Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) was a key player in early twentieth century avant garde art, design and literary/theatrical circles in Paris. As a widely travelled polymath, Dufy's charismatic personality, wit and curiosity about the world was infectious. His imagination and technical virtuosity - across a range of media including painting and lithography, posters, book illustration, theatrical set design, textiles and fashion, ceramics and large murals - cut across all conventional boundaries. Whether a small intricate woodcut illustrating a love poem, or the truly gigantic 1937 world fair murals depicting the role of electricity in the modern age, the effect is mesmerising.

Preceding this lecture will be the AGM. For full details and links to the key documents click HERE

This lecture is a biography of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, with a particular emphasis on the development of his rheumatoid arthritis and how that affected his life and his art.

The Stirling Prize has celebrated the very best contemporary buildings since 1996. Some winners, such as Norman Foster’s Gherkin, of 2004, have become enormously successful and appreciated by the wider public. Others have proved harder to love. This entertaining lecture looks at some of the hits, some of the misses, and several buildings that arguably should have won, but didn’t.

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

Jonathan Deeming RIBA SCA AABC

Historic architecture expert Jonathan Deeming, Surveyor to the Fabric of Canterbury cathedral, will explore the 2019 fire’s impact, the reconstruction process, and lessons from major repairs at Canterbury. 

Jonathan is a conservation accredited architect and Regional Partner for the North at architectural practice Purcell, where he has worked since 2006.  His interests in the management, care and development of heritage sites are piqued by the variety of projects encountered at a range of scales in his appointments to Canterbury and Lichfield Cathedrals, where he is Cathedral Architect.  Often these appointments involve working collaboratively with a range of skilled craftspeople and conservators - something he considers a real perk of the job!

Jonathan is a Commissioner for the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England and Treasurer for the Cathedral Architects Association.  He has previously acted as an assessor for the RIBA's Conservation Accreditation Scheme and the Conservation Member of the jury panel for the RIBA Regional Awards.

Few artists are as rooted in a place as Stanley Spencer and his beloved home village of Cookham. This Thames-side village was not only his birthplace, his home for most of his life, and even his nickname, but it dominated his imagination and was the inspiration and location for many of his greatest paintings. This lecture will look at Cookham’s place in Spencer’s art, and how it was central to his unique vision of English domestic and spiritual life.

As symbols of wealth, status, marshal prowess, power and achievement horses were in many cases pivotal to artists’ perception of the world.

Through Leonardo's architectural schemes designing stables for the Sforza in Milan in the 1480s, his equestrian sculptural commissions for the same patrons or preparatory studies for his great set-piece The Battle of Anghiari in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, this lecture explores the role of horses as central subjects of Leonardo’s artistic output.

This not a talk for specialist horse enthusiasts but a celebration of how Leonardo, perhaps the greatest of all Renaissance artists, interpreted literal horsepower at the height of his artistic career.

‘A Rider on a Rearing Horse’  © The Fitzwilliam Museum.

Welcomed at first with open arms and bringing luxury skills, the Huguenots’ fortunes later fluctuated wildly. This lecture will talk about their early 18th-century houses that still stand, how they were decorated and lived in; it will discuss the fashionable patterned silk dresses – who designed and made them; and how finally the trade died out, with some weavers literally dying in poverty at their looms.

Weavers’ houses in Spitalfields. © Wikipedia Commons

Before he was a famous artist - or indeed an artist at all - Vincent Van Gogh was a disgruntled art salesman, a failed suitor, and a would-be teacher. In this lecture we glimpse Vincent's life through his letters which illuminate his inner thoughts, passions and preoccupations. Focusing on a few short months from late 1875 to the middle of 1876 we find Vincent's life at a crossroads, having lost his job at the Paris branch of respected international art dealership Goupil & Cie. The main focus of the talk is how he found himself working in a small school in Ramsgate on the Kent coast.

Vincent van Gogh, Self Portrait as a Painter, 1887-8. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Our last lecture of the season is on George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, described as the handsomest man in 17thcentury Europe. Quite a reputation to live up to! He was a favourite of King James I who addressed him as ‘my sweet child and wife’. He subsequently became chief minister to King Charles I. 

Buckingham was a beauty who enjoyed exquisite clothes, such as the fabulous white silk suit encrusted with diamonds he wore to visit the Queen of France and he was a superb dancer, a talent much admired at King James’ court. He amassed a great art collection.

 Our lecturer, Lucy Hughes-Hallett is an award-winning author whose book on the 17th century Duke of Buckingham, The Scapegoat, has been shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize. Her previous biography, The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio, was described in the Sunday Times as the biography of the decade and it won several awards.

 A reminder that proceedings will start on Tuesday 17 June at 1.45pm with the AGM. Admittance to the hall will not be possible after this time and we aim to start the lecture, as usual, at 2.15pm. Please be aware that the car park can be very busy on Summer afternoons and you may want to arrive early to ensure you have parked in good time. At the end of proceedings tea and coffee will be available in the Club Room as usual and there will also be a celebratory cake to mark our 35th Anniversary. Quite an achievement.

In the medieval period highly distinctive styles of architecture developed in remote Transylvania, Moldavia and Maramures.   This lecture illustrates the fine Gothic churches that the Saxon settlers built in Transylvania and which survive in the elegant towns and, uniquely, behind the formidable fortifications in their villages.   It depicts the ‘painted monasteries of Moldavia’, famous for their frescoes that stem from the Orthodox Byzantine tradition and cover the outside walls of the churches, still maintaining their wonderfully vivid colour and details in their lovely architectural ensembles.   There is a mention, too, of the remarkable wooden churches of the rural villages of Maramures.

