In December 2024, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, often referred to as the Soul of the City, reopened to the public after a devastating fire had threatened to destroy it 5 years earlier.  A seemingly impossible target had been set by the French President to rebuild; yet huge sums of donated money and teams of expert restorers ensured the timescale was met. Such is the symbolic power of this cultural icon in the psyche of the French people and indeed people beyond.

In this lecture Carole Petipher considers what makes Notre Dame so special. Rather than looking into the fine details of its restoration; she will look instead at its key location, some of its most precious artefacts, and through images consider some of the most significant events to have been staged inside the iconic silhouette.

Along the way, she will introduce a much loved fictional character Quasimodo, Hunchback of Notre Dame , who was responsible for the cathedral’s salvation the first time it faced destruction.

Carole is an experienced guide and lecturer on combined history and art tours in France with 20 years experience. Having lived and worked on a number of bespoke river vessels and converted barges there she has used them as a platform from which to research her lectures. She uses art in all its guises to explore the characters who shaped France and likes to delve behind the scenes to discover hidden truths. She also acts as a guide for a privately owned ancestral home in her native Chilterns.

This lecture guides the listener through the process of conserving paintings, before focusing on two individual altarpieces from the Early Northern Renaissance which were conserved recently in her conservation studios in Chiswick, West London. It looks at the background history of the period, the wealth in Flanders, and the other artists working at the same time, both in Italy and The Low Countries.  It also goes into the unexpectedly early use of perspective, and by comparing and contrasting, it shows how conclusions were reached as to the likely painters of these charming works of art. 

Julia Korner is a specialist and lecturer in fine art conservation and the restoration of paintings, sculptures and frames. She is also a valuer, passionate collector, advisor and curator of paintings and works of art. Julia trained in art history and conservation, Cambridge, England. Then, for twenty years, she worked for Christie's as a paintings’ specialist, building extensive knowledge of Old Masters, and of British, European and American paintings from the 1700s onwards. She set up Christie's Maritime Department in 1986, followed by the Frame sales, the Aeronautical, Exploration & Travel and the Polar sales. Julia was elected Huntington Fellow of the Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia, USA, in 1997. A seven-year commitment there saw her catalogue this collection and that of its sister organisation, the South Street Seaport Museum, New York. Julia has worked independently in her own studio in West London since 1997. Here, she and her small team give specialist conservation work personal and expert attention through restoration, scientific analysis and research. Damaged paintings, polychrome statues, over-mantles, traditional gold leaf & gesso frames, along with unusual and exquisite handmade cabinets all emerge transformed by the conservation work, or created from scratch, under her expertise, knowledge and care. Julia acts as an advisor, valuer and exhibition curator for public and private collections, in the UK and abroad. She is an elected member of The British Antique Dealers' Association, The British Association of Paintings Conservator Restorers, The Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars, and The International Institute for Conservation.  In addition to her role as a lecturer for The Arts Society, Julia also lectures for Sotheby’s Institute, Christie’s and Fine Art Societies at home and abroad.

It’s said in our theatrical history that there was a Golden Age of British Comedy. It ran from the 1970’s to the 1980’s and occurred as we started to drift away from theatres and radios, and found ourselves living through a wonderfully rich period of television comedy. Some say this period has never been bettered.

Tyler Butterworth grew up in a theatrical family and spent twenty five years as an actor working extensively in film, television, theatre and radio. He then worked as a development producer in television documentaries. Now, he produces walking audio guides to cities across Europe for private clients. He lives in Sussex where he walks on the South Downs and the South Coast.

Antoni Gaudí is well known and much loved. In this lecture, his work will be explored in detail. It will be shown how he engaged with nature in the most innovative and extraordinary ways. Inspired by honeycombs and spiders' webs, armadillo skins and mushrooms, trees and whales' bellies, he worked with extraordinary ceramicists, iron workers, tilers and decorative artists. We will look at his public and private buildings and his relationship with a wealthy and demanding patron. Private, shy and retiring he was also humorous and witty in his extravagant style.

Jacqueline Cockburn is Managing Director of Art and Culture Travel, running residential courses in Andalucía, Southern Spain in the art and culture of the region as well as curated tours to Madrid, Tangiers, Barcelona, Paris and Venice. Jacqueline is a course director and lecturer at the V&A and also lectures at The Royal Academy,  She has toured New Zealand and Australia for The Arts Society. Her specialist field is Spanish Art, but she also lectures on European Art 1790-1950. She is currently working on a Monograph on Goya (Prestel, Spring 2024)

The Maharajahs and Maharanis of India were semi-independent rulers, responsible for governing territories that were outside the direct control of the British Empire. They fascinated the British public, and functioned as powerful symbols of ‘exotic India’. This lecture draws on an extensive collection of portraits and photographs of Indian Maharanis. These images, and the costumes worn by the women they depict, are stunning works of art in their own right. They are also some of the earliest images of Indian women that portray them as powerful, dignified and educated figures.

Dr John Stevens gained his PhD in History from UCL, before going on to teach British Imperial History, Indian History and Bengali Language at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London). 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 is a regular visitor to India and Bangladesh and has lectured at numerous Indian universities. He also works as a consultant on Indian affairs and teaches the Bengali language to private students. He has appeared many times in the Indian media, and was a guest on BBC Radio Four’s In Our Time, discussing the poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore. 

British Pop artist Pauline Boty is finally the subject of monographs, a biography and a forthcoming documentary film (Summer 2024). Known in her life time as a painter contemporary of Peter Blake, Hockney, Derek Boshier, and others, she starred in Ken Russell's film 'Pop Goes The Easel' which profiled four emerging contemporary artists. She was also an actor (theatre, and with a tiny role in the film 'Alfie') and presenter, writing her own feminist monologues for radio.

Marie-Anne Mancie trained as an artist before gaining a DPhil in Art and Critical Theory from the University of Sussex. She has lectured in art history for the City Lit, Tate Modern, the Course, Art in London, V&A, Dulwich Picture Gallery, HENI films, Ben Uri gallery; she also runs art history study tours abroad for ACE and is a Director of InFems art collective for whom she curates exhibitions and writes.

The work of women photographers has often been unfairly neglected. This lecture seeks to correct that by examining the contribution of three outstanding British practitioners; Julia Margaret Cameron, a Victorian pioneer; Jane Bown, a brilliant portraitist; and Fay Godwin, who excelled in landscape photography. We also explore the work of two highly influential Americans: Dorothea Lange, who produced brilliant documentary images and Annie Leibovitz, who continues to both surprise and delight her audience.

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

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

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, he has toured the world with a magic cabaret show and a one man show entitled All Aboard. Bertie has written articles for newspapers and magazines on entertainment and theatre.

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

Adam Busiakiewicz is an Art Historian, Lecturer and Lutenist. After completing his Bachelor’s Degree in History at University College London in 2010 he held the position of Head of Historical Interpretation (curator) at Warwick Castle. He left the castle in 2013 after winning a full AHRC studentship to pursue a Master’s Degree in Fine and Decorative Art at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. He completed his doctorate in the History of Art at the University of Warwick in 2022 and became a cataloguer in the Old Master Paintings Department at Sotheby's where he remains a Consultant.

Adam has been a Lecturer / Educator at the National Gallery and Guide Lecturer at the Wallace Collection, where he has organised several events and courses on Music & Art as well as other subjects. He has also given talks and performances at the Royal Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art. 

Alongside his publications and scholarly articles, Adam is the co-editor of arthistorynews.com, one of the internet’s most popular art history blogs. 

British sculpture enjoyed a renaissance in the 20th century, with the likes of Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Caro and Elizabeth Frink leading the way. But who came afterwards and with what effect? Among the new generation of British-based sculptors were Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Anish Kapoor, Richard Long and David Nash. These days all six are world-renowned and are still working as hard as ever. Each in their own way is innovative, inspirational and deeply human. They have produced sculptures that are glorious, challenging and moving in equal measure. After looking at a range of their work, the lecture continues by reviewing the weird and wonderful sculptures that have adorned the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in recent years, and the new ones proposed for 2026-28. The lecture concludes by looking at what the future might hold. What new subjects, materials and methods of display – including digital – might be used? Who are the rising stars of British sculpture; and will women and people of colour get more of a look-in? 

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

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

The founder's grandson tells story of the publisher, Faber & Faber, and of the art used on its books, from its beginnings to the present day.

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. Toby has written three narrative histories: Stradivarius – Five Violins, One Cello and a Genius; Faberge’s Eggs; and Faber & Faber – The Untold Story, as well as a novel, Close to the Edge. Of these, only the obvious one is published by the family firm.

We are still living amongst the infrastructure created by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the 19 th century. He changed the face of the English landscape with his ground-breaking projects including railways, bridges, tunnels, ships, and grand buildings such as the magnificent Paddington Station. He merged art with engineering and science and was a pioneer and a revolutionary. And he was brilliant. We'll look at the man, his background, his work, and his legacy.

A Londoner with a contagious enthusiasm for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is also a freelance London tour guide. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. He is an Accredited Lecturer for The Arts Society and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.

There are four elements to this lecture. The first is a look at the emergence of the North in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Room at the Top, A Taste of Honey, This Sporting Life etc.. Second would be a look at Swinging Britain – Julie Christie in Darling, Michael Caine in Alfie, the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night and the James Bond movies. Third would be a look at the last days of Empire as seen in Tony Richardson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, Zulu and, comically, Carry On Up the Khyber. Finally the drastic change in the depiction of sex from Dirk Bogarde in Victim (1961) to Alan Bates and Oliver Reed famously wrestling nude in Women in Love (1969).

Colin Shindler has been lecturing on American and British social and cultural history for over 20 years. He was awarded his PhD at Cambridge University and subsequently lectured on film for their History Faculty between 1998 and 2019 exploring its relationship to modern British and American social and cultural history. He also teaches a variety of adult education courses at Madingley and Higham Hall in Cumbria and has lectured on cruises. Between 1975 and 1999 he pursued a wide-ranging career as a writer and producer in television, radio and film. He won a BAFTA award for his production of A Little Princess. His production of Young Charlie Chaplin was nominated for a US Prime Time Emmy. He wrote the screenplay for the feature film Buster and was the producer of various television dramas such as Lovejoy and Wish Me Luck. He has written three novels as well as numerous television scripts and radio plays but regards his greatest cultural contribution as choosing the title music for the police series Juliet Bravo. His most recent radio play Leni Goes to Hollywood, about the German film director Leni Riefenstahl, was broadcast on Radio 4 in August 2021. Other radio plays for R4 included How To Be An Internee (about P.G. Wodehouse) and one on Private Eye & The Profumo Affair (Rumours). Both were selected by the BBC as Drama Podcast of the Week He is the author of Barbed Wire and Cucumber Sandwiches: The Controversial South Africa Cricket Tour of 1970 which was short listed for the MCC/Wisden Cricket Book of the Year in 2021. He is best known for his childhood memoir Manchester United Ruined My Life which was short listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. His other publications include Hollywood Goes To War: Films & American Society 1939-1952 and Hollywood in Crisis: Films & American Society 1929-1939. I'm Sure I speak for Thousands of Others (2017) was a history of unpublished letters written to the BBC and his non-fiction novel Garbo & Gilbert in Love was an imaginative reconstruction of the infamous relationship of the two MGM stars. He is currently working on the television adaptation of his novel Hollywood Nazis. His next book is called Boom!: The Story of a Generation. 

In sixteenth-century Venice, Tintoretto, helped by his studio assistants, produced work so quickly that he was nicknamed ‘Il Furioso’ (“The Furious”) by his contemporaries. He had received almost no formal training. Without the benefit of an apprenticeship in the studio of a major artist he had to find work the hard way: by under-cutting prices and delivering faster than his competitors (who included Titian and Veronese).

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

Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries the glass makers of Venice were dominant in Europe. However, the movement of impoverished glass-making and glass-decorating families away from their virtual imprisonment on the island of Murano, enabled the city state’s influence to spread north of the Alps. Taking their artistry to Germany, the Netherlands, France and England and as far afield as Scandinavia, the Venetian craftsmen enlivened the industry Europe-wide. The local glassmaking traditions benefited greatly from the new Venetian skills and led to the absorption of styles and techniques which marked out each country’s production from the late 16th and 17th centuries onwards.

Leading international specialist, author, auctioneer and lecturer in British and European Glass, now retired. Formerly Managing Director (Bonhams Europe) and Director of European Ceramics and Glass at Bonhams Auctioneers, London (2007-2023). Formerly Head of European Ceramics and Glass at Sotheby's, where he was also a Director and auctioneer (1990 to 2007). He is responsible for numerous landmark auctions of European Glass both at Sotheby's and Bonhams. After studying History at University College Cardiff and the University of Washington and holding a postgraduate diploma in Museum and Art Gallery Studies from Manchester University, he began his career as a senior curator of ceramics, glass and silver at museums in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Glasgow (1979-1990). He is Hon. President of the Glass Society, Fellow of the Guild of Glass Engravers and a Fellow of the Corning Museum of Glass, New York.

The Impressionists were an innovative and radical group of artists whose 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 but 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.

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. During the coronavirus pandemic, Sarah moved her work online, offering art history courses to audiences all over the world. Sarah became an Arts Society accredited lecturer in 2021 and, since then, has given lectures and run study days for Arts Societies throughout the UK and in Europe. She is delighted to have been invited lecture for the Arts Society in New Zealand in 2024.

Can we appreciate art through music? Can music also be a visual experience? Picasso, Chagall, Braque, Gris, Klee, Miro and Villon provided the inspiration for a set of songs by the French twentieth century composer, Francis Poulenc. We will be performing these highly approachable songs to a backdrop of paintings by these artists. Poulenc was a close friend of the famous poet, Paul Eluard who furnished him with surreal texts to these songs. Together, Poulenc and Eluard would often frequent the studios of many Parisian artists. These songs will be interspersed with songs by Schubert and excerpts from Mussorgsky’s famous piano pieces Pictures at an Exhibition.

