The Impressionists showed a way forward and in doing so liberated artists in the generations that came after them.  Monet and Van Gogh, among others, left Paris for the Mediterranean. 

Painters became ‘Pointillists’ – their brushwork made up of tiny strokes of colour straight from the tube.  Signac invited his friend Matisse to stay with him in St Tropez. Eventually, further along the coast, the startling paintings of the Fauves – wild beasts – gave birth to a new movement that astounded the early 20th century art world.

This lecture will tie in with the upcoming RA Exhibition ‘Painting the French Riviera’ from 2nd October 2026.

Juliet lived in France for 30 years where she devised and led Art Study Tours.  Having returned to England, she now concentrates on lecturing, frequently at the Ashmolean Museum. 

She has had many books published and was interviewed on the television programme ‘Art on the BBC’ to talk about Van Gogh.  She now concentrates on her writing career.   

IMAGE: Mont St Victoire with large Pine by Paul Cezanne. (Courtesy of the lecturer.)                  

The first Europeans writers and artists who visited Tahiti in the 1760s came back talking about an island paradise.

Writers such as Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stephenson, Pierre Loti and Somerset Maugham; and artists such as Charles Giraud, John La Farge and Paul Gauguin kept the image created by the artists who accompanied Captain Cook (William Hodges and John Webber) going for 150 years.

So what was it about Tahiti, the time it was 'discovered' and the popularity of certain writers and artists that made Tahiti so unique?    

A graduate of Durham University, Simon Keable-Elliott was Head of Politics and Director of Model United Nations at Royal Russell School for 25 years. He now works as a writer, researcher, and lecturer.

His first book 'Utterly Immoral, Robert Keable and his scandalous novel' was published in November 2022, and he had also written articles for many publications. He is a regular speaker at events run by The Arts Society, Western Front Associations, U3As and Family History Societies.                             

IMAGE: A view taken in the bay of Oaite Peha, Otaheite (by William Hodges c1775) Wikimedia

The official war artists scheme, started in WW1, served an educational and historical purpose, and was later a point of commemoration. 

The images produced present a witness account, explore the many different types of art and look at the merit of visual records as social commentary. They question what we memorialise. How do we see photography over paint? Does one offer more ‘truth’? Do we see each medium differently? (Some images in this fully illustrated lecture may cause distress.)                                                  

Dr Emma Watts is an Art Historian with a special interest in British art, the economics of art, and material culture. She began in the world of fine art auctions before a successful academic career in the UK, Australia and Hong Kong. 

Passionate about access to fine arts and its education, Emma developed various education curricula. She has been active in policy, planning, and advisory boards and curatorial and collection management the UK and abroad.

Emma currently juggles consultancy and fine art valuation with lecturing at the Open University and writing.                

Image: Preparing to Advance (1939)                                                                                                          

English and Americans flocked to Florence at the close of the nineteenth century and many stayed and bought properties.

They shared a passionate interest in Italy, an interest perfectly parodied in E M Forster’s social comedy A Room with a View, written in 1908, a social comedy in which this ex-pat community is minutely examined. The fascination of this community with the Italian Renaissance was expressed through the extensive collections of Renaissance objects with which they decorated their Italian homes.

The lecture we will look inside some of their villas and gardens in Florence and the surrounding countryside to see how these Italophiles reimagined the Renaissance for a new age.                       

Dr Lydia Goodson is a freelance art historian and lecturer. A specialist in the artistic production and the decorative art of early modern Italy, Lydia is an accredited Arts Society Lecturer, an Art History Tutor at CityLit, and a short course leader for The Warburg Institute. 

Image: Villa La Pietra (courtesy of the lecturer)                         

2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in America. This lecture will explore 25 iconic works of American art, including Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic,’ Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother,’ Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’.

Trace the history of America through paintings, sculptures, land art, and photography that exemplify vital moments in American history like the Gold Rush, the Civil War, Civil Rights movement, and so forth.       

Dr. Marie-Anne Mancio trained as an artist before completing a D.Phil (Sussex University).  She has taught for Tate Modern, V&A, Dulwich Picture Gallery, HENI films, the Feminist Lecture Program, and nationally and internationally for The Arts Society.

She is a Tour Director for ACE Cultural Tours and her own company, Hotel Alphabet, leading art tours globally, including to NYC. With an MPhil in Creative Writing, her text-based practice spans performances, prints, and installations.

Co-Director of InFems art collective, she created an NFT ('non-fungible token') for Carolina Herrera and co-curated Lost Girls featuring artists like Ai Weiwei and Maggi Hambling.

Image: Watson and the Shark (by John Singleton Copley) - courtesy of the lecturer

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 the State Opening of Parliament, State Visits, The National Day of Remembrance, Royal Weddings or even a State Funeral?       

Dr Graham Jones’ professional life began as a musician in the British Army. After a career spanning nearly forty years he retired as the Senior Director of Music, Household Division and Director of Music, Coldstream Guards. 

He has recorded over 40 albums and pioneered a music education programme with the University of Salford for military musicians resulting in a new Master of Music in performance degree. He now acts as a guest conductor, adjudicator, lecturer, recording consultant and educator. He was made am MBE in 1993.   

Image: Guildford Guards Band (Colin Smith Wikimedia CC SA 2.0)   

During WW II, with fabric rationed, Britain’s Utility Clothing Scheme and CC41 label ensured clothes were practical, affordable, and long-lasting. Frills vanished, replaced by efficient, waste-minimising designs. Yet creativity endured.

British couturiers Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell brought elegance to austerity, pioneering well-cut, simple garments that paved the way for ready-to-wear fashion. In contrast, Christian Dior’s 1947 New Look in France rejected wartime restraint and embraced post-war opulence with full skirts and cinched waists. This divide between British utility and French luxury shaped post-war fashion.

The lecture examines how wartime necessity sparked innovation, proving that, even under restriction, fashion adapts and thrives.                                                                                                      

Connie Gray is an authority on 20th-century fashion in art, with a focus on French haute couture. With a background in fashion and broadcasting, she works internationally as a curator, writer, lecturer, and advisor. She consults on museum exhibitions, acquisitions, and conservation, and promotes the cultural significance of fashion in visual art through her writing, talks, and collaborations with institutions and clients in the UK and USA.

Image: Fashion in a Time of War © Imperial War Museum (courtesy of the lecturer)       

THE LECTURE WILL BE PRECEDED BY THE CHRISTMAS PARTY - Doors will open at 7:15pm.

Cooking in a Georgian kitchen required immense skill as cooks struggled to complete a multitude of tasks without any electricity or gas and virtually no mechanical aids.  Discover through prints, paintings, book illustrations and surviving Georgian kitchens and equipment, how a cook used the myriad of tools, moulds, boards and pots, to store, prepare and cook a remarkably diverse menu of dishes. 

Peter Ross has a History of Art degree, an MA in London history, a PhD in the cultural history of an English Criminal, and qualifications in the teaching of adults. Until recently Principal Librarian at Guildhall Library, he has lectured on a broad range of topics including the history of English books, portraiture, and London history. Peter has appeared on TV and radio and his most recent publication, The Curious Cookbook, was published by the British Library. Peter’s current book is on Eating out in Georgian London. 

IMAGE CREDIT: Advantages of Modern Education (courtesy of the lecturer)

THE LECTURE WILL BE PRECEDED BY THE 2025 AGM

British sculpture enjoyed a renaissance in the 20th century, led by Moore and Hepworth. They were followed by a new generation of British-based sculptors including Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Anish Kapoor, Richard Long and David Nash, who have produced sculptures that are glorious, challenging and moving in equal measure. A range of their work is examined along with a review of the sculptures that have adorned the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, and those proposed for 2026-28. The lecture concludes with a glimpse of the rising stars. 

Ray Warburton lectures on a wide range of art subjects. He became a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern in 2012. 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 in 2017. Later that year, Ray became an Arts Society lecturer. Ray is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

Click HERE for a list of sculptors and their works mentioned in the lecture.

IMAGE CREDIT: ‘The Scallop’, Aldeburgh (Maggi Hambling) Wikipedia CC SA 2.0 generic ©Andrew Dunn

A colourful introduction to the world of our 2000-mile canal network, looking at their exceptional artistic, architectural and engineering vernacular. Features range from sweeping aqueducts to tiny bollards; from colourful historic narrowboats to iconic ‘Roses and Castles’ artwork; from grand World Heritage Sites to quirky and unusual landmarks. Our canals have been called a ‘poor man’s art gallery’ and only the National Trust and the Church of England have more listed buildings than our canals. 

Roger Butler is a landscape architect and an experienced writer, photographer and lecturer. He has a particular interest in the unique history, traditions and architecture of our canal network and worked on some of the UK’s major canal restoration projects. He has also acted as a consultant to bodies such as Waterways Ireland, Natural England and the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. He regularly contributes to waterway and heritage magazines and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society. 

IMAGE:CREDIT: Narrow boats - courtesy of the lecturer.

Pevsner, a German refugee from Hitler, an internee and a jobbing journalist, became the Grand Old Man of English art history through his extraordinary one-man survey of all the architecturally significant buildings in the country, county by county. This lecture explores what Pevsner said, rightly or wrongly, about some of the buildings in our society’s area – churches, houses, shops, town halls, tower blocks – and sets his pronouncements in the context of The Buildings of England as a whole. His books have both detractors and passionate defenders, but no imitators.

Susie Harries is a writer, editor and lecturer, specialising in twentieth-century culture and history. Her biography of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner won a Wolfson History Prize in 2012. She has given lectures to audiences from the British Museum, the Imperial War Museum and to the Victorian and the 20th Century Societies. Susie read Classics at Cambridge before working for a music agency, the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption, and the RSA. 

IMAGE CREDIT: Nikolaus Pevsner (courtesy of the lecturer)

THE LECTURE WILL BE PRECEDED BY THE SUMMER PARTY - Doors open at 7:15pm

The Victorians revered many of the same names that still fill concert programmes today, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven etc., composers who we often think of as 'German'. But how did this fit with the parallel contemporary desire to promote 'native' British music? Musicologist Dr Bruno Bower has found some answers from an unexpected source: programme notes, a new form of writing for the nineteenth century. These texts tend not to emphasise nations for these composers, but instead use language that is much more redolent of empire; a very different kind of political entity.

