalty, including performances for HRH The Princess Royal, HRH Princess Alexandra and HRH Prince Edward and Sophie Countess of Wessex. She has given concerts at National Trust properties, played at City Guildhall, The Garrick Club, The Savoy, Ritz, Dorchester and Hilton Langham Hotels in London, Glyndebourne Opera House, The Royal Courts of Justice, Covent Garden and for many weddings, private parties, group meetings, receptions, launches, corporate, civic and charity functions.

Lecture

Younger son of the famous Pieter Bruegel, Jan did not inherit the right to copy his father’s pictures as his elder brother Peter the Younger did. Instead he had to invent a different realm of subject matter for himself, and he turned what was doubtless his short-sightedness to use, painting pictures of exquisite detail and entrancing miniature scale. His landscapes are microcosms of the known flora and fauna of his day, and we can feel his delight in discovering new species of tulip, say, or of parrot. The beautiful scenes he painted are analysed in this lecture, but above all, they are presented for the sheer enjoyment of the audience.

Chantal Brotherton-Radcliff

MA in History of Art from Edinburgh, PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University. With 40 years' experience as a lecturer, Chantal has taught at Sotheby's Institute of Art on the MA in Fine and Decorative Arts since 1989, and as a freelance lecturer for a number of societies and institutions in London, including the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection. Having also trained as a paintings conservator, she brings an understanding of the making and the physical painting to her lectures and study sessions.

Given by Patrick Craig

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.

About the lecture:

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.

Given by Julia Musgrave 

She got her first degree in Chemical Engineering and went on to become a Chartered Information Systems Engineer and IT project manager. In 2008 she decided that life was too short for just one career and decided to become an art historian. 

She now has a Graduate Diploma in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an MLitt in ‘Art, Style and Design: Renaissance to Modernism, c.1450 – c.1930’ from the University of Glasgow. She gained her PhD at the University of York for her research into the involvement of Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group and the social networks of the British art world in the development of the Contemporary Art Society from 1910 to 1939. 

She teaches Art History at the City Literary Institute (City Lit) and is Co-Director of The London Art Salon.

About the lecture:

‘The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret’ – Salvador Dalí 

Like the Renaissance artists he admired, Salvador Dalí did not restrict his creative output to painting but was also a writer, poet, engraver, sculptor, architect, photographer, theatre designer, and jewellery designer. As well as designing the latter, Dalí selected the materials to be used, focusing not just on the colours or the value of the material, but also on their symbolic meanings. Jewels such as ‘El cor reial’ (1953, The Royal Heart) have become iconic works and are considered to be as exceptional as his paintings. He also was an omnivorous reader who was as interested in science as he was in art and in this his work also reflects the Renaissance artist he admired. This lecture explores the work of Dalí the designer and science enthusiast – a Renaissance artist in the 20th century.

About our speaker:

Official Guide and Lecturer at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Guildhall Art Gallery. Qualified Guide to the City of London, offering lectures and walks about many aspects of the arts for societies, corporations and private individuals. Member of the City of London Guide Lecturers Association. Co-author of the book Lord Mayor's Portraits 1983-2014 (2015). Alexandra’s background is in design having practised as a graphic designer running her own design consultancy for many years. BA Saint Martins School of Art, MA London College of Printing.

About the lecture:

As one of the great painters of the Victorian era Atkinson Grimshaw created some of its most beautiful atmospheric paintings. In rain and mist, moonlight and gaslight, the River Thames, city streets, winding lanes and grimy docks all appear as if clothed in poetry and mystery. Discover the unique vision of the ‘master of moonlight’ - an artist who transformed the humdrum of everyday Victorian life time and time again into a magical ‘Grimshaw’.

About our speaker:

Nicole studied Art History at the Universities of Sussex, York and Paris. 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 including the National Museums, universities, the National Trust and private companies. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Higher Education Academy and her publications focus on adult education and the arts.

About the lecture:

Forks and salt-cellars, Bacchus and the Garden of Eden, medieval banquets, Mrs Beeton and coffee-houses - through the centuries, food and its rituals have provided a vibrant opportunity for artists to celebrate, to analyse their world and even to develop complex ideas of morality. 

At the heart of the home, a shared fascination with food not only provides the perfect opportunity to flaunt money and status through elaborate artefacts, but also illustrates shifting fashions and styles of eating. In painting and sculpture, religion, mythology and social traditions are rich in themes of food and shared meals, from still-lives to the Last Supper. 