The 14th century artist Cennino Cennini recommended using ‘the chicken bones that you will find under the dining table’ for making charcoaled bone black to paint with.  His treatise ‘The Artists Handbook’ gives us an understanding of some of the surprising materials which any artist had to master before he could begin to paint, such as the tail of a squirrel to make his paintbrushes.   But many of these materials were difficult to use and had an effect on the finished look of the paintings from the centuries before industrial processes changed the world of the artists.   This lecture will explain the techniques and the reasons for some of the features of the 15th and 16th century paintings which may seem odd to our modern eyes.   Chantal will bring examples of the materials mentioned in the talk to pass around and discuss with participants.  

Dr Hunter will introduce the 19th Century Palaeontologist Mary Anning and discover how she searched the Jurassic rocks of England’s south coast to unearth what were believed to be sea dragons, which we now call marine reptiles.   He will look at the social history and influences of Mary Anning and the 19th century scientists that she would have worked with.   We will look at these spectacular fossil remains and 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.

In this lecture Vivienne will explore the way in which the East India Company developed its methods of trade and facilitated the increasingly sophisticated and profound exchange of ideas between East and West.   She will focus on textile design as the vehicle for this analysis, but also include other works, such as wallpaper, porcelain and furniture, as well as the vast commercial trade in spice and tea.   Examining first the 17th century textile trade with India, the lecture will show how the East India Company established a methodology for sending out patterns to be copied by the local weavers and dyers, paving the way for the production of chintz – now considered to be a classic expression of English style.

Vivienne Lawes is an art historian, curator, author and journalist with over 25 years experience in the art market. 

Our lecture on 21 January is The Big Three in Florence, and our speaker is Antonia Garward Cevizli.

Dr Cevizli is an independent art historian specialising in both Italian Renaissance and Ottoman art. She gained her PhD from the University of Warwick. Her publications focus on cultural and diplomatic exchange between the Italian city-states and the Ottomans. Antonia has lectured for a number of institutions including Sabancı University, Istanbul; Sotheby’s Institute of Art; the National Gallery; the V&A Academy and The Courtauld summer school. Her interests are wide-ranging and she also worked across the collections of both Tate Modern and Tate Britain as a professional guide.

This lecture ties in with the themes of the current Royal Academy exhibition: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Florence, c.1504 (Nov 2024 - Feb 2025)

The beginning of the sixteenth century in Florence was an exhilarating place for an artist to work, brimming with new ideas and approaches. For a brief but intense period Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael coincided in Florence. These are the years of Mona Lisa, David and Raphael’s many serene Madonnas.

This lecture explores the rivalry between these artists and the impact that their work had on the young Raphael.

For full details of this lecture click HERE

Isabelle is an academic and educator specialising in the baroque, with a particular focus on Spain and its empire.   

Bartolome Esteban MURILLO is the last great painter of the Spanish Golden Age, yet today his works are often maligned as “cute” and “saccharine”.   This lecture reassesses his paintings in the context of 17th century Seville, the great port city of the Spanish empire and a centre of catholic reform.   By looking at Murillo’s most innovative and beautiful paintings we will see how his art blends faith and empire, from his grand cycle in Santa Maria la Blanca to his small works painted of imported Aztec mirrors.

Toby Faber is an experienced lecturer and public speaker who has been accredited by The Arts Society since 2012.

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

The last time St Paul’s Cathedral was deprived of music for a long period was after the devastating Fire of London in 1666. But in 1697 Christopher Wren was able to triumphantly declare RESURGAM as the phoenix rose from the ashes.

Patrick Craig will look at music from either side of this momentous event. He will also guide us through the finest repertoire from across the Cathedral’s liturgical year. Escorted by a selection of his favourite photographs, music and videos he will aim to convey the glories of twenty-five years of singing in this extraordinary building. 

The Soviet Avant Garde movement contained some of the greatest names of its generation. Malevich, Chagall, Kandinsky, Exter, Popova, Rozanova, Rodchenko, Tatlin and countless others blazed a trail through Art History for an all-too brief period. With their creativity stunted by the advent of Socialist Realism in 1932, their work disappeared – only to re-emerge in the early 1970’s when Greek collector, George Costakis began to buy up swathes of paintings of the period. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a flood of newly-discovered works appeared on the Western and domestic markets of which the vast majority, up to 95%, had neither verifiable provenance nor exhibition history, their authenticity supported only by documents from now discredited Russian and Western art historians and erroneous certificates of chemical expertise.

This scandal reached a crescendo in January 2018 with an exhibition of 24 dubious works of the period at the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts in Belgium. James Butterwick examines the background behind the mass faking of the Soviet Avant Garde, the history of these dubious paintings, universally rejected by museums and the art market, as well as the methods used to ‘create’ authenticity.

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.

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.

The remarkable untold story of Carry On actor Peter Butterworth, and his wife, Britain’s first female tv impressionist Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher. 

Using classic film and tv clips, personal mementos, and rare photographs and letters from his family’s unseen collection, Tyler reveals the private story behind his parents’ public lives.

It’s a journey that takes in MI9, the building of a theatre in the notorious WW2 Prisoner of War camp Stalag Luft III, nights at Chequers with a Prime Minister, This Is Your Life, and many more moments in their long, shared life in the theatre. 

One of the most derided towns in England, renowned for its dullness, Basingstoke is distinguished only by its numerous roundabouts and absurd Modernist architecture. Rupert explains that the post-war planners, who inflicted such features as ‘the Great Wall of Basingstoke’ on the town, were politically-motivated and bent on destroying all traces of its past. He reveals the nobler Basingstoke that is buried beneath the concrete, and the few historic gems that have survived the holocaust. Hilariously told, it is a story that neatly illustrates the ugliest episode in England’s architectural history. As Betjeman wrote prophetically, “What goes for Basingstoke goes for most English towns”. 

Almost everyone has played Monopoly at some time in their life.  It is one of the world’s most popular and enduring board games.  But, how well do you really know it?

