Rarely mentioned today, Gustave Caillebotte was one of the most important artists in late 19th century France. Trained as an engineer but studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Caillebotte brought a keen eye to perspective and a painter’s appreciation of colour, tone and light.

From a wealthy Parisian family, Caillebotte did not need to sell his own artworks but produced some of the most iconic paintings of the period, his innovative composition involving the viewer in the scene, and his subject matter extending beyond the main styles of the era.

He used his wealth to support other avant garde artists, organising and funding the exhibitions of the Impressionists from 1876, and buying many works by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Degas, Morisot and Cézanne early in their careers. His personal collection of Impressionist paintings forms the heart of the Musée d’Orsay today.

Justin discusses Caillebotte’s depictions of ‘real life’ – regarded at the time as provocative – and of the leisurely flâneur in urban Paris, his boating and sailing scenes and his delicate landscapes of the Seine valley.

After officer service in the Royal Navy Justin had a long career in business, becoming Director of Studies for executive colleges in Oxford and Washington DC, and advising the UK government on eLearning. Retiring from business in 2000, Justin studied the History of Art and Architecture at Oxford, and classical culture with the University of Athens. While researching for a doctorate in naval history he was invited to become a senior academic manager at the Bodleian Library advising graduate researchers, retiring in 2016. A qualified teacher, he tutors the History of Art and classical studies for independent colleges in Oxford. He has written pre-university courses exploring creativity and the impact of generative Artificial Intelligence, and how the human mind imagines and creates from stimuli. A Fellow of two learned societies, and a member of the Arts Society West Oxfordshire, Justin is a frequent lecturer for The Arts Society.

Image: Rue de Paris, temps de pluie’ [‘Paris Street, Rainy Day’] Gustave Caillebotte, 1877. Art Institute of Chicago

Albrecht Dürer is among the stars of graphic art, of printmaking, in the Germanic lands. Based in influential Nuremberg, one of the centres of the Reformation and a hub of publishing, Dürer rose to prominence artistically and in the city’s government.

Some of his prints established images which still pack a visual punch today. He went to Venice twice in his career and meeting Giovanni Bellini there changed his artistic life. Venice opened his eyes to the Italian Renaissance and guided him to have great aspirations for the art of his homeland.

Although known for his stunning drawing of The Praying Hands, he was massively important as a printmaker in woodcut and engraving: he invented etching and drypoint in printmaking. Larger than that, he knew all of the key movers of his day, including Erasmus and was on talking terms with the Holy Roman Emperor. A fascinating character who represents the inner turmoil of Europe in transition.

Formerly a curator and Print Room Superintendent at the British Museum, now Art History Education Officer in the Department of Learning & National Partnerships at the Museum. Lectures for BM and Wallace Collection. Founding Artistic Director of The Arts Society of North Kent Evening. Specialist in 17th century art and has published on Rembrandt. Hilary has vast experience of giving gallery talks, of lecturing and of leading art history tours in UK, Europe, New York and Boston. For the Royal Collection Trust, she has guided Special Interest Private Tours of the State Apartments at Buckingham Palace.

When Edvard Munch created The Scream in 1893, he was responding to an intense emotional experience. Today, we would call it a panic attack. Crippling and anxious making, this primal cry was also a rallying call: for Munch and for the wider world of art. It gave birth to a movement known as expressionism, showing life not at it is (realism) or as it might be perceived in a fleeting moment (impressionism), but as it is experienced within the unembellished core of our being.

Explosive and emotive, the aftershocks of Munch’s vision were felt across the world: in art and music, literature, dance and film. Charting the origins of expressionism and its historical context, this multifaceted talk embraces artists and thinkers such as Kandinsky, Klee and Schiele, Nietzsche, Freud and Schoenberg, pondering the radical ways in which they both reflected and ignited our inner feelings.

A writer and broadcaster, Gavin appears on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and contributes to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe. Recent appearances include Klimt and The Kiss in cinemas worldwide, and talks for the Hay and Cheltenham Literature Festivals, the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum and the V&A.

From 18th century royal pleasure gardens to the most bio-diverse place on earth today, Cindy Polemis digs into the history of Kew Gardens. We’ll look at Kew’s early role as a beacon of historical landscape aesthetic, its crucial part in the advancement of science, colonialism and trade, and how today it drives international  efforts to combat the effects of climate change and the threats of  extinction in the natural world. Kew scientists have even collaborated  with police forensic investigations: thwarting illegal timber trades, solving  gruesome murders and identifying poisons are just some of the ways they have helped combat crime.

Today Kew holds the largest and most diverse collection of plants in the world: 30,000 living plants, some extinct in the wild, 14,000 trees, nearly 8 million dried specimens and more than 2.4 billion seeds - it is truly the world’s most important garden and one which has changed, and continues to change our world. 

The lecture will be in two parts-the first covering Kew’s history and the second part will look at the importance of Kew today. 

Cindy Polemis is an art historian, independent lecturer and art guide. She has a BA in Modern History from Oxford University and as a mature student she went back to university to study first for a BA and then for a Masters in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London University. Before that she spent many years as a radio producer and presenter for the BBC World Service working in news and current affairs.

Since 2016 Cindy has worked as  a lecturer and an official art guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has also been a trustee at the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum. Cindy has accumulated a wide range of art historical knowledge ranging from 18th European and British art to the contemporary international art scene. She has been an official guide for both Frieze Masters and Frieze Art Fairs in London. 

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

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist, historian and an award-winning writer. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her books, lectures and study days focus on political art and heritage in peril. Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in 2017, has appeared at many literary festivals and on radio and TV. In 2023 she was appointed by the government to the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), which considers whether national heritage destined for sale overseas should be saved for the nation.

Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Strauss, Mahler, Bruckner, Schoenberg – it reads like a list of the great and good in classical music – but the amazing thing is that every one of these musical geniuses lived and worked in Vienna. 

With slides showing Viennese art and architecture as well as audio excerpts by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Johann Strauss and Mahler, this lecture brings Vienna in its heyday to life.

Vienna’s proximity to nature, its politics and its burgeoning middle classes were all factors in the city's cultural blossoming, but most important was Vienna’s geographical location at the heart of the Habsburg Empire and the "wine, women and song" philosophy of the Viennese.

We discover the special qualities that enabled one city to foster such a golden age for music. We'll also look at the developments in visual art, architecture, science and politics which formed the backdrop to this unparalleled explosion of musical genius and discuss why it ended so abruptly with the First World War.

With 30 CDs to her name, Emma Johnson is one of the few clarinettists to have performed as a soloist all over the world.

She also enjoys giving talks about music - Woodwind Wizardry and The Poet John Milton were both broadcast by BBC radio and she has lectured about composers Gerald Finzi and Malcolm Arnold for the internet company Tonebase, as well as about Schubert and Brahms for Martin Randall Travel.

Emma studied Music and English at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, where she was the first woman to be made an Honorary Fellow. She was honoured by the Queen with an M.B.E. in 1996.

Her charity, the Emma Johnson Music Foundation, gives workshops in primary schools to introduce children to instrumental music.

Have you noticed how many medieval paintings are set in May? The language of plants evolved over the centuries to create a lexicon of creation that paved the way to Paradise, a perennial early summer where all the flowers and all the fruits emerge at the same time - but each tells us something different.

This lecture explores paintings, tapestry, manuscripts, and architectural sculpture to re-learn a lost language that spans the medieval arts.

Dr Jonathan Foyle is a career communicator, best known for presenting TV series such as BBC2's Broadcast Award-winning 15-part 'Climbing Great Buildings', as well as contributing to Channel 4's 'Time Team' and Channel 5's 'Secrets of the Royal Palaces'. His former roles have encompassed Curator at Hampton Court and Chief Executive of World Monuments Fund Britain, writer for the FT Weekend, and he is now a lecturer at the University of Bath. Jonathan has authored seven volumes on great cathedrals and castles and has spoken across the world about discoveries in British arts. 

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

The lecture focuses on International Style architects and designers such as Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Charles and Ray Eames and Florence Knoll, and Abstract Expressionist painters such as Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.  It looks at the politics of modernism in the run up to the 1950s and compares the new style of American painting and design with Soviet-imposed Socialist Realism.

In particular, the presentation focuses on US exhibitions such as The New American Painting (Europe,1958/9) and The American National Exhibition (Moscow 1959) to demonstrate US intentions. It lays bare the secret agenda of the CIA, its extensive links to New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and how it operated behind the back of Congress. 