About our speaker:

Mark is a writer, the founder of HouseHistree.com, and lectures regularly at societies, festivals and clubs in both Europe and the United States. After leaving Stowe School, Mark worked for twenty years as a plumber in London. However, his real passion has always been for history, particularly the history behind houses through the characters that conjoin to create them. His special interest lies with the great American houses and their relationships with those in Europe, both socially and architecturally. 

About the lecture:

William Randolph Hearst had an obsession: In 1935, Forbes Magazine called him, “quantitively the world’s number one collector of Objets d’Art” and when he died The New York Times stated that during the 1920s and 30s, he alone had accounted for 25% of the world’s art market activity. But to where was this king’s ransom headed, and hoarded? Some of you will already know of Hearst Castle in California, but lesser known is his 5-story Gothic castle hidden within a Manhattan apartment block; his weekend home on Long Island that inspired the castle in The Wizard of Oz; his sprawling 12th century castle in Wales with its own ghosts; and, the Bavarian village he built around his mother’s 7-story schloss deep in the forests of Northern California. Through the unparalleled extravagance of the places he lived in and loved, we’ll take a dive into the extraordinary life of the man who Orson Welles famously satirized as Citizen Kane - the same man who changed the face of journalism forever and built 'the greatest publicity machine in history', but died paying rent to his creditors.

About our speaker:

Colin Shindler has been lecturing on American and British social and cultural history for over 20 years. He was awarded his PhD at Cambridge University and subsequently lectured on film for their History Faculty between 1998 and 2019 exploring its relationship to modern British and American social and cultural history. He also teaches a variety of adult education courses at Madingley and Higham Hall in Cumbria and has lectured on cruises. 

Between 1975 and 1999 he pursued a wide-ranging career as a writer and producer in television, radio and film. He won a BAFTA award for his production of A Little Princess. His production of Young Charlie Chaplin was nominated for a US Prime Time Emmy. He wrote the screenplay for the feature film Buster and was the producer of various television dramas such as Lovejoy and Wish Me Luck. He has written three novels as well as numerous television scripts and radio plays but regards his greatest cultural contribution as choosing the title music for the police series Juliet Bravo. 

His most recent radio play Leni Goes to Hollywood, about the German film director Leni Riefenstahl, was broadcast on Radio 4 in August 2021. Other radio plays for R4 included How To Be An Internee (about P.G. Wodehouse) and one on Private Eye & The Profumo Affair (Rumours). Both were selected by the BBC as Drama Podcast of the Week. 

He is the author of Barbed Wire and Cucumber Sandwiches: The Controversial South Africa Cricket Tour of 1970 which was short listed for the MCC/Wisden Cricket Book of the Year in 2021. He is best known for his childhood memoir Manchester United Ruined My Life which was short listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. 

His other publications include Hollywood Goes To War: Films & American Society 1939-1952 and Hollywood in Crisis: Films & American Society 1929-1939. I'm Sure I speak for Thousands of Others (2017) was a history of unpublished letters written to the BBC and his non-fiction novel Garbo & Gilbert in Love was an imaginative reconstruction of the infamous relationship of the two MGM stars. He is currently working on the television adaptation of his novel Hollywood Nazis. His next book is titled Granada Land: Coronation Street and the Emergence of the North 1960-1970.

About the lecture:

Alfred Hitchcock directed more than fifty films. His career began in the silent era and ended in the age of cable and satellite television. He was an innovator with a distinctive individual style. There have been many directors who have tried to emulate Hitchcock but none have surpassed him in the genre of suspense which he defined. This lecture will analyse his films in the context of his life and attempt to discover just why Hitchcock's films have endured so successfully for so long. It will start with his British films The Lodger and The Lady Vanishes, move through his Hollywood triumphs of Rebecca, Notorious, Rear Window and Vertigo and conclude with Psycho and the slow decline that began thereafter.

About our speaker:

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.

About the lecture:

LFounded back in a time when history is indivisible from legend, Krakow was the ancient capital of Poland up until the 17th century. Its great market square, the spider’s web of medieval streets, the curiously irregular towers of St Mary’s with its magnificent carved altarpiece, the university where Copernicus first studied the stars, and, above all the majestic cathedral over-looking the Vistula river, where the kings of Poland are buried, tell the story of this turbulent country. This lecture is a personal tour of Krakow in search of the gems of art and architecture, the triumphs, the tragedies and the twists of fate that have shaped this remarkable nation.

About our speaker:

Dr Caroline Levisse is an art historian based in London. She was born in France where she studied art history before moving to Copenhagen. In Denmark, she focused on research work and completed a PhD on the relations between art and religion in contemporary Scandinavian art. After graduating in 2013, she moved to London and started teaching art history with adult education providers. She has since developed a range of courses focusing on 19th and early 20th century Western art. She has published articles in French and English in academic journals as well as magazines and newspapers, such as Church Times and Arts sacrés.