Stephen Baron is a well-known pianist, accompanist and composer and is also an experienced lecturer in music, having worked for seventeen years at Birkbeck College and several other London institutions. He has recently released a Chopin CD and also a CD of songs with Marguerite Duncan-Sutherland with whom he presents two lectures.

   Stephen's musical career has taken him in many directions. As a lecturer, he has covered the whole gamut of music history in a career where he taught at many London institutions including City Lit, City University, Museum of London as well as residential colleges throughout the UK. His performing career has taken him to several European countries including France, Belgium and Finland. In UK he has performed as both soloist and accompanist at London's Wigmore Hall. Purcell Room and several festivals. He has a busy teaching practice and for many years was Head of the Piano Department at North London Conservatoire. As well as performing, Stephen has written extensively about music and is the author of several books on piano teaching. Another branch of his musical activities are his unique musical shows and workshops based on classical piano music. These entertainments for children have taken him all over the country and abroad.

A king's favourite who amassed a great art collection.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was the favourite of King James I - who addressed him as ‘my sweet child and wife’ - and subsequently chief minister to King Charles I. Buckingham was a beauty, and he surrounded himself with beautiful things. He enjoyed exquisite clothes, like the fabulous white silk suit encrusted with diamonds that he wore to visit the Queen of France. He was a superb dancer. When he cut capers during a court masque King James startled visiting ambassadors by shouting out ‘By God, George, I love you!’ 

Lucy Hughes-Hallett's  book on the 17th century Duke of  Buckingham, The Scapegoat, will be published by Fourth Estate in October 2024. Her last non-fiction book,  The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio was described in The Sunday Times as ‘the biography of the decade’. It won all three of the UK’s most prestigious prizes for non-fiction - the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Costa Biography Award. Her other non-fiction books include Cleopatra and Heroes.  

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Historical Association, she has written on books, theatre and the visual arts for publications including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The New Statesman and the TLS. She was Chair of the Judges for the 2021 International Booker Prize. 

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 look at what his legacy, if any, might be. 

Pepe qualified as a London blue badge tourist guide in 2011, graduating at the top of the 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, he was a tour manager for 15 years, travelling extensively, all over the world.  

An exploration into the lives of Louisa May Alcott and her sisters. Each of these four gifted girls had a particular talent – literature, music, acting and painting - providing some of the inspiration and back-story for Alcott’s 19th century world-famous and much loved story of family life - Little Women.

Elizabeth has over 25 years' experience lecturing on a range of subjects including classical art and architecture, aspects of the visual arts and the links between literature and art. Has lectured for the WEA, the Universities of Bristol and Southampton Departments of Continuing Education, Royal Society of Arts, Dillington House, Jane Austen Society, Thomas Hardy Society, Brussels Brontë Society, Finzi Society, the Art Fund, Dorset County Museum and literary, historical and philosophical societies nationwide. Has also lectured on study tours to Rome, Aachen, Cologne, Brittany and the Dordogne, as well as all over the UK. Lectured in Australia and New Zealand in 2011 and is returning to Australia for two further lecture tours.

Viewing Goya’s paintings at the Prado in Madrid can be a confusing experience. It may seem that the many works attributed to him are actually by different artists: a painter of interior decorations, a portrait painter, a painter of nightmare visions. This talk tries to explain such contradictions and to indicate points of consistency that hold the œuvre together. Above all, Goya will be revealed as an observer, relentless in his desire to record the appearance and character of the people around him. I will suggest that in his later works he sought to look beyond external appearances; that the more fantastical paintings, far from being diversions from reality, actually grew out of his close engagement with contemporary society. 

Kathy is a lecturer specialising in 19th-century art history, and 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. She graduated from Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute, with a PhD on French 19th-century painters in Rome.

The temple of Dendur occcupies the west wing of this museum which was specially built to house this new arrival, gifted by Eygypt to the United States in 1967 during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. Another wing displays the celebrated early Italian Renaissance collection of Robert Lehman, scion of the now demised investment bank, while its expressionist holdings are one of the best in the world. Jayne Wrightsman donated all her fabulous Louis XIV furniture and bequethed $80 million dollars for further acquisitions. Countless other grandees of old and new New York society gave their prized possessions and paintings and this talk examines how the Met, from its founding in 1870, was and remains the greatest and grandest museum in America.

Previously Assistant Director of the British School at Rome from 1998 to 2002 and since 2004, Associate Professor at the University of L'Aquila. Part of his PhD (Courtauld Institute 1995) on Venetian architecture was awarded the Essay Medal of 1996 by the Society of Architectural Historians (GB). A Fellow at Harvard University's Villa I Tatti in Florence in 2003-2004, and in 2009 was the Paul Mellon Senior Visiting Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Amongst his many publications are, with Arnold Witte, Alois Riegl, The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome (2010), and Baldassare Longhena and the Venetian Baroque (2012). 

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. 

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

Angela has a BA(Hons) in Fine Art, a Diploma in Artistic Therapy (specialising in colour) and her paintings 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. 

Like almost everyone else, Monica has felt deeply shocked but also helpless in the face of recent events in Ukraine. But as an art historian with a long-standing interest in the relationship between art and war, art and displacement, art and adversity, one thing she CAN do is to alert people to the huge contribution refugees from conflict zones around the world, past and present, make to the culture of the country that takes them in.

This lecture will celebrate the achievements against the odds of artists as diverse as miniaturist Isaac Oliver in the sixteenth century, painters James Tissot in the nineteenth and David Bomberg and Lucian Freud in the twentieth - and many more as we move into the later twentieth century and beyond.

And as a small gesture, I’ll donate a portion of my fee for each lecture to a charity which supports refugees fleeing Ukraine right now.

Monica Bohm-Duchen is a London-based freelance lecturer, writer and exhibition organizer. 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, and has led many tours. Publications include Understanding Modern Art (1991), Chagall (1998/2001), The Private Life of a Masterpiece (2001),The Art and Life of Josef Herman (2009) and Art and the Second World War (2013). She is the initiator and Creative Director of the nationwide Insiders/Outsiders arts festival (see https://insidersoutsidersfestival.org/), and contributing editor of the companion volume, Insiders/Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their Contribution to British Visual Culture (2019).

So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

Sophie Mathews is a musician well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes and has become one of the foremost players of the instrument in the UK. She also plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife, crumhorm and recorder. She’s also one of a handful of British players of the baroque musette, an 18th century French bagpipe similar to the Northumbrian smallpipes.

When not touring with GreenMatthews, Sophie also makes instruments (she made her own baroque oboe) and works with respected luthier Tony Millyard on his flutes. Sophie is self-taught on all of her instruments.

This lecture will focus on the Queen herself and the jewels she owned, whether inherited or acquired as gifts, and those she gave to others, her family, her household, and her Highland servant John Brown. On State occasions she exploited her diamonds for political purposes, yet the sentimental jewels from Albert that she describes so touchingly in her journals, alongside keepsakes exchanged with her children and grandchildren, and the gifts to her bridesmaids and ladies in waiting, reveal an increasingly lonely person, for whom these gifts were an expression of love, sorrow and feelings she could not put into words. 

Since 1974 curator at the BM, specialising in jewellery, and in 19th-20th century decorative arts. Author of Cartier 1900-1939 (BM 1997) and organiser of the Cartier exhibition at the BM, co-author of the Catalogue of the Hull Grundy Gift of Jewellery (BM 1984), contributor to the Catalogue of Micromosaics in the Gilbert Collection (2000). Her latest book, Jewellery in the Age of Victoria, co-authored with Charlotte Gere, was published in 2010 and won the 2011 William Berger Prize for British Art History. She is a Freeman of the Goldsmiths' Company and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

In this lecture we examine the emergence of female stained-glass artists and their invaluable output for churches and domestic projects all throughout the UK. From familiar names such as Mary Lowndes, who set up the firm Lowndes and Drury to lesser known artist such as Isabel Gloag this lecture will look not only at their contribution but also their early links to the suffrage movement and beyond.

Anna graduated as a Blue Badge Guide early in 2013 and won an award for the best new guide at Westminster Abbey. Since then she has been conducting bespoke private tours for discerning visitors to London. She established her own guiding company Canvas and Stone Tours in 2018 (www.canvasandstonetours.co.uk)

Her background and passion is Art & History. She studied for a BA in History of Art & Italian at the University of Sussex and did an MA in Renaissance Decorative Arts & Design at the Royal College of Art. 

She worked for 6 years as a curator in the Sculpture Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum as well as in smaller collections such as the Henry Moore Family Trust. As well as guiding she is an adjunct lecturer at Richmond The American International University in London where she teaches undergraduates The History of London. 

Anna lectures regularly for art, history and academic societies as well as providing training courses and Continual Professional Development courses for students and guide members of the Institute of Tourist Guides.

Jim Thompson arrived in Bangkok as a US army officer in 1945, fell in love with it and stayed. Captivated by the beauty of Thai silk, an ancient craft in decline, he resuscitated it and made it famous, creating costumes for films and embellishing his house, which today is a museum. An aesthete and art collector, he created an exquisite home from six handcarved teakwood houses brought from the countryside and filled it with Asian art. Here he became a legendary host. This lecture tells the story of his achievements, showing the intricate process of silk production and its illustrious heritage, including royal robes and temple murals. It touches on films featuring his silks, reveals his house and its art and reflects on a life that ended with his mysterious disappearance.

Denise Heywood is an art historian, author, lecturer, photographer and journalist. She worked in Cambodia in the 1990s and has been a scholar of Southeast Asian art ever since. Her books include one on the Buddhist temples of Laos, Ancient Luang Prabang and Laos, also in French, and Cambodian Dance Celebration of the Gods, with a foreword by the daughter of King Sihanouk. Lectures for the Art Fund, the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies on their post-graduate Asian Art Course and for the V&A; also for organisations such as Madingley Hall (University of Cambridge), the British Museum, the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, Asia House, the National Trust, the Royal Geographical Society and has lectured worldwide for universities, museums, colleges, art institutions, literary societies and travel organisations. She writes for art, literary and travel publications and has appeared on television and radio. She has led cultural tours to Southeast Asia and France for the Royal Academy, the Art Fund, Asia House and many more and lectures on cruise ships. 

The art of Sandro Botticelli (c1445-1510) epitomises the golden age of Florentine Renaissance art. Under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici and his circle, he executed large mythological paintings – including the iconic ‘Birth of Venus’ and ‘Primavera’ – as well as devotional pictures and portraits for the palaces of his illustrious patrons. Botticelli enjoyed a high reputation beyond Florence, including the prestigious commission from Sixtus IV to assist with the decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In later years, Botticelli’s style fell out of fashion when he abandoned his depictions of idealised beauty for disturbing religious works influenced by the fanatical prior Savonarola.

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

Let Aaron Hunter introduce you to 19th century palaeontologist Mary Anning and discover how she searched the Jurassic rocks of England's south coast to unearth what where believed to be sea dragons and we now call marine reptiles. We will look the social history and influences of Mary and the 19th century scientists that she would have worked with. We will not only look at these spectacular fossil remains, but also see how palaeontologists have revealed how these ancient extinct animals lived. Our journey will take us into a distant past, from south west England to southern Germany where shallow seas were inhabited by fish lizards, marine crocodiles and floating islands of tree trunks with ancient starfish like animals attached to them. We will finish by looking at the animals that ruled the land for millions of years, the dinosaurs, and how the first palaeontologists discovered, reconstructed and named these amazing creatures from the Jurassic World.

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

From the early sixties, when he left the Royal College of Art more famous than his teachers, Hockney's paintings have shown a charm and humour that sets them apart from others of his generation. A naturally gifted draftsman, his love of ingenious visual devices has led him to experiment with a whole range of techniques, from stage design to coloured paper making. From the early abstract expressionist images, through his famous Californian scenes of swimming pools to the photo-montages of the mid eighties, this lecture follows the career of an artist whose wit and imagination has never faltered.

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

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

Andy Goldsworthy is one of the most interesting and innovative landscape artists working in Britain today. He mostly works in the open air, using natural materials such as leaves, ice, stones or trees to make exquisitely beautiful but usually ephemeral images in the great Romantic landscape tradition. Fortunately, although most of his works eventually disintegrate, melt away or fall over, they are all carefully photographed and included in extremely desirable and lavish ‘coffee-table’ books.

Frank  Woodgate is a lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, lecturer for the Art Fund, the National Trust, U3A and other organisations. he also lectures and runs courses at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. 

This really is a fascinating insight into the history of one of our greatest ever institutions - our Great British Public Park. We have all enjoyed them at some time in our lives but what do we really know about them? What are their origins? This talk illustrates their origins from the great Royal Parks to the Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century, to their Victorian heyday. It discusses what makes a great park, it’s ‘parkitecture’ with examples of lodges, lakes, bandstands, fountains, lidos, palm houses and to their wonderful floral displays, to their great decline in the sixties, seventies and eighties. However, the subsequent revival has led to a major shift in interest in our parks and once again we are very much in love with them. This is a highly illustrative lecture accompanied by slides with examples of parks from across the UK and their designs and architecture.

Paul Rabbitts graduated at Sheffield with a BA Honours in Geography followed by a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh. He is a qualified landscape architect and celebrated park manager and has worked for several local authorities across the UK, currently Head of Parks, Heritage and Culture at Watford. He is a passionate advocate for public parks and in particular, the Victorian and Edwardian bandstand and is a prolific author on the subject. His first of now 25 books were published in 2011 on the iconic bandstand and was followed rapidly by books on the Royal Parks, Great British Parks and ‘Parkitecture’, Grinling Gibbons and Sir Christopher Wren. He has just completed the first full biography of Decimus Burton, Gentleman Architect, due in late 2021.  Now a UK leading expert on bandstands he has been asked to assist in localised restoration projects nationwide and has been a regular and popular speaker on bandstands and public parks for many years.

