In an age of discovery where science and industry went hand-in-hand, 18th century England saw not only the flowering of the Industrial Revolution, but also that of the self-made man; who came not from money but from industry. It was a time of gentlemen’s clubs, in their true original meaning rather that the corruption of this term we unfortunately experience today, and one of these clubs would become synonymous with investigation and discovery characterised by the individuals that were associated with it.

Biography
Art historian, Leslie Primo is an author and broadcaster, graduating from Birkbeck, University College, London with an MA in Renaissance studies. He specialises in early Medieval Art and Architecture, Italian Renaissance art, German art in the age of Reformation, Medici & Patronage, and mythology in the work of Peter Paul Rubens.  Leslie lectured at the National Gallery, London for 18 years, and has appeared on the BBC speaking in Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty, and on the Life of Michelangelo, and also presented Turner: Light and Landscape. He was a contributor to the Oxford Companion Guide to Black British History, an art history consultant for the Getty publication, Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art and was published by the Royal Academy Magazine for the Entangled Pasts exhibition, 2023-2024. Leslie’s book, ‘The Foreign Invention of British Art’ was published by Thames & Hudson in 2025.

Our lectures take place at Merchant Taylors Hall, York, YO1 7BX. The lecture starts at 6.30pm with reception from 6pm.

Stonehenge is the most celebrated and sophisticated prehistoric stone circle in the British Isles. This lecture explains why Stonehenge must be regarded as architectural in its layout and construction, embodying techniques that for centuries convinced antiquarians that it could not have been built by ‘primitive’ ancient Britons but must be a product of ‘sophisticated’ Romans. We then explore how, over the last two centuries, this iconic structure has inspired painters, potters and poets. Blake, Turner, Constable and Moore are amongst those who have all been drawn to this magnificent ruin, resulting in a diverse catalogue of images and impressions.

Biography
Julian studied archaeology at Reading University and has since worked as a professional archaeologist, in commercial archaeology, for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent. Elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992 and is being awarded an honorary doctorate.  He has been involved in teaching and outreach projects, lecturing widely in continuing education, to groups and societies and to special interest tour companies. A career in broadcasting involved researching and presenting Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4. He is the author of a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and landscape.  His museum work includes curating Stonehenge related exhibitions in the UK and abroad (Germany and Austria) and he has recently curated the new permanent ceramics gallery for Salisbury Museum. Julian has no intention of retiring and remains passionate about Stonehenge, pots and old cars. 

Our lectures take place at Merchant Taylors Hall, York, YO1 7BX. The lecture starts at 6.30pm with reception from 6pm.

How long does it take to put together a major exhibition? Who decides what subjects will be explored and which objects will be included? How do you get an object from the Vatican to the British Museum? In this lecture members are offered a behind the scenes insight into the process and drama of putting together a ‘blockbuster’ exhibition. Drawing on her experiences at the Wallace Collection, Courtauld Institute, British Museum and her own gallery – Anna will share the trials, tribulations and joys of getting from the idea to the opening night. The lecture also explores the contrasts between exhibition and permanent display curating. Behind the Scenes offers members a chance to discover a range of practicalities from packing crates, climate control and even insurance – that open the door on to the inner workings of a museum.

Biography
Anna Bianco is a freelance curator, writer, lecturer, tour guide and art historian. She has been an accredited lecturer of The Arts Society for 14 years. She has a BA History of Art and an MA in Curating from the Courtauld Institute of Art. She has curated exhibitions and displays at The Wallace Collection, The British Museum, The Embankment Galleries and The Southwark Art Collection. She was Director of the Tryon St. Gallery on the Kings Road, and was Associate Curator at Copperfield Gallery, Southwark. She was also Senior Curator for Faith at Auckland Castle in County Durham. She has been a guest lecturer for Christies Education, Durham University, London College of Communication and the Open University. She has also been a tour guide for Context Travel across London.  Anna loves storytelling. Her greatest passion is bringing artworks and objects to life through the stories of the people who made them. 
Anna attended her first Arts Society Study Day aged 7 as the helper of her Grandfather Theophilus Peters who was an Accredited Lecturer. She has been  hooked on The Arts Society ever since!

The wide reproduction of paintings by Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh has led to a sense of familiarity and, potentially, a diminished desire to look closely at the real art itself. Yet when van Gogh visited Seurat’s studio, he remarked upon the ‘fresh revelation of colour’ in Seurat’s work. This presentation aims to rejuvenate our interest in looking slowly with a curious eye to discover how works by both artists were both extraordinary and pioneering. Despite their short artistic careers, both Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat made extraordinary contributions to the development of modern art, each through their own distinctive and experimental approaches to picture making

Biography
Since completing an MA at University College London (UCL) in the History of Art: Modernism and the Politics of Representation (1997), Jo Rhymer has been employed in various roles at the National Gallery including Adult Learning Officer and the Head of Adult Learning Programmes.

In a freelance capacity, she has worked in prestigious learning departments in London galleries and museums including Tate, the Hayward Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery as well as leading group excursions in the UK and abroad. She currently lectures for the Institute of Continuing Education at University of Cambridge and the V&A and teaches for the Wallace Collection, the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of York as well as a range of private institutions. 

Her areas of specialism include 19th century and early 20th century French art and her interest include the visual skills involved in sustained looking at paintings.

Our lectures take place at Merchant Taylors Hall, York, YO1 7BX. The lecture starts at 6.30pm with reception from 6pm.

Music was a constant theme in Edouard Manet’s life and art. His wife Suzanne Leenhoff was a gifted pianist, and regular musical soirées were held at the Manet family home. His pictures of musicians and their audiences range from major early canvases depicting itinerant gypsy musicians and Spanish dancers, through to paintings encompassing the full range of Parisian musical culture, from private performances to street entertainment, café concerts and the Paris Opera. Manet also designed cover illustrations for music composed by his friends. Bringing together Manet’s art and the music that inspired him (including Spanish flamenco, Wagner piano reductions, café songs, and opera highlights) this lecture immerses you in Manet’s world.

Dr Lois Oliver is Professor in History of Art at the University of Notre Dame in London, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute. She has worked as a Curator at the V&A, the National Gallery, and the Royal Academy. Her recent exhibitions include ‘Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism’ at Dulwich Picture Gallery and ‘Jock McFadyen: Tourist without a Guidebook’ for the Royal Academy. Lois enjoys creating audio and multimedia tours for many of the UK’s leading arts institutions and has appeared on BBC Radio and TV. Also a keen violinist, Lois plays regularly with Kensington Chamber Orchestra and the Endellion Festival Orchestra. Lois studied English Literature at Cambridge University, and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, completing an MA in Venetian Renaissance Art and writing her PhD thesis on The Image of the Artist, Paris 1815-1855.

This lecture examines the rise of fall of Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, and his pioneering use of digichromatography, creating stunning colour photographs decades before colour photography was supposedly invented. Dazzling Russian royalty with his photographs, he was commissioned by the Tsar to traverse the largest continual Empire in the world to document its land and peoples. He was given permits allowing him to travel in restricted areas and furnished with a whole railway carriage, transformed into a dark-room. He captured traditional ways of life from as far afield as Samarkand and the desert oases of the Turkmens and Tajiks, soon to be swept away by the Bolshevik revolution.

Chris Aslan was born in Turkey  and spent his childhood there and in war-torn Beirut. After school, he spent two years at sea before studying Media and Journalism at Leicester University. He then moved to Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, and becoming the largest non-government employer in town. He was thrownd out as part of an anti-Western purge, and took a year in Cambridge to write A Carpet Ride to Khiva. Chris then spent several years in the Pamirs mountains of Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down. Next came a couple more years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut forest and establishing a wood-carving workshop. Since then, Chris has studied and rowed at Oxford, and is now based in Cambridge, but with plans to move to North Cyprus. When he’s not lecturing for The Arts Society, he writes. His latest book, Unravelling the Silk Road, is published by Icon Books. Chris also takes tours to Central Asia, returning whenever he can, having left a large chunk of his heart out there.

If you think of St Pancras International or New York Grand Central you imagine long romantic journeys. You know they are special places promising excitement and adventure. But there are dozens of other glorious stations in the UK and overseas. We will take a journey around some of the most evocative and splendid stations in the world. We will look not only at the magnificence of the architecture and brilliant engineering but will also discover numerous artworks within the stations and examine many depictions of stations in art – like Claude Monet’s Gare St Lazare or William Powell Frith’s Paddington. It may sound a bit anoraky, but it’s definitely not. It’s lavish, colourful and fun.

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

Early Christians celebrated Christmas at the same time as the ancient Romans were feasting and partying for their pagan Saturnalia festival. Many of the pagan habits were therefore absorbed into our Christmas traditions. Present-giving, holly and even party-hats all have their origins in this 2,000 year old party. This talk will revel in artwork that is ancient and modern as we un-wrap the images and stories behind our festive season.

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

Please note that the November Lecture will be Held in The Priory Centre, Priory Street, YO1 6ET.