About the lecture:

Located at the northernmost point of the Jutland peninsula in Denmark, Skagen is an attractive spot in the summer for its unusual light. From the 1870s to the beginning of the 20th century this fishermen village was home to an artists’ colony. Some of its more famous members include Anna and Michael Ancher, Marie and Peder Severin Krøyer, as well as Laurits Tuxen. Reacting against styles enforced by the Academies and influenced instead by French modernism, they painted en plein air and represented scenes from ordinary life. Fishermen at work, social gathering and domestic scenes are common in their works. They are especially renowned for their depictions of the particular light of long summer evenings. In such sceneries their works often become more romantic and lyrical.

About our speaker:

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.

About the lecture:

The Nutcracker ballet has delighted audiences at Christmas for many decades yet it was deemed a failure at its initial performances. Based upon the current Royal Ballet production by Sir Peter Wright, this lecture takes a close look at how this well-loved ballet now takes its rightful place on stage and how the music of Tchaikovsky along with story-telling, design, dance and a little bit of stage ingenuity all come together to make the most magical escape for young and old alike. Includes several performance video clips.

About our speaker:

Dr John Stevens is a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and a member of academic staff at the SOAS South Asia Institute. His PhD in History is from University College London. He teaches British Imperial history, Indian history and Bengali language, and is a regular visitor to India and Bangladesh. He publishes widely in the fields of British and Indian history. His biography of the Indian guru Keshab Chandra Sen – Keshab: Bengal’s Forgotten Prophet - was published by Hurst and Oxford University Press in 2018. He appears regularly in the Indian media, and was a guest on BBC Radio Four’s In Our Time, discussing the poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore.

About the lecture:

Before the British arrived in India, the Indian subcontinent was ruled by the Mughal Emperors. The stunning buildings and gardens they constructed from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century have left an indelible stamp on India’s architectural and cultural landscape. Mughal architecture fused elements from Islamic, Persian, Turkish and Indian architectural traditions, and gave rise to some of the most beautiful and iconic buildings in the world. From the Jama Masjid in Delhi, to the Taj Mahal in Agra, to the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, this lecture will take you on a tour of some of India’s greatest buildings, and provide insight into the historical contexts and colourful personalities involved in their construction.

About our speaker:

Shirley graduated from the University of East Anglia with a first class honours degree in the History of Art, specialising in the Italian and Northern Renaissance. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a part-time lecturer for the University of East Anglia and for the Department of Continuing Education of the University of Cambridge. She has run study days and certificate courses as well as residential weekend courses, and also lectures to the Art Fund and individual clubs and societies. She is particularly keen to set the art and architecture of the period in the context of the society for which it was produced.

About the lecture:

It is sometimes difficult for us to understand the full meaning of a painting from the past due to the wealth of symbolism it contains, much of it obscure to us today but instantly recognizable to contemporaries. This lecture aims to peel back the layers of Renaissance art by deciphering the meaning of some of these symbols - spiritual and secular, virginal and vulgar – and so enable us to read these paintings as had the people for whom they were intended. 

About our speaker:

Steven is an independent landscape consultant specialising in historic gardens and architecture since 1985; freelance lecturer, including Universities of Bristol and Oxford; specialist tour leader and lecturer in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany and Italy. ADFAS lecture tour of Australia in 2010. He is a writer and broadcaster on historic gardens and related topics. Steven's book Gardens of the Italian Lakes, with photography by Marianne Majerus, is published by Frances Lincoln.

About the lecture:

There are many illustrious gardens on the shores of Lakes Como and Maggiore in the mountainous far north of Italy. Those included in this lecture include a 16th-century parterre and water staircase; a baroque garden in the middle of a lake; two gardens made by rival Napoleonic grandees; and a garden created by two Edwardian romantics as a theatre for sharing their love of art and nature. These achievements and others are set in a climate ideal for garden-making among some of the world’s noblest scenery, where Wordsworth, Liszt and Bellini found inspiration. It could work for you.