Dr Bruno Bower (FRSA, FHEA) is a musicologist, performer, composer, and music editor. He has written and presented on subjects as diverse as Gilbert and Sullivan, John Cage, and Victorian polymaths, and has produced critical editions of music by Peter Gellhorn and Norman O’Neill. He teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and runs adult education courses at Imperial College London and at various private institutions around London. 

IMAGE: Canterbury Hall 1856 (music hall) courtesy of the lecturer (Wikimedia Commons)

Bartolomé 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 for 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.

Isabelle Kent specialises in the baroque, with a particular focus on Spain and its empire. She received a BA and MPhil in History of Art from Trinity College, Cambridge, where she is currently completing her PhD on the art of Velázquez and de Zurbarán. Her edited book on Murillo was published in 2020. Isabelle also guides groups around Spain and beyond, and teaches regularly for the V&A, Art Fund, Royal Academy, Chelsea Arts Club, Wallace Collection and University of Cambridge.

Click HERE to see 'Immaculate Conception' by Murillo

 “Europe has a great deal of art, and America has a great deal of money." There was only one man whose quintessential English wit and charm made it look easy as he convinced the hard-nosed, tight-fisted titans of Wall Street that, “when you pay high for the priceless, you’re getting it cheap”. Frick, Mellon, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Vanderbilt etc. all vied for his latest discoveries which remain the core collections of many of the United States' most famous museums. 

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

Image courtesy of the lecturer: Lord Duveen

Why did Scandinavian Modern design become so popular internationally in the middle of the 20th century? And how did the movement come about? Using examples of furniture, glass, ceramics, textiles and architecture from 1930 to 1960, including the works of the Aaltos, Wirkkala, Jacobsen, Juhl, Matthson, Lindstrand, Frank and Sampe, we'll see how Nordic designers broke away from Bauhaus, to create more organic and curvaceous forms. But how did these supposedly affordable products turn into covetable luxury items?  The talk ends with the legacy of Scandinavian Modern…and how to spot its influence in IKEA even today. 

James Vaux is a researcher and lecturer specialising in Nordic arts, culture, design, and history.  An Oxford graduate, he worked in the City in law and banking. As a managing director of Rothschild, he ran its Nordic operations, living and working in Scandinavia.  James holds an MA from UCL in Scandinavian culture and history. He also studied interior design / art history at the Inchbald School and Mid-Century Modern at Sotheby’s Institute. 

Image courtesy of the lecturer: The Chieftan Chair - Finn Juhl

Plants are integral to art, forming an essential element of countless paintings and being the backbone of inspirational garden design over the centuries, but mankind has also 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 the value of plants is not merely their contribution to art and design but that plant products  are used every day by all of us to relieve pain and suffering, to heal wounds and cure diseases. 

Timothy Walker firmly believes a garden can be said to be a place where nature, art, science, and spirituality meet on even terms. From 1988 to 2014 Timothy Walker was the director of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden.  Since 2014 he has been a Senior College Lecturer in Plant Biology at Somerville College Oxford. 

Image courtesy of the lecturer: Podophyllum - American Mandrake

This will be the first lecture at our new location for 2025 in The Community Church in Werter Road, Putney SW15 2LL

In the midst of its traumatic struggle, Ukraine is trying to protect its art and reclaim its heritage. However, Russian and Ukrainian art were intermingled for 250 years and ‘Russification’ concealed the Ukrainian origins and identity of many artists, both under the Tsars and the Bolsheviks. This lecture maps a dynamic century with three consecutive revolutions in style, as Ukrainian and Russian painters experimented with social criticism, modernism, and Soviet conformity. It includes superb painters little known in the west as well as others who became key figures in modernism.

Gabriel Chanan began lecturing in 2015, building on his lifelong interest in the arts during a career as a social researcher and policy analyst. His study of the visual arts focuses mainly on realist painting, especially on points of transition between different periods and styles. Following publication of his book on Shakespeare and Democracy (2015) he ran a small theatre company until 2020. He was awarded an MBE for services to community development in 2009.

Image courtesy of the lecturer: ‘Life goes on everywhere’ by Nicolai Yaroschenko, 1888. (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)

The lecture will begin at 8pm and will be preceded by the Christmas Party at 7:15pm

The musical evolved in two great cities, London and New York and this lecture explores the metropolitan world of them as portrayed on the musical theatre stage, taking in ganglands, society haunts, suburbs and the centres of power. West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, Sweeney Todd and Oliver! are just a few of the shows that have put London and New York centre stage. So what do metropolitan musicals reveal about the real cities and the characters that live there? Answers are frequently colourful, often unexpected, but always delivered through distinctive characters, striking images and memorable music.   

John Snelson worked for the Royal Opera House for 20 years but has been fascinated by musicals all his life. He is a leading expert in British musical theatre and has lectured at the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, the Garsington and Glyndebourne festivals and for BBC radio. Currently he lectures at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Photo credit: Broadway Musical Production – courtesy of the lecturer

The lecture will begin at 8 pm but will be preceded by the AGM at 7:30pm.

Damien Hirst is one of the UK’s most controversial artists. His shark in formaldehyde made him a household celebrity and his antics, at the Groucho Club, fodder for the tabloids. He is seen as a joker who does not make his own art and steals ideas from others. This lecture aims to show his serious side; his artistic origins, his influences, and why he makes what he does.  The aim is not to convert sceptics but simply to put him in context and provide an overview showing how his work is innovative, daring, and challenging.      

David Worthington is a sculptor with a Philosophy and Theology degree from Oxford and MA’s in both Visual Culture and Computer Arts. He was sculptor-in-residence at Glyndebourne in 2001 and was elected Vice President of the Council of the Royal Society of Sculptors in 2010.  He has curated shows at Woburn Abbey, Glyndebourne and the Chelsea Physic Garden and has had solo shows at the Lightbox Museum, the Lefevre Gallery and the William Bennington Gallery.

Photo credit: Damien Hirst at an exhibition in Doha 2013. ©  Gazanfarulla Khan via Flikr 1.2 CC BY-ND 2.0

CHANGE OF VENUE FOR OCTOBER ONLY: The lecture will be given at The Community Church, Werter Road, Putney SW15 2LL. (Doors open at 7:30 pm for the lecture at 8 pm.)

This lecture celebrates the approaching 400th Anniversary of Charles I’s Accession to the throne in 1625. 

Charles I amassed one the world’s greatest art collections.  On becoming king, he purchased the fabulous art collection of the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua, engaged Rubens to paint the ceiling of the Banqueting House and appointed Van Dyck as his Court Artist.  But, in amassing his great collection, he bankrupted England and alienated his people. Charles I was Britain’s most tragic monarch and yet he was also its greatest Royal Collector of Art. 

Barbara Askew grew up in Eton with Windsor Castle as part of her daily view.  She is a lecturer, examiner and course director on Blue Badge Guide training courses and an acknowledged expert on Royalty and royal palaces.  She has been the Site Liaison Representative at Windsor Castle for the British Guild of Tourist Guides since 1990 and regularly guides tours of the National Gallery, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

Photo credit: Charles I with M de St Antoine by van Dyck (1633). Courtesy of the lecturer.

We all know Van Gogh: The Sunflowers, Starry Night, his self-portraits, the bright prismatic colour applied with energetic brush strokes. We know his life was not easy, but why is he so famous? What makes him possibly the best-known artist in the world? Why does every gallery gift shop have a Vincent item for sale? What makes his paintings instantly recognizable?

His failure to find sales or success during his lifetime, his suffering leading to self-mutilation & later to suicide at the age of 37 are all well known. So what happened during his short life, and afterwards, to transform him into the world’s best-loved artist?

Lucrezia Walker is a London-based art historian and lecturer and  has written several books on 19th and 20th century artists and art movements including ones on Gauguin, Manet, Degas, Warhol, Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Pop Art. She delivers online courses and lectures for the National Gallery and is adjunct professor of Art History for the University of North Carolina’s London Program.

Photo credit: Van Gogh. Sunflowers 1888. The National Gallery. Courtesy of the lecturer.

The lecture will begin at 8 pm but will be preceded by the Summer Party.

Born in Florence, to itinerant American parents, Sargent’s life-long travels were international and frenetic.

A renowned society portraitist, his dramatic 1909 decision to refuse further commissions resulted in new found freedom.  Embarking on a series of journeys to capture a 'sense of place', he indulged his love of all things 'curious': Jewel-like reflections on water in Northern Italy; light and intense heat in Morocco; the exoticism of Spanish dance; silver light in Norway; the grandeur of the Alps and Canadian Rockies; lush gardens in Florida and bright poppies in a Cotswold garden. Perhaps his most daring journey, undertaken in 1918, at the age of 62, was to the war torn trenches of France.

Mary Alexander is an experienced lecturer on the history of art and design, with BA Hons and MA degrees in History of Art from UCL. Previous lecturing experience includes Christies Education, London, the Open University, Manchester University Extra Mural Department and various antiquarian and arts societies.

Photo credit: San Vigilio boat with golden sail (1913)

Frederic, Lord Leighton, was a bastion of the Establishment and of Academic Art in the late 1800s. However, he was also an experimental artist who explored the possibilities of the radical Aesthetic Movement which adopted critic Walter Pater’s idea that ‘All the Arts aspire to the condition of Music’. The lecture looks at his Academic Paintings, his Aesthetic Movement works and  his pioneering work to raise the status of the decorative arts; in particular the collecting of Islamic tiles which are  so beautifully displayed in his purpose-built studio-home. The lecture explores how he was both a follower and a breaker of art rules. 

 Sarah Ciacci has an MA in Modernist Art from University College London and has been an art specialist Blue Badge Guide for London since 2008. She runs tours, gives talks, and trains Blue Badge Guides for the National Gallery and other galleries. She is also a gallery educator, working for the Magic Lantern, and taught art history at Richmond University for a decade.