'The Night Watch' of 1642 is Rembrandt's greatest painting and the most famous painting in the Netherlands. But why is it so special? It has become an icon of the Golden Age and of the modern Dutch Nation. Why? How was it commissioned and constructed?  How did Rembrandt paint it and where has it been hung throughout its life? Who are the characters represented? Why is there a lone woman and what is meant by the dead chicken trussed up in her waistband? What does this all tell us about changing Dutch society? This work redirected how group portraits were conceived. The traditional Dutch 'schutterstuk', a military group or shooting piece, became majestic and grandiose in Rembrandt's hands.

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

The arrival of Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo in St Ives at the beginning of the Second World War marked a significant moment, both for them and for the artists already living and working in the small Cornish town. These three artists were key players in British modernism and soon challenged the status quo of the existing artists’ colony, established at the end of the 19th century. They inspired and, in Hepworth’s case employed, a younger generation of artists before they too were challenged by new ideas. This lecture will chart the rise of St Ives as a centre for modern art after the war and show that it was not only Nicholson, Hepworth and Gabo who achieved international success but other artists such as Peter Lanyon, Roger Hilton, Terry Frost and Wilhemena Barns Graham. This success led to the town becoming a focal point for post-war avant garde art which led the eyes of the modern art world to focus, for a brief period, on St Ives.

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University before doing a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years.   Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia, as well as online. She is a Tour Director for an award winning travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. Sarah became an Arts Society accredited lecturer in 2021 and, since then, has given lectures and run study days for Arts Societies throughout the UK, as well as in Germany, Holland and New Zealand.

**IMPORTANT**

We are now meeting in the Memorial Hall in St. Peter';s School, Bootham, York.

Andy Warhol is remembered as the king of pop art who embraced celebrity and consumerism, and would become an American icon. Yet there is a lesser-known side to him: the shy, gay son of immigrants whose prolific, experimental and inclusive artistic practice enabled a counterculture that would play a part in transforming modern art.

Bill Powell's working career was in finance, firstly as an accountant with BT. He joined St Michael's Financial Services (now M&S Money) shortly after they were established in the mid-1980s as Head of Customer Service. He then became the UK Chairman of the Consumer Credit Trade Association.  He took early retirement and embarked on a completely different career as a tour manager, escorting groups of people to various destinations around the world. During this time he was able indulge his love of Modern Art, visiting galleries across the globe. He started lecturing on cruise ships in 2013, talking about Modern Art and his other great passion, Rock and Roll music.

*Please note: This lecture will be held in the Memorial Hall in St. Peter's School on Bootham. *

In the 19th century, Denmark lost its territories and regional power, but produced its finest art. And it’s an absolute revelation. This talk examines how artists in the Danish Golden Age of painting used landscapes to create a new national story, alluding to the country’s heroic past and its agricultural future.  It also looks at the change in style of Danish landscape painting over the 19th century, from the magnificent plein air works of the Skagen school to more psychological studies by Danish symbolists, and explores new ways of interpreting landscape art.

James Vaux is a researcher and lecturer specialising in Nordic arts, culture, design and history. He has presented extensively on diverse topics to  audiences across the globe, including CEOs and government ministers. His talks now focus on understanding artistic achievements through their historic, cultural and political context.  James aims to question the underlying narratives behind artists, designers and movements, to explore the 'why' and the 'how' instead of the conventional 'who', 'what' and 'when'. A truly gripping Arts Society talk needs a mystery to be solved, not a chronological series of items and events.
James took a law degree at Oxford with First Class Honours and qualified as a solicitor before switching career. As a managing director of the international bank Rothschild, he set up and ran the bank’s Nordic operations, living and working in Scandinavia. James then gained an MA (Distinction) at UCL in Language, Culture and History (Scandinavian Studies). His dissertation was on Swedish design, and he specialised in landscapes, the Viking Age, politics and literature.
He lectures and provides study days focusing on Scandinavian Modern design, Danish design, Norse mythology, Icelandic literature, Swedish literature, the Modern Breakthrough in Nordic culture and the role of modernism in the Cold War.

** Please note: This lecture will be held in Bootham School (NOT St. Peter's) for this month only**

Download a printed handout for this lecture here

Liberty of London is far more than just a shop; it is also a byword for luxury and innovation.  Founded in 1876, at the height of the 19th century craze for all things Aesthetic and Japanese, it was an immediate success.  Its Oriental textiles, Middle-Eastern rugs, and Artistic accessories and dress were widely admired and the shop was beloved by connoisseurs such as the painter James McNeill Whistler and the critic Oscar Wilde as well as by the cream of London's fashionable elite.  During the 1890s Liberty’s close relationship with designers such as Archibald Knox, Lindsay Butterfield and Charles Voysey cemented the company's association with Art Nouveau which became so strong that the style became known as Stile Liberty in Italy.  The spirit of innovation continued throughout the inter- and post-war years with the shop's promotion of the Art Deco, Op and Pop designs.  Today, collaborations include everyone from Vivienne Westwood and House of Hackney to Hello Kitty and Florence Welch! This lecture marks the 150th anniversary of Liberty and tells the story of a business whose rich history and legacy continues to inspire people all over the world today.

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

In the quietness of an enclosed garden filled with symbolic plants, or glimpsed inside a sturdy house, a young woman reads quietly, blissfully unaware that her life is about to change. Not just her life, but that of the western world and beyond. Approaching her, almost unwilling to interrupt her thoughts, an angel is poised to break the news, to make the great announcement. Whatever your personal beliefs, it’s hard to deny the impact Christianity would have on the world so the Annunciation by Gabriel to Mary, telling her that she was to bear a son was one of the most popular images of the Middle Ages, more popular indeed than the Nativity itself. This lecture reveals the key players in the story, dissects the symbolism of Mary and the Annunciation and examines the world-changing importance of that particular moment. It is richly illustrated with gorgeous images from the fourth to the sixteenth century.   

After nearly 20 years in the British army, Imogen went to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History and Art, graduating with 1st class honours, followed by an MPhil from the University of Birmingham. She works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe as well as lecturing on small cruise ships and running study tours and courses on land. She has written Stone on Stone: the Men Who Built the Cathedrals, published 2019. Imogen is a Freeman of the City of London and a Member of the Company of Communicators. She is also an advisor on memorials and monuments for Canterbury's Diocesan Advisory Committee. 

*Please note: This lecture will be held in The Memorial Hall, St Peter's School, Bootham and NOT our usual Shepherd Hall venue.

Budapest was formed in 1873 by the unification of Buda and Pest, situated on either side of the River Danube. The new capital was the focus of resurgent Hungarian nationalism, which found expression through lavish new buildings, the continent’s first underground railway system and myriad paintings featuring specifically Hungarian subjects and locales. Meanwhile, in the countryside, composers Bartók and Kodály began to collect the music of their compatriots. Placing these endeavours in a historical context, this talk explores how the Hungarians came to understand national identity through cultural means.

Biography
Gavin is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Recent talks include the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum, the V&A, the Southbank Centre, the Tate and the Neue Galerie, New York. His first book, A Home for All Seasons, was published in June 2022.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

The remarkable untold story of Carry On actor Peter Butterworth, and his wife, Britain’s first female TV impressionist Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher.
Using classic film and TV clips, personal mementos, and rare photographs and letters from his family’s unseen collection, Tyler reveals the private story behind his parents’ public lives.
It’s a journey that takes in MI9, the building of a theatre in the notorious WW2 Prisoner of War camp Stalag Luft III, nights at Chequers with a Prime Minister, This Is Your Life, and many more moments in their long, shared life in the theatre.

Biography
Tyler Butterworth grew up in a theatrical family and spent twenty five years as an actor working extensively in film, television, theatre and radio. He then worked as a development producer in television documentaries and was closely involved with NASA on a landmark commemorative tv series. Now, he works as a voice actor, recording audiobooks, documentaries and voiceovers, and he produces walking audio guides to cities across Europe for private clients on whatever subject he’s commissioned to do. They’re just like the audio guides you get in art galleries and museums but they’re out on the street. He lives in Sussex where he walks on the South Downs and the South Coast.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Adolphe Valette blew into the Manchester School of Art like a breath of fresh air, inspiring his students with his French elegance and his knowledge of all the latest developments in Paris, the centre of the art world. One of those students was L S Lowry, derided by some in his lifetime as little more than a naïve Sunday painter but now widely acknowledged as a hugely significant figure in twentieth century British art. Until recently, his charismatic teacher was largely forgotten, even in the city in which he made his home for so many years, but now his achievements as both artist and teacher are finally receiving the attention they so greatly deserve. This lecture will explore the artistic journeys of the two men and the fascinating insight their works give us into life in the city.

Biography
Julia has loved looking at art since discovering the work of Gustav Klimt while teaching English in Austria as part of her German degree course at the University of Durham. She spent the first part of her career teaching German, then did a Master’s in Teaching English at the University of Manchester, and went on to teach international students in the city. She became a tour guide at Manchester Art Gallery and knew at once that this was what she really wanted to do, spending every spare moment learning about art history. She eventually left language teaching in 2018 and since then has loved spending all her time sharing her passion for art as a speaker to many different groups. She became an Accredited Lecturer of The Arts Society in 2020, specialising in Scottish art from 1880 and the art of Manchester. She and her astronomer husband love to travel around Europe and take every opportunity to visit art galleries wherever they go, but Scotland has always been their favourite destination!