It also reveals new research on how Scandinavian Modern design became sucked into the process - in an attempt to draw the Nordic countries further into the West. Finally it asks the hundred million dollar question: would abstract expressionism achieve record prices at auction today were it not for this secret political programme of the 1950s?

James Vaux is a researcher and lecturer specialising in Nordic arts, culture, design and history. His talks now focus on understanding art through its historic, cultural and political context.  

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

James took a law degree at Oxford with and qualified as a solicitor before switching career. As a managing director of the international bank Rothschild, he set up and ran the bank’s Nordic operations, living and working in Scandinavia and immersing himself in the countries’ arts, culture and history. James then gained an MA at UCL in Language, Culture and History (Scandinavian Studies). 

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

Image: President Khrushchev and Vice President Nixon argue over kitchen design at the American National Exhibition, Moscow, 1959 (public domain - Nixon Presidential Library and Museum)

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 has an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh, and a 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. 

Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) has been described as the greatest painter in 17th century Britain. Though born and trained in Antwerp, he had a huge impact on British cultural life as the principal painter at King Charles I’s court.

Following a brief visit to London in 1620-21 he returned in 1632 and remained there for the majority of the time until his premature death at the age of 42. He was working in a period of intense political ferment during the run-up to the British Civil War and portrayed many of the leading characters of the period. His iconic portraits of King Charles I have shaped our view of the Stuart monarchy.

This lecture will look at the life and works of Van Dyck, focusing particularly on works produced during his period in England.

Rosalind has a BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. She is an experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. Rosalind lectures at Tate, to independent art societies and on cruises. She also leads art appreciation holidays.

Image: Lord John Stuart and Lord Bernard Stuart 1638 National Gallery

Learn how one company came to control the world's flow of diamonds into the marketplace for over a century. 

The De Beers Diamond Cartel convinced diamond miners and traders to only buy or sell via their single market channel, forming a bond so tight it was impossible to move diamonds without them.  At one time, De Beers held 40,000 carats of rough diamonds in a 3 story basement vault in London - a 20 year supply of gemstones. 

De Beers took the jewellery market by storm with the slogan "A Diamond is Forever" voted the advertising slogan of the century.  Come and learn how De Beers really did "Romance the Stone".

With over 35 years in the diamond industry, diamond expert Laurie Wickwire represents the industry across all sectors: mining, sorting, grading and  brokering some of the world’s key rough stones. A leader in the industry, Laurie is the On-Air Diamond Expert for the international television shopping channel QVC where her opinion is regularly sought by over a million viewers each week. Whether presenting diamond shows on national channels the BBC, ITV and QVC, hosting diamond master classes, filming jubilee specials, or creating the historical jewellery range for both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle gift shops, Laurie’s love of the diamond industry is apparent.  

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

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

Treasures of the Turf, looks at the history of horseracing from the late seventeenth century to the modern period.

This lecture looks at the development of the sport in this country through its associated cultural material. Using the wealth of paintings, archive material and decorative art objects associated with and depicting the ‘Sport of Kings’, the lecture takes as its starting point the earliest origins of the sport including the development of Newmarket and the Jockey Club as racing’s ‘Headquarters’.

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

Image: Quiz, After His Last Race at Newmarket by Henry Bernard Chalon, 1807 (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)

The source of the stuff of dreams, the poppy is a beautiful, fragile flower with immense power.

Opium (from the greek ‘opion’ – poppy juice) is a hypnotic bringer of sleep, delightful lethargy and relief from pain. It is also highly addictive. Greed led to the introduction of this hugely desirable substance first to China, and then to Europe.

The beguiling seduction of its effects led to its use to quieten troubled minds and calm agitated children and babies. Its use – often by those with troubled minds – led to the creation of great works of art in music, art and literature. Social and art history meet as this lecture unfolds.

Amanda read Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge. From 1978-1988 she was curator at the Museum of London specialising in decorative arts from 1718 to the present day, responsible for exhibitions, lectures, booklets and broadcasts. From 1988-1995 Amanda lived with her family in Japan, lecturing and writing on Oriental/Western cross-cultural and artistic influences. In 1995 she returned to the UK, fundraising for arts companies, writing, lecturing and guiding tours to Japan. Amanda's most recent publications are on Japanese plant and garden influences in the West.

Betty Joel, born Mary Stewart Lockhart, ran a furniture making and design business. At its peak, in the 1920s and 30s, Betty Joel Ltd employed 50 craftsmen and had showrooms in Knightsbridge. With no formal training, she created, through a flair for branding and marketing, the leading furnishing company of the day in London.

The talk explores her early life and marriage to David Joel, exhibitions, and projects. Her clients included royalty, high society, politicians, banks, hotels (such as the Savoy in London) as well as film companies and theatres.

With rare access to three surviving schemes, the style and glamour of 1930s' design is brought to life and retells the story of a determined woman in a world still run by men. 

Clive studied on the Sotheby's Works of Art course and has been working in the fine art world for 50 years. Now an independent art advisor, Clive was, until recently, a Director of Woolley and Wallis, one of the UK's leading regional firm of auctioneers, in Salisbury, and was a specialist on the BBC Antiques Roadshow for 25 years between 1991 and 2016. He has also lectured on cruise ships as well as for many other groups, and recently published a major article in the Journal of the Furniture History Society on Betty Joel. Clive is a Founder Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars.

This lecture examines the extraordinary life and dramatic times of Oscar Wilde from his Irish roots to his days as a student at Oxford and his meteoric rise to the heights of celebrity.

We travel with him to the United States and examine his starring role within the artistic and theatrical worlds of late 19th century London. We visit his home in bohemian Chelsea and some of his favourite West End haunts.

Finally, we learn how ‘tired of being in the heights, he plunged into the depths’ and became famous for being INfamous...

Simon is an 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. 

The Stirling Prize has celebrated the very best contemporary buildings since 1996. Some winners, such as Norman Foster’s Gherkin, of 2004, have become enormously successful and appreciated by the wider public. Others have proved harder to love.

This entertaining lecture looks at some of the hits, some of the misses, and several buildings that arguably should have won, but didn’t.

Brian Stater lectured at University College London for 25 years, retiring in 2021 as a Senior Teaching Fellow. His principal academic interest lay in the appreciation of architecture and he has a lifelong enthusiasm for photography. He has written on architecture for a wide range of publications and an exhibition of his own photographs was held at UCL. Brian is a former member of the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography. He works with a range of cameras, including a pre-War Leica as used by his great hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others. 

Looking back on his work towards the end of his life, Peder Severin Krøyer recalled his work at Skagen, the Danish artists' colony at the northernmost tip of Denmark, and expressed his particular love for that time "when the sun is going down, when the moon is rising over the sea, hanging there, crystalclear, and the water, smooth as glass, reflects its light...." Krøyer was referring to the 'blue hour' of northern Scandinavian summer nights, when sea and sky appear to merge into a single luminous whole.

This lecture explores Krøyer's life and work in Skagen, and evaluates the paintings that made him into one of Europe's most celebrated artists by the end of the 19th century.  

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

In our modern world it’s easy to take colour for granted. Yet before organic chemistry the most desirable pigments were often exotic or poisonous.

Merchants supplied pungent yellow ‘purree’ nuggets from India, cochineal ‘grana’ from the holds of Spanish galleons, lapis rock carried by camel train from the mountains of Badakhshan. Alchemists prepared deadly ‘King’s Yellow’ and ‘Ruby of Arsenic’. ‘Moorish Gold’ was concocted, according to a 12th century monk, from basilisk powder ground with human blood!

Small wonder artists kept their paint recipes closely guarded in Books of Secrets.

This lecture tells the stories of alchemy and adventure behind some our most colourful Old Master paintings.

Now working as a freelance lecturer in the History of Art, Lynne originally trained as a fine artist and has taught painting, drawing and printmaking in higher and adult education. She lectured as an art historian for the universities of Sussex and Bristol where she introduced 'Understanding Art' to the Lifelong Learning programme and residential summer schools. Lynne gives talks, lectures and guided tours to a wide range of organisations and institutions including ARCA colleges, the National Trust, Art museums and Art societies. She has worked as a professional artist specialising in oil painting and etching. Solo and group shows have included the RWA, British Museum and the Barbican.