Photo credit: Mrs Elinor Guthrie by Frederic, Lord Leighton (Wikiart – public domain)

At the height of the great Gothic revival in church architecture in the 19th century, stained glass windows enjoyed a renaissance. Already famous for their innovative designs, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox-Brown were responsible for some of the most beautiful windows of the 19th and 20th centuries. This lecture will look at the history of how ‘The Firm’ brought church windows to life with new vibrant colours and sensuous designs that often used portraits of their friends and lovers as models for the languid faces of the saints and the holy family.

This will be a HYBRID lecture.

Geri Parlby is a former Fleet Street journalist. She has a Masters in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute and a Theology doctorate from Roehampton University. She has lectured for the past 18 years both in the UK and abroad and is principal lecturer on the South West Area Arts Society’s Decoding History’s Art course. 

Photo credit: Caritas in Red (Burne-Jones) © Rex Harris     

Japan’s gardens are world famous. Nature and artifice are intriguingly combined in both intimate spaces and grand-scale gardens that surround palaces and Buddhist temples. Stone is used to provide structure, water to represent the life-giving force and plants to give colour throughout the seasons. The famous Zen-inspired dry landscape gardens by contrast are packed with symbolic content.

Historical, religious and philosophical influences have informed the Japanese approach to the visual arts but the lecture will also draw upon wider examples to illustrate the distinctive qualities that the Japanese have brought to garden design in both modern domestic settings and Japanese gardens abroad. 

Professor Marie Conte-Helm BA, MA, FRSA is a widely published and long-established lecturer on many aspects of Asian Art and East-West Encounters. She was Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011 and more recently served as Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group. She has received honours from both the UK and Japan for services to UK-Japan relations.

Photo credit: Kinkaku-ji, Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoto, 1398. Courtesy of the lecturer.

People were bridging the Thames in the Bronze Age, 1,500 years before London Bridge was constructed by the Romans. In the 1,700 year wait for the next bridge, other crossings relied on watermen and horse ferries as traffic jammed the original one. The last 200 years have seen more than 50 new crossings over, and under, the river. Each has changed the city’s genetic code.  The lecture explores the way we have connected across the Thames and what it says about the culture of the capital through time.

Charles Forman is a London tour guide and lecturer, with a special interest in the social, architectural and artistic history of London. His talks focus on the forces that have shaped and changed the metropolis and the artistic and cultural heritage that it has left. During a four decade long career in housing (including the run-up to the 2012 Olympics) he has gained valuable insights into the development of the capital.

Photo credit: Looking upstream from Tower Bridge to Westminster - Wikimedia

Born in 1921 in Lwow, Poland (now Ukraine), Jorge Lewinski has an unparalleled reputation for portraits of iconic British painters and sculptors of the 20th century. Based in London from 1942, he photographed over 300 leading British artists principally between 1962 and 1995.  With an unapologetic focus mainly on 20th century Royal Academicians, the lecture considers Lewinski’s portraits of some of the great 20th century British artists such as David Hockney, Henry Moore, Antony Gormley, Allen Jones, Michael Craig-Martin and Barbara Hepworth.  Through Lewinski’s work, the lecture explores the artistic contributions that these painters and sculptors have made/are making to the British art scene.

Pamela Campbell-Johnston has an MA Hons in Art History from St Andrews University and worked for over twelve years at the Royal Academy. She has devoted her career to the Arts through public speaking, guided tours and residential trips, with a particular focus on British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art.

Photo credit: Antony Gormley ©The Lewinski Archive at Chatsworth. Courtesy of the lecturer.  

The lecture will begin at 8 pm but will be preceded by the Christmas Party.

THE LECTURE WILL BE FACE TO FACE ONLY (for copyright reasons)

‘Save The Last Dance For Me’ was recorded by the Drifters in 1960, with Ben E King on lead vocals, but what single event in the life of one of its writers inspired the track? Was ‘Every Breath You Take’ by The Police really written as a love song? What is the truth about the Beatles song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, and why did George Harrison stop composing for three years in 1976? The lecture reveals the real stories behind some the world’s best known songs.

Steve King spent 35 years working in the radio industry, at the highest level in broadcasting, and has been recognised by the industry on many occasions.  He has managed some of the biggest radio brands in the UK and worked with many well-known artists including Olly Murs, Robbie Williams, U2 and Rita Ora. He has directed over 50 multi-artist events at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, London Palladium and Wembley Arena. 

Photo  courtesy of the lecturer.

The lecture will be preceeded by the AGM. Members will be sent details of the start time nearer the event.

The Atacama Desert in Chile is not only the driest place on earth, filled with spectacular landscapes, but also home to two kinds of prehistoric rock art. First, rock paintings and engravings (often very beautiful and mostly depicting llamas) and second, the world's greatest collection of 'geoglyphs' - huge drawings made on the landscape. They include the ‘Giant of the Atacama’, by far the biggest human depiction known from prehistory. The talk presents the best examples of the Atacama's art and discusses what is known of the purposes of these enormous drawings.    

Paul Bahn studied Archaeology at Cambridge University and wrote his PhD thesis on the Prehistory of the French Pyrenees. He has held post-doctoral fellowships, at Liverpool and London, plus a J. Paul Getty fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities. His main interest is prehistoric art (especially rock art) most notably of the Palaeolithic era. In 2003, he led a successful search for the first Ice Age cave art in Britain.   

Photo credit: Rock art showing llamas - the Taira Valley, Chile. Courtesy of the lecturer.            

Forensic botany is not a new science; indeed it has played a role in solving major cases for decades, including the infamous murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s infant son. Plants are silent witnesses; their presence at a crime scene can help to identify a suspect or locate a victim. Even mundane plants such as brambles and nettles can provide insights into when a crime was committed and fragments of leaves and seeds on the footwear of a suspect can place them at the scene. An understanding of landscape history and land-use helps to distinguish between a clandestine burial site and a medieval grave.

Originally a horticulturist, Mark Spencer went on to study Botany at university and became a field botanist for a regional conservation organisation. Following 12 years as a botany curator at the Natural History Museum, London, he is now a consultant forensic botanist and occasional public speaker on TV and radio. His interests include the history of botany and botanic gardens, invasive non-native species and the flora of NW Europe.

Photo credit: Pinus bhutanica. Courtesy of the lecturer.

Starting at the Monument to the Great Fire of London, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, the lecture uses Wren’s buildings to tell the story of the rebuilding of London after the Plague and disastrous Great Fire of 1666. Drawing on royal patronage and up-to-the-minute science, Wren worked with a team of eminent collaborators to rebuild 51 new churches, crowned by the extraordinary domed, baroque St Paul’s Cathedral.

Janet Gough read History and history of art at Cambridge and worked in the City and then for Sotheby’s auction house for ten years.  Janet was the Director of Cathedrals and Church Buildings for the Church of England for eight years and she continues to champion historic churches. She became a lay canon of Bangor Cathedral in 2021.  She has written a number of books on the cathedrals of England.

Photo: Sir Christopher Wren, 1711 by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Nation Portrait Gallery. Painted the year he completed St Paul’s, the portrait of Wren, then 79, shows a plan of the west end of the cathedral with a pair of dividers and copy of Euclid (the ‘founder of geometry’). Courtesy of the lecturer.

Using images as well as pieces of silverware that the audience can examine afterwards, the lecture examines the Huguenot influence on this most decorative period where new silver-smithing techniques were fused with new designs. It will include the search for the original owners using heraldry, show portraits of them, and reveal some of their stories Ranging from fabulously wealthy aristocrats to middling sorts, they variously; had a stint in the Tower of London, suffered family tragedies, had their descendants gamble away their estates or found their wife in a bed where she should certainly not have been.

Ralph Hoyle is a long standing member of the Silver Society and was a schoolboy member of the Wine Label Circle (a society devoted to the study of silver decanters labels) eventually becoming its President. He has given talks to the Art Fund, Sheffield Assay Office, American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, Historic Houses and at small charity raising events.

Photo: Courtesy of the lecturer

Settled by the Romans, who brought wine and gastronomy, Burgundy is a region of France packed with stupendous and moving architectural wonders dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Autun, Vezelay, Fontenay, Pontigny and Cluny were spiritual service stations for crusaders, pilgrims and monks, profoundly influencing Western European art in the Middle Ages. The lecture will provide an armchair tour through this wonderful Romanesque region, and look at how the Benedictine abbeys and Cistercian monasteries there created some of the best wines in the world.

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. Formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London and, before that, a senior archivist at the National Archives, her books ‘The Day Parliament Burned Down’ and the sequel ‘Mr Barry’s War’, have won a number of awards. Her third book, ‘National Treasures’ tells the extraordinary and sometimes hilarious stories behind the saving of London’s art and museum collections in World War Two.

Burgundy image courtesy of Caroline Shenton

In 2023, the RA is hosting the first ever UK exhibition on Marina Abramović and the artist is likely to become a hotly debated topic. Abramović is a pioneer of performance art and the lecture will look at her 50-year career from its dramatic beginnings to how the artist, now in her 70’s, has developed her work to reflect her changing perceptions of the world. The lecture will consider whether performance art can outlive the performance itself; are the photos, videos and re-performances of younger artists just as valid? Abramović has a superbly powerful presence and creates a very intense relationship between performer and viewer.

Helen Oakden is the Head of the History of Art Department at St Mary’s School, Ascot. She studied at Manchester University and received her Masters’ Degree in Architectural History from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Based in London, she has previously worked for the Royal Academy and National Gallery, as well as leading specialised art history courses across Italy. 

Picture: Rest Energy by Ulay / Abramović courtesy of the lecturer

THIS WILL BE A HYBRID LECTURE

Joaquin Sorolla was a master of light, managing to capture, like no other, the light of the Mediterranean beaches he loved and the energy of Spanish life. He painted what he saw, quickly, to capture that precise moment. As he said "I could not paint at all if I had to paint slowly. Every effect is so transient, it must be rapidly painted.” 

The lecture we will look at Sorolla’s life and art, from early education to success. Having been almost forgotten, he has been rediscovered in the last few years.