About our speaker:

Toby is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London and an internationally-acknowledged authority on Medieval and Renaissance weapons. He is the author of numerous books on the subject of arms and armour, including Masterpieces of European Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection (2011; Apollo Magazine Book of the Year 2012); The Noble Art of the Sword: Fashion and Fencing in Renaissance Europe 1520-1630, ex. cat. (2012); Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450 (2015; Military History Monthly Illustrated Book of the Year 2017); and most recently Arms and Armour of the Medieval Joust (2018). Toby also appears regularly on television, most recently on A Stitch in Time (2018; BBC4); as presenter and armour advisor on Richard III: The New Evidence (2014; C4), and as the writer and presenter of Metalworks: The Knight's Tale (2012; BBC4). In 2015 Toby had the unusual honour of serving as one of the two fully armoured horsemen escorting the remains of King Richard III, from the battlefield at Bosworth to their final resting place in Leicester Cathedral.

About the lecture:

Armour was one of the great Renaissance art-forms. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries most of the richest noblemen in Europe were dedicated patrons of the armourer’s art, a kind of visual language which they used to project their identity and prestige. The armour-making process demanded both fantastic skill in the sculpting of iron and steel and mastery of decorative techniques such as acid-etching and mercury-gilding. This lecture serves as an introduction to the idea of armour as an expressive art-form, where the achievements of virtuoso armourers embodied splendour and richness while also carrying more complex messages about status, aristocratic associations, the social order and divine power.

About our speaker:

Tony was educated at Highgate School, starting his career in advertising in 1965 as a mail boy in J.Walter Thompson. He graduated through the training system there to become an account director and subsequently worked in a number of agencies before setting up on his own in 1985. There he handled primarily Guinness advertising in Africa and the Caribbean, where he produced many commercials and print ads for them over a period of 15 years. He remains active as a consultant in the industry, but now concentrates on more philanthropic projects - producing a film in the rural villages of Nigeria for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. More recently he has completed a sanitation project in Haiti after it was devastated by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.  

He has been a member of The Arts Society for many years. His earlier lecturing experience includes presenting to client groups, sales conferences and students of creative advertising in the UK and overseas. More recently he has been lecturing to Arts Societies in the UK and Europe.

About the lecture:

Fine art has provided advertisers and their agencies with a great deal of material to use in their creative campaigns.

Tony describes some of the processes by which these advertisements have been created and why the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo have been a particularly rich source. From the Renaissance through to the present day fine art continues to provide opportunities to enhance Brand imagery with admiration, humour, satire and irony.

In an entertaining and informative lecture Tony uses a wide range of visuals and video to show examples of the original works, the creative process and the (not always entirely successful) advertisements that are the end result.

About our speaker:

A graduate of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Nicholas trained for the Anglican ministry at Ripon Hall, Oxford. Inspired by a period working on the staff of Coventry Cathedral he has gained a wide experience of international matters. He was formerly Bishop-elect for the Diocese of Lake Malawi in Central Africa (2005-2009) and undertook his doctorate on Lay Anglican Ecclesiology with the University of Wales, Lampeter. Nicholas has a particular interest in the period of the English Reformation and the associated cultural, architectural and social changes it has produced. He lectures regularly and currently works as a parish priest in West London.

About the lecture:

The pre-Christian to the Tudors

It is possible to ‘read’ the passage of time, of movements, cultures and peoples in the architecture and art forms evident in many of our older English country churches. This lecture takes us from the pre-Christian era, through the arrival of the Romans and onwards to the sixteenth century and the epoch changing Tudors. Simple indicators are given how to identify churches with Roman and Saxon origins. The great flowering of Romanesque and gothic architecture that followed the invasion of the Normans in the eleventh century are explained with illustrated examples. Onwards into the high Middle Ages and the tumultuous changes of the Reformation we can see the architectural and structural evidence of a period of great change.

About our speaker:

Julia Musgrave got her first degree in Chemical Engineering and went on to become a Chartered Information Systems Engineer and IT project manager. In 2008 she decided that life was too short for just one career and decided to become an art historian.

She now has a Graduate Diploma in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an MLitt in ‘Art, Style and Design: Renaissance to Modernism, c.1450 – c.1930’ from the University of Glasgow. She is currently working towards her Ph.D. at the University of York the involvement of Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group in the development of the Contemporary Art Society from 1910 to 1937. She is a lecturer in Art History at the City Literary Institute (City Lit).

About the lecture:

Caravaggio’s paintings inspired many artists during his lifetime and would go on to influence many more, from Orazio Gentileschi to Peter Paul Rubens, Gerard van Honthorst and Rembrandt.

Each absorbed a different aspect of his work. His style spread across Europe and gave rise to the international movement known as ‘Caravaggism’. Yet for many, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is famed as much for his art as for his criminal record. Was it the violence of his times or his own violent spirit that inspired the dramatic lighting and intense naturalism of his work? This lecture follows the dramatic incidents of the artist’s life and looks at why and how his influence spread so far.