This talk starts with the original Landlord’s Game of 1903 and its evolution into the game as we know it today.  Based on the classic 1936 London version we then take a photographic journey around the locations on that Monopoly board.   Expect some surprises as we explore the relationships between the various properties, look at the ones that don’t actually exist and uncover the story behind the game we all know so well - or do we?

Darling’s daring rescue of steamship passengers off the Northumberland coast in 1838 brought her international fame. Discover more about her bravery and short life (died aged 26) and the artistic contribution that has helped to keep her in the public eye. Grace became the ‘poster girl’ of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and was the first woman awarded their medal for gallantry. This talk coincides with the commemorations to mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of the RNLI in 2024.

It is now around 200 years since the purchase of the so-called 'Elgin Marbles' from Lord Elgin, by the British Parliament. This lecture, beautifully illustrated with specifically taken slides and video, will explore the aesthetics, the back-story, and the heated debates surrounding these fascinating and controversial works of ancient Greek art: what do we mean by 'the Elgin Marbles'? How and why were they originally created? Why are they so highly regarded? What happened to them between their creation and Elgin's time? How did he acquire them? Why are they now in the British Museum? And why are there such passionately held views both for and against their repatriation to Greece?

Nicholas Hilliard captured a glowing, delicate and intimate image of the Elizabethans in his jewel-like portrait miniatures. He has left us a legacy of colour, pattern, symbolism and likeness, as well as an opinionated insight into the thoughts and practices of a sixteenth-century English artist.

This lecture outlines Hilliard’s career and explores the changing styles demanded by his patrons.

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

This lecture also looks at the wider cultural shifts since the early 19th century to the present day and how they affected the way that men present themselves.

Oliver Messel dazzled and delighted audiences of both stage and screen over four decades of the 20th Century.   When his romantic, but somewhat overblown, whimsical style was overtaken by the harsh reality of the kitchen sink drama of the mid-1960s Messel decamped to Barbados where he reinvented himself as an architect.

In this revealing talk Dr Nicholas Courtney looks at Messel’s life and architectural works and the inspiration behind ‘The Messel Style’ that has remained a major force in the architecture of the Caribbean to this day.   The speaker knew Messel well (along with the houses he created) when he ran the Island of Mustique in the early 1970s.

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

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

Mario Testino and David Bailey may be household names that spring to mind when we think of the great fashion and portrait photographers of the 20 th century. But where does Jorge Lewinski’s reputation lie amongst these significant individuals? Have you heard of him? Jorge Lewinski, born in Lwow, Poland (now Ukraine) in 1921, has an unparalleled reputation for capturing portraits of the iconic British painters and sculptors of the 20th century. Having based his home and career in London from 1942, Lewinski photographed over 300 leading British artists principally between 1962 and 1995. We learn about his prolific career; what made the photographer and how significant are his photographs in revealing the character of each sitter as both a person and as an artist.

With an unapologetic focus on 20th century Royal Academicians in particular, although by no means exclusive, this lecture considers Lewinski’s portraits of a selection of great 20th century British artists such as David Hockney, Henry Moore, Antony Gormley. Allen Jones, Michael Craig-Martin and Barbara Hepworth. Through the work of Lewinski, we can also explore the artistic contributions that these painters and sculptors have made/are making to the British art scene.

This talk looks at the history of auctions from the Roman period, when the spoils of war were auctioned “Under the Spear,” through to the great book auctions of the sixteenth century and on into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when auctions became the favoured means of disposing of furniture, paintings, works of art and the chattels of the great landed estates. The confidential mechanisms at work in today’s high-priced art auctions are enough to make most reasonable people doubt the ethics of the art market.

Are high-end art auctions really public sales or is something else happening behind the scenes? How transparent is the process and why do prices keep rising to such extraordinary heights? Given the prices changing hands, is the art market as well regulated as Wall Street and the City of London, and if not, why not? Are auctions inadvertently contributing to international money-laundering and similar white-collar crime? This stimulating and lavishly illustrated lecture offers the benefits of 35 years writing and reporting on the global art market and its professional practices and tells the inside story of why the world’s most expensive paintings sell for such staggering sums of money.

2023 marks the 600th anniversary of the death of the fabled Dick Whittington (c1354-1423).

For many of us, Dick is simply a fictional character from a Ladybird book or the Christmas pantomime. In fact, Dick was very real, indeed one of the major movers and shakers of medieval London. 

In this lecture we separate the man from the myth as we follow in his footsteps through the streets that were not exactly ‘paved with gold…’. Apprenticed to a master mercer, Whittington went on to become one of the wealthiest and most successful textile merchants in the City, bankrolled no fewer than three medieval kings and as a result held the office of Lord Mayor of London no fewer than four times. And what of that famous feline companion; his cat? Well, the church that he built might just provide the answer but the lecture reveals all….

Paul Nash is one of the most important British modernist artists. He is often associated with art movements such as Neo-Romanticism and Surrealism but his work remains hard to categorise. He worked as a war artist in both the First and Second World Wars and forged his own distinctive approach to landscape.

His work makes the homely uncanny and though he depicts specific places they inhabit an imaginative realm that reveals a mystical relationship to the world. Nash is a poet of the visual who creates his own world of symbols that is both natural and unnatural, a landscape of mystery that reveals, in the words of Coleridge: ‘the translucence of the eternal in and through the temporal’.

Oxford has its quads but Cambridge has its courts. The difference? All is explained as Ann describes how the early history of Cambridge produced colleges with tennis courts and bowling greens attached to buildings grouped around lawns and leafy spaces. She selects from her research of the sixteen colleges founded in late medieval and Tudor times to illustrate the beautiful architectural features of the buildings variously supported by religious bodies, kings and queens.