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

William Morris led a revolution against the products of the machine age. The first of our ‘passionate potters’, William de Morgan, was a friend of Morris who rediscovered the secrets of Near Eastern lustre glazes. In contrast, the eccentric and argumentative Martin Brothers created a range of elaborate salt glazed pots unparalleled in their imaginative breadth. Sir Edmund Elton, the ‘potter baronet’, made pots which combine startling glazes with exotic forms. And finally, Bernard Leach, the father of English studio pottery, not only married the arts of Japan and England but created a legacy that is still alive today.
This lecture explores the lives of these truly passionate potters and celebrates their extraordinary and beautiful creations.

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

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

‘I wanted to achieve the presence of two people in this room. All the technical problems were caused because my main aim was to paint the relationship between these two people’ David Hockney 1976

The two people being Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark, then leading fashion celebrities and close friends and contemporaries of the artist. This iconic painting (1969-71) by David Hockney, is also ‘the best selling postcard at the Tate’. But within the seemingly cool, iconic modernist interior, a poignant and dramatic tragedy is beginning to unravel. Using David Hockney’s sketches and photographs of the work in progress, the lecture explores the characters and their stories – Hockney’s experiments here and with other examples of the psychology behind the double portrait, his fascination with interiors and ‘contre-jour’ light effects; the designs of Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, their celebrity pop clientele and the innovative retailing experiments of London’s boutique culture in the 1960s and early 70s. London’s role will be viewed at that time as a magnet for attracting creative young design talent, especially designers from the north of England.  In Hockney’s own words ‘In the 1960s you felt a freshness that was exciting. You didn’t let the commercial side interfere with things in film, music, painting and fashion. It was an energy driven by the bohemian world’.

Biography
Mary Alexander trained as an art historian and graduated with a B.A. Hons in History and History of Art, and an M.A. in History of Art with Distinction from University College London. Her background combines an unusual blend of academic and communications skills and experiences, including lecturing to various arts organisations, working with design professionals on special events and publications, and writing on various aspects of the history of art and design.
Mary is an experienced public speaker and regularly contributes articles to magazines, newspapers and professional journals. After completing her first degree she worked at Platt Hall, Manchester which houses an internationally renowned collection of historic clothing. Responsibilities included research and organising exhibitions and public lectures. This led to a life-long fascination with the language and codes of dress, and its place within the social and cultural history of art and design. For ten years she was a Visiting Lecturer and External Examiner in the History of Art and Dress at Christie's Education in London.
Lecturing and tutoring experience in the history of art has included the Open University, Manchester University (extra mural department), Leeds University, Christie's Education in London, and various arts, heritage and antiquarian societies, including National Trust Associations and The Arts Society.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

Frank Lloyd Wright (1857-1959) is recognized as one of the most important architects of all time. He was a genius who believed he was destined to redesign the world.  Over the course of his long career, he designed over 800 buildings including revolutionary structures such as The Guggenheim Museum, Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax Building and Taliesin. However, Wright’s architectural achievements were often overshadowed by his turbulent private life. In his 92 years, he fathered 7 children, married three times, and suffered great personal tragedy.  This illustrated lecture provides an overview of his work, colourful personal life and most iconic buildings.

Biography
Our speaker, Fiona Rose, first developed an interest in the American Arts & Crafts movement when she lived in the USA for ten years during the 1990s.  After seeing a turn of the century oak settle designed by Gustav Stickley she fell in love with the clean lines, simplicity and fine craftsmanship that the style, at its best, represented.  Her interest in Frank Lloyd Wright developed after a stay at the famous Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix which was heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Fiona has been lecturing about topics she feels passionately about since 2010 including William Morris and his circle, the Arts & Crafts Movement, Frida Kahlo and Frank Lloyd Wright. She always aims to include the human story behind the artistic endeavors of her subjects. After an early career in public health Fiona founded and runs a home interiors business featuring the work of the great C19th designers. She is a member of the Museum Collections committee for The William Morris Society, where she served as a Trustee, and a volunteer House Guide and specialist lecturer for Cambridge’s Arts & Crafts gem the David Parr House.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start

An introduction to the earliest art known in the world, primarily the artworks from western Europe and dating to c. 40,000 to 12,000 years ago. Ice Age art takes the form of portable art objects, and also engravings, drawings and paintings on cave walls and in the open air. The story of the art’s discovery and authentication will be followed by a presentation of the main techniques employed (including experimental reconstructions), the pigments, the lighting methods, and some of the many reasons why this art corpus comprises some of the greatest imagery ever produced. A brief survey of the main theories about its meaning and purpose will also be given.

Biography
Paul studied archaeology at the University of Cambridge, and completed his PhD thesis (1979) on the prehistory of the French Pyrenees. He has held post-doctoral fellowships, at Liverpool and London, as well as a J. Paul Getty postdoctoral fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities. He devotes time to writing, editing and translating books on archaeology, plus occasional journalism and as much travel as possible. His main research interest is prehistoric art, especially rock art of the world, and most notably Palaeolithic art, as well as Easter Island. He led the team which, at his instigation, searched for and discovered the first Ice Age cave art in Britain (at Creswell Crags) in 2003.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start

Caravaggio – one of the best known names today. A man of proverbial rebelliousness, painting in a style which he knew would drop a bomb on the art world he grew up in. He painted with startling immediacy, rejecting his peers’ obsession with highly artificial designs and stale quotations from earlier works of art. But he was also fortunate to be painting at a time when the Church wanted to harness the power of his art to enforce its message. This lecture considers the unlikely alliance of artist and patrons, considering why the establishment was prepared to accept him, outrageous lifestyle and all, and at the same time, examining why his art is so powerful for us today.

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

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start

Western European painting is not lacking in celebrated women artists: from Marcia in antiquity to Eva Gonzales in the 19th century, from Sofonisba Anguissola in the Renaissance to Michaelina Wautier in the 17th century, artists who managed to break the norm of western European society by making a name and a living for themselves in a world of men.  Yet, despite achieving fame and recognition in their own time and being celebrated for their talent and skill, they were subsequently erased from the mainstream narrative of art history.  This lecture will reintroduce these artists, asking why and how their own paintings and self-portraits were already – in their own time – engaged with this fundamental problem of recognition.

Biography
Born in Paris in 1976, Aliki studied at The Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford, The Slade School of Fine Art, London and The Courtauld Institute where she was awarded a distinction for her masters in 17th century painting.  After working for the National Gallery for 20 years, she now teaches for Christie’s Education, the Wallace Collection and is an Associate Lecturer for the Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts London.  Aliki is also a practicing artist who regularly exhibits her photographic work internationally.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start

In the 1930s, Pevsner hailed Dresser as a pioneer of modern design. But is this the best way to account for the extraordinary objects that he helped to create? This lecture considers Dresser’s work as a prolific industrial designer, the impact of mechanisation on his products, and the diversity of his influences from Pre-Columbian pottery to botany.

Biography
Dr Suzanne Fagence Cooper is an art historian working on 19th and 20th Century British art. She was a curator and Research Fellow at the V&A Museum, and is currently Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of York. She has curated a major exhibition on John Ruskin and J.M.W.Turner, and she is planning a new exhibition project on William Morris and his family for 2025. Suzanne is the author of 'To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters', 'Effie Gray' and 'Pre-Raphaelite Art in the V&A Museum'. She is a trustee of the Burne-Jones catalogue raisonné and has worked as a consultant for TV and film projects, including 'The Invisible Woman' with Ralph Fiennes. She leads art history tours in England, France and Switzerland, and is an invited speaker for Cunard. Her latest book is 'How We Might Live: At Home with Jane and William Morris'.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

This lecture explores the fascinating story of how dyes were discovered, made and used, focusing on some of the social implications of colour at different times in history. The lecture takes us from pre-historic man to the middle of the 19th century and geographically from Europe to the Middle East, India, Turkey, north America, Mexico and Peru. It is a story of exploration, invention, war, the church, money, power and sex.

Biography
Susan is Chief Executive of the Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Institute of Marketing and in 2015 was made a Fellow of the Society of Dyers and Colourists in recognition of her work on the history of dyes. Susan has a longstanding interest in textiles, especially colour, and published her first book, The Story of Colour in Textiles (Bloomsbury) in 2013. She has extensive lecturing experience and has been invited to lecture in the USA, Canada, China, Japan and Taiwan as well as for the V&A and across the UK.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

Orpheus could literally charm the birds out of the trees with his music, yet he failed to bring his beloved Eurydice safely out of the Underworld. All he had to do was to lead her up to the light without looking back at her…
Unsurprisingly this tale of a legendary singer who lost his beloved through a single glance has inspired much great music (including the first masterpiece of opera, Monteverdi’s Orfeo), and visual artists too have responded to this tragic story of love and loss. Explore the wealth of art and music on the theme, with a rich array of paintings and musical examples from Monteverdi, Gluck, and Offenbach, even taking in the Can-Can!