About our speaker:

Albert Godetzky’s research concentrates on Northern European art of the early modern period. He is currently Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute where he received his PhD with a thesis on ‘Haarlem Mannerism’. Before joining the Courtauld, Albert was Visiting Lecturer at The Victoria & Albert Museum and the Harry M. Weinrebe Curatorial Fellow at the National Gallery, London, where he contributed to exhibitions including Rembrandt: The Late Works and Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure. Albert also works as a cultural advisor to several international corporate institutions and private individuals, drawing on his experience in the field and using education to widen understanding of and participation in the study of art history.

About the lecture:

The Swiss-born artist Jean Etienne Liotard excelled in the medium of pastel, among the most fashionable art forms in the eighteenth century. His practice focused predominantly on portraits and included numerous illustrious figures such as the Empress Maria Theresia and Frederick, Prince of Wales. Some of his best known and beloved images feature scenes of elegant interiors in which European sitters repose casually, often donning Ottoman attire. Yet, Liotard was also a passionate collector of historical paintings as well as an able dealer. Travelling around Europe and selling his stock to the same sophisticated clientele whose likenesses he captured, Liotard invented novel means of marketing pictures, his own as well as the ones he collected. This lecture explores the remarkable art of this multifaceted artist.

About our speaker:

Bertie has a BA (Hons) in Drama from Manchester University, and a Diploma Internationale from the École Internationale du Théatre, Jacques Lecoq. He is a member of the Inner Magic Circle, with Gold Star. His past experience includes lecturing and performing on cruise ships, and to U3A, historical societies, festivals, schools and colleges. In addition, he has toured the world with a magic cabaret show and a one man show entitled All Aboard. He has written articles for newspapers and magazines on entertainment and theatre.

About the lecture:

Charles Dickens has often been proclaimed as “The Man Who Invented Christmas” and indeed on hearing that Dickens had died, a cockney barrow-girl said: “Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?”  Dickens revived the Christmas traditions with his warm portrayal of Christmas in the domestic setting; with plum pudding, piping hot turkey, games, dancing and family cheer by the hearth. Although he celebrated Christmas in numerous works it is his enduring master piece, ‘A Christmas Carol’ published on 19th December 1843 which immortalises the spirit of Christmas Cheer. Dickens was a man of extraordinary energy and talent: literary genius, reformer, public speaker, actor and amateur magician.

In his lecture Bertie Pearce reveals a Dickensian Christmas with readings, biographical details and conjuring tricks.

Please note: this is our Christmas Lunch special, which will be ticketed (further details to follow).

About our speaker:

Focusing on the role of posters and poster artists in the history of advertising, this global-award winning Creative Director of international advertising agencies has lectured extensively on design, illustration and photographic styles as they have influenced the building of brands. He has himself created posters for major brands including British Airways, Nestlé, Sony, General Motors and Shell. His travel writing and photography has appeared in various airline magazines as well as Time. He has also written and produced several hundred TV and Radio commercials and corporate video programmes and is a member of Winchester DFAS.

About the lecture:

The most beloved American illustrator of the 20th century always portrayed life as he wished it would be. And so it was that Norman Rockwell was most at home portraying the ideal family Christmas often with direct connections to Dickens and the English Yuletide Tradition. A bounty of Christmas posters, magazine covers, cards and even Norman Rockwell Christmas gifts will keep you entertained throughout. Your American-born lecturer shares his own experiences of the ideal American Christmas from sleigh rides and ice-skating in the woods to trimming the tree and wondering how Santa got down the chimney. Light and lively Christmas fair! 

About our speaker:

Ann is a lecturer at the V&A, and a guide for private tours of the State Rooms and The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace. She is also a lecturer in British Painting for American students resident in London. From 1981 to 1995, she trained and became a senior ceramics specialist at Christie's and Bonhams head offices. Between 1995 and 2002, she was resident in Shanghai, China, and visited ancient kiln sites and lectured to expatriate groups.  In Autumn 2002, she catalogued a collection of Chinese porcelain at Kensington Palace. From 2002 to 2005, she was a committee member of the French Porcelain Society.

About the lecture:

The lecture explores the passion for the exotic and beautiful tulip flower which reached its height in Amsterdam in the 1630s. Collectors, besotted by the exceptional beauty of this new and exotic flower, speculated in and paid ever higher prices for the rarest varieties, in expectation of the metamorphosis of bulb to a flower with petals of an unparalleled richness and intensity of colour. The variety ‘Semper Augustus’ was the most desirable, with its mysterious and spectacular ‘flamed’ petals. The coveted tulip featured as a motif on still-life flower paintings by Balthasar van der Ast and Ambrosius Bosschaert and on many different works of art from furniture to embroideries, furniture, ceramics and silver. During the seventeenth century, this rare and precious flower, beloved in art and a feature of botanical gardens, inspired the production of Delftware flower pyramids for the English court of William and Mary and examples can still be seen in the collections at Hampton Court Palace and Dyrham Park near Bath.