Richly illustrated throughout, Ann then reveals how the college grounds have changed across time due to their association with notable head gardeners and college members such as Laurence Chaderton at Emmanuel, Sir Issac Newton at Trinity and Charles Darwin at Christs, and from responses to changing fashions and financial pressures. A virtual tour of the college gardens as they currently exist provides a final feast of colour and form to delight the senses.

 This lecture is a look at backstage life at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the pressures faced by performers, be they singer, dancer, conductor or musicians.  We see how the building copes with the demands of modern productions and examine audience expectations both inside the theatre and out.

We also look at some of the highs and try to understand some of the lows that have been the fortune of this world-class performing venue.  Includes several performance video clips.

American pioneers in glass technology from the late 19th century onwards provided much of the innovative tradition that was to bring about the birth of the Studio Glass Movement in USA in the 1960s. Glass manufacturers such as Louis Comfort Tiffany developed new blown shapes and technologies to create new surface effects and an appearance of movement in glass that was to be continued in the work of studio glass makers such as Dale Chihuly.

Experience a thousand years of Westminster’s royal palaces. With just an occasional gap, monarchs have reigned from a Westminster base since the 1030s. This is a ‘walk-through’ of the six palaces that have been their home.  Remarkably only the first of these, the Palace of Westminster, was purpose built to house the Monarch.  

John Singer Sargent’s portrait of the notorious and beautiful socialite Madame Pierre Gautreau is now considered to be one of the most elegant and exquisiteportraits of the late 19th century, yet when it was unveiled it provoked an unprecedented scandal, leading to humiliation for its sitter and its creator.  Why has public opinion changed so greatly? Why was it considered so controversial and why was it given the rather enigmatic title, Madame X?  We trace the history of this masterpiece within the context of Sargent’s oeuvre and reveal how it transformed the reputation of both model and artist.  

Mankind has exploited the medicinal properties of plants for thousands of years, yet the role of plants in modern medicine is still considered to be peripheral by many people. This talk attempts to put the record straight and to show that plant products are used every day by all of us to relieve pain and suffering, to heal wounds and cure diseases. This is a talk with a very wide appeal and relevance.

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?

Poised between Europe and Africa, Sicily has been both a gateway and a crossroads attracting a long line of colonisers from the Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans and Arabs to the Normans and Spanish. The legacy of so many dominant civilisations produced a cultural mix of great richness and diversity, and included periods of exceptional wealth, intellectual activity and artistic achievement. This lecture looks at Sicily during the ancient and medieval periods: the Greek temples, the beautifully preserved Roman Villa Casale, and the monuments from the Arab - Norman period when Palermo was the most intellectually active and artistically eclectic centre in Europe. The 12th century cathedrals of Cefalu, Monreale, and the Palatine Chapel of the Norman Palace, witness to a brilliant fusion of Norman, Arab and Byzantine art and architecture.

Please note: This lecture will also be given via Zoom. Currently there will be no checking in at Cley. Please use the sanitiser provided and we request that masks are worn.

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

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

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

N.B. THIS LECTURE WILL BE GIVEN BY ZOOM AND LIVE IN CLEY VILLAGE HALL. PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING ATTACHMENT REGARDING THE RETURN TO LIVE LECTURES.

https://www.theartssocietyglavenvalley.org.uk/DocumentStore/Newletter_290921.pdf

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

For the series Downton Abbey, Andrew was commissioned to produce many jewels for the main characters, and this inspired him to create a talk based on Downton and the changing styles of the time portrayed. Jewellery and Fashion are often seen as two entirely separate and distinct fields of design, but this is very far from the case. In his talk Andrew guides you through the extraordinary periods and events between 1890 and 1929, where the great fashion houses collaborated with the finest of jewellers to produce works of art of outstanding quality and glittering opulence. Along with this he discusses the clients and patrons who commissioned the jewels and how they were worn with the sumptuous gowns.

Andrew brings with him some of the pieces used in Downton, so the audience can see what was worn, close up.

The cartoonist, Carl Giles, once said that he loved his creation, Grandma Giles – that fearsome, black-clad, gambling, drinking battle axe – because she allowed him to say things through his cartoons that he was too polite to say in person. She helped him to poke fun at authority in all its forms, from Hitler to traffic wardens and even his employers at the Daily Express, who didn’t trust him and had sub-editors scouring his cartoons for subversive background details. His admirers included Prince Charles, Sir Malcolm Sargent and Tommy Cooper, and it was no surprise when he was voted Britain’s best-loved cartoonist in 2000. Few people realise, however, that this likeable and humane satirist was also a war correspondent who witnessed the horrors of Belsen, where he found that the camp commandant, Josef Kramer, was also a great fan of his work. Giles gave us a remarkable picture of a half-century of British life. He was also, as his editor John Gordon put it “a spreader of happiness’ and ‘a genius…with the common touch’.

In AD 410, Alaric’s Goths sacked the ‘Eternal City’.  This lecture is able to draw upon architectural masterpieces from late antiquity, along with some of the finest objects in the British Museum. The world of the late Roman aristocracy was one of opulence beyond belief with priceless gold and silver objects, intricate ivory carvings, vibrant wall-paintings and glistening mosaics. This lecture will provide fresh insights into why Rome was shaken to its roots and draws poignant comparisons with the present migrant crisis in the Mediterranean world.

Why were foreigner painters preferred by the aristocracy in London to native-born English painters, why did foreigners come in the first place, what was their motivation, and what was the impact of foreigners in London on English art and art practice? The lecture will look at the various formats and uses of art, tracing foreign artists from the Tudor period through to the Renaissance and Baroque, looking at their origins and how they came to work in England.  How these artists influenced the British School of painting and assess their legacy.

Please Note:  This lecture will be ‘on-line’ only, using Zoom starting at 2.00pm

The ‘link’ to the lecture will be emailed to members just prior to the event.    