Image: José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez (1737 – 1799), Indian Collecting Cochineal with a Deer Tail, 1777, gouache on vellum, The Newberry Library, Chicago

Antony Gormley is probably best well-known for his iconic ‘Angel of the North’, imposingly situated beside the A1 near Gateshead. However, this 20-metre high landmark sculpture is just one of a host of memorable pieces that he has created during the course of a prolific career that already spans over four decades.   

Having known Gormley since he was a student at the Slade and written two books on the artist’s drawings, Anna reviews the development of this major British sculptor from a unique perspective. In the context of his work overall, she examines his continuous fascination with the body as a place – both of experience and of interaction with its surroundings. 

Anna is a London-based lecturer and writer specialising in contemporary art. During the 1990s, she oversaw the development of the subject as the first Master’s Degree at Sotheby’s Institute. Anna has also taught at other institutions in London, including The City Lit, the Royal Academy and Tate, as well as lecturing in cities ranging from Dubai to New York and Berlin to Sydney. She continues to offer guest lectures on the Sotheby’s Institute MA in Contemporary Art. Apart from the many catalogue essays Anna has written on living artists, her books include Abstract Art (1990, enlarged ed. 2020) and Sculpture Now (2013), both published by Thames & Hudson, and two books on the drawings of Antony Gormley. Anna enjoys introducing art to audiences in a lively and approachable way to make modern and contemporary art both accessible and interesting.

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Image: Antony Gormley, 'Sound II', 1986 (Winchester Cathedral)

The lecture will trace the story of Banksy’s humble beginnings as a tagger on the streets of Bristol in the 1980’s to one of the most recognisable names in the art world. 

We will examine the reasons behind his incredible rise, looking at some of his famous stunts and discuss what his influence has been on the art market today and what his legacy, if any, might be. 

Pepe Martinez qualified as a London blue badge tourist guide in 2011, graduating at the top of his class. Since qualifying as a guide he has specialised in the graffiti and street art of East London. Prior to becoming a London blue badge guide, Pepe was a tour manager for 15 years, travelling extensively, all over the world. He can organise and arrange lecture facilities in central London and can also combine a lecture with a walk of street art and graffiti in the East End. Pepe can also organise a practical spray session, giving groups an opportunity to have a go at creating their own works. 

By the end of the Nazi occupation of Paris, the French couture industry lay in tatters, its reputation shredded, its very existence having been threatened by restrictions, bureaucracy and Germany’s elaborate plan to relocate the entire haute couture industry to Berlin and Vienna. Yet, within 6 short months after the liberation, an extraordinary exhibition opened at the Louvre that would reverse the fortunes French couture and bring a renewed sense of hope and optimism to the people of France.

This fascinating historical lecture will examine how the phoenix of Parisian fashion rose once again from the ashes of war to swiftly and decisively reclaim its long exalted dominance on the world stage. The talk  ‘Le Théâtre de la Mode : The Renaissance of French Fashion’ will explore how Paris’s avant-garde created a post war renaissance that fused theatre, ballet, fashion, modern art and opera into one ingenious production and how it became a sensationally powerful economic driver that would bring Paris fashion back to a global audience whilst raising over a million French Francs for War Relief in 1945 alone before going on to travel the world from London and Copenhagen to New York and South America thereby securing Paris firmly as the center of fashion to this day.

With a background in fashion and broadcasting, Connie Gray is the leading specialist in 20th century fashion illustration with a special interest in the history of French haute couture. Regularly invited to lecture both in the UK and the US, she sits on advisory boards at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London and Special Collections at FIT, New York. As a curator, lecturer and archivist, she works closely with institutions and foundations on acquisitions, conservation and exhibition projects, including most recently - Pioneers of Fashion in partnership with The Lee Miller Archives, Crown to Couture at Kensington Palace, London, and 100 Years of Fashion Illustration at The Society of Illustrators, New York. Other specialist exhibitions have included Legends Only at Claridge’s Hotel, London and Cunard’s Transatlantic Fashion Cruise on their flagship ship Queen Mary 2 to celebrate London and New York fashion weeks. As the lead curator for the art gallery Gray M.C.A, she curates the critically acclaimed exhibitions Drawing on Style that celebrates the masters of fashion illustration. She hosts a series of 'Fashion Talks' for leading luxury clients in the UK and has presented a series of masterclasses, talks and short films on French haute couture between the wars which has become required viewing and reading for students of fashion.

This lecture follows the AGM. There will only be a morning session.

Image: Couturier Lucien Lelong with Mannequin for Le Théâtre de la Mode 1945, Photograph by Bela Bernard

Starting in 1607 with Monteverdi’s astonishing opera Orfeo, and ending in 1759 with the death of that great “English” composer George Frideric Handel, the Baroque era produced music of great brilliance and emotional depth.

In helping to navigate us through its choppy waters, Sandy draws on his experience as broadcaster, conductor and hands-on practical musician. His in-depth exploration of this fascinating period of Classical music draws on hand-picked images, autograph scores and recorded musical illustrations, with a special focus on the work of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Sandy Burnett 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 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.

As his work makes abundantly clear, Marc Chagall (1887-1985) remained deeply loyal to his humble Russian-Jewish origins. Yet he also wished his art to have a universal appeal – which, judging by its popularity, it undoubtedly achieved.

This lecture will trace his long, chequered and colourful career, giving particular emphasis to the creative tensions produced by the very different cultural and artistic environments in which he found himself: starting with his hometown of Vitebsk (up to 1906), then St.Petersburg (1906-10), Paris (1910-14), Revolutionary Russia (1914-22), Berlin (1922-3), Paris (again, 1923-40), America during World War II, and back to France in 1948. 

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

In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. The images, charting the course of a year, changed the way we view the world through art.

Landscape had previously been a decorative backdrop to dramas both sacred and profane. But in Bruegel's hands the landscape and our interaction with it became the focus.

Looking at paintings such as The Return of the Herd, Hunters in the Snow and The Gloomy Day, this lecture explores how Bruegel pioneered a whole new way of thinking about the environment and our individual places within a shifting cosmos.

A writer and broadcaster, Gavin Appears on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and contributes to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Recent appearances include Klimt and The Kiss in cinemas worldwide, and talks for the Hay and Cheltenham Literature Festivals, the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum and the V&A.

Image: The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York – Rogers Fund, 1919 – www.metmuseum.org)

In Spring 2000 an archaeological drama began to unfold on the banks of the Euphrates river in Turkey, close to the border with Syria. A small team of French and Turkish archaeologists found a Roman city on the banks of the river, with mosaics and wall-paintings finer than those of Pompeii. However, just beside them was the almost completed Birecik Dam, and the Turks had begun to flood the great reservoir behind it, taking the city under water.

This lecture tells the story of the extraordinary archaeological rescue excavation that then took place, racing against the inexorable waters for four and a half months as they rose at a rate of two feet a day, and the fabulous treasures recovered, including mosaic floors (arguably the finest ever found) depicting colourful scenes from myth and legend.

Louise Schofield, an archaeologist, was Curator of Greek Bronze Age and Geometric Antiquities at the British Museum from 1987-2000. Her book, The Mycenaeans, was co-published by the Getty Museum and the British Museum in 2007. She now writes, lectures and runs international archaeological projects - previously in south-eastern Turkey, Greece and Albania, and currently in Ethiopia. Louise has just been appointed Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the American University of Rome.

Image: Third century A.D. Roman mosaic from Zeugma depicting Poseidon riding through the sea in a horse-drawn chariot. 

At the time of his death in 1896, Frederic Leighton was the most celebrated artist of his generation. Recently ennobled, he had been the president of the Royal Academy since 1878, and was widely credited with enhancing the status of art and artists in late Victorian society to unprecedented heights. 

This lecture explores Leighton’s life and work; from his continental upbringing to his dramatic debut at the Royal Academy, the construction of his remarkable studio-house in Kensington and his rise to international fame and recognition – including the story behind his most famous picture, Flaming June, and how it comes to be in the Ponce Museum, Puerto Rico.

Daniel Robbins is Senior Curator, Museums, with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and is responsible for two of London’s most significant house museums: Leighton House and Sambourne House. Formerly with Glasgow Museums, he has organised many exhibitions and contributed to numerous catalogues and publications around nineteenth-century art, architecture and design, including the authorship of the companion guide to Leighton House. He was responsible for leading the award-winning project to restore the historic interiors of the house completed between 2008 and 2010 and for the subsequent £9.6 million refurbishment of two unsympathetic twentieth-century additions made to the museum. Completed in October 2022, the house reopened to great acclaim.  