About our speaker (from the Arts Society website):

Official Guide and Lecturer at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Guildhall Art Gallery. Pallant House Gallery Lecturer. Qualified Guide to the City of London, offering lectures and walks about many aspects of the arts for societies, corporations and private individuals. Member of the City of London Guide Lecturers Association. Co-author of the book Lord Mayor's Portraits 1983-2014 (2015). Alexandra’s background is in design having practised as a graphic designer running her own design consultancy for many years. BA Saint Martins School of Art, MA London College of Printing

About the lecture:

From the scandal of the painting of Madame X to the trials, tribulations and triumph of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, discover the rise, the fall and rise again of John Singer Sargent, the leading portrait painter of his age - the age of elegance. Discover an artist who devoted his entire life to the creation of beauty.

About our speaker:

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, and 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. Often invited to lecture on tours, she is a founding Director of the Anton Chekhov Foundation, set up to preserve the writer's house in Yalta.

About the lecture:

This lecture explores the fate of the European avant-garde between the end of World War I in 1918 and the outbreak of World War II in 1939.  Artists, musicians and writers responded in dramatic and often unpredictable ways to the turmoil and change wrought by the Great War, the establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1919, the rise of Mussolini’s Fascist party in Italy in the 1920s, and the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933. Some, like Picasso and Stravinsky, turned against the relentless experimentation which had previously characterized their work, while others, like Kandinsky and Mies van der Rohe, became even more uncompromising. The vibrant, dynamic era of the 1920s and 1930s was one of intense artistic activity across Europe, bristling with new and contrasting styles, and energised by the exciting possibilities offered by the emergence of new media.

About our speaker:

Brian has been a dealer and consultant in antique oriental rugs and carpets since 1979 after his return from Iran. He is the author of 'Tribal Rugs - Treasures of the Black Tent' which was originally published in October 1997; re-printed in April 2010 and a completely new up-dated edition in the summer of 2016. Brian is one of few western dealers to have lived and worked among tribal groups in remote areas of Iran and Afghanistan during the 1970s and then again, after the Iranian Revolution, in the 1990s. In 1990 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society for his work amongst the Persian tribes. He has lectured for The Arts Society since 1986.

About the lecture:

My time spent in Iran and Afghanistan during the 1970s, began to foster a passion for the wonderful woven art produced by nomads on basic ground looms. My subsequent visits were spent travelling and searching amongst nomadic tribes for these exquisite 19th century weavings, which have become harder to find and have now virtually disappeared amongst the tribes themselves.

This lecture illustrates the woven art of the nomads as they moved over the lands they have travelled for generations. The audience will have the opportunity of seeing their way of life and looking at the 19th century rugs and utilitarian weavings, similar to those which I discovered during my forays into the different tribal territories.

The lecture also brings to life some of the unforgettable stories and adventures I experienced whilst looking for them. 

About our speaker:

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.

About the lecture:

One hundred years ago a group of American musicians docked in London, bringing with them for the very first time one of the twentieth century’s most important musical genres: jazz, a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free-wheeling creativity, close-knit ensemble work and improvisation. Drawing on his practical experience both as musicologist and gigging musician, Sandy is able to shed light on jazz from the inside. His talk touches on the disparate influences which lay behind the emergence of jazz, and his musical illustrations range from the blues, ragtime and the very earliest jazz recordings through to classics by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and the dawn of the Swing Era.

About our speaker:

For eight years the Church of England’s Director of Church Buildings and Secretary of the Church Buildings Council and Cathedrals Fabric Commission, Janet has written two illustrated paperbacks to encourage greater enjoyment of these amazing buildings, Director's Choice, Churches of the Church of England and Director's Choice, Cathedrals of the Church of England and produced and presented on a TV series on cathedrals for PBS.

A Cambridge graduate in History and History of Art, Janet worked at Sotheby’s for nine years, was a trustee at the Churches Conservation Trust, the Museum of Fulham Palace and the Friends of the V&A and guided and lectured at the V&A. Janet set up and ran an architectural history course around visits to significant buildings. Janet has also given tours and lectured on secular architecture and fine and decorative arts.