Food and Art Through the Ages is a whistle-stop tour of the history of food as an artistic medium; starting with 16th century sugar sculpture and venturing all the way up to 3D dessert printing and beyond. Topics covered include; the origins of dessert, the crossover between sugar and art, architecture and dessert (including Renaissance banqueting houses), sugar and spectacle, food as artistic medium, and the future of food. 

Please Note:  This lecture will be ‘on-line’ only, using Zoom starting at 2.00pm

The ‘link’ to the lecture will be emailed to members just prior to the event.    

This lecture looks at paintings from the 14th to 20th centuries and examines the way artists have used signs and symbols to give deeper layers of meaning to their work. 

Please Note:  This lecture will be ‘on-line’ only, using Zoom starting at 2.00pm

The ‘link’ to the lecture will be emailed to members just prior to the event.    

Historic buildings are often not what they seem, or how we confidently and wrongly believe they ought to look. Were old houses ever built with reused ships’ timbers?  Are the black and white of ‘Tudor’ buildings mainly a 19th century fashion? Are we seeing many Mediaeval church interiors through the eyes of the Victorian restorers?  How many of the claimed ‘secret tunnels’ from the cellar to the docks or church actually exist?  

As well as examining some of the popular myths about old buildings the lecture will discuss the tricky philosophical issues of authenticity, and the point at which a genuine historic building is so renewed that it effectively becomes a replica. Drawing on examples from throughout the country the lecture will challenge some received wisdom, and offer some surprises.

Please Note:  This lecture will be ‘on-line’ only, using Zoom starting at 2.00pm

The ‘link’ to the lecture will be emailed to members just prior to the event.    

Are portraits supposed to look like the sitter or are they a way of probing something deeper?  Portraits form part of the collection of almost every art gallery in the Western world. They are created for a myriad of reasons - money, power, propaganda, death, life and love. But what makes one ‘great’?  

From El Greco’s mysterious ‘Lady in a Fur Wrap’, to Vermeer’s iconic ‘Girl with the Pearl Earring’, to Norman Rockwell’s entertaining yet self-deprecating ‘Triple Self Portrait’, this talk will explore the secrets behind some of Art History’s most famous portrait paintings. 

Please Note: This lecture will be ‘on-line’ only, using Zoom starting at 2.00pm

The ‘link’ to the lecture will be emailed to members just prior to the event.    

To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, born in December 1770, Sandy guides us through the life and work of this brilliant, cantankerous, visionary and astonishingly original composer, a man who tore up the rule book of classical music. Visual illustrations include a selection of contemporary portraits, while musical examples are drawn from his genre-busting piano sonatas, quartets and symphonies, and from the revolutionary opera Fidelio. We’re talking about much more than just a musician here – Beethoven was a true Romantic artist, or as he preferred to describe himself, a “poet in sound.”

A Zoom lecture which tells the gripping and sometimes hilarious story of how a band of heroic curators and eccentric custodians saved Britain's national heritage in a race against time in 1939.

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Poised between Europe and Africa, Sicily has been both a gateway and a crossroads attracting a long line of colonisers from the Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans and Arabs to the Normans and Spanish. The legacy of so many dominant civilisations produced a cultural mix of great richness and diversity, and included periods of exceptional wealth, intellectual activity and artistic achievement. This lecture looks at Sicily during the ancient and medieval periods: the Greek temples, the beautifully preserved Roman Villa Casale, and the monuments from the Arab - Norman period when Palermo was the most intellectually active and artistically eclectic centre in Europe. The 12th century cathedrals of Cefalu, Monreale, and the Palatine Chapel of the Norman Palace, witness to a brilliant fusion of Norman, Arab and Byzantine art and architecture.

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Mankind has exploited the medicinal properties of plants for thousands of years, yet the role of plants in modern medicine is still considered to be peripheral by many people. This talk attempts to put the record straight and to show that plant products are used every day by all of us to relieve pain and suffering, to heal wounds and cure diseases. This is a talk with a very wide appeal and relevance.

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

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

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

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This lecture looks at paintings from the 14th to 20th centuries and examines the way artists have used signs and symbols to give deeper layers of meaning to their work.

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

David has been a wine retailer, importer and distributor for 30 years. In that time, he has publicly presented tastings and talks on wine to trade and private audiences. These have taken the form of wine ‘tastings’ or charity events where a particular subject is presented and wines tasted. He has developed a talk, A Brief Story of Wine, a great subject, and full of rich evidence, going back 7,000 years, in the form of paintings, decorated drinking vessels, buildings and literature that contribute to the story.

Thomas Tresham was the father of Francis Tresham, who was one of the gunpowder plotters, and like his son Thomas was a Catholic at a time when persecution by the Protestant authorities was commonplace. Rather than resorting to gunpowder, however, Thomas Tresham expressed his Catholic faith in the design and decoration of two buildings Triangular Lodge and Lyveden New Bield in Northamptonshire.

Every aspect of these buildings, from their shape and proportions to their window design and exterior decoration is a secret expression of the Catholic faith whilst Triangular Lodge also bears cryptic inscriptions, some of which have yet to be decoded. This lecture will examine both buildings detailing their history and their remarkable designs.

J.M.W. Turner was arguably the greatest practitioner in watercolour the world has ever seen and his achievements still represent the benchmark for artists working today. Yet he left frustratingly few written records of his processes and was notoriously reticent about his methods. One brave soul apparently once asked him the key to being a successful artist and it is recorded that he rather grumpily replied ‘The only secret I have is damned hard work’! This lecture examines Turner’s watercolour practice in detail, unlocking the mysteries behind his exceptional effects. In addition to showcasing the diversity and richness of his achievements in the medium, we will look at his experimental approach to techniques and some of his tools and materials. 