Biography
Dr Lois Oliver studied English Literature at Cambridge University, and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, completing an MA in Venetian Renaissance Art and a PhD thesis on The Image of the Artist, Paris 1815-1855. She worked at the Harvard Art Museums before joining the curatorial team at the V&A and then the National Gallery, where she curated several exhibitions and contributed to major re-displays of the collections. Currently Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Royal Academy, Associate Professor in History of Art at the University of Notre Dame in London, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, Lois also writes audio and multimedia tours for clients including the National Gallery, Royal Academy, Royal Collection, and Tate, and has appeared on BBC Radio and TV. Also a keen violinist, Lois plays regularly with Kensington Chamber Orchestra and the Endellion Festival Orchestra.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

While many English gardeners have visited China to “collect” plants, few have gone to look for gardens.  The Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship Scheme funded this six-week trip to visit gardens and meet gardeners, with a view to building bridges between Chinese & English horticulture.  In addition to examining gardens and gardening, this talk looks at some of the wider cultural aspects of a country full of contradictions, and some wonderful food, and the very welcoming people.

Biography
From 1988 to 2014 Timothy was the Director of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden.  Botanic gardens are often described as living museums, and garden curators lecture about them in the same way as museum curators talk about their collections. Gardens are often thought of a place where science and art meet on equal terms and his lectures often investigate this relationship.  Since 2014 he has been a college lecturer and tutor in Botany and Plant Conservation at Somerville College Oxford.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

In 1929 Laura Knight became the first artist to be made Dame of the Order of the British Empire. Then in 1936 she became the first woman elected to full membership of the Royal Academy, since 1768, which is a shocking fact! A year later she was the first woman to sit on the hanging committee for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
Laura Knight trained at Nottingham Art School, from the age of 13. She then painted for nearly 80 years famous people, such as George Bernard Shaw, the theatre, the ballet, the circus, gypsies and in contrast she was an official war artist and attended the Nuremberg Trials. She produced stunning landscapes, with dramatic light and weather effects in London, Staithes, Newlyn, Cornwall and the Malvern Hills.

Biography
Harry Fletcher is a painter and has had work selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. As Head of Art & Design in a comprehensive school he taught A level Art, the history of art, printmaking, the history of printmaking and the history of architecture.  He has lectured in three subjects for the Open University - the History of Modern Art, Art and the Environment and Design, Processes and Products and was an OU and A level examiner in the History of Art. He has worked with Simon Nicholson, who was one of the triplets of Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. He has lead art appreciation holidays across Europe.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

The Bloomsbury Group were a set who Dorothy Parker once described as "living in squares and loving in triangles". Painter and designer Vanessa Bell, the sister of the writer Virginia Woolf and wife of the critic Clive Bell, would have brief love affairs with Roger Fry, and later Duncan Grant, that blossomed into lifelong friendships and creative partnerships. From the Omega workshops to the walls of Kings College, from pottery to fabric design, this lecture looks at how a shared passion for renaissance art went on to create modern designs, and asks: should we really draw such a line between the fine and decorative arts?

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

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

This lecture considers the influence of the art from the Low Countries on Italian Renaissance art. Generally considered a one-sided cultural exchange from the South to the North, this talk demonstrates the significance of Flemish art for its innovations in the medium of oil, landscape painting and portraiture. Focusing on the example of Florence, the impact of Netherlandish art is considered from the perspective of the Medici and leading patrons together with painters including Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Leonardo. The extent to which Flemish art was valued, economically and aesthetically, is underlined by its frequent appearance in household inventories and the stylistic changes adopted by Florentine artists to satisfy the increasing demand.

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

Image courtesy of Santa Trinita Florence

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

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

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

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

In his talk, Andrew will guide us through the extraordinary decades and events between 1890 and 1929, where the great couturiers collaborated with the finest of jewellers to produce jewels and clothes of outstanding quality and glittering opulence. For the series and film Downton Abbey, Andrew was commissioned to make many jewels for the main characters and this inspired   him to create a talk based on this unique period.

The lecture will also show the clients and patrons who commissioned the jewels and shows how they were worn with their sumptuous gowns. 

Biography
Andrew Prince has had a passion for jewellery since he was a small child.  The very first piece of jewellery he created was a ring made of copper wire pulled from the back of a television. He then created a necklace for his mother using beads taken off her wedding dress (she was not at all happy). At 16 Andrew started work in London’s Bond Street, working for The Antiques Roadshow expert Ian Harris. Under his guidance, Andrew developed an 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. He then joined the renowned contemporary jeweller Elizabeth Gage and worked with her on the design and production side.

In 2002, the V&A commissioned a collection of jewels to accompany the resplendent 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 such as Mrs Henderson Presents and The Young Victoria.  In 2012, he was chosen by the creators of Downton Abbey to supply a large collection of jewellery for the third series designing and creating elegant tiaras, combs, earrings and necklaces.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

**Please note change of date**

The Edo period (1603-1867) in Japan was characterised by its isolation policy towards the West from 1639.  As the nation developed a prolonged period of domestic peace and prosperity, the towns and cities rapidly grew and evolved a lively and sophisticated urban culture based upon the affluent merchants, artisans and townsfolk.  The popular entertainments of kabuki theatre, sumo wrestling, tea houses, pretty women, shops and brothels were captured in woodblock prints depicting Ukiyo-e, the ‘floating world’ of transient pleasures.
 
Of the many fine artists working during this era, two in particular captured the spirit of the age in their masterful woodblock print designs; Katsushika Hokusai and Ando Hiroshige.  Contemporaries, their work covered the late Edo period from 1780s to 1850s, depicting in great detail the daily lives, past times, preoccupations and leisure activities of the population of Edo. In their final years both artists produced their best work, creating masterpieces of landscape imagery that are world famous today, including Hokusai’s The Great Wave at Kanagawa from the series  Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji,  and Hiroshige’s  The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Highway.
 

Biography
Suzanne is an independent researcher and historian specialising in Japanese History, Art & Culture, and founded Japan Interlink in 1995 to promote the understanding of Japan in the UK. She studied Nihonga traditional Japanese painting at Nagoya University of Arts and gained a certificate there, and reached Level 3 in Japanese Language at the Japan Foundation in London.
Suzanne has lectured to a wide range of institutions including universities, museums and adult education groups in the UK and overseas. She taught Japanese History & Culture in London for over ten years, lectures for the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Museum, the University of Cape Town, and University of Brighton. She has organized exhibitions of Japanese arts and crafts including Kimono exhibitions.
Suzanne has published articles on Japanese culture and contemporary living for various magazines, and published her first book in 2016 titled: Bridges: Anglo-Japanese Cultural Pioneers 1945-2015. She is working on her second book on Japanese craftspeople in Kyoto, and visits Japan regularly to continue her research.

We meet in The Shepherd Hall at St.Olave’s School, York, at 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

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

Biography
After nearly 20 years in the British army, Imogen went to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History and Art, graduating with 1st class honours, followed by an MPhil from the University of Birmingham. She  works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe as well as  running study tours and courses. She has written Stone on Stone: The Men Who Built the Cathedrals, published 2019. Imogen is a Freeman of the City of London and a Member of the Company of Communicators.

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 St Laurent thus bleu majorelle is now prêt-a-porter.

Biography

Caroline has lectured in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Europe, Japan and on cruises to the Baltic, Mediterranean, Caribbean and Indian Ocean. In 2017 she returned to The Arts Society in New Zealand. She lectures for the University of Cambridge ICE (Course Director for International Summer Programme), the Royal Horticultural Society, museums, and specialist travel companies. She is a consultant designer specialising in evoking historic, artistic and symbolic references. She is the author of 11 books including Water Lilies and Bory Latour-Marliac, the genius behind Monet’s water lilies; Impressionists in their Gardens; Follies of Europe: Architectural Extravaganzas; Monet at Giverny and Icons of Garden Design. Theatre productions: How does your garden grow Mr. Shakespeare and Impressionists in their Gardens: living light and colour. She is a presenter and contributor on television and BBC Radio 4 and was the 2017 recipient of the Herb Society of America ‘Elizabeth Crisp Rea Award’.

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was the only American artist to exhibit with the French Impressionists in their independent exhibitions. When the artist, Edgar Degas, persuaded her to stop exhibiting work at the Paris Salon - the official art exhibition - and to exhibit instead with his artistic colleagues, she stated that: ‘I accepted with joy… I hated conventional art.’ Cassatt went on to make outstanding contributions to four of the eight Impressionist exhibitions.

Like her Impressionist colleagues, Cassatt represented modern life, but her treatment of the traditionally acceptable subjects for women artists is both unconventional and thought provoking. Looking at paintings and prints, this lecture examines some of the ways in which Cassatt - a professional artist in a predominantly male art world - produced idiosyncratic, avant-garde images of 19th century society.

Biography

Since completing an MA at University College London (UCL) in the History of Art: Modernism and the Politics of Representation (1997), Jo Rhymer has been employed in various roles at the National Gallery including Adult Learning Officer and the Head of Adult Learning Programmes.