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William Morris was a man of prodigious energy, talent, and versatility. He was a designer, a craftsman, a writer, a lecturer, a conservationist and a revolutionary socialist. He is best-known today for his wallpapers and textiles but he also designed embroideries, stained glass, mural decoration, books and tapestries.

His firm, Morris & Co., was the foremost decorating company of his day. His over-arching passions were a love of art and making, and a hatred for what he perceived as the greed and inequality that characterised contemporary society.

This lecture reviews Morris’s life, ideas and achievements, exploring not only the highlights of his career but also his relationships with his wife Jane, and other artists and designers with whom he worked, and the reasons why he is still so important and influential today.

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

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Image: Emery Walkers House, Hammersmith

In this lecture Bertie recounts the extraordinary tale of how a small bronze statue, which had sat in his Grandfather’s garden for 40 years, was discovered as a masterpiece and ended up in the Getty Museum, California.

Adriaen De Vries (c.1556-1626) was a Northern Mannerist sculptor born in the Netherlands. A technical virtuoso, he created spectacular bronzes for the most discerning patrons of his time, including the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II of Prague. He excelled in refined modelling and bronze casting, and in the manipulation of patina and became the most famous European sculptor of his generation.

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

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

Starting with arguably the world’s most famous empty chair by Vincent van Gogh, we move through 20th century Europe. Egon Schiele, René Magritte, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys all used empty chairs for personal expression, while across the Atlantic in America, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Kosuth and Bruce Nauman used chairs to develop the exciting new artistic movements arising in the sixties.

The Palestinian artist, Mona Hatoum, adapted chairs to explore female identity and the Columbian artist, Doris Salcedo, stacked 1,550 between two buildings to remember anonymous victims of war. Right up to the present day, the Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei, uses chairs to explore East / West traditions and the relationship of the individual to the state.  

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

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

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

Image: Original painting by Angela Findlay

This is the story of the epic rivalry between the two giants of British art, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable.

As unalike in background and temperament as their paintings were in style, these two creative geniuses transformed the art of landscape. This lecture sets them head-to-head and examines their differences, their similarities, their battles and their shared triumphs. But who will ultimately be crowned star painter? As well as giving an overview of Turner and Constable, the subject provides an enjoyable overview of the British art world during the nineteenth century.  

Nicola Moorby is an independent art historian specialising in British art of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She studied at the University of York and Birkbeck College, London. Formerly a curator at Tate Britain, she has curated a number of exhibitions and published widely on J.M.W. Turner, including contributions to the forthcoming online catalogue of the Turner Bequest. She is also co-editor and author of How to Paint Like Turner (Tate Publishing, 2010).

Rodin is one of the heroic figures of 19th century art history and was internationally celebrated during his lifetime.

However, after his death his reputation slipped and there were questions about his use of the female image.  Today, that view is being closely reassessed.  His career is seen as having taken sculpture on a revolutionary path equivalent to the many career paths taken by the Realists, Impressionists and Post Impressionists.

This lecture surveys his work showing why he is one of the greatest sculptors ever, looking at his work in relationship to 19th century sculpture as well assessing his continuing relevance.

David Worthington has been drawn to abstract sculpture since seeing a Barbara Hepworth in a school history book aged 10. He graduated from Oxford University in 1984 with a degree in Philosophy and Theology, then studied fine art in London, Barcelona and New York. A maker, he also curates and writes about art. He was shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize in 2009.

David is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Sculptors, and was Vice President from 2010-13.

He has carried out public commissions in the UK, America and Japan. His work is in the museum the Creative Cities Collection Beijing China. David has had solo shows at the Lefevre Gallery, Sladers Yard, Horatio’s Garden, the William Bennington Gallery, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and in October 2017 at the Lightbox Gallery Museum, Woking. He took part in exhibitions at Colyer Bristow Gallery and Contemporary Sculpture at Fulmer 2018.

This lecture follows the AGM.  There will only be a morning session.

Portraiture is a major genre in art, and most painters attempt it. Not all give a convincing likeness of the subject that also reveals their character, essential to the genre.

Starting from a discussion of the role of the sitter, Justin considers portraits from the Roman Empire, Imperial China, and the early Renaissance to the twenty-first century, with examples by key portraitists including Holbein, Titian, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Joseph Wright, Goya, John Singer Sargent, Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville, discussing the formerly negative place of portraiture in the hierarchy of genres, and artists’ portrayal of their subject’s self-identity.

After officer service in the Royal Navy, Justin entered a long and successful career in business. Retiring in 2001, he lectured and wrote on naval history and, as one of the historians working towards the bicentenary commemoration of the Battle of Trafalgar, was given unprecedented access to the former Admiralty buildings in London. This encouraged him to study the History of Art and Architecture, for which he was awarded the University of Oxford’s Diploma with Distinction. He later completed a doctoral thesis on medieval naval weapons systems with the University of Exeter.

From 2002 Justin was senior lecturer in post-graduate marketing at Oxford FE College, and for six years, from 2004, he also delivered courses in the Oxford/UCal Berkeley accredited residential schools. In 2011 he was appointed as tutor in the History of Art and Classical Civilization at leading tutorial colleges in Oxford.

Justin is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Historical Society, a Governor of the RNLI, a Founder Member of the Grinling Gibbons Society, and a member of The Arts Society Cheltenham.

The Australian indigenous people possess probably the oldest continuous culture on our planet.

From the extraordinary early rock and cave art to the modern oil painting, these artists are great storytellers, passing their mystic culture and sense of the sacred nature of the landscape down the generations. 

This talk investigates the early beginnings of this fascinating art and traces its development to the modern day where it is exhibited in international galleries and sells for high prices on the world art market.

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

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

This lecture investigates the events that led up to Joshua Reynolds’s portrait of Omai which became an emblematic and iconic image representing Britain at the very height of its imperial powers.

This lecture explores this famous moment in history when two worlds collided. I will examine the key players in Omai’s story, his origins in Tahiti, his background and motivation in coming to England, his time in England and his interaction within English society. 

I will then go on to look at Joshua Reynolds’s ideas regarding his self image, his influences and how this related to his image of Omai. I will also look at what this portrait can tell us about 18th century English society, its perception or preconception of the Other or non-white Europeans and also how prevalent pseudo-scientific ideas affected the way Omai was perceived and finally envisioned in Reynolds’s painting.

I will then look at Omai's return to the South Seas and the impact of going back. Can one ever go back? What is the impact of returning? Finally, I will explore the legacy of the image we call Omai, which has become an enigma in its own right.

Art historian Leslie Primo is an author, broadcaster, and graduate of Birkbeck, University College, with an MA in Renaissance studies. He lectured at the National Gallery, London for 18 years, and has appeared on the BBC speaking on Michelangelo and presenting on JMW Turner. He contributed to the Oxford Companion Guide to Black British History, and has a forthcoming Thames & Hudson book called, The Foreigners that Invented British Art. He currently teaches art history at Imperial College, and lectures for the Royal Academy, London.

The Impressionists were an innovative and radical group of artists who took Paris by storm in the 1870s. Using new colours and techniques, they created paintings of modern life which shocked and horrified the art establishment.

From the start the group included women artists, however their contribution to Impressionism has often been overshadowed by their male contemporaries. Marie Bracquemond, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt all exhibited regularly at the Impressionist exhibitions alongside artists such as Monet, Renoir and Degas. In 1894 they were given the title “Les Trois Grandes Dames d’Impressionisme” by the art critic Gustave Geffroy. 

This lecture will discuss the lives of each of these artists and their work, revealing their skill and originality as well as their willingness to take risks, despite the additional obstacles they faced as women.

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University before doing a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years.  

Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia. She is also a Tour Director for a travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Sarah moved her work online, offering art history courses to audiences all over the world. 

There is no name more evocative of Bohemian life: of high spirits, decadence, poverty, and revolutionary art in Paris, than Montmartre.

In reality it was little more than a rundown suburb overlooking the city, bristling with windmills. But the garden cafés, the dancehalls and cabarets, and the ramshackled studios that spilled down the hillside of Montmartre would become the inspiration and home to some of France’s greatest artists.

From the Moulin de la Galette where Renoir painted Parisians dancing in the afternoon sunlight, to Toulouse Lautrec’s vivid images of the Moulin Rouge -  the smoke filled cabaret where the can-can was danced to Offenbach’s music - to the shabby garrets of the Bateau Lavoir where a group of artists headed by Picasso would paint canvases that would shake the foundations of Western art, this lecture charts the course of this extraordinary artistic life.