In 1900 Florence had a foreign resident population of 30,000. Among these were many British and American aesthetes, attracted by the climate, the scenery, the art and the realisation that Renaissance villas and their gardens, no longer required by their ancestral owners, could be rented cheaply, complete with willing servants. E.M. Forster’s Lady Helen Laverstock, in her Fiesole villa garden thought to be the setting of the Decameron, is only just fictional: Lady Sybil Cutting was just then busy improving the terraced garden of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s 15th-century Villa Medici to bring it more into line with her idea of how it should have been. At Villa La Pietra, the informal English garden laid out by its 19th-century Italian owners was being remodelled by the British art dealer Arthur Acton into an ideal of the 17th-century Italian garden, financed by his rich American wife’s inheritance. And nearby, Bernard Berenson, arbiter of taste for the world’s museums and collectors, hired the architect Cecil Pinsent to transform the gardens of his ancient villa into the kind of terraces of mosaic, box and cypress he felt were appropriate. And so it went on. All these gardens and others look out to this day over the famous view of Florence and the Arno valley, ringed by hills, villas, olive groves and the dreamy mists of antiquity.

Between 1885 and 1916, Carl Fabergé made fifty jewelled eggs – Easter presents from Russia’s last two emperors to their wives. Since the brutal murder of the last tsar and his family in a Siberian basement, these eggs have become the most famous surviving symbols of the Romanov Empire: both supreme examples of the jeweller’s art and the vulgar playthings of a decadent court. After going missing in the Revolution, most of the eggs re-emerged in the store-rooms of the Kremlin, where they were immediately identified as a source of much-needed foreign exchange. Their subsequent history holds up a mirror to the twentieth century and encompasses Bolsheviks and entrepreneurs, tycoons and heiresses, con-men and queens. Eggs have been sold and smuggled, stolen and forged. Now, as they return to Russia, their history – like that of Russia itself - seems to have come full circle. Then there are the eight eggs which remain missing. What prospect is there that they will ever emerge, and if they do, will anyone believe that they are genuine? Toby Faber wrote Fabergé’s Eggs: One Man’s Masterpieces and the End of an Empire, described by P.D. James as a ‘fascinating story which combines unique decorative art, contemporary culture, history and the murder of the Romanovs with the excitement of a crime novel’. The lecture is illustrated with pictures of the eggs today and their owners, and with archival material showing some of the missing eggs.

Surprisingly today’s playing cards date back to 1377. Decks from 1475 still survive. The English deck is of French origin and the Company of Makers of Playing Cards was founded in 1628 to protect English makers from French importations. Cards were used as a medium of communication, propaganda or education: the 1678 Titus Oates plot is illustrated on a 52 card deck published at the time and known as The Horrid Popish Plot. Francis Barlow illustrated the cards depicting Marlborough's Victories in 1707. Modern cards follow in these old traditions with some wonderful collectors’ decks of today.

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…

The Maya created one of the most sophisticated civilizations in the ancient world.  Their achievements in the arts and sciences, along with their complex social, political and economic systems, make them one of the most remarkable culture groups in the Precolumbian Americas. These people brought us an intricate calendar system, complex hieroglyphic writing, some of the largest pyramids in the world, a form of ballgame that was like no other and most importantly chocolate! This lecture will discuss the major achievements of the Maya as well as pointing out the common misunderstandings we have of this remarkable civilization.

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

The four Power Houses of Norfolk, those houses built to display the owners’ power or their ambitions to power, Raynham, Houghton, Wolterton and Holkham, were all linked in their conception, construction and intentions. The same key national characters were engaged in their building. They all pay reference to classical Rome and to Italian precedents. This talk aims to explain why and how they do this. It concentrates on the background out of which these houses grew and explains some of the thinking behind their creation. It aims to better inform the visitor to them, to add to their visit rather than to obviate the need to make one. 

The audience is taken on a journey beginning in Outer Mongolia in the 5th century BC and follows the 11th century migrations from Turkmenistan, the cradle of weaving, into the Caucasus, Persia and Afghanistan. They will be introduced to the nomadic tribes of these countries and their woven rugs, carpets and dowry bags, with particular emphasis on those of the 19th century and earlier. These tribal weavings illustrate the skill of the women who produced exquisite works of woven art, using vegetable colours and age-old designs whilst living and travelling in primitive conditions and hostile landscapes.  

The tribal weavings of the 19th century and earlier represent the pinnacle of achievement and wonderful free expression of the art of the weaver.

Today, these weavings are highly desirable and collectable works of woven art.

La Mortella means “the place of myrtles”, and rocks and myrtles were everywhere on the property acquired by Sir William Walton, the British composer, and his young Argentinian bride Susana, when he decided to settle on the Island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples.

The task of taming the Mediterranean landscape was huge, and the Waltons decided to invite Russell Page, the renowned landscape architect, author of The Education of a Gardener, to come to their rescue.  

 This lecture tells the story of how the wild place was transformed into an amazing garden, and a wonderful work of art. There will be colourful anecdotes accompanying the beautiful images, and music too, imbued with the light of the Mediterranean, played at conclusion.

Lady Walton wrote that La Mortella is a garden of sounds – poetic, mysterious, bewitching, serene and joyous. All the more true, as the place is the active centre of the Fondazione William Walton, a trust set up to help young musicians to blossom, and offering a wide range of events and a season of concerts, some in the open air. The lecture comes with music.

Recommended Reading:

R. Page            THE EDUCATION OF A GARDENER

S. Walton        LA MORTELLA – AN ITALIAN GARDEN PARADISE

S. Walton        BEHIND THE FACADE

On Ernest Shackleton’s third Antarctic expedition in 1914, his ship, the Endurance, was trapped and eventually crushed in the pack ice. After camping for five months on the ice, Shackleton’s men rowed to the remote Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton sailed for help to South Georgia over 800 miles away. Over three months later he returned to rescue the crew of the Endurance. Frank Hurley, one of the great photographers of the 20th century, was the expedition’s official photographer. His photographs are a visual narrative of an epic journey which capture with great artistry new and amazing landscapes within which a remarkable human drama is played out. The aim of the lecture is to capture Hurley’s achievements as a photographer of the Antarctic in the first flush of human contact when it was still essentially terra incognita.