Our discussion of the House of Fabergé’s British enterprise will delve into Edwardian appetite for objects of fantasy prized by Tsarinas.  Most of the firm’s Russian sales ledgers disappeared but those of the London branch, opened in 1903, document royal patronage and a ‘Who’s Who’ guide of Edwardian prosperity.   American heiresses and other prominent visitors flocked to the London salerooms while the branch supplied periodic trunk shows to delight buyers on the Continent and as far as Siam and India.  The role of the London business cannot be overstated and provides us, today, with insight into a society that was forever altered by the world events that followed.

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

Jane Austen’s novels are often characterised as lightweight romances dealing in trivialities and portraying a limited social sphere, reflecting the constricted circumstances of the author’s own life.  This lecture offers an alternative reading, suggesting that Austen is not interested in romance but moral challenge, not a mild spinster but a social commentator of contemporary relevance and by no means inferior to Eliot and Dickens by virtue of her limited canvas.  Mary will read and discuss extracts from Emma and Pride and Prejudice, considering questions such as how we should view the tedious Miss Bates to whom Emma is so famously insolent and how we should judge the over-excitable Mrs Bennet. 

Mary Sharp is an experienced broadcaster and teacher with particular expertise in literature and drama. She worked for many years for BBC Radio 4 producing some of its most popular programmes including Start the Week and Woman’s Hour before joining the senior management team as a Commissioning Editor. Mary has subsequently worked as a teacher and Director of Sixth Form at a leading girls’ grammar school. She now runs her own company 'Opening Up Literature' which offers literature courses for adults including studies of Shakespeare and Creative Writing. Her most popular course is 'Telling Tales' which explores how writers and artists have reinvented classical stories.

The Camden Town Group was an innovative circle of painters united by the desire to paint works of a modern character. They combined the techniques and visions of European Post-Impressionism with the changing modernity of Edwardian London. This lecture introduces the core members of the group, led by Walter Richard Sickert, and tells the story of their brief but significant association. We will examine the key themes addressed within their work: urban life, popular entertainment and the lower social classes, as well as Sickert’s infamous series of paintings inspired by the notorious Camden Town murder. 

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 has 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). In addition, she has published on Walter Richard Sickert and is co-author of Tate's catalogue of works by the Camden Town Group.

There have been pictorial representations of The Magi from as early as at least the 6th century, such as depictions in Byzantine ivories with origins in places such as Constantinople. Indeed, a vast array of artists, such as Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516), Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), Pieter Bruegel the Elder (active 1550/1; died 1569), Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Masaccio (1401-1428/9?), and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) to name but a few, have been clearly fascinated by story and its possibilities when it comes to visual depictions. However, these depictions over this vast period of time have been anything but consistent. All the aforementioned artists will be mentioned in this lecture, as I seek to will unravel the myth and the iconography behind the proliferation of the story of the adoration of the magi from its Eastern and pagan roots to its current Christian interpretation. To aid my examination of this story, and to trace the changes in iconography and depictions of the kings themselves, I will be illustrating it with a variety beautiful works of art, images made across many centuries that will illuminate this fascination as never before. The lecture will begin by looking at the etymology behind the term ‘magi’ and how it has come down to us and what is now means in contemporary society. 

This lecture will then look at the changing iconography behind the depictions of the story and the various meanings behind these changes in its iconography, not to mention the changes in the story of the adoration of the magi itself.  Moving on the lecture will then look at the origin of the names of the magi and the significance of their gifts to the Christ Child.  Following this exploration of the fundamental roots of the story I will then come to the issue of the inclusion of the black king, where he came from, why he would be included, how significant was he and how European artists tackled the problem of depicting this magus when they themselves had little or no knowledge of such people of colour.  

Finally, I will examining the actual origins of the story and how much of a bearing does that story, as we understand it, have on the actual story written in the Bible.  To examine this final question, I will contrast the relevant passages the biblical with images from many sources to help clarify the difference between those and the example images.  This final part of my lecture will set out to ask what it is we want this story to mean and why do we hold on to the legendary story rather than biblical tale in our mostly Western secular society.

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

The UK provides some of the biggest Ceremonial Events in the world and arguably the best in the world but why is that? How do the military prepare for major events such as State Opening of Parliament, State Visits, National day of Remembrance, Royal Weddings or even a State Funeral?

Dr Graham Jones started his professional life as a musician in the British Army and over a glittering career spanning nearly forty years he retired as the Senior Director of Music, Household Division and Director of Music, Coldstream Guards a position unequaled throughout military music in Great Britain. During his illustrious career he has recorded over 40 albums and been responsible for the largest commissioning programme of wind band music in recent history commissioning over 30 new works for wind band. He pioneered a music education programme with the University of Salford for military musicians resulting in a new Master of Music in performance degree. Graham was made a Member of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace for outstanding service to military music in 1993.

The fireworks that mark great events such as the opening of the Olympics, or even the start of a New Year make an enormous impact. Despite their brevity, the displays live on through film and photography. For centuries, the very fact that the fireworks themselves were seen only for seconds and yet cost large amounts of money provoked a strong desire to record them and a large archive of visual evidence remains. When rulers such as Louis XIV or the Russian Emperors began to see the propaganda value of circulating images designed to impress and amaze, fireworks graduated from popular entertainment to become a sophisticated instrument of statecraft. This lecture takes an exhilarating look at one art form that is never likely to gather dust in a museum. 

Timothy Wilcox is a writer, lecturer and exhibition curator with special interests in British art, in landscape and in watercolour painting. He was a museum curator in the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings following positions at the V&A, in Liverpool and Hove. As a freelance curator and lecturer since 1997, he has organised exhibitions on Laura Knight, Hilda Carline, John Sell Cotman and John Constable, at venues including Tate, The Lowry, the Wordsworth Trust and Dulwich Picture Gallery. He contributes regularly to the educational programmes at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and lectures at museums and galleries in Britain, Europe and the USA.

2022 is the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and 2023 marks the 70th Anniversary of her Coronation, events which are unique in the history of our nation.

This lecture celebrates these events and looks at the evolution of the coronation ceremony from Saxon times to that of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. It examines the different stages of the ceremony from the Recognition through to the Homage and explains the significance of the different items of the Coronation Regalia.

 Finally, the lecture gives an account of the ill omens and memorable mishaps which have occurred at coronations throughout the centuries and ends with the coronation of Her Majesty the Queen, the first to be genuinely witnessed by the people through the medium of television.

Barbara is an Historian and has been a London Blue Badge Guide since 1988. She is a lecturer, Examiner and Course Director on Blue Badge Guide Training Courses and an acknowledged expert on Royalty and Windsor Castle. She is the only Blue Badge Guide accredited to guide the Albert Memorial. She has conducted tours for American museums and alumni groups for the past 25 years.

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and Diego Rivera (1886-1957) have iconic status in Mexico. Rivera's intricate visual narratives, rich with allegory and symbolism, adorn the walls of public buildings. Inspired by Aztec and Maya imagery, and by early Italian fresco painting, his vast murals combine social criticism with faith in human progress. Kahlo's work, unlike Rivera's, is small in format. Arguably Mexico’s most original painter, she made herself the principal theme of her art. Her paintings reflect her experiences and dreams. This lecture surveys the work of both artists; it chronicles their turbulent marriage and Mexico's history after the 1910 Revolution. 

Chloe is a specialist in the art and culture of Latin America and has lectured in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. She has curated exhibitions, and assisted on TV documentaries for BBC and Channel 4 and has made collections in Mexico and Belize for the British Museum, and is Research Associate in the Department of World Cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum. In 2016 she was awarded the prestigious Ohtli medal by the Mexican government for her long-standing commitment to Mexican culture. Her many publications include Mexican Textiles (British Museum Press, 1990), Arts and Crafts of Mexico (Thames & Hudson, 1990), Focus on Aztecs and Incas (Watts Books, 1995), The Incas - The Ancient World (Wayland, 1998), Textiles from Mexico (British Museum Press, 2002), and Mexico: Clothing and Culture (Royal Ontario Museum, 2015). Has also published articles in travel guides, newspapers and magazines.

This talk looks at the extraordinary rise to prominence of China as a buying force on the international art market. The lecture looks at some of the most significant events of recent years in which Asian dealers and collectors have disrupted the international auction system in an effort to draw attention to treasures they believe were appropriated or looted during the era of colonialism. We look in detail at one of the most significant events of cultural plunder of the mid-nineteenth century when British and French forces ransacked the Old Summer Palace in Beijing during the Second Opium War of 1860, looting many of its imperial collections. This talk traces some of the extraordinary objects taken by British soldiers during that campaign and reveals the circumstances of how they came to be sold on the international art market, sometimes to considerable controversy. What have European and North American auction houses done to counteract the ‘guerilla’ tactics used on occasions by Chinese millionaires keen to make their presence known when these objects appear under the hammer? When legitimate purchases do take place, what impact have wealthy Asian buyers had on prices and broader market trends? This talk is full of surprises and throws light on a little-known aspect of the global art market today.     

Dr Tom Flynn is a UK-based art historian, writer and art consultant. He holds a First Class Honours degree in Art History from the University of Sussex, a Masters in Design History from the Royal College of Art and a doctorate from the University of Sussex. His interests include contemporary art; sculpture history; museology and the history of  museums; art crime; issues in cultural heritage; and the historical development and professional practice of the European art markets.  

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

Martin was a teacher Teacher at Marlborough College and then the Keeper of Fine Art at the Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery & Museums, Brighton. Since 1986 he has been Director of the Martyn Gregory Gallery, London & is author of several books.

From the early Kosovan silver mines which are mentioned in Dante, through the twentieth century politics over Kosovo’s mines which resulted in both a war and a golf course, a silver thread winds through Kosovo’s history. Its most intricate tanglings are in the country’s cultural capital, Prizren, where a seventh generation of filigree artisans use ‘filum’ and ‘granum’, zigzags, ‘mouse-tooth’ designs and other twists and turns to magic lacy creations from dull sticks of raw material. The results – in boxes, buttons, jewellery, religious ornamentation and the talismans of superstitition – are a fine narrative of Kosovo’s history and traditions.

Elizabeth studied at Magdalen College Oxford before training as a teacher and working in Lambeth, Hackney and Islington. She moved to Kosovo in 2006 and there worked with the Ethnological Museum in Prishtina and co-founded ‘The Ideas Partnership’, a charity working on education and cultural heritage projects. Elizabeth speaks fluent Albanian. She is a rRegular contributor to Radio 4 (Saturday Live, Excess Baggage, From Our Own Correspondent) and the BBC World Service. 

Take a trip into a horse drawn city just as a revolution was motoring in. Without its horses, London in 1900 would have ground to a halt – no buses, no deliveries, no goods trains. Alongside London’s growing dependence on technology was a vast increase in the demand for horses. This eye opener to a lost city mixes what's still there - the mews, horse hospitals, cab shelters and drinking troughs - with what is less apparent - like the horsepower each bus route needed, and why flogging a dead horse wasn't just a turn of phrase. In fact, in 1900 the end was nigh – as the internal combustion engine fired up and the Great War loomed. Buildings survive that evidence this extremely abrupt transition – from the factory that built the buses to the Edwardian multi-storey carpark the housed the taxi fleet. All this is brought alive through painters like Robert Bevan and early photographs

Charlie is a London walking tour guide and lecturer and highlights the social, architectural and artistic history of my home city. London is a city that he is passionate about, not least because it has a historic core larger and richer than any other world city. Charlie is a member of the City of Westminster Guide Lecturers Association and his talks focus on the forces that have shaped and changed this multi-faceted metropolis and the artistic and cultural heritage that this has given us. 

One of the most original British artists of his generation, Spencer’s art was dominated by his personal life and his profound religious faith. Cookham, his birthplace, was for him an earthly paradise whose people and surroundings possessed a mystical quality. This was the setting for many of his great religious works and he spoke of “the rich religious significance of the place I live in”. Despite the failure of his two marriages, he continued to believe in the power of love and some of his most important works were inspired by his feelings for the two women whom he married. The paintings inspired by his military service in World War I, concentrating on hope and redemption rather than on suffering, reveal a similar basic optimism. This lecture will examine the eccentric and visionary world of one of the most creative and imaginative British painters of the 20th century.

Val is a lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, also at many other London galleries. Former member of the teaching team at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Lecturer and runs courses at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.

Perhaps the best sculptor in wood ever to lift a chisel, Grinling Gibbons rose from an obscure apprenticeship in Rotterdam to reach the height of his profession in England, collaborating with Wren and Vanbrugh, building a consistently substantial business for his atelier, and becoming King’s Carver. Much of his work survives in country houses, large churches and state apartments, and in this talk Justin describes Gibbons’s life and career, and discusses the techniques he used to create a convincing illusion of reality. Illustrated with overmantels, picture frames and architectural mouldings from many private and public collections, this talk makes a case for identifying Gibbons as a major artist.

Justin is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Catalogue Raisonné Scholars Association, New York, and a member of The Arts Society Cheltenham.

Manga are Japanese comic books that tell stories predominantly through the use of images. Can the origin of manga be traced to the medieval picture scrolls?  The scroll format was the standard method for transcribing documents in East Asia from ancient times. Official documents and Buddhist scriptures written on paper were rolled up into a scroll for easy storage and transport. The surviving examples of emaki picture scrolls indicate that the scroll format first came into use for illustrating secular stories and historical incidents from around the twelfth century. In order to accommodate the long horizontal picture space of scroll, artists devised several pictorial conventions such as the omission of roof and the continuous narrative technique. These pictorial conventions formed the basis of visual language for the following centuries, and a huge number of beautifully illustrated emaki on various themes from romantic novels, war chronicles, biographies of famous monks, the origin of temples and shrines, to legends were created. This lecture considers how the origin of the visual language now commonly used in contemporary Japanese manga and anime may well be the medieval picture scrolls.