Currently a trustee of the Priory of St John (Hospitallers) and a commissioning editor for Scala Heritage Publishers, Janet received an OBE for services to heritage in January 2017. Janet now provides consultancy services under Janet Gough Apsidal Heritage.

Janet is happy to speak and develop talks on a whole range of matters relating to England's ecclesiastical heritage.

About the lecture:

This talk is a ravishingly illustrated virtual tour of the Church of England’s magnificent 42 cathedrals, jewels in the crown of our built heritage, some recognised as World Heritage Sites. We will be treated to an overview of cathedral history and architectural evolution including their surprising  stories and extraordinary treasures. The changing role of cathedrals in society both in the past and present day is also discussed. 

About our speaker:

Claire has an honours degree in History of Art, Birkbeck College, University of London. Her regular commitments include Centre for Lifelong Learning, London University, National Gallery, V&A Museum, WEA, Morley College, the City Literary Institute, the Art Fund and National Trust.

About the lecture:

The Duchy of Urbino was one of the most vibrant and exciting centres of the Italian Renaissance in the last half of the 15th century under the fascinating condottiere, Duke Federigo da Montefeltro.  A man of great intellect and taste with an outstanding library, his palace is one of the most beautiful in Italy, designed by Francesco di Giorgio and Luciano Laurana.  Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, Piero della Francesco and Paolo Uccello worked for him and the Duke was one of the first Italian patrons to bring the Flemish painter, Justus van Ghent, to Italy in order to introduce the new technique of oil painting to the court.  The lecture will explore the art and architecture of Urbino under Federigo's enlightened patronage and that of his son, Guidobaldo.

About our speaker:

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 hangar 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.

About the lecture:

Although it has been told and retold in books and films, no story in the 20th century has caught the imagination more powerfully and poignantly than the tragic life and execution of Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs.  From his childhood where he stood sobbing by his grandfather’s bedside in the Winter Palace as he lay dying from the injuries inflicted by an anarchist bomb, Nicolas’s life seemed to be shadowed by the omens of disaster. At the celebrations for his coronation, the crowd of spectators ran out of control and thousands were trampled to death; when the people appealed to him personally during the strikes of 1905, he assumed they were rioting and had them shot down by the Imperial Guard.

Brought up by a powerful, iron-willed father, he was emotionally unsuited to rule the nation and allowed himself to be dominated by his wife who he loved with a passion that blinded him from her short-comings. Determined to produce the son and heir to the Romanov dynasty, Alexandra was easily misled by mystical cults and charlatans peddling spiritual cures so that, when the boy she had craved so long was discovered to be suffering from haemophilia, she fell completely under the spell of Rasputin. Hypnotised by the healing powers he appeared to possess, she allowed this peasant monk extraordinary influence in St Petersburg, encouraging Nicolas to follow his garbled demands as though they were heaven sent guidance.

With the war threatening to destroy the nation and the people on the brink of revolution, Nicolas was forced to sign his abdication, the only act of his reign he undertook without the advice of his wife. For a time he was allowed to remain in captivity in one of his own palaces but, with attempts to rescue him mounting, he was moved out east where finally, in one of the most moving and memorable images of the modern world, he and his family were shot in a cellar.

About our speaker:

After nearly 20 years in the British army, 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. 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.

About the lecture:

What’s behind the Wassail and why do we kiss under mistletoe and let loose women into York at Christmas? Every family hones its own traditions, but mainly they are based on a central theme: filling our houses with greenery and bling, sending cards, eating too much, wearing a silly hat, singing songs and playing games that we don’t bother with for the rest of the year. How has all this come about? Some are based on pagan festivities that either honoured spirits or simply helped to break up the winter. Others, such as advent calendars and crackers, are much more recent.

This lecture cannot possibly cover all of our traditions, but it gives a glimpse behind the scenes to see our ancestors preparing for the day, stirring-up puddings and dragging Yule logs into the house on Christmas Eve and the rituals that went with it. We see Lords of Misrule lording it over rowdy parties, how pantomime developed and how a few carollers sent out a coded message.

About our speaker:

Rupert Dickens, BA, MA, studied art history at Birkbeck, University of London before gaining a Masters degree in Dutch Golden Age Studies at University College London. He is an Arts Society accredited lecturer and also works as a guide lecturer at the Wallace Collection. Previously, Rupert was a BBC television and radio journalist for more than 20 years and has been visiting and working in the Netherlands and Belgium since the 1980s.