Although not always acknowledged nowadays, this 17th century Spanish artist is one of the most influential painters in the history of art. Born in Seville in 1599, where he made his name producing penetratingly observed scenes of everyday life, he moved up to Madrid where his portraiture was so successful that by the age of twenty-four he was the only artist permitted to paint the king of Spain. After his death, the cool elegance of his style, his ability to discover a sense of dignity and humanity in even the simplest of subjects, coupled with his breathtakingly daring treatment of the paint was widely admired by generations of artists from Whistler to Picasso, who famously described him as “The Great Magician of Art”.

Reading List

“Velasquez”                                     Enriqueta Harris

“Velasquez”                                     Jose Lopez-Rey

“The Golden Age of Spanish Art”   Christopher Brown

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 4000 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 Centre', 'Christie's' course 'The History of Art Studies' and other London courses. Overseas he has lectured in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain. He has written and presented various TV documentaries, notably the Omnibus programme on 'Whistler' and the exhibition video on 'William Morris.'

Murder, poison, corruption and incest: all perfect ingredients for sensational popular culture. But in an age known for its brutality and church corruption were the Borgias really so bad? This sumptuous illustrated lecture reveals the real story of the family that dominated the Papacy and Italian politics during the last decade of the 15th century: the wily, charismatic womaniser, Pope Alexander,  (above), his sociopathic son, Cesare, cardinal, general and the model for  “The Prince” by Machiavelli, himself a character in their story, and his adored, Lucrezia who moves from “the greatest whore in Rome” to a devout and treasured duchess of the city  of Ferrara. Sometimes truth is more intoxicating than myth.

Sarah Dunant is a historian, broadcaster and novelist who has written, among other works on the Italian renaissance,  a two-part novel on the Borgia family

Reading List

Blood and Beauty: published 2013

In the Name of the Family: published March 2017

We begin with an exploration of some of the artifacts and technical wonders found aboard the funeral ship berthed beneath Mound One at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. This ship-burial and related Anglo-Saxon treasures, such as the Staffordshire hoard, show that, far from being "The Dark Ages", this was truly a Golden Age.

Of special interest is the superb jewellery of gold, garnet and blue glass from Sutton Hoo which reveals such a brilliant synthesis of styles from Britain and the Continent. Some of the Sutton Hoo masterworks appear to have been made in the East Anglian royal workshop for the king who lay in state in the treasure-laden ship, thought most likely to have been Raedwald (died c. 625), one of the first overlords of all Britain.

The golden light of these treasures enables us to consider anew the early culture of the English speaking peoples.

Dr Sam Newton is an historian who has lectured widely around the country as an independent scholar. He was awarded his PhD by the University of East Anglia  in 1991. He has published 'The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking kingdom of East Anglia' and 'The Reckoning of King Rædwald: the Story of the King linked to the Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial'.

Reading List

The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial - A.C. Evans

The Reckoning of King Rædwald: the Story of the King linked to the Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial - Dr. Sam Newton.

Image - Dr. Steven Plunkett

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. 

The Middle Ages was dominated by the Church and construction projects were an important part of the medieval economy. Sadly, the technologies were at best poor and in many periods and regions – notably England! – truly terrible. The English didn’t just get the ‘wrong end of the stick’ they often wouldn’t recognise a stick if it was waved in front of them.

This talk looks at a range of collapses across several centuries and explains in layman’s terms why so many catastrophes occurred.

England has created some of the most beautiful gardens in the history of garden art. In this lecture we shall trace the development of the English gardens from Tudor times through to the twentieth century. Our early formal gardens owe much to the influence of Italy and France; whereas these were mostly destroyed in the later ‘naturalistic’ landscaping vogue, we can form an excellent idea of what they were like through paintings and engravings. Many such gardens were created in England on and many fragments of great formal schemes survive. However, whereas the formal garden was based on ideas from abroad, the creation of the eighteenth century naturalistic landscape park was a uniquely English achievement, and one that influenced the design of gardens and parks throughout Europe. The development of the landscape garden is one of the most fascinating episodes in the history of taste, as all the arts-poetry, philosophy, painting and literature-played a part in the development of these great parks. 

In the Victorian period, we see a return to formality, but in the Edwardian gardens of Lutyens and Jekyll a compromise is reached: the plan is formal and architectural, but the planting is generous and naturalistic. The partnership resulted in some of the finest English gardens, and had a lasting influence on twentieth-century design. The  lecture will be fully illustrated.

Reading List

The English Garden   L. Fleming and A. Gore            

Gentlemen and Players: Gardeners of the English  Landscape Garden  T. Mowl

Polite Landscapes: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth Century England  T. Wiliamson

At the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, Glasgow was the centre for an avant- garde movement of art and design innovation in Europe which we now refer 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.

Horatio Nelson sat for more artists and sculptors than most famous people, other than royalty. Their works tell his life’s story and reveal a man of many parts and moods that reflect on his public and private life, including the ménage a trois with Sir William and Lady Hamilton. The lecture asks, who was the real Nelson?

“…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. Egypt was the cradle of magic. Sorcerer Priests used scientific principles to create illusions for the edification of worship and to hold power over the people. Where there was power there was magic. Then there is the age-old skill of sleight of hand, which proves that ‘the hand is quicker than the eye’. Magicians were known as ‘Jongleurs’ lest they by sentenced to death for ‘witchcraft and conjuration’ under the edicts of Henry V111.