Dr Meri Arichi studied Art History in London and Florence, and worked at Christie’s in Kings Street, London, from 1989 to 1993. She returned to university to study Asian Art at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London in 1993, and completed a Post-graduate Diploma in Asian Art (1994), MA (1996) in History of East Asian Art, and PhD (2003) for her thesis on Shinto-Buddhist syncretic Art. She has been teaching History of Japanese Art in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS as a Teaching Fellow since 2007. She has also run courses at the Birkbeck College, V&A, British Museum, and the Courtauld Institute of Art Summer School. She has led tours to Japan and lectured on cruises.  

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. 

From cathedrals to churches, cottages to coastlines we are never very far from a place John Piper has painted, written about or undertaken a commission for. One of the most versatile British artists of the twentieth century - painter, designer, stained glass artist, photographer and writer on the arts - a man of many parts.

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

This is a narrative approach to the revival of 15th century carpets in Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan. Illuminations on vellum – containing the only surviving representations of textiles from this era – flourished, despite the Islamic prohibition on representative art – and are all we had left of Timurid Carpets until Chris Alexander’s workshop began to weave them to life again.  The lecture will examine the traditional role of carpet weaving and embroidery in the social lives of Central Asian women and how social and political influences led to the decline of textile production. How do the constraints of gender-inequality, corruption and the sourcing of natural dyes from neighbouring Afghanistan continue to challenge attempts at reviving the rich textile heritage of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand?

Chris was born in Turkey (hence his middle name) and spent his childhood there and in war-torn Beirut. After school, Chris spent two years at sea before studying Media and journalism at Leicester University. He then moved to Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, and becoming the largest non-government employer in town. After a year in the UK writing A Carpet Ride to Khiva, he moved to the Pamirs in Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down, spending three years there. Next came two years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut forest and establishing a wood-carving workshop. Chris has recently finished rowing and studying at Oxford and survived his curacy at St. Barnabas in North Finchley, but is now taking two years out to focus on writing fiction, with several novels published and more on the way. He also lectures for The Arts Society and leads tours to Central Asia to pay the bills. He is missing a large chunk of his heart which will forever remain in the -stans.

Giles Ramsay is an independent theatre director and producer who specializes in creating new work with artists in developing countries. He is the Founding Director of the charity Developing Artists (www.developingartists.org), a Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University and Course Leader in Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Giles has run theatre projects in Botswana, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Kosovo, Palestine, Mexico, Thailand and Zimbabwe and given numerous talks for institutions ranging from The Foundation for Mexican Literature in Mexico City to The Royal College of Physicians in London. He regularly lectures on the history and practice of theatre on the Queen Mary 2 as it sails from New York to the UK. Giles combines academic analysis with hands on experience to bring a unique insight to the world of the theatre.

John will give us an examination of Spode's productions during the Regency period, set in the context of the social, industrial and artistic background of the time, with an exploration of the sources of some of Spode's designs.

A wide variety of items made by Spode will be illustrated, from fine pieces in Bone China ( invented by Spode) which were made for Royalty and the wealthy, to the ubiquitous Willow pattern ( another Spode first) and the Blue Italian pieces, via dessert and tea services, lamps, candlesticks, puzzle jugs and chamber pots. There are also some items whose use and purpose eludes us to this day.

There will be walk on appearances by Sir Walter Scott, William Blake, Jane Austen, the cartoonist James Gilray, Lord Nelson, the portrait painter and pornographer Adam Buck, Tzar Alexander 1, JMW Turner, Claude Lorrain and many more. 

John has been one of our committee members from the formation of the Society including one of the leaders of our Church Recording group. John's other passion is Spode china and ceramics  and is a  Trustee of the Spode Museum. John has given lectures on Spode and ceramics around the country and has published research in various articles, his particular area of interest being in the early artists, about whom almost nothing was known apart from one or two names.

In the summer of 1888, Vincent Van Gogh left Paris and walked down south to the old Roman town of Arles. He was thirty five years old with less than two years left to live. Born in Holland, he had started his career as an art dealer, given it up to enter the church, his father’s profession, but in doing so had discovered his true vocation as an artist. Gruff, volatile and highly emotional, uneasy in company, with a corrosive sense of rejection from those around him, he’d developed a startling ability to communicate through his painting. In Paris he’d discovered the colours of the Impressionists and the draughtsmanship of the Japanese and the heavy tones of his early work had evaporated in a blaze of light and energy. Now in the south of France he hoped to set up a fellowship of artists. 

  It didn’t come to much, but later that autumn he was joined by Paul Gauguin. He was a very different character to Van Gogh, dramatic and self assured, flamboyant in his appearance and single minded in his determination to succeed, he had thrown up his highly paid job as a stockbroker to become an artist. Gauguin said he wanted a painting to express rather than just represent and, with this aim, his canvasses were filled with strange, mysterious and often magical sequences of colour in which the real world and the dream world combined with the distant and exotic memories of the Peruvian landscape that he had known as a small child. 

  It was a disastrous combination of personalities. The two artists at once admired each other and were irritated, maddened and exasperated by each other. Respect and loathing became one. Within two months Van Gogh broke, his mind giving way under his first attack of madness, and he was admitted to hospital, his ear mutilated in a sudden fit of remorse for the violent attack he’d made on his friend. Gauguin left for the north and the two men never met again.  

  This lecture reconstructs the lives and works of these two remarkable figures; it looks into the motives and ambitions that drove them and examines the few short weeks they spent together, a time that ended in Van Gogh’s confinement in a hospital cell, an isolation from which he would never fully escape and in which his final and most memorable paintings would be made.

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

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

We shall experience an on line tour of the outside and the inside of the Bank of England looking at its works of art including those sculptures and statutes of Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler, and the mosaics of Russian artist Boris Anrep.

The Art Society Lecturer Tim Kidd has been a London Blue Badge Guide and City of London guide since 2008. He presents Adult Education courses on London for both Surrey County Council and the London Borough of Kingston and is on the rota of guides for Lincoln's Inn, Middle Temple and the Mansion House.

What was the public reaction to jazz when it began to appear in Britain in the aftermath of the First World War? What did early jazz sound like and how did British musicians learn to play in the style? How did British artists and designers react to the new rhythms and colours of the music?

Following on from The Arts Society/Two Temple Place Rhythm and Reaction exhibition which Catherine curated in 2018, this lecture explores how jazz arrived in Britain and the impact that it had on musicians, artists and the wider public. The lecture is illustrated with examples of visual art, including works not shown in the exhibition, and recorded music examples.

Professor Catherine Tackley (née Parsonage) is a musicologist specialising in jazz. She is currently Head of the Department of Music at the University of Liverpool, UK. She has written two books – The Evolution of Jazz in Britain: c.1880-1935 and Benny Goodman’s Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert - and co-edited Black British Jazz: Routes, Ownership and Performance.

In 2018, Catherine curated Rhythm and Reaction: The Age of Jazz in Britain for The Arts Society, an acclaimed exhibition in London based on her research. In recognition of this and her work with many other organisations, Catherine won 'Outstanding Contribution to Public Engagement' in the University of Liverpool's Staff Awards in 2019. She is Musical Director of Dr Jazz and the Cheshire Cats Big Band.

This talk will offer an introduction to a fascinating Victorian politician who reportedly was Queen Victoria's favourite Prime Minister.He overcame a number of obstacles to achieve this position and described his own success as 'having climbed to the top of the greasey pole'.

Disraeli is one of our most famous previous local residents and lived at Hughenden Manor from 1848 until his death in 1881.There were many different aspects to the man:brilliant orator, canny politian, ladies' man, author and extravagant spendthrift- the latter a problem when one is chancellor of the exchequer!

The talk will cover Disraeli's political, personal and literary lives and hopefully give you some insight into the man. We will also look at the history of the manor house as well as at some of the treasures associated with the house which have a connection with Disraeli.

Fritha Irwin as well as being one of our member's,  is a guide at Hughenden Manor and is also involved in researching the Hughenden wartime story, when the RAF requisioned the manor to develope  a secret map making centre for Bomber Command 

Gillian has a BA (Hons) Latin and Ancient History from Exeter University, and then she branched out into archaeology. She is ex-BBC, a lecturer for British Museum and York University, an award winning writer and author who specialises in relating the ancient world to our modern lives, in person, in the field, on line and in the media (most recently on Radio 4). Publications include Visiting the Past: A guide to finding and understanding Britain's Archaeology and Roman Britain. Forthcoming Latin Yesterday, Today and For Ever, and A Mediterranean Tour: Not just a Load of Old Stones. She teaches adult education courses in Latin, archaeology and ancient history and has publicly lectures widely and passionately, on cruises and tours and for museums such as the British Museum & Ashmolean, national press, universities, literary festivals, and diverse societies including Classical Associations, the U3A and the National Trust. 

This lecture will tell the background to Janet's many adventures in the Indian Himalayas and in particular to the remote Spiti Valley, high in the Indian Himalayas, next to the Tibet Border.

The remote Spiti valley, with it's 10,000 people, became a 'Buffer Zone" in the 1960's as a result of the conflict between India and China - this meant that it was cut off from the rest of the world, with absolutely no visitors allowed, whether Indian or western.This was easy to enforce as the valley can only be safely reached during the short summer months when the high mountain passes that give access are open.

The traditional way of life, which was mediaeval and purely Tibetian Buddhist, continued in the valley, away from tourists, modernisation and government interference.

The political problems relaxed and the valley re-opened to the world in 1992 and Janet was  in one of the first groups of tourists to visit in 1993- the first of ten personal visits over the many years.

Janet will show you the landscape, the people and their extraordinary way of life, culimnating in her quest to see a snow leopard.

Janet Lancaster, first visited the Spiti Valley in 1993 and then , following early retirement, became an active volunteer in a small charity ( see www.Spiti.org) set up to help the people of the Spiti valley.This involved many visits, often alone, to the valley, to help with the organisation of the buidling of a local hospital, school, village clinic and community centre to improve the health and well being of the people of the Spiti Valley.

French 17th century chateau design owes much to one man; the ambitious visionary Nicolas Fouquet who is still somewhat of an enigma today. He seemed invincible but made one  grave error of judgement  which was to lead to his downfall. He employed the country’s best talent of the day to commission a spectacular chateau for himself. In doing so he was completely outshining the Sun King; Vaux le Vicomte presented a radical new look for the century whilst Versailles was nothing more than a humble hunting lodge at the time. The story that ensues is legendary.

This lecture explores innovative garden design and architecture together with lavish interiors to tell the shocking story.

Carole is an experienced guide and lecturer on combined history and art tours in France with 20 years experience. Having lived and worked on a number of bespoke river vessels and converted barges there she has used them as a platform from which to research her lectures. She uses art in all its guises to explore the characters who shaped France and likes to delve behind the scenes to discover hidden truths.

Even in ancient Rome people made complaints about the mid-winter Saturnalia celebrations remarkably like the ones we hear today about our commercialised Christmas. In a light-hearted historical review we discover some wonderful and some gloriously awful Christmas imagery, from Giotto’s painting of the first Christmas crib until Dickens meets Coca Cola amongst the movers and shakers who sometimes seem to have turned Christmas into Kitschmas. 

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David studied History at Oxford, and from 1968-82 worked for Nottingham Castle Museum. From 1982-98 he was lecturer in Museum Studies and Art History at University of Manchester. He published a book about museum practice with Manchester University Press, Exhibiting Authenticity 1997. 

Tom Way award winning wild life photographer will talk to us about the art of taking a wild life photograph.He is recognised for both the powerful and engaging portraiture of Africa's large mammals.Favouring a fine art black and white style of photography , his images are widely exhibited and galleries and exhibitions.

This image protrayed, entitled 'Thirst' was taken during 2017 when Kenya was experiencing yet another year of drought. Elephants were forced to cross this dry lake bed on a daily basis to seek sanctuary under the shadow of Kilimanjaro where the natural springs would provide the only source of water.

The Nutcracker has delighted audiences at Christmas for many decades yet it was deemed a failure at its first performances.  We take a close look at how this well-loved ballet now takes its rightful place on stage and how the music of Tchaikovsky along with story-telling, design and dance all come together to make the most magical escape for young and old alike.  Includes several performance video clips.

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Nigel Bates is the Music Administrator of The Royal Ballet and has been a performer for nearly forty years in and out of the Royal Opera House, including seventeen years as Principal Percussionist with the Orchestra. He has worked with many of the leading figures in the classical music industry and was also a producer for both the BBC's Maestro at the Opera and Pappano's Classical Voicesdocumentary series. He is a regular contributor to the printed and online content of the ROH.

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

Our first 'Extra' of the season,  Annamaria Dall'Anese ,London Blue Badge Guide will take us around Shalespeare's London.

In our virtual tour of Shakespeare's London we will discover the places where the Bard lived and worked , including Blackfriars Playhouse and the Globe Theatre.We will also geta taste of what going to the theatre and living in the British Capital was like at this time.

Time 11 am.

Annamaria Dell Anese gained a masters degree at UCL in medical anthropology before becoming a London Blue Badge Guide. She has previously interned at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York and worked as a tour guide at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

The ancient Egyptians had the most extraordinarily elaborate burial practices and funerary beliefs. In this lecture Lucia will explore the world of the Ancient Egyptian afterlife through the exploration of the art on the walls of their tombs. She shall focus on the tombs of the New Kingdom period (c1500-c1000 BC), when Egypt was at the height of its powers and prosperity under pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and Ramasses II.  She shall explore the scenes on the walls of royal tombs in the Valley of The Kings, the nearby tombs of their high officials, and the small but colourful tombs of the artists responsible for all funerary art on the west bank at Luxor during this time.  She shall also introduce you to the stunning array of funerary goods with which they chose to be buried - both a feast for the eyes and of much religious significance.