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. Overseas he has lectured in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain, and has taken numerous tours around Europe.

Douglas has written and presented various TV documentaries, notably the Omnibus programme on Whistler and the exhibition video on William Morris. 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.

Cézanne is renowned as the great 19th-century painter of still lives and bathers, French peasants and the Mont Sainte-Victoire, working in the most traditional of genres, from landscape to portraiture.

However, in his work of the 1880s, ‘90s and early 1900s, he began a revolution in painting, creating what the art historian Ernst Gombrich called ‘a landslide in art’. His ever-more courageous, ‘modern’ mode of painting insisted on conveying the essence of a subject rather than its mere ‘impression’. This style showed a radical disregard for the realism dominant since the Renaissance and pointed the way to the increasingly abstract experiments of the 20th century. But how was it that a reclusive, deeply devout, anti-modernist came to be the founder of modern art, a towering figure described by Matisse as ‘the father of us all’? And where is his influence still in evidence today?

Jacky Klein is an art historian, publisher, writer and broadcaster, specialising in modern and contemporary art. After studying at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she worked as a curator at a number of leading galleries: Tate, the Barbican, the Courtauld and the Hayward.  In 2008, she moved sideways into the world of art publishing, first as Commissioning Editor at Thames & Hudson, then as Executive Editor at Tate Publishing and subsequently as Director of HENI Publishing, a small independent arts publisher. An experienced lecturer in museums, galleries and at literary festivals, she has taught at a number of arts institutions including University College London, Christie’s Education, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts.

Gustav Klimt and his colleagues broke away from the imperially endorsed art institutions in Vienna in 1897 and founded the Secession.

In the same year Gustav Mahler arrived to take charge of the Opera House in the city. Comparing these two totemic fin de siècle talents, this lecture places Klimt and Mahler in context, asking what fundamentally links and, indeed, divides them.

Gavin is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. 

The history of the City of London is a long and illustrious one.

The churches, Halls and civic Buildings of the City house some of the most interesting stained-glass windows, charting their history back to the Middle Ages through to having withstood the ravages of the First and Second World Wars

In this lecture, we shall journey through the streets of the City of London discovering hidden gems along the way and learn about some of the best 19th, 20th and contemporary stained-glass windows.  We shall encounter a wide range of stories including some of the famous historical personalities such as Dick Whittington, Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare.

Anna Warrillow is an Arts Society Lecturer, Blue Badge Guide and University Lecturer.

LIST OF WINDOWS

• King James I enters London via Aldersgate. Church of St. Botolph’s without Aldersgate. Michael Farrer Bell 1950s

• Agony in the Garden. Church of St. Botolph’s without Aldersgate. James Pearson 1781

• Port of London Authority Window. All Hallows by the Tower. Michael Farrer Bell. 20thC

• William I St. Botolph’s without Aldersgate. Michael Farrer Bell. 20thC

• Dick Whittington. Church of St. Michael Paternoster Royal. John Hayward. 20thC

• Cutlers Hall Window of London Bridge

• Brian Clarke outside the Shard

• Worshipful company of Engineers Window. Stella Timmins. Guildhall Art Gallery

• Worshipful Company of Shipwrights. Stella Timmins. Guildhall Art Gallery

• Windows of Geoffrey Chaucer & William Caxton. Guildhall Crypt

• Windows of the Blackfriars Pub. Blackfriars. Henry Poole [?] 19thC

• Henry VIII conferring the letters patent. St. Bartholemew’s Hospital

• Houghton Window. St. Etheldreda’s Church, Ely Place. Charles Blakeman. 1950s

• Christ the King window. St. Etheldreda’s Church, Ely Place. Edward Nuttgens. 1950s

• Thomas Moore. St. Lawrence Jewry. Christopher Webb. 1959

• Coronation of Edward VI. Mansion House. 19thC

• Shakespeare window. St. Helen’s Bishopsgate. 19thC

• Captain John Smith. St. Sepulchre without Newgate. Francis Skeat. 1960s

• Monks making a stained glass window. St. Sepulchre. Francis Skeat 1960s

• Virgin Mary. St. Mary le Bow. John Hayward. 20thC

• Great Fire of London. St. Mary Aldermanbury. Lawrence Lee 1950s

• Samuel Pepys. Guildhall Crypt

• Christopher Wren & his master masons. St. Lawrence Jewry. Christopher Webb. 1950s

• WWII windows. Temple Church. Carl Edwards. 1954

• WWII windows. Guildhall Crypt

• WWI & II memorial windows. Hugh Ray Easton. Lloyds building

• Local businesses windows. Christchurch Southwark. Kenneth Gordon Bunton. 1959

• St. Ethelburga. St. Ethelburga’s church. Helen Chadwick. 2002

• Bowyers Windows. St. Botolph without Bishopsgate. Nicola Kantorowicz. 1997

• Flu Pandemic Window. Royal London Hospital medical library. Whitechapel. Caroline Swash & Johannes Schreiter. 1990s

This lecture looks at the explosion of modern dance that took place during the 20th century after Isadora Duncan introduced a new free flowing form of dance at the turn of the century.Modern dance pioneers included Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman and these in turn were were succeeded by post WW2 choreographers such as Merce Cunningham who broke the rules paving the way for post-modern dance from the 1960s, We’ll also take a look at hiphop, street dancing, jazz and some extraordinary site specific works that take us up to the present time.

Jennifer Toynbee-Holmes is an experienced guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern and lectures at various art societies and institutions. She has a special interest in British and European art of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th century. Having gained an MA in film and television practice, Jennifer had a long-standing career spanning twenty years as a television producer/director making documentaries and factual programmes for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. She was also a visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths College and Birkbeck, University of London and a senior lecturer at Southampton Solent University in the Faculty of Media, Arts and Society.

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.

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.

Photo:  The Jama Masjid

The Sahara has inspired the artistic and cultural life of the West for millennia, and this eye-opening presentation allows us to journey there with no risk of getting lost in a sandstorm. Whether resident, foreign adventurer, or armchair traveller and artist, the deserts of North Africa are a palimpsest upon which poets, painters, filmmakers and other dreamers have been inspired by and drawn to for millennia.

The Sahara proved as vital for the oracles of Ancient Greece as it has for the high priests of Hollywood, and North African landscapes have witnessed the creation of both stunning prehistoric rock art and Impressionist canvasses; inspired mythology and faith; and been a muse for every form of creative endeavour. This is a fascinating talk through time and space, war and peace, love and loss, that will never again let you see the Sahara as a blank canvas. 

Eamonn Gearon is an author, historian, and recovering journalist, who lived and worked across the greater Middle East – from Kabul to Casablanca – for more than 20 years. As well as living in the Sahara with the Bedu, Eamonn conducted a number of solo, camel-powered expeditions … and has never lost money when re-selling a camel! 

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

Tessa is a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society along with other organisations such as the V&A, English Heritage and the National Trust. She’s the author of two books of social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale – The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House, and Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather – Fashion, Fury and Feminism, Women’s Fight for Change. Her interest lies in uncovering stories of invisible women of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, revealing how they drove industry, propped up high society and manipulated politics. Tessa has an MA in English Literature from Oxford University, a diploma in Art History from the British Institute of Florence, and has enjoyed a long career in journalism for national newspapers and magazines. 

The past decade has seen the meteoric rise of this extraordinarily versatile British designer with his acclaimed Olympic cauldron, the iconic new London bus and designs for a spectacular new HQ building for Google. Over the last twenty years the Heatherwick Studio has used an intriguing combination of curiosity and experimentation to produce a vast range of solutions to design challenges around the world. This talk looks at the problems presented, and the wonderfully creative ways in which Heatherwick and his team have responded.

American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein has captivated the art world since his debut in the 1960s. His paintings, however, remain controversial: executed in a style previously reserved for advertising and comic books, Lichtenstein’s pieces can appear simplistic, tongue in cheek and imitative. And yet the meticulous and monumental works have become ubiquitous and influential. This hour-long talk discusses why Lichtenstein’s works are more complex than they appear – a perspective that Kate has gained after half a decade of working for the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and closely examining Lichtenstein’s paintings, sculptures, tapestries and drawings.