In a freelance capacity, she has worked in prestigious learning departments in London galleries and museums including Tate, the Hayward Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery as well as leading group excursions in the UK and abroad. She currently lectures for the Institute of Continuing Education at University of Cambridge and the V&A and teaches for the Wallace Collection, the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of York as well as a range of private institutions.

Her areas of specialism include 19th century and early 20th century French art and her interest include the visual skills involved in sustained looking at paintings.

In 1565 Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. The images, charting the course of a year, changed the way we view the world through art. Landscape had previously been a decorative backdrop to dramas both sacred and profane. But in Bruegel’s hands the landscape and our interaction with it became the focus. Looking at paintings such as The Return of the Herd, The Hunters in the Snow and The Gloomy Day, this lecture explores how Bruegel pioneered a whole new way of thinking about the environment and our individual places within a shifting cosmos.

Picture courtesy of https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435809

Biography

Gavin Plumley is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Recent talks include the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum, the V&A, the Southbank Centre, the Tate and the Neue Galerie, New York, as well as for history of art societies and The Art Fund. His first book, A Home for All Seasons, was published by Atlantic Books on 2 June 2022.

This lecture traces the life, work, and impact, of the “father of modern Finnish architecture”, a man who provided a humane, natural alternative to the coldly exciting functionalism of his contemporaries. His professional career lasted from 1917 to 1976: it embraced a church, a university, a concert hall, a sanatorium, a socialist millionaire’s villa. His vases and chairs have been in production since the 1930s. There is no Aalto building in Britain, but he stamped the work of our more humane post-war architects.  He is well worth the detour.

Biography

Man of Kent, Cambridge graduate, cruise lecturer, Professor Emeritus in History University of Sheffield, he is a straight-up-and-down historian returning to some first and last loves - buildings, their creators and their settings.

Harry Venning has been a professional cartoonist for thirty years, during which time he has provided cartoons for several high profile UK publications (The Guardian, Radio Times) as well as for countless more obscure titles (British Journal Of Wound Care).

In 'The Art Of The Cartoonist' Harry will be tracing the history of his profession with examples from early practitioners like Cruickshank and Hogarth, to more contemporary artists such as Giles and Schulz, bringing events right up to date with cartoons produced fresh on the page that day! 

Yes, Harry will be drawing live. Prepare to hear some tricks of his trade, learn where to put eyebrows for maximum effect and discover exactly what the Eskimo Brothers said in The Funniest Joke Ever (possibly).

Biography

Harry graduated from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth with a BA in history, formed a touring theatre company bringing new plays to audiences in rural Wales, was then employed for a year as an actor/writer with the Channel Theatre Company in Ramsgate, Kent, before giving up acting and becoming a cartoonist instead.

He has had work published in the UK and abroad, including the strip Clare in the Community which has been a weekly feature in The Guardian since 1996. In 2016 he was awarded Strip Cartoonist of the Year by the UK Cartoon Trust.

He is also a Sony Award winning writer of radio comedy, including the shows Coach Karen’s Half Time Team Talk and Clare in the Community starring Sally Phillips, currently recording its twelfth series.

For the last ten years he has been performing his cartoon workshop Release Your Inner Cartoonist in its many different guises, to audiences as diverse as schoolchildren, business executives and festival goers.

Harry comments that he can’t draw hands or horses.

Between 1885 and 1916, Carl Fabergé made fifty jewelled eggs – Easter presents from Russia’s last two emperors to their wives. They have become the most famous surviving symbols of the Romanov Empire: both supreme examples of the jeweller’s art and the vulgar playthings of a decadent court. Given almost total artistic freedom, Fabergé and his designers had to conform to only three rules: that each year’s Easter present should be egg-shaped, that it should contain some surprise to amuse or delight its recipient, and that it should be different from any predecessor. The result was a series of creations demonstrating ingenuity and creativity for which there are few parallels in any other field. Their styles range from traditional Russian to Art Nouveau, and their materials from carved hardstone to exquisite enamelled gold. Their maker’s relentless search for novelty also means that they provide a fabulously quirky illustrated history of the decline of the Romanovs. The lecture is illustrated with pictures of the Romanovs and their palaces, and, of course, with photographs of the eggs themselves.

Picture Courtesy of the Forbes Collection, New York, photographed by Joseph Coscia, Jr.

Biography

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

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

"Latin American artists approached the avant-garde as neither a style nor a school but a self-critical attitude." Mari Carmen Ramirez.

Is there such a thing as Latin American Art? Despite many critics and art historians questioning its existence, many artists from Latin America have played an undeniable role in the creation and critical transformation of the avant-gardes of the 20th Century. During this seminar, art historian Daniela Galan will guide you through a selection of artworks that have been excluded from most mainstream art history books, but without which today's contemporary art scene would not have been the same. From Frida Kahlo to Lygia Pape, you will discover the patterns, similarities and tensions that helped shape the disputed concept of Latin American Art.

Biography

Daniela Galan is a Colombian artist and art historian from Goldsmiths University. She is also a former lawyer and philosopher of Los Andes University, with an extensive background in education and Latin American art history.

Daniela is the founding Director of AMALGAMA, the first cultural programme and digital platform in the UK devoted to exhibiting, promoting, and publishing female artists' work with Spanish, Portuguese, Central and South American heritage: Ibero-American. With the project, she has curated several exhibitions in London, displaying over 20 Latin American artists in the UK, and published the book AMALGAMA, Women, Identity and Diaspora. Her work and articles have been featured in Revista Diners, Revista Alternativa, El Ojo de La Cultura and LAR Magazine. She has an ongoing collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes London to promote Latin American artists in the UK.

In this lecture we will take 1910 as a starting point – the year when the term avant-garde was used for the first time in Russia and when art freed itself from the need to represent reality or observe academic convention. And for this liberation of Russian art artistic developments in Paris were crucial. Many Russian avant-garde artists, including Mark Chagall, Petr Konchalovsky, Aristarkh Lentulov and David Shterenberg had lived and studied in Paris. Others had readily absorbed the works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, and others were introduced to Russia by the merchants and collectors Ivan Morozov and Sergei Shchukin.

Biography

Natalia Murray was born in St Petersburg where she gained BA and MA in Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts before taking the PhD course at the Hermitage Museum. In 2015 she was awarded PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Over the last five years she has taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art Summer and Spring School and conducted an evening lecture course Showcasing Art History, presented study days and public lectures at the National Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, V&A, Art Fund and Chelsea Art Club

Her books and articles extend across the wide field of 19-20 century Russian art, and she has featured in films dedicated to the Hermitage museum and the Russian revolution and in programmes for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. Natalia is also trustee of the Russian Avant-Garde Research Project - a UK-based charity which shares one of her aspirations to reduce the number of fakes on the Russian art market.

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

(Several pieces of live lute music will be performed as part of the lecture)

Biography

Adam Busiakiewicz is an Art Historian, lutenist and lecturer. After completing his Bachelor’s Degree in History at UCL in 2010 he held the position of Head of Historical Interpretation (curator) at Warwick Castle. He left the castle in 2013 after winning a full AHRC studentship to pursue a Master’s Degree in Fine and Decorative Art at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in Art History at Warwick University after winning a CADRE Postgraduate Scholarship in 2017.

In December 2014 he became the youngest Guide Lecturer at the Wallace Collection, where he regularly gives talks, tours and lectures to both public and professional audiences. He has also given lectures at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, and organised a series of talks there on the lute in paintings in 2018. Adam is currently planning a publication on the Grevilles of Warwick Castle, and has had articles published by the British Art Journal, The Sidney Journaland Hispanic Lyra. He was also the Editor of the Georgian Group's 80th Anniversary Exhibition catalogue entitled Splendour! Art in Living Craftsmanship (2017).

The first two decades of the twentieth century witnessed the transformation of sculpture in Britain, moving from the smooth surfaces of New Sculpture to the vigorous direct carving of Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Eric Gill. All three courted controversy during their careers, Epstein provoking the wrath of the British Medical Association, Gill of the worthies of Leeds, while Gaudier-Brzeska was the enfant terrible of Ken Russell’s film, Savage Messiah. This talk will examine the styles, creativity and influence of all three sculptors, who, while autonomous were united in their collective desire to be true to artistic expression.

Picture courtesy of York Museums Trust.

Biography

In later life, Dorothy Nott studied history of art at the University of York. Her interests in 19th and 20th century art were sparked by her study of the unusual Wagoners War Memorial at Sledmere, followed by an exploration of 19th century military painting leading up to the explosion of talent in World War One. Former chair of the Friends of York Art Gallery, she has given various talks in the gallery and to a number of local groups, the Association of Art Historians annual conference and Tate Britain.  Together with Richard Drysdale, she led a tour of the Battlefields for Ebor Arts (then Yedfas).