With the emergence of the Music Hall, Magic gained a new respectability and audiences flocked in there thousands to watch the extraordinary feats of The Great Illusionists. This gave birth to legendary tricks such as pulling a rabbit from a hat and sawing a lady in half. And if magicians guarded their secrets with their lives, how was the Magic Circle formed ? – Home to 10,000 secrets.

Even Today in our super technical age of ipods and broadband, the wonder and surprise of magic are as popular as ever, not forgetting the Harry Potter craze.

Wonder Workers and the Art of Illusion 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.

Reading List

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke
Carter Beats the Devil Glen David Gold

This lecture traces the changing forms, styles and intrumental tone colours in music from the time of Henry VII to Elizabeth I. The Tudor monarchs introduced wind, stringed and keyboard instruments from Italy and the Netherlands, creating a Chapel Royal of unparalleled richness and diversity. An English school of composition for voices, viols, virginals and lute emerged, reaching such heights in late Elizabethan times that the period became known as "The Golden Age" of English music.

It is not suprising to discover that the Tudor monarchs were themselves gifted musicians who cultivated music not only for court ceremony but for their personal pleeasure as well.

Jeanne Dolmetch comes from a distinguished family of musicians celebrated for being pioneers in the renaissance of early music and instruments. Jeanne is a specialist in 16th to 18th century music and has been a NADFAS lecturer since 1974.

Architects such as Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Terry Farrell, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Renzo Piano, I.M.Pei, Jean Nouvel and Santiago Calatrava have become international stars or ‘starchitects’. With huge cosmopolitan practices, their creations are hailed as iconic and cutting-edge, but what about the quality? Who was the first starchitect – Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright? Are these star personalities about to disappear into team anonymity?

Clyde Binfield is a graduate of Cambridge University and later became a Professor of History at the University of Sheffield. He has returned to some of his first and last loves – buildings, their creators and their settings.

Photo David Hughes

This lecture will look at the interiors of the houses of Jane Austen’s heroines, rather than their psychological makeup. Formal drawing rooms of Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, etc will be compared with the lesser Georgian drawing rooms in the country, as well as towns. Various dining rooms including the new one created by the Coles in “Emma” will be discussed, along with choices of glass and china of the late Georgian period. The likely paper chosen by Darcy for his sister’s sitting room at Pemberley to complement the new light Hepplewhite furniture, and Catherine’s wallpaper in her bedroom at Northanger Abbey will be part of the story.

Image Copyright Stoneleigh Abbey Charitable Trust

The story of the beautiful Mary Robinson, spirited actress and fashion icon who attracted the attention of the future George IV while playing Perdita in Shakespeare’s The Winter's Tale.

Famed for her liasons with the prince and others, Mary was a romanric poet and friend of Coleridge, a witty and perceptive novelist and a radical columnist who gave herself the pseudonym Tabitha Bramble.

This presentation is accompanied by slides from the Royal Collection, the Wallace Collection, Waddesden Manor and the National Portrait Gallery. They include portraits of the fashionable Mrs. Robinson by Reynolds, Romney and Gainsborough, and some unexpected images of the future George lV.

Abandoned tunnels, lost rivers, ancient archaeology, sewers etc. Just some of the many topics to be discussed and discovered. This talk takes a fresh look at London’s history over the centuries. Now far underground, but often with clues on the surface. Peter Lawrence in an earlier life had an unique insight into London under the streets - especially Whitehall.

2016 was the 600th anniversary of the birth of Piero della Francesca so this is a good opportunity to revisit the work of this enigmatic painter. His grave, solid figures set in a timeless landscape and lit by a clear light encapsulate the harmony of man and his world that lay at the heart of Italian Renaissance thought, a perfect fusion of light and logic, which while reflecting his native countryside, conveys a spirituality that reaches out over time and boundaries. Whether working in the service of the church or of his patron, Federigo da Montefeltro, his paintings radiate a serenity and timelessness which will take us far beyond this anniversary.

Image National Gallery, London

This lecture explores the way in which the East India Company developed its methods of trade. It shows how the 17th century textile trade with India established methods for sending out patterns to be copied by the artisans, replacing the original system of importing textiles that were native in design.

The system of sending out patterns to be copied was the norm by the time the East India Compnay made inroads into China in the 18th century.

The currency and balance of trade is explained and methods of production are illustrated with a number of Chinese export pieces, predominately Chinese painted silks but also furniture and porcelain.

The lecture concludes by drawing the distinction between Chinese export and Chinoiserie.

English cabinet making reached a near-unrivalled degree of excellence by the mid 18th Century largely thanks to the influence, from the late 17th century onwards, of new styles and methods of construction and decoration from the Netherlands, France and Belgium –and also by the migration to England of craftsmen and designers from those countries. By the mid 18th century, English cabinet-makers and designers were producing furniture which set a new standard in terms of both design and craftsmanship.  Central to this, was the way in which cabinet makers exploited the properties and characteristics of Mahogany, which was to become regarded as the “king” of cabinet-making woods. 

This golden age encompasses the work of great designers and cabinetmakers like Kent, Vile, Cobb, and, of course, Chippendale and sees the elevation of furniture to Art in both England & Europe.  This lecture provides a visual feast of the masterpieces produced on both sides of the Channel.

Photo Janusz Karczewski-Slowikowski

An interest in the classics was revived in the mid 18th century by the Grand Tour, archaeological discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii, and later by events such as the Greek fight for independence and controversy over the Elgin Marbles.

This presentation traces neoclassicism through architecture, sculpture and the decorative arts.  It touches on leading craftsmen of the day such as Hepplewhite, Storr and Wedgwood and looks at how items were designed and made. Discover why so much silver was commissioned in Regency times, what Lady Hamilton was up to with her tableaux vivants and how Robert Adam earned his soubriquet ‘Bob the Roman’

Photo Andrew Dunn