Arantxa Sardina is an official volunteer guide at the Tate Gallery, covering the permanent collections and some of the temporary exhibitions at both Tate Modern and Tate Britain. She completed her MA in Art History at the Open University in 2019, where her dissertation focused on fellow Spaniard Joaquin Sorolla, master painter of Mediterranean light and friend of John Singer Sargent.

Picture: Women on a beach by Sorolla courtesy of Arantxa Sardina

The late Elizabethan garden at Aberglasney is the only surviving cloister garden in the UK and was discovered and saved, at the 11th hour, with the help of an American benefactor. The lecture also reveals the discovery and restoration of a supposedly vanished park around the vestiges of a great house at Middleton, and recounts how it became the National Botanic Garden of Wales and the setting of the largest single span glasshouse in the world, designed by Norman Foster.

William Wilkins divides his life between Wales, London and Venice.  He went to the Royal College of Art, did some teaching, and worked in the Architect’s Dept. of the GLC. before successfully exhibiting in New York and elsewhere.  He combined his love of architecture and landscape architecture to set up The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust, the National Botanic Garden of Wales and the Aberglasney Restoration Trust as well as numerous other cultural and heritage projects.

Picture: Aberglasney house and gardens courtesy of William Wilkins

Donatello may have been born in Florence over 600 years ago, but his sculpture is so powerful that it still speaks directly to us today. Working alongside masters such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti and Masaccio, he was one of the pioneers of the Renaissance and helped to change the way people looked at the world. From delicate idealism and startling realism, to the astonishing emotional force of his later works, this survey looks at the huge range of his sculpture, setting it against the vivid and colourful world of Italian politics in the age of the Renaissance.

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 The Arts Society, the Art Fund, Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery and local art societies.

Picture: David - CC SA 2 via Wikimedia Commons

The lecture will be preceded by the Christmas party

Wine has been part of our global society for over 7,000 years, and the story tells of its origin and appearance in all societies across the Mediterranean and through Europe. Wine became an important component of faith, well-being, and festivity. From the kwevris of Georgia in 5,000 BC, the symposia in ancient Greece, the thermopolia of Pompeii, the hospices of Europe, to the dining tables of fine society wine has been ever present.

David Wright has been a wine retailer, importer and distributor for 30 years. For 10 years, from 1983 he ran an independent Wine Merchant called David Alexander Wine Merchants, which was runner up in the Decanter Magazine/Pol Roger Champagne Merchant of the Year in 1987. From 1993 he worked at Walter Siegel and then in 2016 he joined Delibo Wine Agencies. Over the years, he has publicly presented tastings and talks on wine to trade and private audiences.

The lecture will be preceded by the Arts Society SW London's AGM

Christian Dior said “Without foundations there can be no fashion.” This lecture looks at how those foundations have evolved to create the silhouettes that shaped generations of men and women. It is a story of cutting edge technologies, and looks at men and women alike from the girdle to the Y-front, the chemise to the stocking. In an era where we rely less on foundation garments and more on diet, it is easy to forget how central these garments were to everyday life.

Kate Strasdin is a curator and writer in the field of historic dress and textiles. She is a senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Falmouth University and a Specialist Visiting Lecturer at the DeTao Masters Academy in Shanghai. Kate’s first book, ‘Inside the Royal Wardrobe – A Dress History of Queen Alexandra’ was published by Bloomsbury in 2017 and her second book about a 19th century dress diary will be published next year.

Photo: Late 19th century corset, courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is not a lecture about architecture, but about the people who created our vast cathedrals and churches using tools that seem primitive to us. How did the Master Masons overcome those challenges? Through surviving records, we see that they were very much real people who were sometimes in trouble with the law, who reneged on contracts and who might start a job but not finish it. Nonetheless, they persevered so that today we are able to look on their achievements with wonder.

Imogen Corrigan spent nearly twenty years in the army before going to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon and Medieval History, graduating with 1st class honours and subsequently gained an MPhil from the University of Birmingham. She published her first book in 2019 (‘Stone on Stone: the men who built the cathedrals’), and works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe.

Pliny the Elder described the Atlas Mountains 1900 years before a French cabinetmaker’s son Jacques Majorelle arrived in Morocco, his artistic output started with posters to entice French tourists. Extensive travel in the Atlas Mountains inspired glorious blue dominated canvases and a garden in Marrakech. His blue horticultural testament was saved by Yves St Laurent who tailored the garden with pattern and panache. A foundation for its survival and public entry was created by Yves St Laurent thus bleu majorelle is now prêt-a-porter.

Caroline Holmes is a Garden Historian, author of 12 books, which have been recipient of or nominated for several awards. She is a Course Director for the University of Cambridge ICE, and international guest speaker and lecturer on tours and cruises including the Jacques Majorelle Gardens.

In June 1520 Henry VIII and Francis I meet to ratify an Anglo-French alliance and celebrate the betrothal of Henry’s daughter Mary to the Dauphin. Each brings an entourage of 6,000 to a field south of Calais for 18 days of events and entertainments staged to display the skill and splendour of each King and country. The logistics of transporting, accommodating, and entertaining the English contingent for this spectacular event are staggering and the adornment of the entire Field and everyone present is equally fascinating.

Jo Mabbutt hand-gilds antique lace and sells her work through galleries and exhibitions. She divides her time as a designer/maker, lecturer and tutor running workshops for specialist groups. A Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers and Freeman of the City of London, Jo serves in a number of cross-Livery organisations and was awarded Honorary Membership of City & Guilds for services to education and training in 2020.

THE ARTS SOCIETY SW LONDON 50TH ANNIVERSARY RECEPTION & LECTURE IN ST MARY'S CHURCH, BARNES SW13 9HL

Join us for a reception with sparkling wine and canapés from 6.30 pm before the lecture at 7.30pm

Tickets are £25.

The lecture will explore the rich musical traditions of Venice.

Claudio Monteverdi not only transformed the music at the Basilica of San Marco but also led the way to the creation of a new art form - opera. We shall look at, and listen to, works from the other musical geniuses who developed the musical life of San Marco, such as Gabrieli and Lotti, as well as tracing Monteverdi’s successors in the creation of Venetian opera, including Cavalli and Albinoni.

Finally, the lecture will examine and include music from Antonio Vivaldi, the other towering figure of Venetian music, who created music both for the opera stage and the female musicians of the Ospidale della Pietà.

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

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

St James’s was where the beau monde came for the Season – to meet their lawyers, tailors, for the marriage market; to attend Parliament and host soirées, and to indulge themselves in gambling and other heady pursuits. This was the stamping ground of Prinny, Lady Georgiana Spencer, Beau Brummel, Lord Byron and Charles James Fox. We see Lord Byron, so afraid Lectures of becoming fat, weighing himself thrice daily on Berry Bros’ scales, Fox signing political documents with one hand, whilst holding gambling cards in the other.

Originally working for Phaidon and Yale University Presses, Sue is also a Fellow of the Huguenot Society, a Freeman of the City of London, a tutor at City Lit and a Blue Badge guide, conducting a variety of walks and visits in London and major sites in England. She runs an annual course at the National Gallery and is a co-author of the book ‘London Walks: London Visits’.

This lecture will take place on Monday May 9th at 8.00 pm in Dryburgh Hall in Putney Leisure Centre. It will also be live-streamed on Zoom for those unable to attend. We have been given permission to record the lecture but it will be available for one week only. Visitors will be welcome. For more information, please email us using the contact facility on the top right.

The eighth daughter of King Nikola of Montenegro – Ksenia – rejected marriage and chose to carve out a place for herself as secretary and valued advisor to her father, becoming the first woman in Montenegro to drive, and developing a particular talent for photography. This lecture shares the photographs Princess Ksenia took during her years in the new Montenegrin capital of Cetinje, before her exile to France in 1916. Through a human narrative, the beautiful country and fascinating history of Montenegro is brought to life.

Elizabeth Gowing divides her time between the UK and the Balkans. In Kosovo she co-founded The Ideas Partnership charity which empowers and supports people in need in Kosovo, and the cultural heritage sector. She is the author of four Balkan travel books, and of the Fodor’s guide to Montenegro. She is on the advisory board of GuideKS, the NGO for Kosovan tour guides, and of Faktoje, the Albanian fact-checking NGO.

Photo: Princess Ksenia used with permission from the Director of the National Museum of Montenegro. Further photographs can be seen in the books “Crna Gora u Magicnom Oku Princeze Ksenije” by Ande Kapičić and “European Fashion at the Montenegrin Court” by Tatjana Jović.

The late Elizabethan garden at Aberglasney is the only surviving cloister garden in the UK and it was discovered and saved, at the 11th hour, with the help of an American benefactor. The lecture also reveals the discovery and restoration of a supposedly vanished park around the vestiges of a great house at Middleton, and recounts how it became the National Botanic Garden of Wales and the setting of the largest single span glasshouse in the world, designed by Norman Foster.

William Wilkins divides his life between Wales, London and Venice. He went to the Royal College of Art, did some teaching, and worked in the Architect’s Department of the GLC before successfully exhibiting in New York and elsewhere. He combined his love of architecture and landscape architecture to set up The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust, the National Botanic Garden of Wales and the Aberglasney Restoration Trust as well as numerous other cultural and heritage projects. 

Photo: Aberglasney

This lecture will essentially be a face to face meeting in Dryburgh Hall, Putney Leisure Centre at 8pm. But to help people who are anxious or unable to mix again, we are going to try to stream it live via Zoom from the hall. We would welcome feedback after the event both from those in the hall and those watching via Zoom. The Zoom link has been sent to members

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

Julia Musgrave has a Graduate Diploma in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an MLitt from the University of Glasgow. She is currently researching the involvement of Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group in the development of the Contemporary Art Society from 1910 to 1937. She teaches Art History at the City Literary Institute (City Lit) and is Co-Director of The London Art Salon and a Fellow of the RSA.

The lecture will be given on Zoom. Members will be sent information about how to join nearer the time. Visitors will be welcome and can contact us using the email contact facility on the top right.