About the lecture:

Chess has been depicted in art from the Middle Ages to Modernity by painters as diverse as Matisse, Singer Sargent and Max Ernst. It has also inspired works of literature by Vladimir Nabokov and film by Ingmar Bergman. But the greatest incidence of chess in art came with the work of Marcel Duchamp who declared that chess was the paradigm of art. This lecture surveys the fascinating history of chess in art, culminating with the crucial part played by the game in the birth of Conceptual Art through its founding father, Duchamp.

About our speaker:

Heavily involved in documenting the street art scene in London and abroad through his project Fifth Wall TV, Doug offers 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.

Hidden Canvasses: Street Art and the City

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.  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.

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.

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 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.

While Joseph Wright of Derby painted fine portraits he is best remembered as a painter of the new technologies and scientific discoveries that arose in, and transformed, Britain in the 18th century. His memorable works include ‘A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery’, 1766, ‘An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump’, 1768, ‘The Alchemist in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone’, 1771, and his Blacksmith and Iron Forge paintings of the 1770s. This lecture will describe his involvement in the industrial scene and the enlightenment, and how it affected his relationship with the Royal Academy. It will also explain how he achieved his dazzling effects of light and shade, and how the women, children and old men who populate these paintings might be interpreted. This lecture will be jargon-free with audience engagement, backed by high quality slides.

Raymond Warburton has studied art history at the Open University and the University of Buckingham. A Guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, who leads public tours of all the permanent displays and also undertakes exhibition tours, he is also an experienced public speaker who has given presentations and lectures on a range of themes to diverse audiences over many years.

The prevalent idea of medieval manuscripts is most likely to be of illuminated texts in European languages in codex form written on parchment. But this is only a small part of the medieval world, which included much greater diversity in terms of materials, formats and languages. This lecture will give a history of the development of the book in Central, East and South Asia, including the invention of paper and printing and their influence across Eurasia.

Dr Susan Whitfield is a writer, scholar, lecturer and traveler of the Silk Roads. During 25 years curating the collections of manuscripts from Dunhuang and other Silk Road sites at the British Library, she also helped found and then developed the International Dunhuang Project (IDP), now a thriving international collaboration working on the art and artefacts of the eastern Silk Road. She has lectured and written widely on the Silk Road. Her latest book, Silk, Slaves and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road, will be published in March 2018. She has also curated several major exhibitions and organized field trips to archaeological sites in the Taklamakan desert.

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Neil Faulkner was Educated at King’s College Cambridge and Institute of Archaeology UCL. He works as lecturer, writer, archaeologist and occasional broadcaster. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, Editor of Military History Monthly, Director of Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project, and Director of the Great Arab Revolt Project. He is the author of The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain, Apocalypse, Hidden Treasure, Rome: Empire of the Eagles, and The Ancient Greek Olympics: a visitor’s guide, and also of the forthcoming Lawrence of Arabia’s War. Major TV appearances include Channel 4’s Time Team, BBC2’s Timewatch, Channel Five’s Boudica Revealed and Sky Atlantic’s The British.

The Guggenheim, designed by the Canadian architect Frank Gehry and opened to the public in 1997, is one of the most exciting buildings of the 20th C. The lecture begins with an introduction to the Guggenheim foundation and how it came about, and then moves on to describe the very particular circumstances that led to the commission in Bilbao. It examines the architecture of Frank Gehry using illustrations from his work in Europe and America, and describes, with some beautifully detailed slides, how the vast asymmetrical, apparently chaotic and fragmented structure was created. It also discusses the use of titanium – the unusual and eye-catching material which is used to clad a large surface area of the building. The lecture ends with an introduction to the collection of paintings, sculptures and installations contained within the museum, covering the permanent collection as well as providing up-to-date information on current and future exhibitions. Projects for a new Guggenheim are also discussed.

Siân Walters studied at Cambridge University and is a Lecturer at the National Gallery and The Wallace Collection and taught at Surrey University, specialising in 15th and 16th century Italian painting, Spanish art & architecture, and the relationship between dance and art. She also teaches private courses, and organises lectures, study days and art holidays abroad. She has lived in France and Italy, where she worked at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice.

Picasso told his biographer, John Richardson, that his work was like a diary – “To understand it, you have to see how it mirrors my life”. This lecture examines the way Picasso’s emotional life influenced what he painted and how he painted it. His response to each new love in his life can be seen in the different styles in which his many women were represented. When he fell out of love, that fact would be revealed first in his paintings. The lecture concentrates on the seven most important women in his life (two of whom he married).

Valerie Woodgate is a Lecturer and Guide in Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and also at many other London galleries. A former member of the teaching team at Dulwich Picture Gallery she is a lecturer and runs courses at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.