Horace Walpole said, in 1783, that ‘No man ever went to the East Indies with good intentions’ and George Chinnery was certainly that man. Running away from debt and his wife, who he charmingly described as ‘the ugliest woman I have ever seen’, he settled in India for 23 years before running away from debt again to China. This talk covers his portraits of many of the leading figures of the East India Company, most notably Colonel James Kirkpatrick, his 14 year old Indo-Persian wife and their children, key figures in William Dalrymple’s White Mughals, as well as his beautiful scenes of everyday life and landscapes.

Biography

Clive studied on the Sotheby's Works of Art course and has now been working in the fine art world for 47 years. Until recently he was a Director of Woolley and Wallis, the UK's leading regional firm of auctioneers, in Salisbury, and was a specialist on the BBC Antiques Roadshow for 25 years between 1991 and 2016. Has also lectured on cruise ships as well as for many other groups, and recently published a major article in the Journal of the Decorative Arts Society on Betty Joel. He is now an independent art advisor

The Glasgow Boys rebelled against the hill, heather and highland cattle favoured by the Academy in Edinburgh and instead they favoured paintings of ordinary people performing everyday tasks.  While Francis Newbery was director of the Glasgow School of Art he encouraged talented women painters and designers to follow professional careers, rather than just accepting the notion that their role was in the home. The Scottish Colourists shared a love of brilliant colour, inspired by following the Glasgow Boys example of training and working in France, where they experienced the work of Van Gogh, Matisse and the Fauves. Paris was synonymous with all that was vital and energetic. 

Biography 

Harry Fletcher is a painter and has had work selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. As Head of Art & Design in a comprehensive school he taught A level Art, the history of art, printmaking, the history of printmaking and the history of architecture.  He has lectured in three subjects for the Open University - the History of Modern Art, Art and the Environment and Design, Processes and Products and was an OU and A level examiner in the History of Art. He has worked with Simon Nicholson, who was one of the triplets of Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. He has lead art appreciation holidays across Europe.

No cabinetmaker’s name is better known than Thomas Chippendale’s. It was Chippendale’s creative design talent together with skill as a craftsman that enabled him, through his cabinet making business, to design and produce some of the finest and most innovative examples of 18th Century English furniture in the Rococo, ‘Chinese’, Gothic and Neo-Classic style.

Biography

Janusz has lectured on antique furniture since 1975 and has been in the AS Directory since 1982.  He has lectured to over 330 of its societies, including those in Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, The Hague, New Zealand and Spain. His interest in antique furniture developed in his undergraduate days when he worked part-time in an antiques shop, which he took over as proprietor. Such was his interest in collecting that he became known as the dealer who bought but never sold. His lectures seek to explain furniture in terms of the skills and materials employed in its design and construction and also its socio-economic significance.

Sandy Burnett’s close relationship with Bach’s music stretches back for decades; between 1997 and 2010 he directed a complete cycle of Bach’s sacred cantatas in West London. In this illustrated talk he explores how Bach brings the Christmas story alive in his Weihnachtsoratorium or Christmas Oratorio, written for Lutheran congregations in 1730s Leipzig.  Starting with an overview of Bach’s life and achievement, Sandy moves on to an examination of this magnificent work which draws on various forms ranging from recitative, arioso, aria, chorale, and instrumental sinfonia through to full-blown choruses which harness the power of music and deploy it in the service of God.

Biography

Sandy Burnett is a wide-ranging musician who works as bassist, broadcaster and music commentator. He is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, he spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. Combining engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise, for ACE Cultural Tours he devises and leads cultural holidays at home in the UK and all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, is a highly sought after double bassist on the London jazz scene, and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season. During lockdown he established an online Listening Club which meets weekly to listen to and discuss great works of classical music.

Widely known for his outlandish appearances dressed as his feminine alter ego, Claire, Grayson Perry is now a core part of the art establishment.  A Turner Prize winner, Royal Academician, popular broadcaster and colourful character. He is possibly one of the world’s best known contemporary artists. His works of ceramics, textiles, tapestries and prints are highly sought after. Often controversial, he tackles difficult subjects in a poignant yet witty way and holds a mirror up to society.  The talk will examine Grayson Perry’s work, his exciting and thought-provoking exhibitions, and  the unique character inside the flamboyant frocks.

Biography

Ian Swankie is a Londoner with a passion for art and architecture. He is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral, and gives tours at each venue. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and leads regular tours for various corporations and organisations. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his hometown of Richmond in West London, and he gives talks on a variety of subjects. He is an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society, and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City Livery Companies.

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

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

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

Biography

During the 1970s, whist carrying out reconnaissance work for two archaeological expeditions in southern Iran, Brian travelled extensively throughout that country as well as in Afghanistan and Turkey. In 1972, he lived and worked amongst two tribal groups in southern Iran – the Afshar nomads of Kerman and the Darrehshuri Qashqa’i nomads of Fars – making him one of the few world carpet dealers to have actually spent time ‘in the field’. From 1973 onwards, he worked in Kerman until just before the Iranian Revolution when he was forced to leave. In 1990, Brian was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society for his work amongst these nomadic peoples.

Brian has returned to Iran several times in recent years, travelling and searching out pre-1900 rugs and weavings amongst tribes like the Bakhtiari, Qashqa’i and Shahsevan. Since the early 1980s, he has been dealing in the most exquisite pre-1900 tribal rugs, carpets and dowry weavings. From his base in the Cotswolds, he still acts as a dealer, consultant and lecturer today.

Brian’s book Tribal Rugs – Treasures of the Black Tent was first published in 1997 and received a warm reception from collectors, dealers and enthusiasts worldwide. Ghereh International Carpet & Textile Review (Spring 1998) described it as “…….. one of the finest books written on tribal rugs”. The book is now in its third up-dated edition (August 2016).

Dame Zaha Hadid died on March 31st 2016  at the age of 65. Architectural historians of the future will surely recognise her as one of  the most important architects of the early 21st century. She was born in Iraq and her reputation was global, but she made Britain her home. This 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.

Biography

Colin Davies is a Professor of Architectural Theory.  He is the former editor of the  Architects Journal and a contributor to publications worldwide. His books include Thinking About Architecture, Key Houses of the Twentieth Century, The Prefab Home, High Tech Architecture, A New History of Modern Architecture (published by Laurence King) and monographs on work of Foster, Hopkins, Grimshaw

Augustus and Gwen John were brother and sister, born in the west of Wales in the 1870s.  Both studied at the Slade School of Art in London.  His work has been called brash and shallow, and hers dismissed as fussy and spinsterish.  These assessments are not really fair to either artist, and this lecture takes a careful look at their lives, up to the point of Gwen’s death in 1939.  At that time, she had no public reputation whatsoever, and her brother was enjoying enormous professional and critical success.  By the time he died, however, the positions had been reversed.

Biography

Linda Smith holds two first-class degrees in Art History.  She has a broad knowledge of art historical subjects, but specialises in British Art and twentieth century art.  She is an experienced lecturer and guide, especially at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has lectured to a wide variety of audiences in different venues, including school and university students, and independent arts societies in the UK and overseas.

Writer, painter, designer and political activist, Morris instigated a revolt against mass-produced, poorly designed, and badly made objects. Under Morris’s ethos everyday items were elevated to works of art and the remit of the artist was broadened to include both the fine and decorative arts. The means of production was all important - ideally objects were to be designed and made by the same man, paying careful attention to techniques and materials, as they had been in the Medieval period. Morris wanted work to be meaningful, for the artisan to take pleasure in what he created. This led to  revival of the Guild system and the reintroduction of craft skills and traditions. Morris was most productive as a designer in the 1870s but he became increasingly demoralised as his work could only be purchased by the wealthy. Handcrafting made the objects too expensive. In taking art to the masses he failed but he laid the foundations for succeeding generations, especially those who opted out of the 'rat race' and went in search of the 'Good Life'.

Biography

With a first degree in archaeology and a PhD in English, Anne was a senior lecturer in Art and Design History at Southampton Solent University for 14 year. During 2009-2010, Anne worked on Closer to Home the reopening exhibition at Leighton House Museum, Kensington. She has curated three national exhibitions, including The Truth About Faeries (2009-11) and Under the Greenwood: Picturing the British Tree (2013). Her book on The Perseus Series was published for the Edward Burne-Jones exhibition (2018). She has held several prestigious fellowships including Fellow of the Huntington Library, CA (2008 and 2018) and Fellow of the Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Library and Museum (2009/10). Currently a tutor for the V&A Learning Academy, Anne specialises in Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement. Her career as an international speaker has taken her all over the world, including Jersey, Spain, Germany, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. She undertook her fourth lecture tour of Australia, for ADFAS, in 2018.

From Greek Mosaics in the second century, through weddings in the Bible, Renaissance allegories of refinement and excess, sixteenth century peasant parties out of doors, eighteenth century harlequins, to the celebratory styles of twentieth century painters, the depiction of parties has always been popular in the history of Western Art.

Alice Foster traces the variety of merrymaking, banqueting, dances and music in a feast of colour.