Suzanne Valadon was brought up in poverty in Paris where she became a painter and a model for Toulouse- Lautrec. Her private life was scandalous, with marital crises well known in Montmartre. Her son Maurice Utrillo was an alcoholic. Luisa Casati was born into great wealth but lived a scandalous life of extravagance and showmanship feted by many leading artists, including Augustus John, Cecil Beaton, and Man Ray. She threw outrageous parties in her Venetian palace (now the Peggy Guggenheim Museum) and died in poverty in Kensington in 1957.

Julian Halsby is an art historian, critic, lecturer and painter. He studied history of art at Cambridge University and later taught at a London art college where he became Senior Lecturer and Head of Department. He has written seven books and innumerable articles. Julian is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and The Critics Circle. He is also a practising painter and an elected member of the Royal Society of British Artists.

Photo: Giovanni Boldini - Marchese Luisa Casati

Given the increasing concern over the spread of the omicron variant of Covid and the clear reluctance of many people to risk contracting the virus so close to Christmas, we have decided to cancel this face-to-face lecure at Putney Leisure Centre and to run it on Zoom. For more information, please email us using the contact facility on the top right. 

Members have been sent details. Visitors will be welcome to access the lecture on Zoom.

Gustav Klimt and his colleagues broke away from the imperially endorsed art institutions in Vienna in 1897 and founded the Secession. In the same year Gustav Mahler took charge of the Opera House in the city. Comparing these two totemic fin de siècle talents, this lecture places Klimt and Mahler in context, asking what fundamentally links and, indeed, divides them.

Gavin Plumley is a writer and broadcaster on BBC Radio and contributes to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. He lectures about the culture of Central Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries at a variety of venues.

Photo: From the Beethoven Frieze by Gustav Klimt. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This lecture will on Zoom. Members will be sent details about how to join nearer the time, but if anyone would like to attend as a visitor, please contact us through the email contact facility on the top right.

It will be preceded by The Arts Society SW London's AGM at 7.30pm

Currently well over 500 new buildings over twenty storeys high are planned in London, many more than twice this height. This talk looks at the best of these buildings including the cutting-edge designs of the massive towers such as the Shard, the Walkie-Talkie, the Cheesegrater and the Scalpel. It covers their extraordinary architectural and engineering challenges and the controversies and difficult social decisions needed to manage this dramatically changing skyline.

Ian Swankie has a passion for art and architecture. He is an official guide at the Tate, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral and a qualified London guide leading tours for various organisations. He gives talks on a variety of subjects to an art lecture group in Richmond. He is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars.

It is planned that this lecture will take place at 8pm at the Community Hall, Werter Road, Putney, where 60 people will be able to attend in person on a first come, first served basis. It will also be on Zoom. Members will be sent details about how to attend or join on Zoom, but if anyone would like to attend as a visitor, please contact us through the email contact facility on the top right.

Speed! Technology! Destruction! The battle cry of the Futurists heralded the appearance of the car as a powerful symbol in avant-garde art while the creations of the great Art Deco coachbuilders are works of art in their own right. Speed continued to be a major theme in how cars were depicted in art but, since the 1950’s the car has become art, used as a canvas for artists such as Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst.

Julian Richards is an archaeologist, author and broadcaster, perhaps best known for his BBC TV series ‘Meet the Ancestors’ and his obsession with Stonehenge. He also has a passion for historic cars, both in sport and art. As well as more practical modern transport, he owns and drives a 1959 Triumph TR3.

This lecture will take place at 8pm at the Community Hall, Werter Road, Putney, where 60 people will be able to attend in person on a first come, first served basis. It will also be on Zoom. Members have been sent details about how to attend or join on Zoom, but if anyone would like to attend as a visitor, please contact us through the email contact facility on the top right.

An exhibition dedicated to the legendary St Petersburg jewellers opening November 20th, 2021 at the V&A promises to delight enthusiasts.  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.  

The discussion of the House of Fabergé’s British enterprise will incorporate a short history of the evolution of the House of Fabergé, an introduction to the design, use of materials and production techniques using as examples and illustration specific pieces that are travelling over. The lecture will dovetail with the exhibition’s content and also suggest further viewing in permanent collections around London.

Cynthia Coleman Sparke 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. Cynthia now lives permanently in London. 

This lecture will be given on Zoom. Members will be emailed information about how to join shortly before. Visitors will be welcome at a cost of £5. For more information please contact us using the email contact top right.

Nigel Bates draws on history and his own musical experiences from over six thousand performances and recordings, including rare video footage of conductors in rehearsal and performance, to examine what conductors do that makes orchestras respond in so many different ways. Is it a good baton technique? A strong personality? The way they look? Why are there relatively few women found on the podium? Why are the conductors paid so much more than anyone else on the concert platform?

Nigel Bates was the Music Administrator of The Royal Ballet from 2012 to 2020 and was a performer for more than forty years in and out of the Royal Opera House. He has worked with many of the leading figures in the classical music industry. His musical career has been very varied and he produced the BBC’s documentary series ‘Maestro at the Opera’ and ‘Pappano’s Classical Voices’.

This lecture will be given on Zoom. Members will be emailed information about how to join shortly before. Visitors will be welcome at a cost of £5. For more information please contact us using the email contact facility top right.

The story of the epic rivalry between the two giants of British art, JMW Turner and John Constable. As unlike in background and temperament as their paintings were in style, these two creative geniuses transformed the art of landscape during the nineteenth century. This lecture examines their ‘signature’ paints; how they overcame the ‘technical challenge’ of sketching from nature and how their differing approaches fared in the competitive arena of the Royal Academy.   

Nicola Moorby is an independent art historian specialising in British art of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Formerly a curator and researcher at Tate Britain, she has worked on a number of exhibitions and publications on JMW Turner including, How to Paint Like Turner (Tate Publishing, 2010) and the Tate’s new online catalogue of the Turner Bequest.

Picture: The Fighting Temeraire/JWM Turner/Public domain

This lecture will be given on Zoom. Members will be emailed information about how to join shortly before. Visitors will be welcome at a cost of £5. For more information please contact us using the email contact facility top right.

Modern graffiti is often seen as transgressive and moronic. However, look closely at the walls of our historic buildings, trees, caves and rockfaces and you will see a world of graffiti left that illuminates the psychology of our ancestors. The study of historic graffiti enables us to hear the lost voices of ordinary individuals through their images of daisywheels, ships sailing across the walls, knights drawing their swords, demons stalking the stonework and every animal imaginable….

James Wright FSA is an award-winning archaeologist and accredited lecturer with both the Arts Society and WEA. He has over fifteen years of lecturing experience and has talked to a wide variety of organisations including the Gresham College, Shakespeare400 and the National Trust.

Photo: Graffiti of women’s body/17th/18th century graffiti by the south door of St. Thomas's church/Richard Croft

This lecture will be given on Zoom. Members will be emailed information about how to join shortly before. Visitors will be welcome at a cost of £5. For more information please contact us using the contact facility top right.

Three Great Families and their Gardens is the story of three very different, but hugely successful families, the Sackville Wests, the Astors and the Rothschilds. The Sackville Wests have been part of the establishment since the Conqueror and the other two families are wealthy immigrants who came to England in the nineteenth century.  The talk traces the history of the families, discusses their contribution to life in England and celebrates the splendid gardens that they have created including Sissinghurst, Exbury and Clivedon.

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

Photo: Hever Castle rose garden with fountain/Graham Bould, via Wikimedia Commons

This lecture will be given on Zoom. Members will be emailed information about how to join shortly before. Visitors will be welcome at a cost of £5. For more information please contact us using the contact facility top right.

A mixture of art-historical analysis and scandalous anecdote, this lecture takes a light-hearted look at changing attitudes to sexual morality down the ages, by examining the portraits and careers of some of history’s most notorious mistresses and courtesans.  It investigates how the numerous anonymous working girls at the lower end of the scale have been represented in different times and places from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.

Linda Smith is an art historian with a special interest in British art, and the art of the twentieth century. She has worked at a wide range of venues, including public galleries, secondary schools, universities, cruise liners, and arts societies in the UK and overseas.  She is an experienced gallery guide, especially at the Tate in London.

Photo:  Giovanna Baccelli by Gainsborough 1782 detail

This lecture will be given on Zoom. Members will be emailed information about how to join shortly before. Visitors will be welcome at a cost of £5. For more information please contact us using the contact facility top right.

This talk illustrates the origins of our great British public park. It examines the need for parks, their Victorian heyday, what makes a great park, with examples of lodges, lakes, bandstands, fountains and floral displays. Following a great decline in the sixties and seventies, interest in our parks has revived and again we are in love with them.

Paul Rabbitts has a master’s degree in landscape architecture and has worked on many architectural landscape projects from in the Isle of Wight to the Scottish Borders, and in Jersey.  These include the restoration of Hammonds Pond, Albert Park and Cassiobury Park.  He has written over 15 books about parks and park architecture.

Photo: The Bandstand at Upper Norwood

This lecture will be given on Zoom. Members will be emailed information about how to join shortly before. Visitors will be welcome at a cost of £5. For more information please contact us using the contact facility top right.

The architecture of The Royal National Theatre divides opinion.  Famously, Prince Charles once described it as a nuclear bunker.  Was he right?  This lecture looks at the life and work of its architect, Denys Lasdun, including other buildings he designed but focuses on the National Theatre and pleads for an appreciation of the austere beauty of this architectural masterpiece.

Alan Read is a guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern and at the National Portrait Gallery.  He has lectured widely including at the National Portrait Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery and Plymouth City Art Gallery.  He has a first class honours and a master’s degree in the history of art from Birkbeck College and is a London Blue Badge Guide.

This lecture will be delivered via Zoom and will be available for two subsequent weeks on Zoom. Details about how to join will be sent to members nearer the time.

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

Roger Askew was a chorister at Wells Cathedral School and a choral scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford. He combined a teaching career with professional singing in London, and after a further degree in Music became Director of Music at Daniel Stewart’s and Melville College in Edinburgh. He is President Emeritus of The Stoke Poges Society and Chairman of the Arts Society Windsor.