Image:  Photograph of Roy Lichtenstein with Mirror New York 1964 by Ken Heyman

This lecture will explore the life of one of the most famous and iconic Mexican artists of the twentieth century. It will situate her within an extraordinary historical context and explore her family background and her battle as a child with polio. Her flamboyant character will be set against her deep sadness in love and in pain after an appalling accident left her disabled physically but able to paint while in her hospital bed. We will chart her meeting with the great figure of Diego Rivera, muralist and revolutionary and her subsequent love affair with him, their turbulent marriage, divorce and re-marriage. Often scrutinising her self-portraits, we will also be able to see her rise to international fame and her liaisons with extraordinary characters of the time such as Leon Trotsky and her untimely and very public death in 1954.

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

Rachel Whiteread is a Turner Prize winner, and one of the most important and respected British artists working today. In 2005, she provided one of the series of impressive site-specific sculptures for the enormous Tate Modern Turbine Hall. Her preoccupation with the hidden spaces in between things has resulted in an extraordinary range of objects which form a series of eloquent tributes to the silent and overlooked. 

She uses an ancient technique: casting, but an astonishing variety of materials. The talk carefully explains the fascinating processes required to achieve the effects she wants. In some cases this has involved highly experimental and pioneering methods, working with engineers and chemists to push different substances to their absolute limits.

Linda holds two first-class degrees in Art History. She has a broad knowledge of art historical subjects, but specialises in British Art and Twentieth Century Art. She is an experienced lecturer and guide, specifically for Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has lectured to a wide variety of audiences in different venues, including schools and universities, as well as independent arts societies in the UK and overseas.

Photo: Joao Grisantes:  London Art Studios

“Listen: there was once a King sitting on his throne. Around him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, Then it pleased the King to raise a small feather from the ground and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air blew it along. Thus am I… ‘A feather on the breath of God’.”

One of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages, Hildegard of Bingen led a long and very active life as Abbess of her own abbey near Bingen in Germany. She was also a visionary, poet, musician, naturalist, healer and theologian whose writings were prolific, wide-ranging and powerful. After a brief summary of her life, this lecture will focus on a selection of Hildegard’s visions and music - two areas of her artistic output which resonate powerfully, if a little surprisingly, with our modern world. 

Mark Cottle was born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and Birmingham University. His career has been spent in education and training at home and abroad. He has lectured at Exeter College on Medieval and Tudor history, St Mark's & St John's University College, Plymouth, and at Bath University on Anglo Saxon and medieval England. Currently runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.

Occupying a pair of early Georgian townhouses nestled in historic Greenwich, the story of how The Fan Museum came to fruition dovetails into the multifaceted history of the handheld fan. From an especially rare Elizabethan-period embroidered folding fan to contemporary examples decorated by street artists, discover some of the key objects within the Museum’s extraordinary collections which encompass more than 5,000 fans and related objects dating from the eleventh century to the present day and gathered from most parts of the world.

Having successfully completed a BA (hons) in Fashion at Reading School of Art, Jacob took up a position as an assistant for womenswear designer Donald Campbell. In 2010 he returned to education and obtained a postgraduate degree (Distinction) in Fashion Curation from London College of Fashion. Shortly thereafter Jacob joined The Fan Museum, the UK’s only Museum dedicated to the history of fans and craft of fan making. 

The Luttrell Psalter is one of the most unusual and insightful, English medieval artworks.  Made for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell in the 1330s, on the eve of the Black Death, its pages are covered with a menagerie of outrageous grotesques.  The images give us a valuable and unparalleled glimpse into life in manorial England.  Explore the mind of this leading baronial patron through the artists and confessors who served him and who tried to steer his soul towards eternity.

This lecture looks at the beginnings of the London Underground system when cohesion between the different operating companies was needed; the surprising attempts to create graphic unity, Leslie Green’s architecture and the creation of the iconic typeface.  The lecture then follows the development of the Underground in the twentieth and twenty first century.

Mark Ovenden:  Lecturer

Mark is a broadcaster and author who specialises in the subjects of graphic design, cartography and architecture in public transport, with an emphasis on underground rapid transit.

This talk combines the lives of the Astors, the Sackville Wests and the Rothschilds and their family histories with the story of the gardens they have all created, despite their very different backgrounds, here in the English countryside.

Lecturer:  Caroline Rayman

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

Raphael died in Rome on Good Friday, 1520, aged only 37. The Pope, his most prestigious patron, was devastated and earth tremors were felt around the city. He was buried in the Pantheon – Rome’s most important classical building – a fitting tribute to an artist who rivalled the greatness of the Ancients. (He was also charming, handsome and polite – which couldn’t be said for all Renaissance polymaths.) This lecture looks at his short, but astonishing career as painter, architect, administrator and superb draughtsman and considers his lasting influence on subsequent artists. 

Lecturer:  Jo Walton

Jo Walton has combined teaching and lecturing with a career in art bookselling. Jo has been a volunteer guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She is now a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society, the Art Fund, and Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery and local art societies.

Raphael; La Donna Velata, 1515 (Courtesy of The Palatine Gallery, Palazzo Pitti, Florence).

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was a man out of step with his time.

Scorning the traditional idealised interpretation of religious subjects, he took his models from the streets, painting them realistically and heightening the emotional intensity by his dramatic contracts of light and shade. Such a revolutionary style was condemned by many, equally, his dramatic personal life and uncontrollable temper involved him in endless brawls and even murder. This lecture will study the life and works of this enigmatic man and of his influence on later artists.

Lecturer:  Shirley Smith

Shirley Smith 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. Shirley has run study days and certificate courses as well as residential weekend courses. She is particularly keen to set the art and architecture of the period in the context of the society for which it was produced.

Bacchus (1596c) by Caravaggio Web Gallery of Art: www.wga.hu

You may like to watch this wonderful video of an Italian dance group interpreting Caravaggio's work. 

Artists were never far behind the explorers who opened up the west of America in the 19th Century. Sometimes they painted what they saw. Sometimes they painted what they wished they saw. Either way, painters like Alfred Miller, Frederick Church and Albert Bierstadt have left us a powerful, if romanticised, record of the country and people that the settlers found. We can use their pictures to chart the history of the opening of America’s west - the arrival of the railroad, the confinement of native Americans into reservations, and the extermination of the buffalo.

Lecturer:  Toby Faber

Toby is an experienced lecturer and public speaker who has been accredited by The Arts Society since 2012. His career began with Natural Sciences at Cambridge and has been through investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Faber and Faber, where he remains on the board. He is also non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music and a director of Liverpool University Press.

Wine has been part of our global society for over 7,000 years and the story tells of its origin and appearance in all societies across the Mediterranean and through Europe.

There is rich evidence of the role wine has played in these societies and how it became an important component of faith, well-being and festivity. From the Kwevris of Georgia in 5,000 B.C., the symposia in ancient Greece, the thermopolia of Pompeii, the hospices of Europe, to the dining tables of fine society wine has been ever present. Drawings, paintings, engravings, buildings, pottery and wine labels themselves all contribute to the story.

Lecturer:  David Wright

I have been a wine retailer, importer and distributor for 30 years. In that time, I have publicly presented tastings and talks on wine to trade and private audiences. These have taken the form of wine ‘tastings’ or charity events where a particular subject is presented, in the form of paintings, decorated drinking vessels, buildings and literature that all contribute to the story.

Were the Pre-Raphaelites the first ‘modern’ British artists?

They looked back to the past and yet their work was incredibly forward thinking. The avant-garde group of Royal Academy students rebelled against everything they had been taught; rejecting Raphael and instead turning to early Renaissance and Flemish art for inspiration. They developed new and innovative ways of working; painting outdoors using bright, modern colours, and with a distinctive attention to detail. The group’s personal lives were equally fascinating; full of scandals, opiate overdoses and affairs!

 Stella Grace Lyons:  Lecturer

‘Without sacrificing scholarship, Stella Lyons has a most engaging way of hooking an audience into sharing her passionate interest in art history, drawing three dimensional human stories and experiences from the two-dimensional canvas’ – Maev Kennedy, writer and Arts correspondent for The Guardian

This lecture looks at the lute, and other musical instruments, as devices to express various aspects of the human character throughout the ages.

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

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL RUN AT 1.45pm

The 17th & 18th Centuries saw the introduction of thousands of plant species into Northern Europe from across the world. Many of these plants are now staples in our gardens; magnolias, lilies, pelargoniums, and Michaelmas daisies, to name a few.  These plants found new homes in the one-time, great gardens of London, such as Hampton Court, Fulham Palace and Westminster.  One survives – The Chelsea Physic Garden.  All this long before Kew Gardens were established.