Lucia is an egyptologist who works in museums and on excavations in Egypt, but mostly lectures. She is an Honorary Research Associate at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology and has taught Egyptology at several UK universities. She works at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London & leads tours to Egypt. She is a former Director of Bloomsbury Summer School at UCL. She currently chairs the Friends of the Petrie Museum. her publications include Egypt: gods, myths, religion.

Famously, every morning of his adult life, Beethoven measured out exactly 60 coffee beans for his breakfast. A man who is capable of such  discipline over a cup of coffee , can surely apply that exactness elsewhere in his life; and in Beethoven's case, it was applied to his compositions. In fact, the detail found in his music is often so subtle, that most people don't even know it is there. The lecture explores Beethoven's genius as a writer of music, at the same time setting his extraordinary story against the backdrop of 19th century warfare, revolution and dramatic social changes.

It will be  250 years since the birth of Beethoven  on  the 17th December 2020.

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

Many of you may remember the study day back in February 2016 when Peter impressed us with a day of Vivaldi in Venice .

Members will be emailed with a link on the 12th July .

The Guggenheim, designed by the Canadian archtitect Frank Gehry and opened to the public in 1997, is one of the most exciting buildings of the 20th C. The lecture begins with an introduction to the Guggenheim Foundation and how it came about, and then moves on to describe the very particular circumstances that led to the commission in Bilbao. It examines the architecture of Frank Gehry using illustrations from his work in Europe and America, and describes, with some beautifully detailed slides, how the vast asymmetrical, apparently chaotic and fragmented structure was created. 

It also discusses the use of titanium - the unusual and eye-catching material which is used to clad a large surface area of the building. The lecture ends with an introdcution to the collection of paintings, sculptures and installations contained within the museum, covering the permanent collection as well as providing up-to-date information on current and future exhibitions. Projects for a new Guggenheim are also discusssed.

Members will be emailed with the link on the 7th June .

The ancient Egyptians had the most extraordinarily elaborate burial practices and funerary beliefs. In this lecture we shall explore the mysterious world of the Ancient Egyptian afterlife through the exploration of the art on the walls of their tombs. We shall focus on the tombs of the New Kingdom period (c1500 – c1000 BC), when Egypt was at the height of its power and prosperity under pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. The lecture will then explore the scenes on the walls of royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, the nearby tombs of their high officials, and the small but colourful tombs of the artists responsible for all funerary art on the west bank at Luxor during this time. The lecturer shall also introduce you to the stunning array of funerary goods with which they chose to be buried – both a feast for the eyes, and of much religious significance. 

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Lucia is an egyptologist who works in museums and on excavations in Egypt, but mostly lectures. She is an Honorary Research Associate at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology. She has taught Egyptology at several UK universities. She works at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London & leads tours to Egypt. She is co-Director of Bloomsbury Summer School at UCL & chairs the Friends of the Petrie Museum. Publications include Egypt: gods, myths, religion.

From cathedrals to churches, cottages to coastlines we are never very far from a place John Piper has painted, written about or undertaken a commission for. One of the most versatile British artists of the twentieth century - painter, designer, stained glass artist, photographer and writer on the arts - a man of many parts.

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

A strong influence on younger brother Felix, the teenage Fanny Mendelssohn composed and played prolifically.  Persuaded by their banker father to take a back seat, she married an impoverished artist who enjoyed collaborating with her. She continued to play and  compose; publishing works under her brother’s name and, after their father’s death, under her own. She died aged 42. Of her exquisite songs Felix said “They prove that true music exists….that the soul is made of music.”       

With songs by Fanny Hensel, portraits by Wilhelm Hensel, watercolours by Felix Mendelssohn and paintings by Caspar David Friedrich.

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Karin is known for her entertaining lectures on writers and diarists connected with the arts from the mid-18th to 19th century, and moving forward in time with Virginia Woolf. Extensive research into diaries and letters bring lectures to vivid life. Karin illustrates them with slides of contemporary pictures and portraits from varied sources

This lecture surveys the wealth of ‘hidden’ silver in the Oxford colleges. We will take a thematic look at over 600 years of silver, from the 1340 drinking horn at Queen’s to the most recent commissions from New College. • Donors and Gifts: Identity and Memory • Chapel Silver: Reformation and Reform • Silver and the Civil War: Sacrifice and Survival • Drinking and Dining: Structure and Community • The Local Connection: Keeping & Care of College Silver • Revival and Reproduction: Attitudes to the Antique • Contemporary Commissioning: The Story to Date 

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After reading History at Cambridge, completed her doctorate at the Royal College of Art, and while studying a partnership of 18th century silversmiths learnt the basics of the craft in the College studios. She has curated many exhibitions connected with silver both historic and contemporary, including Twentieth Century Silver at the Crafts Council in 1995 and A Treasured Inheritance 600 Years of Oxford College Silver at the Ashmolean in 2004. In 2005 she was a member of the first Jerwood Prize panel for British Metalworking. Has taught for many years at the universities of Warwick, Essex, the V&A and Oxford. She curated an exhibition on Gold for the Goldsmiths' Company (where she is a Freeman) for 2012. She is a Curatorial Advisor to the Asian Trade 1650 1850 project at the University of Warwick, and owner and curator of the Swaledale Museum in Reeth, North Yorkshire.

Raphael is often referred to as one of the three giants of the High Renaissance in Italy, alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, yet his fame and position in the canon of art history may seem hard to explain. He made no discoveries like those of his celebrated rivals: although undoubtedly a draughtsman of exceptional talent he made no great progress in the fields of anatomy, science and construction nor did he share the wide-ranging talents which Leonardo and Michelangelo demonstrated in so many disciplines. Furthermore, his career was short-lived as he died tragically young, aged 37. Yet in this relatively short space of time Raphael managed to move from humble initial commissions in and around his home town of Urbino to the covetous position of one of the leading artists at the court of the most important patron in Italy, Pope Julius II, for whom he created some of the most sublime and influential frescoes of the early 16th century. We explore how Raphael achieved this extraordinary rise in status, tracing the development of early works and influences to the masterpieces created in Rome.

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

A lecture on the development of the chair in terms of its construction and style from ancient times through to the 19th century and also its use as a symbol of power and authority in courtly ritual.

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Janusz is a freelance lecturer and researcher in English furniture history and also an antique dealer.

While plein-air painting came into its own with the art of the Impressionists, the tradition of making images of landscapes outside is one that can be traced back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, indeed Karel van Mander, in 1604, encouraged artists to go to the countryside: “There we will look at many views, all of which will help us to create a landscape…” This lecture explores the historical practice of making landscape paintings out of doors from the late 16th century to Impressionism. 

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Aliki studied at The Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford, The Slade School of Fine Art, London and the Courtauld Institute, where she was awarded a distinction for her masters in 17th century painting. A regular freelance lecturer for the National Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, Tate Galleries, Courtauld Gallery and Wallace Collection. An Associate Lecturer for the University of the Arts London, and teaches courses on the Slade School of Fine Arts Summer programme. Also regularly exhibits her photographic work internationally.

Stonehenge is the most celebrated and sophisticated prehistoric stone circle in the British Isles. This lecture explains why Stonehenge must be regarded as architectural in its layout and construction, embodying  techniques that for centuries convinced antiquarians that it could not have been built by ‘primitive’ ancient Britons but must be a product of ‘sophisticated’ Romans.

We then explore how, over the last two centuries, this iconic structure has inspired painters, potters and poets. Blake, Turner, Constable and Moore are amongst those who have all been drawn to this magnificent ruin, resulting in a diverse catalogue of images and impressions. Finally, we will look at Stonehenge as a global icon and how it’s instantly recognisable stones now grace tea towels in Wiltshire, phone cards in Japan and stamps from Bhutan. 

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

J.M.W. Turner is often thought of as the great artistic traveller of his age, wandering around Britain and Europe in search of inspiring landscape scenery. Yet one of his most enduring subjects was found on his doorstep in his native city of London. This lecture examines Turner’s engagement with the River Thames. Living by or near its banks throughout his life, the artist was endlessly fascinated by the river. From Oxford to the Estuary, he variously explored its views and moods, its cultural and national symbolism, and its historic and contemporary associations. Rich in meaning and visual effects, the Thames became one of Turner’s most frequently depicted subjects and by the end of his life had inspired some of his most innovative and celebrated works. 

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Nicola 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 has 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). In addition, she has published on Walter Richard Sickert and is co-author of Tate's catalogue of works by the Camden Town Group.

Kate has worked as a curator of textiles and dress for over 20 years and is now the Deputy Curator at the Totnes Fashion and Textile Museum. Is a Senior Lecturer in History and Theory at Falmouth University and a Special Visiting Lecturer for the DeTao Masters Academy in Shanghai. Publications include  An Easy Day for a Lady (Costume Journal, 2008) and  Empire Dressing - the Design and Realisation of Queen Alexandra's Coronation Gown (Journal of Design History, 2012). Kate's book on Queen Alexandra's wardrobe will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2018. She is one of the youngest practitioners of the dying art of Honiton lace.

In 1924 an exhibition in London of Canadian landscapes moved the critic C. Lewis Hind to celebrate them as ‘the most vital group of paintings produced since the war—indeed, this century’. These landscapes of Canada’s northern lakes and rugged backwoods, painted in a boldly Post-Impressionist style, had been produced over the previous decade by a collective of Toronto-based painters known as the ‘Group of Seven’, whose aim was to forge a national school of landscape painting. This illustrated lecture introduces the painters—including their talismanic colleague Tom Thomson, who died in 1917—and examines how they stormed the conservative bastions of Canadian art to establish themselves on the international stage as practitioners of a distinctive avant-garde.   

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Ross King is the author of eight books on Italian, French and Canadian art and history. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he has won both the Governor General’s Award in Canada and the BookSense Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the United States. Born and raised in Canada, he has lived in England since 1992. He has lectured widely in both North America and Europe, and given lectures and guided tours in Florence, Rome, Milan, Paris and Giverny. 

An account of how the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk created a chantry trust with the blessing of the King Henry VI. It will look at the way in which they reordered an Oxfordshire church and modelled it on the Suffolk church of Wingfield, built a school and almshouses and an extraordinary palace, favoured by Henry VII and Henry VIII. The lecture will look at them in a historical context and in particular how they sought favour, power and influence. It will discuss the wonderful late medieval alabaster tomb of Alice with its rare cadaver figure, thought by many to be the best example of its kind in Europe. 

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Jonathan graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Theology, and has worked for Bonhams, Sotheby's and the Fine Art Auction Group; also headed up the 19th Century Furniture Department for Sotheby's in Europe. Has lectured in America, Singapore and Taiwan and written numerous articles, including contributions to British Furniture 1600-2000 (2005), and published Great Exhibitions: London, New York, Paris and Philadelphia, 1851-1900 (2006). He is a fellow and past chairman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Fine Arts and Antiques Faculty. He now runs his own valuation and consultancy business and also works part time as a priest in the Anglican Church.

This lecture discusses the nature of oil painting materials, from the Middle Ages to the present day, and common problems associated with the ageing and deterioration of, and damage to, easel paintings. These can be on canvas, panel, board or paper in a range of mediums: oil, acrylic, egg tempera, or mixed media. Problems can involve natural deterioration and neglect, accidental damage, vandalism and even war –the most surprising event being a large hole caused by a Turkish cannon ball going through a picture in the 18th century!! Modern ‘museum standard’ approaches to conservation and restoration will be illustrated with detailed slides ranging from early Italian religious paintings in egg tempera via rapid oil sketches on paper by John Constable to 20th century British paintings and modern abstract works. Hints and advice on the general care of paintings in homes is given in liberal doses throughout! 

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Sarah Cove is an accredited paintings conservator-restorer, technical art historian and lecturer with more than 35 years’ experience working on paintings for the heritage and private sectors. She is based in London and Falmouth and is a specialist in British portraits, 19th- 20th century British landscapes and oil sketches on paper and board. In 1986 she founded the Constable Research Project and she is now the leading authority on Constable’s materials and techniques. She has appeared in several TV programmes for the BBC notably Constable in Love with Andrew Graham-Dixon and twice on Fake or Fortune? where she was instrumental in the discovery of 3 ‘lost’ Constables. Other research interests include Tudor and Jacobean Portraiture, the 19thcentury Newlyn and St Ives schools and early-to-mid 20th century British painting generally. She has been a lecturer for The Arts Society since 2003 and is an experienced international speaker having lectured independently at major public and gallery venues across the UK, USA, Australia and NZ. Her presentations are lively and enthusiastic as she speaks without notes with an inimitable passion that comes from presenting her own work and research with wonderful images.

For many people, Kashmir conjures up a beautiful valley surrounded by the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas, for others it is a land of conflict. But what is less well known is that it has been of historic artistic importance for nearly 2000 years. This lecture introduces the astonishing diversity of arts and crafts produced in this tiny area, influenced by Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic cultures.  It explores Buddhist sculptures, Hindu temples, great Islamic gardens, paintings, calligraphy, Moghul carpets and Kashmir shawls. Despite its troubled history, Kashmir has fostered a unique environment of artistic diversity and religious co-existence.

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Freelance lecturer, art consultant and exhibition curator specialising in the art and culture of Tibet, the Himalayan areas and Mongolia. Initially based at the V&A, but also worked with the Central Asian Department of Bonn University, the Orient Foundation, the Royal Academy, Tibet House, the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside and Asia House. In addition to lecturing for The Arts Society, she lectures for museums, universities, Asian art societies, and private associations. Guest lecturer and tour guide on numerous trips to the Himalayas. Edited Masterpieces of Mongolian Art: Vol 1 and has published many articles in the field of Buddhist art and culture.