Picture: Queen Victoria and royal family with Christmas tree/Unknown author/ [Public domain]

This lecture will be delivered via Zoom and will be available for a further two weeks after November 9th . It will be preceded by the AGM, also to be held on Zoom. Details about how to join will be sent to members nearer the time. 

A journey through the 60s in music and images, following the Beatles from the Hamburg Reeperbahn in 1960 to Abbey Road in 1969. The band was fascinated by the visual arts. With the help of friends such as the artists Peter Blake, Jann Haworth and Richard Hamilton, the photographer Bob Freeman and the gallery owner, ‘Groovy Bob’ Fraser, they also turned album design into an art form in its own right.

Barry Venning is an art historian specialising in British art since 1700, with a particular interest in the work of JMW Turner, on whom he has published and spoken extensively. He has also twice contributed to BBC documentaries on the artist. He works for the Open University and has lectured on British art in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Picture: Cover photo for With the Beatles, Robert Freeman, 1963

This lecture will be delivered via Zoom. Details about how to join will be sent to members nearer the time.

Love it or loathe it, you can’t fail to be impressed by London’s Tube. It was the world’s first underground railway and grew into one of the biggest and arguably best designed. In his talk the lecturer will show how the tube and its various facets, such as the architecture of tube stations or the tube diagram, fabric designers for seats influenced not only transport systems worldwide, but also impacted on our daily lives – Southfields station even inspired the Daleks.

Design historian Mark Ovenden is an internationally respected author, presenter, broadcaster and lecturer whose best-selling books have been translated into many languages. Ovenden brings joyful insight, warmth, humour and accessibility to what might on the surface appear somewhat dry, geeky or technical subjects. His infectious enthusiasm in print, on TV, radio or delivering talks, enthralls and informs audiences.

Photo: Osterley station tower

This lecture was delivered via Zoom and is available to members, or guests for a donatin of £5, until September 31st. Details about how to access it have been sent to members.

Drawing on new insights, this lecture will use the films of renowned director David Lean to explore the art of cinema. Cinematic images are modern art forms. In the ‘golden age’ of cinema, filmmakers had to construct sets to represent landscapes, townscapes, and interiors. Sometimes they used paintings and photographs, sometimes they built scale models, and sometimes they constructed full-size replicas. In each case, they created an art installation that they then captured in celluloid images.

Neil Faulkner is an archaeologist, historian, writer and occasional broadcaster. He lectures widely in archaeology, ancient history, classical civilisation, modern history, and current affairs. He is a director of several archaeological projects and he is currently setting up new field projects to explore the Second World War battlefield of Cassino and to pioneer the archaeological investigation of cinema.

This lecture will be given via Zoom at 8pm. Members will be sent details about how to join and a link nearer the time. It will also be available to view for two weeks after August 17th.

Wool, cotton and silk have each played a crucial role in the fortunes of Central Asia. Wool created the clothing and housing needed by the great nomadic cultures that were to dominate Middle Asia. Silk was more valuable than gold and used as currency, creating a network of trading routes that led to the first outbreak of globalisation. Cotton was the cause of Russian and then Soviet colonisation and continues to cause controversy today as well as human misery and environmental catastrophe. The felts, carpets, embroideries, robes and veils of the Silk Road stratified wealth, displayed religious and political entrenchments and changed the fortunes of this fascinating part of the world; a meeting place between Mohammed and Marx.

Chris Alexanderwas born in Turkey spending his childhood there and in war-torn Beirut. After school came two years at sea before studying media and journalism at Leicester University.

Chris then established a UNESCO workshop in a desert oasis in Uzbekistan reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries and became the largest non-government employer in town. Next a year in the UK writing A Carpet Ride to Khiva, then Chris moved to Tajikistan for three years, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down. Next came two years in Kyrgyzstan establishing  a wood-carving workshop in the world’s largest natural walnut forest.

Chris, recently finished rowing and studying at Oxford, has 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 Art 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".

This lecture will be given via Zoom. Members will be sent details about how to join and a link nearer the time

That Beethoven is one of the greatest composters in the history of music is an established fact and not open to any form of debate or negotiation. Consequently, much has been written about his music, but curiously, little has been said about an area of his writing that should be considered central to his development as a composter: the composition that spring directly from a personal experience. Repeatedly, Beethoven places himself at the heart of his music e.g. the communicating of emotions aroused by a walk through the Viennese countryside as relayed in the Pastoral Symphony, or feelings expressed towards the Archduke Rudolph in the Piano Sonata in Eb OP 81a. No composer had ever done that before.

This anniversary lecture of Beethoven’s birth explores the subjective element in his music and goes on to make the point that Beethoven is the first composter in history where the barriers are lifted between the creator and the composition.

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

Picture: Beethoven Portrait/Joseph Karl Stieler/Public Domain

This lecture charts the meteoric rise to prominence of Raphael (1483–1520). It analyses his early work in the Perugino workshop; his sojourn to Florence in 1504 and his key commission for the Papacy who summoned the artist to Rome in 1508 so cementing the fame of this phenomenal talent. 1500 marks the start of the High Renaissance and the emergence of Raphael as a great Master.

 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 to widespread critical acclaim.

Picture: Raffaello Sanzio self portrait/Public domain

This talk looks at how to apply the principles of colour theory in designing a border, but it also looks at the ways in which a border is different from a painting. However, it goes further than this and looks at how work of the likes of Turner, Monet, Rothko, Jackson Pollack, and Hockney evolved in parallel with ideas about what a garden or border should look like.

Timothy Walker was director of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden for 26 years during which time the Garden won four Gold Medals at the Chelsea Flower Show, one of which was for an exhibit explaining the science of using colour in the garden. Since 2014 he has been the College Lecturer in Biology at Somerville College Oxford.

 Peggy Guggenheim– the ‘poor little rich girl’ who changed the face of twentieth century art. Not only was Peggy Guggenheim ahead of her time but she was the woman who helped define it. She discovered and nurtured a new generation of artists producing a new kind of art. Through collecting not only art but the artists themselves,her life was as radical as her collection.  

Alexandra Epp’s background is in design, having practised as a graphic designer running her own design consultancy for many years. She now is the official Guide and Lecturer at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Guildhall Art Gallery. She also offers guides to the City of London. Co-author of the book Lord Mayor’s Portraits 1983–2014 (2015)

Photo: Guggenheim Museum, Venice - Peter Haas via Wikimedia Commons

Pantomime is an enduring and peculiarly British institution, and developed into the form we know today in the nineteenth century. However, its beginnings were much longer ago and far away. This talk looks at the origins and sources of panto and the rise of its many traditions and superstitions, interspersed with personal anecdotes from the speaker’s years of working (and appearing) in pantomime.

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

Picture: Three characters from commedia del'arte

Many women were amongst the British artists officially commissioned to record the Second World War both at home and abroad. We will be introduced to some new names based on interviews with several of the self-effacing but very talented people who found their paintings shown unexpectedly at the empty National Gallery, as well as provide fresh context to some of the better-known paintings which enhance our national collections.

Magdalen Evans studied history of art at UEA and worked at Agnew's for over ten years; since then she has been organising exhibitions and writing articles, concentrating on C19th/20th women artists. A contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and to BBC Woman's Hour, she also works with charities that help ex-offenders through art and education. She has lectured for the Art Fund, National Portrait Gallery, Pre-Raphaelite Society and Art Workers' Guild as well as to the Art Society of Budapest.

Picture: Unloading casulaties by Doris Zinkeisen 1945

Tony Rawlins describes the processes by which advertisements are created and why, from the Renaissance through to the present day, fine works of art have helped enhance brand imagery for advertisers. In an amusing and informative lecture, visuals and videos show the original works, the creative process and the (not always entirely successful!) advertisements that result.

Tony Rawlins started his career in advertising in 1965 as a mail boy in J.Walter Thompson. Graduating through the training system there to become an account director, he worked in a number of agencies before setting up on his own in 1985, primarily to handle Guinness accounts in Africa and the Caribbean, where he produced many commercials and ads for them over a period of 15 years. He remains active in the industry, but now concentrates on more philanthropic projects.

This lecture explores the history and development of wallpaper and it’s uses in both grand and more ordinary homes, from earliest times up to the present day. It discusses the changing ways it was made from the first black and white patterns, the creation of elegant flock hangings, Chinese hand-painted papers, machine-printing, the designs of Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, to Modernist and Contemporary designs in the 20th century.

A freelance curator, lecturer and writer, Jo Banham was Head of Adult Learning at the Victoria & Albert Museum (2006-2016) and, before that, Head of Learning and Access at the National Portrait Gallery, and Head of Public Programmes at Tate Britain. She has also been Curator of Leighton House and Assistant Keeper at the Whitworth Art Gallery. She has published on many aspects of Victorian and early 20th century decoration and interiors.

Illustration: Wallpaper poster c 1890 Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester

Why are statues of public figures punished for the crimes committed by the figures they represent during revolutions and civil uprisings? Statues of famous people should resemble their subject in order to facilitate recognition. Yet, the likeness must not be so accurate that the statue could be mistaken for its subject. Curiously, it is this very likeness that engenders public rage in moments of political upheaval or revolution. 

A UK-based art historian, writer and art consultant, Tom Flynn holds a BA Honours degree (First Class) 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. He lectures at a number of UK universities and has published widely.

Collaboratively designed with their friends, William & Janey Morris’s Red House led to the Arts and Crafts movement. Morris & Co. grew from it. Morris became an international force; a poet, writer and philosopher. He and Webb were social reformers. They crystallised the way we regard and care for old buildings. Three decades later, Webb’s last house, Standen, celebrates the journey they made. Looking at both houses illuminates this journey.

Shawn Kholucy is an architect working mainly on medieval churches. A Lethaby-Plunket Scholar of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and a Brother of the Art Workers Guild, he lectures on architectural matters at academic institutions and to interest groups here and abroad. He has organised and led many study days and tours, has contributed articles to magazines and journals, and wrote the updating comments and notes for the new edition of A.R. Powys's seminal 1929 work, Repair of Ancient Buildings (2015). 