Biography

Alice has lectured for Oxford University Department of Continuing Education since 1998. She lectures regularly at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Her busy freelance career includes organising History of Art study days with colleagues, and regular weekly classes in Oxfordshire and Worcestershire. In 2004 Alice joined The Arts Society and has lectured in Britain and in Europe. Since 2003 Alice has been a tutor on study holidays. In 2010 she was elected President of Banbury Fine Arts Society.

The history of English garden design can be told in different ways, but rarely can it be told "through the lens" of one garden. The Oxford Botanic Garden was founded at the beginning of the 17th century and its design bears all the hallmarks of 17th century design. Through the next 400 years successive Horti Praefecti (head gardeners) changed the features reflecting the art of gardening, and very occasionally the science of botany. This talk looks at how the art of gardening has changed, or perhaps has not, in four centuries in Oxfordshire and how the Oxford Botanic Garden now reflects garden design at the beginning of the 21st century.  The title of the talk refers to the fact that one of the motivations for garden design remains the desire to create paradise on Earth. The meaning of paradise may now be less rooted in the Biblical account of the rise and fall of man, but there is still a clear vision of what we would like the world to resemble.

Biography

Since 1986 Timothy Walker has given 1,500 public lectures. This was originally part of his work as director of the Oxford University Botanic Garden from 1988 to 2014. Botanic gardens are often described as living museums, and garden curators lecture about them in the same way as museum curators talk about their collections. Since 2014 he has been a college lecturer and tutor in plant biology at Somerville College Oxford. Gardens are often thought of a place where science and art meet on equal terms. His lectures investigate this relationship.

The lecture will put into a contextual, political and intellectual framework the brief life (1919-1933)  of the school.  An examination of the structure, pedogogic process, staff, students and their products and work will be followed by an examination of the diaspora caused by the Nazis rise to power and the subsequent continued importance of the Bauhaus over the last seventy five years.

Biography

Mike Hope author, lecturer, curator and designer has spent over twenty-five years working in Higher Education at four Universities (North Staffordshire, Portsmouth, Nottingham Trent and Plymouth) undertaking lecturing, research and senior management roles. He was appointed as the last Head of Exeter School of Art & Design before taking up his final academic appointment as founder Director of Peninsular Arts at the University of Plymouth.  He has spent thirty years running summer school programmes, in a number of locations. He has lectured around the world, sat on many national and international boards – he was a founder board member of the European Academy of Design. He has a large list of publications, and has for over thirty years been a freelance designer.   Since 1999, he has been advisor to the Bishop and Diocese of Exeter for stained glass. 

He currently runs his own creative/research consultancy and a specialist cultural travel and lecture organisation, ‘Spirit of the Place’. He specialises in Art, Architectural and Design History, Art Nouveau and Art Deco, Modernism, Stained Glass, Churches and Cathedrals as well as the English Country House and Garden.

For the last eight years he has worked on a freelance basis for Travel Editions, being one of their specialist expert lecturers for their Art & History Abroad and UK Programmes.  

The lecture will take place by Zoom and members will receive an invitation by email.

The lecture will take place by Zoom and members will receive an invitation by email.

The lecture will take place by Zoom and members will receive an invitation shortly

The beauty of the Alhambra of Granada, built by the Nasrid dynasty in the 13th and 14th Centuries, speaks for itself – or does it? Many visitors, while stunned by the exquisite architecture, are unaware that the walls, covered in Kufic script, are talking directly to them.

This lecture begins with an overview of the structure of the monument and the way in which it was used, as well as the broad decorative programme of the interior of the two remaining palaces within the complex. It then takes a closer look at those inscriptions, some of them an endless repetition of the Nasrid dynastic motto, but many also consisting of lyrical Arabic poetry and even lines where the wall itself is boasting of its own beauty and significance.

Biography

Ian Cockburn is an art historian with a BA (Birkbeck College) in art history and an MA (Courtauld Institute of Art) in medieval Spanish art history. Specialist in the nearly 800 years of Moorish occupation and Christian reconquest of medieval Iberia.

Founder and director of Art & Culture Andalucia, specialising in guided cultural tours in Spain, plus lecturing in London at institutions such as the V&A, SOAS, Christies Education, and the London Art History Society.

Formerly a Chartered Accountant and senior manager in multi-national IT companies, with extensive public-speaking experience.

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

(Several pieces of live lute music will be performed as part of the lecture)

Biography

Adam Busiakiewicz is an Art Historian, lutenist and lecturer. After completing his Bachelor’s Degree in History at UCL in 2010 he held the position of Head of Historical Interpretation (curator) at Warwick Castle. He left the castle in 2013 after winning a full AHRC studentship to pursue a Master’s Degree in Fine and Decorative Art at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in Art History at Warwick University after winning a CADRE Postgraduate Scholarship in 2017.

In December 2014 he became the youngest Guide Lecturer at the Wallace Collection, where he regularly gives talks, tours and lectures to both public and professional audiences. He has also given lectures at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, and organised a series of talks there on the lute in paintings in 2018. Adam is currently planning a publication on the Grevilles of Warwick Castle, and has had articles published by the British Art Journal, The Sidney Journaland Hispanic Lyra. He was also the Editor of the Georgian Group's 80th Anniversary Exhibition catalogue entitled Splendour! Art in Living Craftsmanship (2017).

Cancelled - due to Corvid-19

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

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

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

Biography

During the 1970s, whist carrying out reconnaissance work for two archaeological expeditions in southern Iran, Brian travelled extensively throughout that country as well as in Afghanistan and Turkey. In 1972, he lived and worked amongst two tribal groups in southern Iran – the Afshar nomads of Kerman and the Darrehshuri Qashqa’i nomads of Fars – making him one of the few world carpet dealers to have actually spent time ‘in the field’. From 1973 onwards, he worked in Kerman until just before the Iranian Revolution when he was forced to leave. In 1990, Brian was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society for his work amongst these nomadic peoples.

Cancelled - due to Corvid-19

Cancelled - due to Corvid-19

Dame Zaha Hadid died on March 31st 2016  at the age of 65. Architectural historians of the future will surely recognise her as one of  the most important architects of the early 21st century. She was born in Iraq and her reputation was global, but she made Britain her home. This 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.

Biography

Colin Davies is a Professor of Architectural Theory.  He is the former editor of the  Architects Journal and a contributor to publications worldwide. His books include Thinking About Architecture, Key Houses of the Twentieth Century, The Prefab Home, High Tech Architecture, A New History of Modern Architecture (published by Laurence King) and monographs on work of Foster, Hopkins, Grimshaw

Cancelled

From Greek Mosaics in the second century, through weddings in the Bible, Renaissance allegories of refinement and excess, sixteenth century peasant parties out of doors, eighteenth century harlequins, to the celebratory styles of twentieth century painters, the depiction of parties has always been popular in the history of Western Art.

Alice Foster traces the variety of merrymaking, banqueting, dances and music in a feast of colour.

Biography

Alice has lectured for Oxford University Department of Continuing Education since 1998. She lectures regularly at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Her busy freelance career includes organising History of Art study days with colleagues, and regular weekly classes in Oxfordshire and Worcestershire. In 2004 Alice joined The Arts Society and has lectured in Britain and in Europe. Since 2003 Alice has been a tutor on study holidays. In 2010 she was elected President of Banbury Fine Arts Society.

Deborah Devonshire, the youngest of the Mitford sisters and wife of the 11th Duke of Devonshire, was hefted by marriage to one of Europe’s greatest treasure houses, Chatsworth. In the second half of the 20th century, in partnership with her husband, she imbued it with a spirit, elegance and sense of welcome that transformed it from being the worn-out survivor of decades of taxation, war and  social change into one of the best-loved, most-emulated and popular historic houses, gardens and estates in the country. With responsibility for Lismore Castle and Bolton Abbey as well, no wonder her passport stated her profession as ‘housewife’.

Biography:

Simon Seligman studied art and architectural history at Warwick University, including a semester in Venice. Also Graduate of the Attingham Summer school. From 1991 until 2010, 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). Gave numerous public presentations and interviews with the late Deborah, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire. 

The opening of trade routes across Eurasia by land and sea enabled the movement of peoples, along with their cultures, arts, beliefs, technical skills and aesthetics. This was to have a profound influence on the arts of China, introducing new forms, designs, and materials, along with the craftsmen to pass on their skills.
This lecture will look at several examples of masterpieces of art from China in the first millennium AD to illustrate this influence and show how the arts of China were greatly enriched by its Silk Road links.

Biography:

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

Whether we choose to admit it or not, British art has been enriched by the presence of artists from elsewhere for many centuries. By tracing the contribution of foreign artists, with particular emphasis on the early twentieth century to the present day, while not underestimating the obstacles that faced them, this new lecture (also available as a study day) will examine a neglected yet extremely topical aspect of British cultural history. Artists to be discussed include Hans Holbein, Anthony van Dyck, James McNeill Whistler, David Bomberg and Mark Gertler, John Heartfield and Oskar Kokoschka, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach, Chris Ofili and Yinka Shonibare.

Image Credits - Josef Herman: Refugees, c.1941. Copyright Josef Herman Estate. With kind permission, Ben Uri collection.