The story of one of the greatest creative collaborations of all:  Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, whose team of dancers, choreographers, and costume and set designers transformed expectations of what a night in the theatre could be, and the circumstances behind its most notorious stage work of all. Sandy examines the build-up to the Rite of Spring’s premiere in Paris, takes a look at the original costumes, plays excerpts from this fascinatingly inventive score, and explores what divided opinions of that first-night audience quite so dramatically.  No, nothing could top the riot at the Rite in 1913…

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After studying music at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of music presenters on BBC Radio 3. He enjoys a varied career that embraces broadcasting, conducting, playing double bass and communicating his passion for music. His radio series for Ireland’s RTÉ Lyric FM, Great Moments in Classical Music, recently won silver in the Specialist Music category of the PPI Radio Awards. He regularly leads cultural lecture holidays, and is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music. More information is at www.sandyburnett.com.

Years of working as an artist within the Criminal Justice System in England and Germany have given Angela unique insights into the destructive and costly cycle of crime, prisons and re-offending. In this thought-provoking talk she offers a deeper understanding of the minds, lives and challenges of offenders. And, with extraordinary slides of art projects and prisoner’s art, she demonstrates how within the process of creating art of any discipline, there are vital opportunities for offenders to confront their crimes and develop the key life skills so essential in leading a positive and productive life.
A frequent response to this talk has been “I had no idea!” and indeed it casts light onto areas of our society where the Arts are not only visual, decorative, or commercial, but absolutely vital, hugely relevant and potentially life-changing.
This talk is moving, informative and very original. Interspersed with personal accounts of humorous or slightly horrifying situations, Angela talks have kept audiences across the country engrossed. 

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Angela Findlay is a professional artist, writer and freelance lecturer with a long standing interest in the role the arts and the creative process can play in bringing about changes, on a personal level or within societies. Her long career of teaching art in prisons and Young Offender Institutions in Germany and England, followed by her role as the former Arts Coordinator of the Koestler Trust in London, gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation. She is currently advising the Ministry of Justice and presenting the case for the arts to be included in their new rehabilitation and education policies.
In the past decade Angela’s Anglo-German roots led her to discover and research Germany’s largely unknown but fascinating post-WWII process of remembrance. So completely different to the British one, the arts once again play a huge and vital role in expressing the apology and atonement that underlies the country’s unique culture of memorials and counter memorials.
Angela has a BA(Hons) in Fine Art, a Diploma in Artistic Therapy (specialising in colour) and her paintings are widely exhibited both nationally and internationally. 

Silver is a light, malleable and therefore amazingly flexible metal. It is capable of being worked into a variety of forms and decorated with many different techniques. When polished it takes on a brilliantly reflective surface, mirroring its surroundings, which combined with its intrinsic value makes it one of the most desirable materials known to man. The stylistic development and social role of silver balances between the forces of continuity and change. Continuity of skills, tools and techniques versus changes in social custom and style, and hence usage. What is the role of wrought silver in modern life? We will look at a series of case studies involving the commissioning of silver to find out how contemporary goldsmiths are adapting to changing social custom and style, creating exciting pieces in response to new demands. Some goldsmiths' have turned towards industrial design, some to fine art and sculpture, while others are exploring alternative metals and unusual partnerships. As Graham Hughes, Director of the Goldsmiths' Company (1968-1972) commented 'the key to artistic style and technique is confidence and that is bred by patronage'. 

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After reading History at Cambridge, Helen completed her doctorate at the Royal College of Art, and while studying a partnership of 18th century silversmiths learnt the basics of the craft in the College studios. She has curated many exhibitions connected with silver both historic and contemporary, including Twentieth Century Silver at the Crafts Council in 1995 and A Treasured Inheritance 600 Years of Oxford College Silver at the Ashmolean in 2004. In 2005 she was a member of the first Jerwood Prize panel for British Metalworking. Has taught for many years at the universities of Warwick, Essex, the V&A and Oxford. She curated an exhibition on Gold for the Goldsmiths' Company (where she is a Freeman) for 2012. She is a Curatorial Advisor to the Asian Trade 1650 1850 project at the University of Warwick, and owner and curator of the Swaledale Museum in Reeth, North Yorkshire.

In 1866 William Bürger, a pseudonym for Étienne-Joseph-Théophile Thoré (1807-69) published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts his article called “Sphinx of Delft” about the mysterious painter called Vermeer, and so began the modern-day revival of Vermeer. However, this lecture will begin by tracing Vermeer’s origins, his early training and influences, and how he came to the genre of painting domestic interiors. The lecture will look at his earliest known paintings and how he gradually migrated to the genre of domestic set-piece paintings we know him for today. This lecture will also set Vermeer in the context of contemporaneous Dutch artists and contemporaneous Delft artists; tracing the early beginnings of the town of Delft, its rise in prosperity and the low points of the town also. We will see how Vermeer went from being referred to as ‘the excellent and famous Vermeer’ in 1669 to being declared bankrupt towards the end of his life in 1675. How did it all go so wrong, were the signs there at the beginning or was there some great disaster in his life that prompted his financial demise? Finally this lecture will look at the late 19th century and 20th century revival of Vermeer that became the cult of Vermeer, and why this cult of Vermeer endures to this day.

Short Bibliographic Reading List:
Brown, Christopher, Dutch Paintings, (National Gallery Publications Ltd, 1983)
Brown, Christopher, Utrecht Painters of the Dutch Golden Age (National Gallery, 1997)
Durparc, Frederik J., and Wheelock, Arthur K., Johannes Vermeer (Royal Cabinet of Painting, The Mauritshuis and The National Gallery of Art Washington, 1996)
Liedtke, Walter, with Plomp, Michel C., Rüger, Axel, Vermeer and the Delft School, (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001) Mac Laren, Neil, revised by Brown, Christopher, The Dutch School: 1600 – 1900, (National Gallery Publications Ltd, 1991)
Spicer, Joaneath A. with Orr, Lynn Ferderle, Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht During the Golden Age (Yale University, New Haven and London, 1997)

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Leslie Primo holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. Was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and 2007, and gives lectures and guided tours, plus special talks, at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. Also lectures at the City Literary Institute, and has presented a series of talks at the National Maritime Museum and the Courtauld Institute.

At the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, Glasgow was the centre for an avantgarde movement of art and design in Europe, referred to as ‘The Glasgow Style’. This lecture will look at the fascinating, but little known, contribution that women designers made to art and design in Glasgow in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Women such as Margaret and Frances Macdonald and Jessie Marion King produced exquisite metalwork, jewellery, textiles and book designs and received international recognition for their work. The lecture will also discuss their achievements in the wider context of women in art and design at the time. 

Dr Sally Hoban is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and has lectured extensively on art,design and antiques throughout the UK. Sally has broadcast on BBC Two, BBC Four and BBC Radio 4 and her publications include Miller’s Collecting Modern Design. 

This lecture illustrates the potential of the book as a three dimensional object, from pop-ups, hidden fore-edge paintings, peep-show books, to books with hidden compartments and intriguing surprises. Dominic will show work from his favourite book artists, including examples of experimental book structures he has collected and some he has made himself as part of his interest in this creative genre. Seen together they represent over two hundred years of questioning the notion of ‘what is a book?’ 

Dominic is a bookbinder, artist and teacher. He first learned bookbinding at 16 from Benedictine Monks at Douai Abbey in Berkshire and later at the London College of Printing. He has worked at the V&A, and for various binderies in London, New York and San Francisco, and spends part of the year teaching across the USA. In June 2013 he won first prize in the prestigious Sir Paul Getty International Bookbinding Competition & his winning binding was acquired by the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

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.

Sarah is a novelist, broadcaster and critic & read history at Cambridge, then worked for many years as a cultural journalist in radio and television on such programmes as Kaleidoscope (BBC Radio 4), The Late Show (BBC 2), and Night Waves (BBC Radio 3). She has published thirteen novels, taught renaissance studies at Washington University, St Louis, is a visiting tutor on the MA in creative writing at Oxford Brooks.

The history of English garden design can be told in different ways but rarely can it be told through the lens of one garden. The Oxford Botanic Garden was founded at the beginning of the 17th century and its original design bears all three hallmarks of 17th century design; symmetry, symmetry, and symmetry. Through the next 400 years successive Horti Praefecti (head gardeners) changed the features reflecting the art of gardening, and very occasionally the science of botany. This talk will look at how the art of gardening has changed in four centuries in four acres of Oxfordshire and how the Oxford Botanic Garden now reflects garden design at the beginning of the 21st century.

Timothy Walker was director of the Botanic Garden in Oxford from 1988-2014. During that time the Garden was awarded four Gold Medals at the Chelsea Flower Show. In 2010 Walker presented a three-part series on BBC4 on the history of Botany. He is currently college lecturer and tutor in plant sciences at Somerville College Oxford.

           Introduce a friend to The Arts Society at an evening lecture

 on

Michelangelo: Paper, Stone and Flesh  given by Daniel Evans on Tuesday 27th March 2018

                    at The Hub, Easton Street, High Wycombe HP11 1NJ

     7.00 for 7.30 p.m

Michelangelo was grumpy, dirty, ugly and tight-fisted, but produced sculpture, painting and architecture of such startling beauty and originality that two biographies were written in his lifetime, we know exactly what he looked like in life and at his death, and today we have over 1400 surviving letters in his own hand.

Over 450 years have passed since the death of this talented yet tempestuous superstar. This lecture sets out to examine several of his drawings, a little of his poetry and a number of his finished and unfinished works with the aim of all but summoning the great man to the room.

Our lecturer: Dan is an educationalist with a passion for all things Italian. Formerly Head of History of Art at Wycombe Abbey School, Dan is now Deputy Head of Sixth Form at Cheltenham College. He has been lecturing since 2001, and spent 9 years working as a senior lecturer, tutor and tour guide for Art History Abroad. He was voted the British winner of the World Guide of the Year Awards in 2008 and, alongside his lectures and special interest days, he also organises educational study trips for members of The Arts Society to a range of destinations in Italy. 

£5 FOR A DOUBLE TICKET (MEMBER OF THE ARTS SOCIETY PLUS NON MEMBER FRIEND)

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APPLICATION FORM

Name:………………………………………………………………………………………….

Address:……………………………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………

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To which member society of The Arts Society do you belong?…………………………….

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For a double ticket please send £5 to Lisa Green, 26 Brands Hill Avenue, High Wycombe HP13

5QA. Cheque made payable to The Arts Society Chiltern Hills Area

For further details please email lisachilternhills@gmail.com, or phone 01494 521750 

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 times. This lecture places artists like Van Eyck and Memling in their turbulent context.

Christopher has lectured at the National Gallery, the Courtauld Institute, King’s College, London, Westminster Abbey, and the University of Rikkyo in Japan, and at churches and cathedrals throughout England and in Italy. He was, until recently, Bishop of St Albans and a member of the House of Lords.

Africa is not generally associated with great art but Nigeria is associated with 3 major artistic traditions; the 2,000 year old Nok terracottas of the north, the Bronzes of Ife from the C12-C15 and the later Benin Bronzes.  The art, the technology (using the lost wax process) and the cultural relevance of the Bronzes will be illustrated and discussed in the lecture. 

Richard lived in Nigeria in the 1960s, near Ife, and became familiar with the art of Ife and Benin and the role they played in society. He always sought to understand the arts and culture of the country or region he was living or working in since they illuminate the past and help to explain the present. 

The Victoria and Albert Museum is the world’s greatest museum of the decorative arts. It has an unparalleled permanent collection of silver, ceramics, furniture and art.

This lecture goes from the founding days of this great museum, its evolving architecture to the generous bequests and collections. The lecture will include stories of the most famous exhibits, from the Gloucester Candlestick to the Ardebil Carpet, Giambologna’s Samson Slaying the Philistine and Dale Chihuly’s chandelier.  

Anne lectures regularly at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She guides private evening tours of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace and at the Queen’s Gallery. She is a visiting lecturer at The British Museum, Dulwich Picture Gallery and The Courtauld Gallery. From 1981 to 1995 she was a specialist in European and Asian ceramics at the head offices of Bonham’s and then Christie’s and has visited and catalogued many private collections of ceramic in Britain and Europe. From 1995 to 2002 she was resident in Shanghai, China where she gave lectures to the international community of diplomats and expatriates.

“…in which it is the very trickery that pleases me. But show me how the trick is done, and I have lost my interest therein.”    Seneca (3BC-65AD)

From the beginning of time the fascination with magic and the impossible has been widespread. Magicians were known as ‘Jongleurs’ lest they be sentenced to death for ‘witchcraft and conjuration’ under the edicts of Henry VIII.  Even today, in our super technical age of ipads and broadband, the wonder and surprise of magic is as popular as ever, not forgetting the Harry Potter craze. This is a whistle stop tour of the history of mystery from 3000BC to the 21st century and be careful! – you might be amazed and bewitched. 

Bertie is a member of the Inner Magic Circle, with Gold Star-an experience lecturer and has toured the world with a magic cabaret show and a one man show entitled ‘All Aboard‘.

The extraordinary story of the rebuilding of the cathedral, as a symbol of peace and reconciliation, and its inspiring commitment to the modern. Experience the work of many of the world-class artists associated with its treasures including Epstein, Frink, Piper and Sutherland.

Alexandra is an official guide and lecturer at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Guildhall Art Gallery plus Pallant House Gallery Lecturer & a CityLit. Institute Art History tutor. She is also a qualified guide to the City of London.