Photo: William and Janey Morris's Red House

Over a thousand Roman villas are known in Britain. They range from modestly appointed farmhouses to country palaces, with a ‘golden age’ in the 4th century AD. The richest owners used architectural styles, wall paintings, mosaics, sculpture and luxury goods to advertise their status and to display their learning and taste. This lecture explains how villas developed in Roman Britain and their fate, with a special focus on Lullingstone.

Guy de la Bédoyère is a historian and archaeologist, well-known for his frequent appearances on Channel 4’s Time Team and his numerous books on Roman History. He has degrees from the universities of Durham and London and worked for many years in the BBC. He also taught History and Classical Civilization at a girls’ grammar school for nine years. He has lectured to societies in Britain, the Gloucester History Festival and also in Western Australia. He is an elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

This entertaining and informative presentation tells of the Mozart family’s residence in London (1764-5) when the child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus befriended George III, became the object of medical research, and composed his first symphony. Dr Griffiths illustrates his talk at the piano with performances of Mozart’s witty and precociously mature compositions. Music by Mozart’s own child-prodigy Franz Xaver brings the presentation to an emotional conclusion.

Conductor, concert pianist and musicologist, Dr Graham Griffiths is an Honorary Research Fellow at City, University of London, and is a published author on the life and music of Igor Stravinsky (Cambridge University Press, 2013 + 2020).

Photo: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, possibly by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni (1721-1782) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

A lecture celebrating the life of the visionary Victorian John Ruskin, who, as writer, teacher, artist, collector, patron and critic, was perhaps the most complete polymath of the 19th century. Concern about the negative impacts of C19th industrialisation led to him founding the Guild of St George (1871), a charity for arts, crafts and the rural economy. He donated a collection of art, books and minerals for public display and education in Sheffield.

Simon Seligman studied art and architectural history at Warwick University, and the Attingham Summer school. From 1991 until 2010 he worked at Chatsworth, in a variety of roles, latterly as Head of Communications. Has lectured about Chatsworth, the Devonshire Collection and associated topics, throughout the UK and on several US tours (including the Metropolitan Museum and the National Gallery of Art). Publications include written or edited guidebooks and articles for and about Chatsworth.

This lecture looks at the extraordinary periods and events between 1890 and 1929, when the great fashion houses collaborated with the finest jewellers to produce works of art of outstanding quality and glittering opulence. It discusses the clients and patrons who commissioned the jewels and how they were worn with the sumptuous gowns.

Some specially made pieces from the series Downton Abbey will be available to view close-up.

Andrew Prince’s appreciation for jewels that were valued for their quality of design and craftsmanship, rather than for how much the stones in the piece were worth, began with Ian Harris and continued with the renowned contemporary jeweller Elizabeth Gage. Private commissions for celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Shirley Bassey followed. In 2002, the V&A commissioned a collection of jewels for the Tiaras, Past and Present exhibition, which became one of their most popular exhibits. The exposure gained by the show then led to Andrew's jewellery appearing in films and in the third series of Downton Abbey.

This will explore a selection of the Academy’s ground breaking temporary loan exhibitions and reflect on its impact on the art scene, both at home and abroad.  There will be a behind the scenes look at the Summer Exhibition, held without interruption since 1769.  The influence of certain world renowned Royal Academicians from Joshua Reynolds to David Hockney will be considered.

Pamela Campbell-Johnston is a freelance lecturer and consultant.  She has over 20 years lecturing experience, 12 of which were at the Royal Academy when she delivered part of the Adult Education Department’s programme of events.  She has also conducted tours and gallery talks

 Photo: Royal Academy - varnishing day 2015/Rowead (Own work)/CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Out of the carnage of the Great War emerged heroism, courage and loyalty, and a fine flowering of poetry – as much indignant as patriotic – art and music. The poems of Wilfred Owen and others such as Siegfried Sassoon, the paintings of war artists such as Paul and John Nash and the music of composers including Elgar and Ivor Gurney are at the core of the presentation which will include archive action photographs and musical extracts.

Dennis Moriarty worked as a BBC TV Music and Arts producer and his programmes included English Towns with Alec Clifton-Taylor.  He contributed the article on Alec Clifton-Taylor to the Dictionary of National Biography. He lectures widely and over the last twenty years has led musical, architectural and historical study tours at home and abroad.

​Photo: Wilfred Owen

Dame Zaha Hadid, who died on 31 March 2016, was born in Iraq and made her home in Britain, but her reputation was global.  The lecture tells the story of her career from the visionary projects of the 1980s, through the years of frustration when her designs were considered unbuildable, to the prolific crop of successful projects built all over the world in the last decade of her life.

Colin Davies was Professor of Architectural Theory at London Metropolitan University. A former editor of The Architects’ Journal, he has published several books and is a regular contributor to architectural magazines worldwide.

MacDonald ‘Max’ Gill, younger brother of Eric Gill, was best known for his pictorial map posters for the London Underground and painted map panels for such iconic buildings as Lindisfarne Castle.  He designed Arts and Crafts cottages in rural Sussex and Dorset, while the alphabet he created for the standard military headstone is well known.

Caroline Walker began research into her great-uncle in 2006 and has curated several MacDonald Gill exhibitions round the country and contributed articles to Country Life.  She is currently writing his biography and has lectured at organisations such as the National Archives and the National Trust.

Of Carl Linnaeus’s many innovations, the establishment of the binomial system is considered the greatest; thus we are known as homo sapiens and the common lawn daisy as bellis perennis.   Linnaeus was the first person in Europe to flower and fruit a banana and he developed a technique for growing seed pearls.

Mark Spencer was a field botanist for a regional conservation organisation. After 12 years as a museum curator at the Natural History Museum he is now a consultant forensic botanist, with a strong interest in the history of botany and botanic gardens.

In 1917 Norman Wilkinson invented Dazzle painting, also known as Dazzle camouflage.  Thousands of British and Allied ships were painted with vivid and violently contrasting patterns of colour to deter U-boat attacks.  Wilkinson’s scheme continues to inspire art, design and fashion that includes the ‘Dazzling’ of the Mersey ferry ‘Snowdrop’ by Sir Peter Blake.

James Taylor was formerly curator of paintings, drawings and prints at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and is a lecturer and ships’ historian on cruise ships.  His publications include those on public information and propaganda as well as maritime matters.

 Photo: Mauretania in Dazzle Paint/Burnell Poole [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Amazingly the connoisseurship which led to the sumptuous collections at the Wallace Collection in London and the Frick in New York, is linked by a circle of patrons, dealers and taste.  Apart from Sir Richard and Lady Wallace and the American industrialist Henry Clay Frick, there was someone who worked for them all, who then left a related fortune to the mother of Vita Sackville-West.  Therein lies a great story.

Hilary Williams was formerly Print Room Superintendent at the British Museum and holds the post of Art History Education Officer.  She lectures both at the Museum and at the Wallace Collection and is Liaison Officer with the Arts Society.  

 Photo: Knole House/David Iliff/CC-BY-SA 3.0.

The Maya created one of the most sophisticated civilisations in the ancient world.  Their achievements in the arts and sciences make them one of the most remarkable cultural groups in the pre-Columbian Americas.  The lecture will discuss the major achievement of the Maya, as well as pointing out the common misunderstandings we have of them.     

Diana Davies is a Maya archaeologist and honorary research associate at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.  She lectures to a variety of organisations, including the Historical Association, and is an educational consultant giving workshops to both teachers and students.   She is Chair of Coke Education, a charity supporting the education of Maya children.

 Photo: Maya statue/FA2010 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The lute was important in art as a device often used to express differing aspects of the human character.  For example, painters of the Italian Renaissance depicted golden haired angels plucking its delicate strings to evoke the celestial harmony of the heavens.  The lecture, with live music, will follow the symbolism and significance of the instrument, beginning in the Renaissance and finishing in the 18th century with Watteau.

Adam Busiakiewicz was Head of Historical Interpretation at Warwick Castle.   He has an MA in Fine and Decorative Art from the Sotheby’s Institute.  The youngest Guide Lecturer at the Wallace Collection, he regularly gives talks to both public and professional audiences.   

Porcelain was invented in 1710 at Meissen under the patronage of Augustus the Strong, the self styled sufferer of ‘la maladie de porcelaine’.  Some, like Madame de Pompadour, the patron of Sevres, regarded the possession of porcelain as a symbol of power and status.  Famous collectors include the Prince Regent, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild and American captains of industry such as Henry Ford II.

Anne Haworth lectures regularly at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Queen’s Gallery.  She was a specialist in European and Asian ceramics, first at Bonhams and then at Christie’s, visiting and cataloguing many private collections of ceramics in Britain and Europe.  In Shanghai she lectured to the international community of diplomats and expatriates.

​Photo: Cream pot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ralph Montagu commissioned the building of Boughton House having been deeply impressed by the extraordinary fusion of architecture and the decorative arts in France in the time of Louis XIV, seen in all its glory at the king’s new palace at Versailles. The house contains fine collections of furniture and tapestries and also works of art from the fabled collections of the Dukes of Buccleuch and Queensbury.  

Tom Duncan read History of Art and Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at Trinity College Dublin, took an MA in the United States and returned to complete his Ph.D. He has lectured widely to heritage and artistic organisations, nationally and internationally, for many years and regularly leads tours through his own company CICERONI Travel.

Picture: Boughton House/John Stolarski/CC BY-SA 2.0.  

Although glass has been made for centuries, the 1960s saw a revolution in the way it was made, opening it up to artists across the world. After looking at the historical context and the genesis of the movement, I examine the work of six key glass artists from the US and the UK, including Dale Chihuly, Sam Herman, and Peter Layton. Containing previously unseen photographs taken at the time, this talk also includes my top tips and an overview of the market today and the creative journey made by glassmakers so far.

Mark Hilll is an expert on the BBC Antiques Roadshow and has presented four primetime series on antiques, interiors and collecting for BBC2. He is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and has also spoken at locations ranging from village halls and local bookshops to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Photo: Cover of “Sklo: Czech Glass Design from the 1950s-70s”, a book by Mark Hill

Best remembered today as a collector and connoisseur, Soane was a leading architect at the beginning of the 19th century. He built a series of lovely ‘Greek Revival’ villas, such as Pitzhanger in Ealing (currently being restored), but his fame rested on designs of great public buildings in London. Sadly the only one to survive is the much loved Dulwich Picture Gallery. 