From the scandal of the painting of Madame X to the trials, tribulations and triumph of Carnation,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. We shall explore the work of an artist who devoted his entire life to the creation of beauty.

When Picasso met the seventeen-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter outside a department store in Paris in 1927 it was L’Amour Fou. She was young and vulnerable, he was older and married but together over a decade and far longer in his thoughts, she was one of his greatest muses in many ways.

This lecture considers her roles as clandestine muse, phallic muse, trapped muse, sleeping muse and charts his inspired work leading up to the Spanish Civil War in 1936 when the new muse Dora Maar entered into his life. Drawing on letters, diaries and documents which help us chart the period we will see that for Picasso his work was so often a way of keeping a diary.

This lecture explores gardens through the senses of the Impressionists from three continents – Europe, North America and Australia - enjoying the essentially similar pleasures of the garden, but engaging with the light from their skies in order to create very different sensations.

The enclosure of the garden acts like a picture frame showcasing a living canvas that exudes the individuality, vision and taste of its tenants, their family, friends, lifestyles and, in the simple words of the greatest Impressionist and gardener Monet, providing motifs to paint.

Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) was a key player in early twentieth century Avant Garde art, design, literary and theatrical circles in Paris. He was a widely travelled polymath, with a charismatic personality, his wit and curiosity about the world was infectious.

Across a range of media including painting and lithography, posters, book illustration, theatrical set design, textiles and fashion, ceramics and large murals, his imagination and technical virtuosity cut across all conventional boundaries. From a small intricate woodcut illustrating a love poem, to the truly gigantic 1937 world fair murals depicting the role of electricity in the modern age, the effect is mesmerising.

Dufy defies categorisation, constantly innovating and experimenting with new materials and effects. His analysis of the visual world is sophisticated and joyous in equal measure. 

Perhaps this goes some way to explain why some later critics fail to grasp the complexity of his art and pigeonhole him a 'decorative artist', or misunderstand the irony in his gentle, yet wittty caricatures of elegant social life.

The Millennium saw the transformation of several major museums in London, such as the renovation and extension of the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Wallace Collection by Rick Mather Architects. 

Light and space were introduced into the museum and the circulation improved, thus immensely enhancing the visitors’ experience.

On the basis of these achievements the firm was commissioned to transform the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford which was completed in 2010. 

This lecture looks at the architectural strategies and principles used by Mather to transform these museums into modern masterpieces while preserving historical buildings and creating places with spaces that people love to visit.

Edward Seago (1910-74) was an immensely popular oil painter and watercolourist who was overlooked by critics.

He overcame childhood illness before running away with the circus. He mixed in aristocratic circles, making friends among the Royal family, enjoyed a colourful wartime career and took a trip to Antarctica aboard the Royal Yacht!

Seago is much loved by artists and in this lecture, we explore a number of his finest oil paintings and watercolours in detail, looking at his choice of subject, design and technique.

The lecturer is the author of ‘Edward Seago’, the definitive account of the artist’s life and work.

Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923) was a highly successful artist of international renown in his lifetime.  Today, however, he is little known outside Spain and the United States.

Sorolla positioned himself as a modern interpreter of the Spanish painting in the wake of the great Spanish traditions of Velázquez and Goya. 

His delightful paintings of women and children at the seaside, landscapes and his great series depicting the regions of Spain, are full of sunlight, optimism and social insight.

First Lecture of New Membership Year

Widely known for his appearances dressed as his feminine alter ego, Claire, Grayson Perry RA is now a core part of the art establishment.

Ten years after winning the Turner Prize, he gave the brilliant BBC Reith Lecture in 2013. His work in ceramics, textiles, tapestries and prints is highly sought after. Often controversial, he is able to tackle difficult subjects in a poignant yet witty way. 

This talk will examine Grayson Perry’s works, his exciting and thought-provoking exhibitions, and we’ll look at the character inside the flamboyant frocks.

On October 16th 1834, the Palace of Westminster, that cradle of English liberty and democracy was destroyed by fire.  This lecture looks at the story of its rebuilding, the work of Augustus Pugin and Charles Barry. Both architects were well established at the time, and it was their co-operation that led to the creation of the current iconic Houses of Parliament. It is a story full of dissembling, of penny-pinching and mistrust.  At a time when the Palace of Westminster is about to be restored and development, we call lean much from story of the first rebuilding. 

In an age where women had little public power, Isabella d’ Este (1474 – 1539) stands out as a formidable figure. She was one of the first and greatest female patrons and art collectors of the Renaissance. And her court in Mantua was filled with writers and poets of distinction. Her clever, educated and entitled voice sings out from thousands of letters which she composed in her meticulously designed study, and images – from Da Vinci to Titian – bring alive a woman whose eye for fashion was every bit as keen as her eye for art.

Frederick the Great:  This is the story of a most remarkable man, with enormous talent. He was an intellectual, a fine musician, a great collector of art and the finest soldier in history admired by such other great martial figures as Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington. He had the most unhappy childhood imaginable, and though damaged by this he was loved by everyone who came into contact with him and his soldiers would have followed him to the ends of the earth.

Even eager connoisseurs of the arts have rarely heard of the foremost exponent of German Romanticism: Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) whose oeuvre is as significant as Delacroix’s in France or Turner’s in England. In his unforgettable, evocative paintings, Friedrich makes landscape take on symbolic religious and political meanings – his unique body of work anticipates the later ideas of Impressionism, Expressionism and Abstraction. Since there is only one Friedrich painting in Britain (Winter Landscape with Church, 1811, National Gallery, London), this is a superb chance to study his work in detail. Reading: Schmied, W., 1995 Friedrich Abrams Hofmann, W., 2000 Caspar David Friedrich Thames & Hudson 

The royal courts of the seventeenth century set fashion for society in a manner unimaginable today.  Usually, France or Italy led the way, particularly within the visual arts. However, tapestry weaving stands apart from this general rule. Yes, Paris led the way for weavings of great sophistication for much of the medieval period but in the sixteenth century it was Flanders, then known as the Spanish Netherlands, and specifically Brussels, that led the way.

However, early in the seventeenth century England introduced new standards to this exclusive and hugely expensive activity. In 1619 a Royal weaving works was established at Mortlake in Surrey by King James I. Within a few years remarkable sets of tapestries came from its looms, most notably sets woven to the Acts of the Apostles designs by Raphael and his studio. Until the Civil War, the greatest artists provided designs; the finest materials were used; and the most able Flemish weavers worked to produce luxury hangings admired throughout Europe. With the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell this came to an end and Mortlake never recovered its European reputation.

By the mid seventeenth century France once again took centre stage in all the luxury arts and crafts and when the young Louis XIV sought to use these arts as visual propaganda for his rule and his country, tapestry was an essential aspect of the decoration of his palaces. Central to this particular art policy was the well established weaving operation at the Gobelins in Paris. From here, the finest tapestries of the later seventeenth century were produced. To this day, they remain a justifiable example of the quality of the decorative arts produced during this most memorable of ages.

The greater part of the modern popular conception of the medieval knight comes not from the Middle Ages itself, but from the Victorian imagination. 19th-century medieval-revivalist art, architecture and literature still influence the modern mind. While he took some inspiration from the real Middle Ages, the Victorian medievalist was perhaps more interested in his own ideas about what the ‘Age of Chivalry’ should have been, rather than what it actually was. This process of historical reinvention cannot be better illustrated than through an exploration of the event that in many ways originated the Victorian obsession with chivalry. The Eglinton Tournament of 1839, inspired by the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott and research of the armour antiquarian Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick, attempted to recreate a full-scale medieval tournament, with prominent aristocrats of the day taking part as combatants. The event, and indeed the preparations leading up to it, caused a media sensation. 150,000 people made the journey to the Earl of Eglinton’s castle in southern Scotland to witness the spectacle, which was unfortunately spoiled by heavy rain on its first day. The tournament nevertheless proved to have been a historic event, its legacy an artistic and cultural movement that defined the age. 