As adults we carry in our heads huge numbers of images from childhood, and some of those most deeply etched come from illustrations in books that we read as children. Images of ‘Tigger’ and ‘Toad’ or even ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ will probably remain with us for ever! In addition to a wide range of examples John will examine how illustrations contribute to the development of understanding and how the interaction of image and narrative creates such powerful memories. 

John was Director of Studies in the School of Education at the University of Bath, with responsibility for the professional development of teachers. He has worked extensively overseas as an educational consultant. He has developed a particular interest in presentation skills including the role of pictures in learning.

Many of our towns and cities have a remarkable range of art, not only in galleries but outside in the streets. In this lecture we tour around the UK discovering some of the most interesting works. They range from huge and expensive commissions to unofficial graffiti, which is sometimes audacious and often playful, but they all have a place in our society. We look at why art is there, how it has developed over the years and discover many hidden gems. 

Ian is a Londoner with a passion for art and architecture. He is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul's Cathedral, and gives regular tours at each venue. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and a member of both the City of London and Westminster Guide Lecturer Associations. His clients include NADFAS and WEA groups, Transport for London, the National Trust and London Open House. In 2012 he established a weekly independent art lecture group in Richmond and gives talks on a variety of subjects.

American glass artist Dale Chihuly (born 1941) is the super-star of the glass world. With his passion for glass, his larger-than-life personality, his skills as a natural leader and educator, and his constant exploration of glass's luminous qualities and colour possibilities, he creates glass sculptures which are extravagant, colourful and spectacular. Following two accidents he is no longer able to hold a blowing iron and now employs two glass teams to blow his visions from his spontaneous drawings, themselves works of art. His glass magic has transformed the studio glass movement and altered our visual perceptions of this extraordinary material forever.

Charles is the Former Director of Broadfield House Glass Museum (1974-2003) and one of the top authorities on glass in the country. He is the author of 'British Glass 1800-1914' (1991), '20th Century British Glass' (2009) and contributor to numerous books and magazines. He lectures internationally to glass museums and collector's societies, and is a Fellow of the Society of Glass Technology, a member of the Arts Advisory Board at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland. He is currently President of the Glass Association  which he was instrumental in founding.

When you look at a painting, what do you see? A view, a portrait, something abstract maybe? It is, of course, nothing of the sort: just an illusion made from a skin of paint!

Buon fresco allowed artists to decorate the vast new Christian basilicas, Renaissance palaces and civic halls. Tough egg tempera was ideal for altar panels. Rich gouache was the perfect paint for illuminations on vellum and paper. Without oils the Mona Lisa would not be mysterious, without modern manufacturing processes Impressionism would never have existed, and Jackson Pollock could not have ‘splashed and dripped’ without industrial car paints. By examining some key works from Western Art history we will discover the important role materials and their techniques play in our understanding and enjoyment of Art.

Lynne currently works as a freelance lecturer in the history of Drawing, Painting and Printmaking. For many years she lectured for the universities of Sussex and Bristol where she introduced 'Understanding Art' to the Lifelong Learning programme and residential summer schools. She gives talks, lectures and guided tours to a wide range of organisations and institutions including ARCA colleges, the National Trust, National Gallery, art museums and art societies. Also, when time permits, she works as a professional artist specializing in oil painting and etching. Solo and group shows have included the RWA, British Museum and the Barbican.

Unfortunately this lecture subject has had to be changed from "The Scottish Colourists" because the lecturer, Vivienne Heffernan, is ill. 

However we are very pleased that Rosalind Whyte will introduce us to individual artists and groups that remain scandalously under-represented in art collections south of the border, including the Glasgow Boys, the Scottish Colourists and Charles Rennie Macintosh.

Rosalind has an extensive background in Art History and is an experienced guide and lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, the Royal Academy, Greenwich and the Dulwich Picture Gallery, with a growing career as lecturer on cruises.

This lecture looks at Art Deco in terms of its historical context (a new style which emerged after WW1) and its design characteristics.  It will trace the various sources of inspiration – such as the avant-garde in fine art, Africa, Aztec and Mayan cultures, Egypt etc. – and follow the evolution of the style from its grand statement of luxury at the Paris Expo of 1925 to the later forms based on technological and material developments in the late 1920s and 30s.

Viv is an arts journalist, lecturer and curator with over 20 years experience in the art market. She has written for national and international arts publications, and regularly writes artists’ catalogues. As UK consultant to Singapore gallery One East Asia, she has co-curated many exhibitions of Southeast Asian modern contemporary art in London and Singapore.

This lecture will introduce some of the most important sets of tapestries in Europe including the Lady and the Unicorn, those commissioned by the Dukes of Burgundy in the 15th century, Rafael’s designs for Pope Leo X, Henry VIII’s Abraham tapestries, Louis XIV’s 17th century series around the Seasons and the Months made at the Gobelins factory, and on to the 21st century set commissioned by the Queen of Denmark. Susan will explore the designs and the craft of tapestry and why it has been the most expensive form of artistic expression until recent times.

Susan is the Chief Executive of the Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. She has a longstanding interest in textiles, especially in the development and use of colour, and published her first book, The Story of Colour in Textiles (Bloomsbury) in 2013.

How was Napoleon such an excellent self-promoter? What was it that drove him? What on the other hand drove his wife? And what was it that made Napoleon and Josephine one of the most followed couples in history?

These questions can be answered, giving a true insight into their character, by exploring the collections at the Chateau de Malmaison.  The Estate, which was bought by the couple as their private retreat, away from the Pomp and Ceremony of the Official Residences, was made into a National Museum in 1905 amassing a huge collection of their possessions. Paintings, personal objects, complete room layouts, and some magnificent pieces of porcelain are just some of the things on display. 

Carole lives in High Wycombe and has over ten years' experience as a guide and lecturer on combined history/art tours in France. Life aboard river vessels on the Seine, Oise, Marne and Rhone offered her the chance to explore and research further certain riverside locations linked to art, which helped develop in-depth knowledge. 

Ever since the mid 19th century, modern art has been (and remains) a popular subject for satire. Constantly changing and often seemingly bizarre, it made an irresistable target for a host of cartoonists, humourous writers and wise-guys.

Some artists such as Gustave Courbet welcomed their attention, in the belief that there was no such thing as bad publicity; others like Jackson Pollock were hurt by what they took to be an attack on their artistic integrity.

The cartoonists themselves could be funny, cruel, and at times extremely perceptive.  From the French humourist, Cham, through the gifted work of The New Yorker, to the Daily Telegraph’s brilliant cartoonist Matt, they provide an absorbing, illuminating, and above all, funny, revealing and sidelong view of 150 years of modern art.

Reading List

New Yorker Book of Art Cartoons (New Yorker, 2005)

This is Modern Art  Matthew Collings (Seven Dials, 2000)

The Shock of the New  Robert Hughes (Thames & Hudson, 1991)

Barry is a historian of British Art with a particular interest in the work of JMW Turner, on whom he has published widely, including the volume in Phaidon’s Art & Ideas series. He was the BBC’s script consultant and expert commentator for Rolf Harris’s programme on the Fighting Temeraire and contributed to the making of a BBC documentary called The Genius of Turner: Painting the Industrial Revolution.  He has also published a study of John Constable’s paintings. His interests and his teaching extend to modern and contemporary art in all its forms. He is currently Associate Lecturer with the Open University and lectures on a freelance basis for NADFAS, Christie’s Education and other organisations.

Russian Art was firmly rooted and sustained by the traditional icon which was at the heart of Russian culture both in churches and in domestic settings. Catherine the Great used art to further the cause of both herself and the Russian Empire. The 19th century saw a veritable explosion in art,  much of it influenced by the West, but developing its own styles and certainly with subject matter, in particular the Russian landscape, which was unique, and still too little known outside its homeland. There are remarkable portraits of the great authors and intellectuals as well.  Russian art rapidly developed idioms of its own.  Some of the greatest of the early 20th century artists, from the painters Kandinsky to Malevich, to photographers such as Rodchencko, were stylistic and intellectual innovators who are still generally revered.

Marina read History at Harvard and Cambridge. She has been an art critic for over forty years for various publications, including four years for the Financial Times, and eighteen years for the Sunday Times. She has curated several exhibitions – fine arts, photography and decorative arts. She has written several books, including "100 Masterpieces of Art", "The Artist as Photographer", and, with Charlotte Gere, "Great Women Collectors". She has edited "Art Quarterly" and "The Review", and has been Chair of the Friends of the V&A, a member of the Arts Council and of the Crafts Council.

Grayson Perry, who won the Turner Prize in 2003, is close to becoming a “National Treasure’.  His beautiful, finely-crafted pottery, the decoration of which often has a sting in the tail, and his colourful, imaginative and often amusing tapestries are enormously popular in the fine art world.  Initially considered as something of a rebel, he is now an acknowledged member of the Art Establishment.  He has exhibited at the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, was appointed a Royal Academician, and delivered a hugely popular series of Reith Lectures for the BBC in 2013. In this lecture we will look at his work in some detail, as well as considering his cross-dressing alter ego, Claire, and his fondness for his childhood teddy-bear, Alan Measles.

Frank is a very experienced Lecturer and Guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and for Tate on cruises. He lectures regularly at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and is a scriptwriter for the Living Paintings Trust (art for the blind and partially-sighted).

The Flying Scotsman, Golden Arrows, Belles and Pullmans; no wonder Betjeman still stands in awe at St Pancras. Covering the Golden Age of British Railways, the era of the Big Four 1923 – 1947, this lecture celebrates the most romantic period of our British travel history. You’ll see how the best travel posters connect with your heart and your mind, and how they have closely reflected the evolution of British holidays.

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

British photography enjoyed a golden age in the 1960s. Young, talented newcomers broke out of the conventional studio to revolutionise perceptions of fashion, portraiture and popular culture. This lecture looks at a range of superb images from photographers such as David Bailey, Terence Donovan, Brian Duffy, Tony Ray-Jones and Jane Bown.

Brian’s chief interests lie in photography, architecture and history, and he combines all three in his lecturing career. He has taught at University College London since 1997 and became a NADFAS lecturer in 2003. He is a member of the Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography and an exhibition of his own photographs has been staged at UCL. In an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the skills of some great photographers of the past, he has begun to work with a pre-War Leica camera, as used by his great hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others.

Carl Larsson (1853 – 1919) is Sweden’s best known artist and together, he and his wife Karin, blended traditional native designs with the then unfashionable 18th century Gustavian style and the newly emerging Arts & Crafts influences. This eclectic approach resulted in a distinctive and influential style. His intriguing watercolours of the house and family spread this style throughout Europe, and it is today enjoying a new lease of life in the IKEA age.

Ann has a wide experience lecturing both at home and abroad. Her earlier work includes cataloguing English watercolours and drawings for the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, research for the Paul Mellon Foundation and university lecturing.

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

Reading list:

E. Panofsky: The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer (Princeton, 1955).

J.C. Hutchison: Albrecht Dürer. A Biography (Princeton, 1990).

G. Bartrum (ed.): Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy (British Museum Exhibition catalogue, London, 2002).

H. Wölfflin: The Art of Albrecht Dürer (Phaidon, 1971).

F. Anzelewsky: Dürer: His Art and Life (New York, 1980).

J.L. Koerner:  The Moment of Self-portraiture in German Renaissance Art (Chicago, 1993).

Leslie holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. He was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and 2007, and he gives lectures and guided tours, plus special talks, at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, the City Literary Institute, and at the National Maritime Museum and the Courtauld Institute.

Beginning with a survey of the Anglo Saxon and Norman work in Oxford, we trace the development of the Gothic style from the 13th to the 17th century in the college and public buildings of the University. Indeed, Oxford has been claimed as the finest Gothic city in Europe.

We look at the great mediaeval college foundations of Merton, New College, All Souls and Magdalen in detail. Important public buildings include the church of St Mary the Virgin and the Bodleian Library.

Passing to the Renaissance period, we look at Wolsey’s and Henry VIII’s Christ Church (albeit with its Norman cathedral) and Archbishop Laud’s St John's.

We then examine the works of Sir Christopher Wren (Tom Tower, the Sheldonian Theatre).

Finally, we reach the Gothic Revival with Balliol and Keble Colleges and the later foundations of the twentieth century.

Alan Bott read Modern History at Merton College, Oxford (Scholar). Elected a Bodley Fellow of the College in 2001. During 40 years' service with P&O, his work took him around the world 42 times (twice by sea). Extra-mural lecturer on the History of Architecture for the Universities of London and Surrey 1963-present. NADFAS lecturer 1997-present, having already visited 240 Societies. Cruise lecturer. Author of 10 books on architectural and antiquarian subjects. Chairman Godalming Museum and Churchwarden Godalming Church.

Armour was one of the great Renaissance art-forms, but today it is usually overlooked by art historians, scholars and enthusiasts.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries almost all of the richest, most powerful noblemen in Europe could be counted as dedicated patrons of the armourer’s art. This was an intensely personal art, both expressive and decorative. Its essence was the creation of a living sculpture, a process which demanded not only fantastic skill in the sculpting of iron and steel, but also mastery of all decorative techniques available to the Renaissance metalworker. The achievements of virtuoso master armourers like Kolman Helmschmid, Konrad Seusenhofer, Filippo Negroli, Pompeo della Cesa and Jacob Halder were not however just about splendour and richness. They also embodied more complex messages, about status and the social order, divine power, and attitudes and identities. 

Dr. Tobias Capwell is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and an internationally-acknowledged expert on Medieval and Renaissance weapons.

His book, Masterpieces of European Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection (2011), was named Book of The Year by Apollo Magazine on 2012.

He appears regularly on television, most recently as presenter and armour advisor on Richard III: The New Evidence (2014).

After 15 years of research, his book Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450 was published in 2015; it will be the first of three volumes exploring the story of armour in late medieval England.