Biography:

Monica Bohm-Duchen is a freelance lecturer, writer and exhibition organizer. Has lectured for Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Open University, Sotheby's Institute of Art and the Courtauld Institute of Art. Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck College since 2005

Leonardo da Vinci’s images of women, whether Madonnas, mistresses or wealthy members of society, are among the most renowned works of art of the Italian Renaissance. This lecture will study his revolutionary rendering of the female figure and how he harnessed the interplay of light and shadow to produce images that combine the spiritual with the sensual, the mystical with the mysterious.

Picture credit: Web Gallery of Art

Biography:

Shirley Smith graduated from the University of East Anglia with a first class honours degree in the History of Art, specialising in the Italian and Northern Renaissance. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a part-time lecturer for the University of East Anglia and for the Department of Continuing Education of the University of Cambridge.

This is a change from the published lecture

The lecture is in The Memorial Hall in St Peter's School and not in St Olave's School

James Tissot was a man of paradoxes - a Frenchman turned Englishman, a man who loved to paint women but never married. The French thought his pictures English; the English thought his pictures French. The detail with which he described the fashions of the period make his work a dress historian's dream. His acute observations of nineteenth-century etiquette add a frisson to our viewing. This lecture explores the life and work of this fascinating artist. 

Biography:

Having lived in Paris for 7 years, Lizzie studied for her Post-Graduate Masters degree in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. She has wide experience as a freelance lecturer, working with fine arts societies and art galleries throughout Britain, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Lizzie is particularly interested in placing works of art within their wider social and economic context, exploring the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ behind the paintings. She is President of The Arts Society Hambleton and Chair of the North East Area.

A Kelmscott Chaucer for Our Times

William Morris founded his Kelmscott Press in 1890 in order to save the fine art of hand printing in Britain. When in 1896 his last book, the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, was published, it was universally hailed as the greatest book of the age. It is a huge book, with illustrations by Burne Jones and decorations by Morris, and was printed at the press in Hammersmith over a four year period. Fewer than 400 copies were produced. In 2012 Dominic was presented with a copy in a poor binding, with a view to creating a contemporary artistic binding for it. This lecture is the record that process. He will give an overview of Morris and the Kelmscott Press, and then talk about his very demanding commission — from the early designs to the completion of the project four years later. This lecture is a step-by-step look at how fine bindings are made, as well as an insight into an extraordinary artistic journey. The completed binding has been donated to the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert museum, an institution very close to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.

Biography:

A bookbinder, artist and teacher. He first learned bookbinding at 16 from Benedictine Monks at Douai Abbey in Berkshire and later at the London College of Printing. He has worked at the V&A, and for various binderies in London, New York and San Francisco, and spends part of the year teaching across the USA. He has his bindery in the Lake District, from where he travels across the UK teaching master classes and lecturing. He is Vice President of the Society of Bookbinders and was elected a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders in 2008. His binding work is mostly the restoration of antiquarian books and Design Bindings. He has won many prizes in the Designer Bookbinders competition, including both first prizes and the Mansfield Silver Medal in 2007. His bindings are in collections worldwide, including the British Library and the John Rylands Library in Manchester. In 2010 he bound a special copy of the winner of the Booker Prize which was presented to the author. In June 2013 he won first prize in the prestigious Sir Paul Getty International Bookbinding Competition. His winning binding was acquired by the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

The Bayeux Tapestry celebrates the conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy.  Viking-like ships, Norman cavalry and Saxon foot-soldiers illustrate the exploits of William the Conqueror and King Harold in their fight for the throne of England.  Although most of the scenes convey events which are relatively straightforward to construe, there have been difficulties in interpreting others: characters who cannot be identified, actions which do not appear to correspond to the narrative, etc. This lecture will examine the tapestry narrative and some of the anomalies found in it.

Cristina Figueredo received her MA in Medieval Literatures from the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York.  Having been granted the White Rose Studentship and an Overseas Research Student Award, she proceeded to complete a PhD on Medieval Studies at the Universities of York and Leeds. She has published in both English and Spanish on Medieval Literature and her edition of the Middle English romance Richard Coeur de Lion will shortly be published by Manchester University Press. She is currently a lecturer with the Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of York, in the area of Medieval Studies and a Research Associate with the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York.

Cancelled

By looking at thousands of sketches, prints, paintings, photographs and maps Dr Hogarth is able to present a diverse  approach in ‘documentary art’ in this illustrated lecture : the land and the Gardens over 1,000 years.

Dr Hogarth is a Senior Lecturer in Biology at the University of York, and a Fellow in the Biology Department. Amongst many interests, he has researched and co authored a book about the history of the Museum Garden in York

Cancelled

John Ruskin loved Venice, the Alps and the Lakes . He made daily studies of the dawn, and watched horrified as Victorian industrialisation polluted the clouds and rivers captured by his ‘Ideal Modern Painter’ – JMW Turner.

Suzanne Fagence Cooper  studied History at Oxford University, and Art History at the Courtauld Institute, and at Christie’s Education. She was a Curator and Research fellow at the V & A for twelve years, and is currently Research Curator at York Art Gallery for a new exhibition ‘ Turner, Ruskin and the Storm Cloud’, which opens this spring.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is arguably the most important Indian artistic figure of the modern era. A renowned poet, novelist, composer and painter, he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 – the first non-European to do so.

The lecture will explore the role Tagore’s art played in the story of India’s fight for independence.

Dr Stevens is a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies, University of London. He has published widely in the fields of British and Indian History, and Art History.

Time:  6.30pm  (from 6pm)
Place:  Shepherd Hall, St Peter’s School, York.  YO30 6AB

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

Biography:

After studying music at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of music presenters on BBC Radio 3. He enjoys a varied career that embraces broadcasting, conducting, playing double bass and communicating his passion for music. He regularly leads cultural lecture holidays, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season.

Time:  6.30pm  (from 6pm)
Place:  Shepherd Hall, St Peter’s School, York.  YO30 6AB
Speaker: Dr Tania Dickinson, Honorary Research Associate, Department of Archaeology, University of York.

The Staffordshire Hoard is an extraordinary find of early Anglo-Saxon treasure, and now the best single source of information for fine metalworking of the 6th and 7th centuries A.D., showcasing a remarkably wide range of ornamental repertoires and techniques. It was found in the West Midlands in 2009 by a metal-detectorist and since then has been the subject of a major research programme funded by Historic England, which will be published in summer 2019.

The Hoard consists almost entirely of fragments of gold and silver, which had been dismantled from complete objects – mainly swords, but also a helmet, horse harness and items for Christian religious and ceremonial use. Interpreting the Hoard’s meaning, what sort of assemblage it was and why it was buried, is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty, but much has been learnt about its nature, at the same time changing understanding of many aspects of early Anglo-Saxon history, archaeology and art. The lecture will provide both a general introduction to the Hoard and a focus on some of the art historical insights that it offers.

Photographs of the hoard HERE

Personal biography

Dr Dickinson read Modern History at St Anne’s College, Oxford, followed by a DPhil on early Anglo-Saxon burials in the Upper Thames Region. In 1973 she was appointed a lecturer in early medieval archaeology at University College, Cardiff, and in 1979 moved to become a founder member of staff in the new Department of Archaeology at the University of York, where she remained until retirement in 2011. Her research has continued to focus on Anglo-Saxon burial, with publications

Time:  6.30pm  (from 6pm)
Place:  Shepherd Hall, St Peter’s School, York.  YO30 6AB
 

Tasha Marks is an award-winning food historian and artist, who explores the relationship between food, art and history. Her practice, AVM Curiosities, champions the use of food as an artistic medium, with projects ranging from museum-style exhibitions and sculptural installations, to interactive lectures and limited-edition confectionery. Recent academic achievements include publication in the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, where Marks authored the entry on Mrs Beeton, one of the Victorian era’s most influential cooks.

Bridging the worlds of food, art and history Tasha’s work ranges from museum-style exhibitions and sculptural installations, to interactive lectures and limited-edition confectionery.

With clients including the V&A, The Royal Academy of Arts, The National Gallery and the Barbican, Tasha’s talk will review her unique position in the cultural landscape, touching on each of her distinctive projects and discussing the highlights of each one. As well as a strong emphasis on storytelling and history, the talk will comment on how to introduce the senses into the museum space, the rituals of eating, and why sugar was one of the original artistic mediums.

Time:  6.30pm  (from 6pm)

Place:  Shepherd Hall, St Peter’s School, York.  YO30 6AB

Lights, Camera, Action! – The inside stories of the art and artifice of the early decades of Hollywood.  This lecture will feature the photographers, costumiers, make-up artists, designers, technicians and the actors and actresses who created the magic of the silver screen

Biography:

Dr Geri Parlby, BA (Hons), MA (Courtauld), PhD, FRSA

Geri is a former journalist and film publicist. She has a Masters in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute and a Theology doctorate from Roehampton University in London. She has been lecturing for the past 12 years both in the UK and internationally. She is also principal lecturer on the NADFAS South West Area’s History of Art course and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Roehampton University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.    http://www.gparlby.co.uk