In the mediaeval period highly distinctive styles of architecture developed in remote Transylvania and Moldavia. This lecture first illustrates the fine Gothic churches that the Saxon settlers built in Transylvania and survive in their elegant towns and, uniquely, behind formidable fortifications in their villages. The main part of the lecture depicts the ‘Painted Monasteries’ of Moldavia, famous for their frescoes that stem from the Orthodox Byzantine tradition, and for the lovely architectural ensembles. The frescoes cover the entire outside walls of the churches and still maintain their wonderfully vivid colours and details. All this is set in the context of Romania’s landscape and history. 

The focus is on the commemoration of the Great War. The heroes are the Imperial War Graves Commission and Sir Edwin Lutyens. The context is Lutyens in Rome, Oxford, Norfolk, and Hampstead Garden Suburb, and visions of an England that never quite was. The action moves from the Cenotaph to Thiepval, encompassing the work of other men, notably Blomfield at Ypres and Baker at Delville Wood, before returning to Lutyens and his vision for Liverpool’s Catholic Cathedral. It celebrates the climax of landscape and architectural tradition. 

For many years Scottish artists found it necessary to travel south to make their names and careers in art, but with the increasing importance of the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow from the end of the 18th Century, an independent Scottish art scene became possible. These developments will be traced through individuals such as Sir Henry Raeburn, the first artist to find success whilst remaining in his native Scotland, and Sir David Wilkie, important as one of the first to truly export Scottish art. This lecture will also look at the parallels between Scottish and other European art, as well as periods of divergence, touching on art movements such as the Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists. 

Britain’s oldest fine arts institution will be celebrating its 250th Anniversary in 2018. The Royal Academy has an illustrious history that spans from the mid 18th century through to the 21st century.  We contemplate its past and review its various homes before settling on its current Mayfair location in Burlington House. This fully illustrated talk explores a selection of its ground–breaking temporary loan exhibitions and considers its role and impact on the art scene, both on British soil and overseas.  The talk wouldn’t be complete without a behind the scene look at the Summer Exhibition – held without interruption since 1769 – which displays works in a variety of media and genres by emerging and established contemporary artists. In addition, anecdotal stories will also be revealed by the lecturer based on her twelve year career with the institution. We also consider the influence of certain world-renowned Royal Academicians, exemplary artists in their chosen field, and the pivotal role that is played by the RA Schools.  The impressive roll call of RAs over the past 250 years includes household names such as Reynolds, Constable, Turner, Munnings and, more recently, Hockney, Paolozzi, Foster, Craig-Martin and Gormley. By charting its history through intriguing and important archival photographs and considering its place in Britain’s rich artistic heritage, we can mark this significant anniversary and consider its future with much excitement and anticipation.

William Blake: Poet, Painter and Philosopher; Rebel, Radical, and Revolutionary.  Called a man without a mask by his friends, Blake was always less ahead of his time than outside it, creating his own mythology of embattled beings and strange prophecies to tell the truths he perceived as the heart of all existence.  Yet he was also a passionate participant in his own world’s lives and times: his art was shaped and conditioned by life in England under George III and tempered by the violent resonances of revolutionary Europe and America; his paintings and poetry are as particular and specific as they are universal.

Without Contraries is no Progression ... Energy is Eternal Delight, wrote Blake, as energy ran wild through Europe, challenging ancient tradition and brand-new scientific discoveries with equal vigour and in ways which continue to resonate for us today. In his lifetime he was called mad as often as visionary and his work remains ambiguous and contradictory: enjoyed by schoolchildren, while continuing to baffle scholars of art and literature alike. This lecture examines the worlds of William Blake in the context of his time and our own, exploring their extraordinary and vivid symbolism and revealing the celebration of life in all its richness that informs even the strangest of his works; a way of seeing the world which challenged orthodoxy of all kinds and continues to do so.

More detailed notes on this lecture can be found within the Documents section of this website which is the last subsection under Our Society.

Edward Hopper's paintings of urban life are typically characterized by a sense of loneliness and alienation. The most celebrated example is Nighthawks, a work of 1942, which depicts three men and a woman gathered in a brightly illuminated restaurant in downtown New York. We are given few clues as to the identity of these people, whether they know each other or are in any way related. It is in fact the inexplicable quality of this scene which has made it so intriguing to generations of viewers, and has turned Nighthawks into one of the iconic images of 20th century urban life. This lecture considers the background to Hopper's masterpiece and offers possible reasons for its lasting fascination. 

The Northern Renaissance, that great flowering of the arts in Fifteenth Century Bruges, is not very well known.  And yet, the stories of banking, piracy and painting which interweave this period have exciting parallels with our own time.  This lecture places artists like Van Eyck and Memling in their turbulent context.

This lecture replaces the one originally programmed which was The Harbour Vision: Artists who drew inspriration from the Expansion  of Great Britain's Trade by Ms Caroline Rayman.

Images of Romanesque  or Gothic cathedral architecture may linger in our memories, but many of us would be pressed to describe a typical mosque.  We shall look at three of the most important forms, typified by the Friday Mosque in Isfahan.  The lecture explores their different styles, and the minarets and domes that enhance their skylines, and illustrates the rich designs, whether in mosaic, tile or other media, that adorn these buildings.

The careers of John Piper and Graham Sutherland followed surprisingly similar paths. Born in the same year – 1903 - they both attended Epsom College, then commenced different careers before attending art college. Along with other English Neo-Romantics, each was influenced by William Blake and Samuel Palmer. They were also able to embrace European modernism in a way that enabled their work to remain accessible to the general public. Piper and Sutherland worked in a variety of media, producing astonishing bodies of work; each was an Official War Artist in the Second World War, and each went on to create moving and inspirational works of religious art. 

James Gillray was the natural successor to William Hogarth but represented, in his cutting and cruel caricatures, everything about satirical prints that Hogarth despised. Uncompromising and fearless in his art, Gillray tore into politicians and the royal family alike. And yet, full of contradictions, that didn’t stop him pursuing a staunchly patriotic stance when it came to the French Revolution, nor accepting a pension to tone down his satirical bite. After he died insane in 1815, his reputation, in the Victorian climate of moralistic righteousness, plummeted. It is only now that he can be seen as the natural forefather of Spitting Image and the cartoons of Gerald Scarfe and Steve Bell – although none of these have quite matched the wit and vitriol of Gillray at his best. 

Laura Johnson was born in Derbyshire. Her father died not long after her birth and Laura grew up in a family that struggled with financial problems. At the age of 13 she entered the Nottingham School of Art and she was one of the youngest students ever to join the school. At school, Laura met one of the most promising students, Harold Knight, and at the age of 17 she determined that the best method of learning was to copy Harold’s technique. They became friends and married in 1903. In 1907, the Knights moved to the artists’ colony in Newlyn, Cornwall where Laura painted in an Impressionist style. After World War One, they moved to London where Laura met some of the most famous ballet dancers of the day, such as Anna Pavlova, and produced many fine works. In 1929, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 1936 she became the first woman to be elected to the Royal Academy. During the Second World War, Laura Knight was an official war artist and after the war she was the official artist at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals. She continued to paint into the 1960s, produced over 250 works in her lifetime as well as two autobiographies and she died in 1970, aged 92. During my lecture I consider the major works of this excellent artist. 

George Frederic Handel dominated the London musical scene from 1711 until his death in 1759.  For the first half of those years he produced 39 operas of unflagging brilliance and then, in 1739, he turned to oratorio.  These new shows played to packed houses – usually theatres – and Handel found he had discovered a lucrative alternative to the tricky business of putting on opera.  But why did he make the switch?  He remained devoted to opera for the rest of his life, and the oratorios – though they have stood the test of time – were composed for less accomplished English singers and musicians.  Handel was an astute business man, a great man of the theatre, and a devout Christian.  This lecture unravels the complex motives behind the great oeuvre that is one of the cornerstones of the English choral tradition. 

Hans Holbein, Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver were the leading exponents of this exquisite and elite art form often exchanged as gifts to express highly personal and often coded messages, and fashioned using materials as diverse as gold leaf, squirrel tails, egg white and playing cards. 

Too often the sculpture of Central Europe is ignored and yet some of the most important pieces of Renaissance sculpture was produced in northern cities and towns, often for small parish churches off the beaten track, as well as for large cathedrals. The lecture will trace the development of German sculpture in stone, for example at Strasbourg, Naumburg and Ulm. Then, as sculpture becomes independent of architecture, sculptors emerge from obscurity and during the later 15th century a golden age of sculpture, in particular through the medium of limewood, comes about, culminating in the work of the great limewood carvers, Michael Pacher, Tilman Riemenschneider and Veit Stoss.