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

Orpheus could quite literally charm the birds out of the trees with his music - yet he failed to bring his beloved Eurydice safely out of the Underworld. All he had to do was to lead her up to the light without looking back at her... Not surprisingly the tale of how the legendary singer lost his lover through a single glance has inspired much great music (including the first masterpiece of opera, Monteverdi’s Orfeo), and visual artists too have responded to this tragic story of love and loss. Explore the wealth of art and music on the theme of Orpheus, with a rich array of paintings and musical examples from Monteverdi, Gluck, and Offenbach, even taking in the Can-Can!  

Dr Lois Oliver studied English Literature at Cambridge University, and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, completing an MA in Venetian Renaissance Art and writing her doctoral thesis on The Image of the Artist, Paris 1815-1855. She worked at the Harvard University Art Museums before joining the curatorial team at the V&A and then the National Gallery where she co-curated the major exhibition Rebels and Martyrs: the image of the artist in the nineteenth century (2006) and a series of touring exhibitions. Currently Assistant Professor in History of Art at the University of Notre Dame in London, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, she writes audio and multimedia tours for clients including the National Gallery, National Maritime Museum, Royal Academy and Tate, and has appeared on TV programmes for the BBC and Channel 5, as well as broadcasting on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4. Also a keen violinist, she plays regularly with orchestras including the Endellion Festival Orchestra

The city of Dresden celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2006. Renowned as the ‘Florence of the North’, its eighteenth century buildings have been faithfully restored. The famous Green Vaults display an array of dazzling artefacts. The Old and New Masters Picture-Galleries are among the finest in Europe. Superb Oriental and Meissen porcelain is on view in the historic Zwinger Palace, a jewel of Rococo architecture. Not far from Dresden, we shall also look at the charming town of Meissen and its famous factory as well as the Saxon rulers’ hunting-lodge at Moritzburg and the Decorative Arts Museum at Pillnitz on the Elbe.

Reading:     Nicolai, 2005, Dresden 800

Eveline is a freelance lecturer in Fine Arts and a tour-guide to Berlin, her home city, Dresden, Munich, Côte d'Azur, Normandy and New York. She is currently Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Dresden Trust in the UK and so this lecture is on a subject very dear to her heart.

After the final defeat of Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo the British were able to visit the Continent legally after 22 years of almost continual war.  One of the principal areas that interested them was Normandy because of its proximity to England and its close ties with English history.  The Normandy coast was particularly popular, as was the picturesque city of Rouen, (far more popular with British artists than Paris).

This lecture looks at the leading British and French artists who painted and drew Normandy in the early nineteenth century, including Cotman, Bonington and Turner.  It also shows how these men paved the way for later artists who painted Normandy, such as Boudin and Monet.

Stephen Duffy was educated at New College, Oxford, and was formerly Senior Curator of the Wallace Collection where he had particular responsibility for exhibitions and nineteenth-century paintings. He has given countless tours of the Collection for visiting groups (including NADFAS) and many lectures on its art and other related subjects. His latest publication, The Discovery of Paris, is a book on early nineteenth-century watercolour views of Paris by major British artists.

In Ancient China, the phoenix, a bird of myth and legend, symbolised the Empress, consort to the Dragon Emperor. This lecture focuses on three individual Empresses who lived in the Forbidden City from the 18th century to the end of empire in 1911. Empress Xiaoxian was consort to the Qianlong Emperor, one of China’s greatest art collectors. The formidable Dowager Empress Cixi ruled the Empire ‘from behind the curtain’ during the 19th century. Empress Wanrong, known as Elizabeth, married Puyi, the last Emperor of China. She was beautiful and received a Western education yet died an opium addict in war-torn China. Their history reaches back to a golden age of art patronage and expansion of the vast Imperial collection, through the opium wars and twilight days of Empire, to the Warlord era of the 20th century, when the art collection was plundered by Palace eunuchs. Anne explains that the phoenix is also the Imperial art collection itself, which was reborn from the ashes of Empire and civil war. After the 1949 Communist victory, Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and his charismatic Shanghainese wife, Soong May Ling, described as China’s ‘Last Empress’, brought thousands of crates of treasures to Taiwan. The former Imperial collection is now scattered and housed in China, Taiwan, and in museums and private collections in the West.

Anne Haworth is a Lecturer at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a Guide for private tours of the State Rooms and The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace. She is Lecturer in British Painting for American students resident in London. In the Autumn of 2002, she catalogued the collection of Chinese porcelain at Kensington Palace, and from 2002-2005, she was a committee member of the French Porcelain Society. From 1995-2002, she was resident in Shanghai, China, where she visited ancient kiln sites and lectured to expatriate groups. From 1981-1995, she trained and became a senior ceramics specialist at Christie's and Bonham's head offices.

Welcomed to London at first with open arms, and bringing with them luxury skills in great demand in an ever wealthier London, the Huguenots’ fortunes in England fluctuated wildly. This talk will cover their early 18th-century houses just outside the City that still stand, how they were decorated and how they were lived in. Sue will also discuss and illustrate the fashionable and exquisite patterned silk dresses of the period – who designed and made them. She will explain how and why the trade finally died out, with some weavers literally dying in poverty at their looms. One of the weavers’ houses can still be visited today, restored as faithfully as possible to illustrate how the houses originally built for their first Huguenot tenants were used and changed over the centuries.

Originally in art and design publishing (Phaidon and Yale University Press), Sue Jackson now lectures for the National Trust, U3A, City Literary Institute. A qualified Blue Badge Guide, she gives guided walks on various themes and has published work on the lost world of the River Fleet.

Thomas Heatherwick has won many awards and honours: in 2004 he was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry; he won a Gold Medal for his British Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010, and in the same year he was designer of the year in Japan. His work received world-wide coverage in 2012 when he designed the Olympic Cauldron at the London Olympics. The giant ring of fire rising up from the centre of the Olympic Stadium was a memorable sight, and in the lecture we’ll look at how he achieved that spectacular moment. Heatherwick and his studio team have also designed the new red London bus, the first new design of such an iconic symbol of London for 50 years. A part model for the bus was featured at the acclaimed exhibition of their work at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2012.Heatherwick’s approach is multi-disciplinary, and with his team he blends architecture, sculpture and engineering to produce brilliant results, from large urban spaces to individual items such as his Zip Bag for the French firm Longchamp. Heatherwick is now in demand all over the world, and the lecture will highlight the broad range of his imaginative designs.

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

An accomplished botanical painter and inveterate traveller, Marianne North (1830-1890) led an unconventional life, painting of rare plants in their natural habitat. Born in Hastings, the daughter of an MP, she initially contented herself with the wild flowers of England, but after the death of first her mother and then her father, her pursuit of plants took her round the world. Japan, Java, Ceylon, Canada, India, Brazil and Jamaica were just some of the countries she penetrated into the remote regions in search of rarities to paint in her own distinctive style. Over 800 of her paintings can still be seen at Kew Gardens, displayed in a unique Victorian style totally unfamiliar to modern eyes. Many show scenes of a wild landscape and flora now obliterated by urban sprawl, leaving an invaluable record of a long vanished world. This talk will explore both the life and social context of Marianne North and the eventual creation of her gallery, and will include an examination of why her paintings troubled deeply conservative Victorian society.

Dr. Twigs Way is a garden historian, author, researcher and lecturer. Her interest in garden history grew out of her original career in landscape archaeology and landscape history, and blossomed during a period of lecturing for the University of Cambridge. She now carries out freelance research in the history of specific gardens and parks for bodies such as English Heritage, the National Trust and various private clients. She is especially interested in social and political aspects of the garden, as well as the portrayal of parks and gardens in art and literature. In addition to this very serious side of her work she likes to explore the quirkier and less trammelled aspects of gardens in the past and her publications include Allotments, History of Garden Gnomes, History of Women in the Garden, and the illustrated A Nation of Gardeners.

Temples, Tombs and Treasures: In Search of the Queen of Sheba The fame of the Queen of Sheba has lasted across the many intervening centuries since she made her epic journey from her distant land to the court of King Solomon. A passage in the Bible's Book of Kings has immortalised this Queen and the journey that she made, her camel caravan laden with gold and incense as gifts for the king of Jerusalem. In this talk Louise looks at how the Queen of Sheba has captured the imagination of great artists, inspired epic films and has led archaeologists to go in search of her land - a search that has led to discoveries of great temples, tombs and treasures. Louise Schofield has been working in Ethiopia since 2006, directing archaeological, conservation and development projects in that extraordinary country. Her current archaeological site - in Tigray province, northeastern Ethiopia - is a temple, probably dedicated to a moon god and dating to the 5th century BC - a time when this area of Ethiopia formed part of the kingdom of Sheba. Suggested Reading Stuart Munro-Hay, Ethiopia: an Unknown Land (2002) St John Simpson (ed), Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen (2002)

Having been Curator of Greek Bronze Age and Geometric Antiquities in the British Museum for thirteen years, Louise Schofield now works on international archaeological projects, principally in Turkey and Albania. She lectures for a number of universities and institutions, including Florida State University, Christie's Education and cruise companies.

In 1963 Euston Station with its famous Arch was wantonly destroyed. St. Pancras, just along the road, was to have been the next casualty, but a campaign led by Sir John Betjeman secured a reprieve. Today, the newly refurbished St. Pancras, an invigorating mix of Victorian Gothic fantasy castle and innovative engineering, stands proudly as a gateway to Europe. London’s stations have always been powerful and iconic structures, used each day by many more people than pass through our dull airports. We will explore their history and architecture, from Charing Cross to Waterloo via Victoria and and Liverpool Street. In particular, we will revel in the splendours of St. Pancras both inside and out, including the memorial to Sir John Betjeman. We will also look at the architecture of London’s underground station, from “Metroland” and the interwar Piccadilly Line masterpieces to the gleaming might of the new Jubilee Line creations such as Canary Wharf and Canada Water. Also featured will be other stations both at home and abroad, York, Newcastle and Grand Central Station in New York, and a colourful array of posters which were designed to encourage the public to travel. Suggested Reading: Gordon Biddle: Britain’s Historic Railway Stations (2003) Simon Bradley: St. Pancras Station (2007) Ken Powell: The Jubilee Line Station (2000)

Andrew Davies is a highly popular lecturer who, among other things, visits the Gerrards Cross Summer School every July with a sell-out Study Day. He is an Extra-Mural Tutor for London, Essex and The Open University, the author of 9 books, including The East End that Nobody Knows, a frequent contributor to radio and television, and has lectured all over the world. He is also well known for organising guided walks, especially in and around London, to complement his lectures.

This lecture is based on the Islamic manuscript, the Padshahnama (chronicle of the King of the World) which is the unique official history of the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan, who ruled India from 1628 to 1658. He is best remembered for the building of the Taj Mahal as a tomb for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The Padshahnama is illustrated with 44 of the finest Mughal paintings in the world. They vividly depict the very dramatic events in the Emperor's reign and the years before it. Most of the important individuals in Shah Jahan's court can be identified and the paintings tell the remarkable story of the intrigues of court life as well as the Emperor's Coronation, royal weddings, bloody battles and hunting scenes. The book is the finest Islamic manuscript in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle and was given to King George III in 1797 by the ruler of the north Indian state of Oudh.

Following service in the Foreign Office, including postings in India and Spain, Oliver Everett was Assistant Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales, 1978-80; and then Private Secretary to Diana, Princess of Wales, 1981-3. He was Librarian in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, 1984-2002. He is now Librarian Emeritus following his retirement in 2002. He wrote the official guidebook and audio tour on Windsor Castle, taught a course on its history and advised on a television programme about it. He wrote articles on the Royal Library and helped with two books on aspects of the Royal Collection. He is advising on a possible history series for television. He lectures widely in Britain and abroad and also on cruise ships.

The Queen and Prince Albert, keen to promote English artists, made friends with Edwin Landseer, who charmed them with portraits of royal children and dogs, and with his ability to draw two different things at the same time with different hands. Another artist friend, Franz Xavier Winterhalter, painted the Queen without sentimentality, both to her satisfaction:“I am a very modern kind of person”, and to that of ousted artist Sir George Hayter: “the expression is disagreeable but it is exceedingly like!” This lecture also touches on Prince Albert, Thomas Cubitt and Osborne House; and on the national craze for everything medieval, in which the royal couple shared.

Karin Fernald is known for her entertaining lectures on writers and diarists from the late 18th and early-mid- l9th centuries, connected with the arts. Some subjects are artists themselves; others have strong family connections. Extensive research into diaries and letters bring them to vivid life. Karin has been a NADFAS speaker for 25 years, and has lectured in Australia, New Zealand, Brussels and Germany and Japan. Karin began in the theatre, working as an actress with Sir Ralph Richardson and Robert Morley. On TV she has played many roles including Anne Forsyte in The Forsyte Saga. On radio she compiled a programme on potter Bernard Leach for BBC R3, short-listed for a Prix Italia. She has published a children's book on Queen Victoria's fraught childhood, 'The Dumpy Princess', which was short-listed for a 'Young Quills' literary award

Linda Smith is a qualified art historian with a broad range of knowledge, and a special interest in British Art, and the art of the twentieth century. She offers illustrated talks, presentations and study days on a variety of art-historical subjects, and has taken on various types of assignment at a wide range of venues, including public galleries, secondary schools, universities, cruise liners, and private arts societies in the UK and overseas. She is an accredited NADFAS lecturer, and an experienced gallery guide, especially at Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, where she works as a Guide and Lecturer.

Peter Scott is a lecturer and guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, Bristol Art Gallery and the Towner Gallery, Eastbourne. He also lectures to several other organisations, including the National Trust, U3A branches, NADFAS groups and local societies and charities. He is an Art History Tutor for the Workers Educational Association (WEA), running 10 week courses and day schools.