Christopher Rogers read Geography at Oxford and then taught. He was formerly Head of Geography at Downe House School, Newbury. Having become interested in architecture at Oxford, he has taught courses at Marlborough Summer School for forty years and also lectures for the National Trust.  

Picture: Dulwich Picture Gallery (inside)/Bridgeman at German Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0

Opera is an elaborate, even extravagant, art form. From its earliest times up to the present day it has employed artists and architects to design sets and costumes, using the richest materials and effects, often by means of trompe-l’oeil and other forms of visual trickery. The arts associated with opera will be shown from surviving drawings from early theatres, paintings and examples of modern scenery. 

Simon Rees has an MA in English Literature from Cambridge University. He taught in Italy and Japan, exploring art and architecture in both countries. From 1989 to 2012 he was Dramaturg at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff, working with set, costume and props designers. He is the author of several novels. 

Picture: Costumes of dancers for the opera Khovanshchina/Aleksandr Lozhkin [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

Why were foreign painters preferred by the aristocracy in London to native-born English painters and why did they come here in the first place? The various formats and uses of art are examined, tracing the contributions of foreign artists from the Tudor to the Renaissance and Baroque periods. This lecture will look at how these artists influenced the British School of Painting and assess their legacy. 

Leslie Primo has an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Reading, lectures at the City Literary Institute and guides and gives lectures at the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.

​Picture: Elizabeth I – Coronation portrait/See page for author [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

On the basis of sensational new evidence from archaeological fieldwork, this contrasts the legend of Lawrence of Arabia with the true story of what happened in the famous desert war of 1916 to 1918. Is the legend a myth? Was Lawrence, as some claim, a liar and a charlatan? Was he, in fact, a brilliant military commander and a sincere advocate of the Arab national cause?  

Neil Faulkner is the joint Academic Director of the Great Arab Revolt Project, which has been exploring the archaeology of the First World War in the deserts of southern Jordan since 1996. He and his Co-Academic Director have been working on books on the desert’s military history and archaeological discoveries.

​Picture: Neil Faulkner

Coleridge, Constable, Wordsworth and Turner were Art Geographers and you can see the excitement of intimate landscape discovery in their work. Geology, place, weather and flora all played an active part in the work of Romantic painters and poets. The speaker, a landscape painter himself, uses his experience to throw fresh light on familiar paintings.

Stephen Taylor’s post graduate work was on John Constable. He is a visiting lecturer at the Inchbald School of Design in London and is a professional painter specialising in landscape. He has exhibited widely both at home and overseas.

Picture: Modern Rome – Campo Vacino/J.M.W. Turner [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

Artists have always used jokes to make serious statements – about themselves, about the world, about the nature of art. This lecture looks at artists’ jokes through the ages, from medieval monks doodling graffiti in the margins of manuscripts to Banksy turning supermarket walls into social satire. ‘Artists’ jokes tell you a lot when you know where to look’.  

Susie Harries is a lecturer specialising in 20th century culture and the arts. She is the author of eight books, specialising in war art, opera and the composer Elisabeth Lutyens. In 2011 she published an acclaimed biography of Nikolaus Pevsner.

The fine tradition of Church building and decoration in Georgia, one of the first nations to adopt Christianity, shows Byzantine and some oriental influences. Medieval artefacts such as manuscripts, icons and enamelled devotional items are now museum pieces. The ancient tradition of gold working gave rise to the Greek legend of the Golden Fleece. 

John Osborne taught Classics for over thirty years at Marlborough College and worked for several years for the British Council in the Middle East. He lectures on Ancient Rome and on Islam at the University of Bath and on specialist tours and cruises, especially to Bulgaria where he runs his own tours.

From the early Kosovan silver mines mentioned in Dante, a silver thread runs through Kosovo’s history. Its most intricate tanglings are in the cultural capital, Prizren, where a seventh generation of filigree artisans conjure magic lacy creations from dull sticks of raw material. The results in boxes, jewellery and religious ornamentation are a fine narrative of Kosovo’s history and traditions.

Elizabeth Gowing originally trained as a teacher.She moved to Kosovo in 2006 and worked with the Ethnological Museum in Prishtina and co-founded ‘The Ideas Partnership’, a charity working on educational and cultural heritage projects.

Hockney’s work has varied widely over the years. He has painted sets for opera and theatre and was an early user of the new acrylic medium, noted particularly for a series of paintings of swimming pools. Since 2009 he has produced portraits, still lifes and landscapes using an iPad. In 2016 the Royal Academy had a major exhibition of his recent portraits.

 John Iddon is a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. He ran an MA course on Heritage Interpretation at St Mary’s University College and wrote the new guidebook to Strawberry Hill. He is an experienced lecturer to arts societies and also lectures on cruises.

Picture: David Hockney exhibition at RA/ Attribution: By Kleon3 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0

The moving image has been a powerful source for imagination from the first moment a magic lantern flickered into life in the 17th century. We will hear how the motion pictures industry first developed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century and how it then went on to change the face of entertainment and inspire the imaginations of some of the greatest artists of the early 20th century.

Dr Geri Parlby has worked as a Fleet Street journalist and a film publicist for MGM, Paramount and Universal Pictures. She has an MA in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute and a Theology doctorate from Roehampton University. She heads up the Visual Arts distance learning programme for Exeter University and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Roehampton University.

How did musicians get involved in rules for the fixing of proportions? It turns out there is a mathematical link between visible and audible proportions, or harmony. A renaissance architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, took the idea further in his invention of ‘linear perspective’ and thereby, incidentally, revolutionised Western painting.

Professor Colin Davies is an architect who was until recently Professor of Architectural Theory at London Metropolitan University. A former editor of The Architects’ Journal, he is a regular contributor to architectural magazines worldwide and is currently writing a history of modern architecture.

Photo: Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ

To mark the centenary of the First World War, this lecture compares the monuments created in its aftermath with memorials being created today, and looks at how contemporary artists deal with the challenge of commemorating the victims of armed conflict, terrorism or genocide.

Mary Yule studied Art History at Birkbeck College and has an MA in 20th Century British Art from the Courtauld Institute. A past Director of Grants for the Art Fund, she has lectured widely, including at the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection and contributed articles to Art Fund and museum publications.

Photo © credit: ‘Memorial to the Women of World War II’, John Mills, Whitehall

This lecture examines the devastation wrought by the Great Fire of London in 1666, looks at the inspirational plans put forward for the rebuilding of the City and explains how the reconstruction which followed changed the face of London for ever.

Barbara Askew, a Blue Badge Guide since 1988, is a lecturer, examiner and Course Director on Blue Badge training courses and is an expert on Windsor Castle. She has conducted tours for American museums and alumni groups for the past 25 years.

Photo: Great Fire of London, general view

Brought together by the destruction of Troy, the Trojan hero Aeneas, and Dido, Queen of Carthage, enjoy a whirlwind passion but their happiness is doomed. Explore this story of passion and desolation through a wonderful range of paintings by artists including Claude, Fuseli, Reynolds, Tiepolo and Turner and musical extracts from Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’ and Berlioz’s epic opera, ‘The Trojans’.

Dr Lois Oliver has an MA in Venetian Renaissance Art from the Courtauld Institute. An Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame in London, she is the author of numerous publications, is a broadcaster for both radio and television and has written multi-media and DVD scripts.

Photo © credit: Antoine Coypel, Death of Dido c1715, Musee Farbre, Montpellier

 ‘Do you ask yourself any of these questions: What is abstract art? Why does it look so different from conventional art? How can I interpret it? Can anyone – even a chimpanzee – do it?’ It is often said that abstract art is not a style but a state of mind. Come and explore some of the ideas and emotions in key works from Kasemir Malevich to Bridget Riley.

Lynne Gibson lectures in the History of Art, Critical and Contextual Studies as well as practical Drawing, Painting and Printmaking. For many years she lectured for the Universities of Sussex and Bristol, introducing ‘Understanding Art’ to the Lifelong Learning Programme and summer schools.

Photo © credit:  ‘Counter Composition V’, 1924, Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

This will introduce some of Japan’s most famous gardens and provides a context for understanding the principles of Japanese garden design as it has evolved through the ages. Nature and artifice are intriguingly combined in such gardens to capture the very essence of the landscape.

Professor Marie Conte-Helm is Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, Visiting Professor, Northumbria University and a member of the Board of Governors of the University of the Creative Arts. Widely published, she has lectured both in the UK and abroad.

In 2003 a project was set up to catalogue the UK’s national collection of oil paintings. It involved visiting 3,000 locations across the UK and photographing 212,000 individual paintings. The lecture offers an insider’s view of this ambitious and unique project.

Mary-Rose Rivett-Carnac has an MA in Victorian Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London and has written arts related articles. She is a guide at Dorich House, Kingston and Turner’s House,Twickenham. Since 2007 she has worked for the Public Catalogue Foundation.

Photo © credit: The church at Vetheuil (1880): Claude Monet (1840–1926), Southampton Art Gallery

This lecture considers the new museums, many architecturally striking, which have proliferated internationally in the post war period. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao caught the world’s imagination with every major city wanting what came to be known as the Bilbao effect. How are the roles of museums changing?

Marina Vaizey is a broadcaster, exhibition curator, journalist, former art critic for the Financial Times and subsequently the Sunday Times. She is the author of several books including ‘100 Masterpieces of Art’ and ‘Art – the Critics Choice’.

Photo © credit: Museo Guggenheim Bilbao: Wikimedia/Nicolas Vigier

 ‘We can learn so much about people through their possessions and nowhere is this truer than at Malmaison, the private country retreat of Napoleon and Josephine.  I will look at individual items commissioned by the couple to delve behind the scenes and help discover hidden truths’.

Carole Petipher is an experienced guide on history and art tours in France. Life aboard river vessels in France on the Seine, Oise, Marne and Rhone gave her the opportunity to research further certain riverside locations linked to art.

Photo © credit: Chateau de Malmaison: Wikimedia/Moonik