Early German Romantic writers and thinkers sought to re-enchant the world in the face of enlightenment rationality. We’ll examine how these notions, of a new kind of spiritual experience, are reflected in the landscape art of Caspar David Friedrich

(NB: Meet in the Ship Theatre within Walthamstow School and NOT the usual main hall)

Focusing on a few short months from late 1875 to the middle of 1876 we find Vincent van Gogh's life at a crossroads, having lost his job at the Paris branch of
international art dealership Goupil & Cie. The main focus of the talk is how he found himself working in a small school in Ramsgate on the Kent coast.

John Singer Sargent was THE international art star of the Gilded Age. He was most famous for his dramatic and stylish portraits of the elegant and wealthy. He used fashion as a powerful tool to depict identity and personality.

Cindy Polemis explores how John Singer Sargent 'fashioned' his world.

Just days before the event itself, Graham Jones will give a personal account of preparing the music for The Parade from music selection, rehearsals and the big day itself, including an insight into how it all works.

British sculpture enjoyed a renaissance in the 20th century, with the likes of Moore, Hepworth, Caro and Frink leading the way. But who came afterwards and with what effect?

Among the new generation of British-based sculptors were Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Anish Kapoor, Richard Long and David Nash. Each in their own way is innovative, inspirational and deeply human.

This talk looks at how to apply painting principles in designing a border, but also the ways in which a border differs to painting. In addition, it looks at how contemporary work of the likes of Turner,Monet, Rothko and Jackson Pollock evolved in parallel with ideas about what a garden or border should look like.

NB: Our AGM will be held on this date, starting at 7pm before the lecture.

Many Impressionist artists were well known for their images of female figures engaged in contemporary activities, and a number of critics regarded Impressionism as a quintessentially‘feminine’ style. But what can these images tell us about nineteenth-century lived experience and the choices involved in image-making? This lecture explores these questions through artworks by Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and Edgar Degas.

This lecture gets up close and personal with the dynamic east London art scene. In this lecture we will look at work by Banksy, possibly the most famous living artist in the world, as well as street art by Ben Eine and American, Shepherd Fairey. 

Do you remember that childhood feeling of enchantment on the morning after a night of snowfall? Art history has a lot to tell us about that feeling. In European art, snow arrived relatively recently, with Bruegel’s The Hunters in the Snow(1565), the first serious, large-scale consideration of the white stuff - snow’s joyousness, terror andspirituality.

The Night Watch' of 1642 is Rembrandt's greatest painting and the most famous painting in the Netherlands. But why is it so special? This lecture will look at this work in depth, answering questionsaround its commissioning, how it was painted and what it can tell us about changing Dutch society.

As the people of Norway became Christians from the 11th century, they started building wooden churches. Their very peculiar and rather extraordinary silhouette adorns the Norwegian landscape and has become a national symbol. We will see how they were constructed and why they look the way they do.

Artists have argued about the relative virtues of colour and line in painting for 500 years. The Florentines rated line more highly than colour because it covered the subject matter of an image and therefore gave it meaning. The Venetians on the other thought that colour creating feeling: whereas line gave an image its ‘body’ - i.e. the basic information - colour gave it a ‘soul’. In the seventeenth century, artists were divided between Poussinistes who favoured line and Rubenistes who backed colour. They debated the subject at the French Royal Academy of Arts. Newton’s experiments with optics raised the study of colour to the level of a science whereupon the debate seemed to become a bit futile and, in the eighteenth century, interest in it began to fade. It was revived in the competition between Picasso’s monochrome Cubism and Matisse’s exuberant coloristic Fauvism. It was to return yet again in relation to photography: some people thought that black and white photographs were more ‘serious’ than colour ones. Is this fair? This lecture explores the battle between passion and ideas which continues to be played out in the arts.

In this talk Laurie will explore how Murano became the epicentre of excellence for glassmaking across the world. We will learn of the many enduring styles of Murano glass and delve into the lives of these ancient artisans

Karin will discuss Danish and Swedish landscape paintings, focusing on the Blue Hour. That half hour or so just after sunset and before sunrise, when the landscape is suffused with a bluish light, highly atmospheric and iconic of the North.

Rock, Bark, Ochre: the story of Aboriginal art in the culturally distinct communities of the north of Australia; an extraordinary story of continuous artistic endeavour from rockpaintings dating back 50,000 years, to modern work done on bark in natural ochres.

The ownership of Chinese porcelain spread enormously in the 17th century with the opening up of trading routes between Europe and the Far East and led to a widespread fashion for displaying collections of Chinese ‘blue-and-white’. This lecture will examine the enormous and long-lasting influence that these Chinese porcelains had on European taste and culture and the whole history of interior design.

NB: Our AGM will be held on this date, starting at 7pm before the lecture.

This evening's lecturer, Jane Gardiner, has an MA History of Art, University of London. She trained at the V&A and continues to lecture there. She was Senior Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art for 17 years, becoming a Deputy Director of Sotheby's, UK. She has also lectured for the National Trust, the Art Fund, London University, Buckingham University, l'Institut d'Etudes Superieures des Arts in Paris, a private women's college in Saudi Arabia, on cruise ships and at antiques fairs and interior design conferences in America.

Join Rome tourist guide Stuart Harvey for an in depth look at Raphael Sanzio, who Vasari described as “The Prince of Painters”. Born in Urbino, he moved to Rome in 1508 and worked there for the last 12 years of his life, until his untimely death in 1520 at the young age of 37. His prolific output left a legacy that influenced artists for centuries. In this lecture we will take a chronological look Raphael’s works that are easy to visit in Rome today, as well as learning about his powerful patrons, including two Popes, various cardinals and a wealthy banker. Raphael’s love-life cannot be ignored, and finally we will arrive at his monumental tomb in the Pantheon.

This evening's lecturer, Stuart Harvey is a “History and Art Communicator” of 30 years experience. He is a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide (qualified in 1998 - awarded “New Guide of the Year”) and also a Guida Turistica Abilitata della Provincia di Roma (qualified in 2010). He has worked in educational tourism since 1992, leading study tours all over Europe. Living in Rome since 2003, Stuart has developed a great love for the Eternal City and its many treasures. In addition to his primary career as full-time Rome tourist guide, Stuart’s entertaining and lively lectures and virtual tours bring the rich artistic and historical wealth of Rome’s 28 centuries to life for people all over the world. He lives in Rome most of the year.

The county of Kent has been irresistibly attractive to artists from the earliest times. Depictions of Kent have been at the forefront of new artistic movements though the centuries and have been pivotal to the development of English art. This talk takes a pictorial journey through paintings of the county to uncover what attracted painters to Kent and how they chose to depict its places.

This evening's lecturer, Dr Lydia Goodson, is an art historian and lecturer specialising in the art and material culture of Renaissance Italy. After a career in television production and raising a family Lydia returned to academia and now holds a BA in Renaissance History, an MA in History of Art and was awarded her PhD in 2020 from the Warburg Institute of the University of London, for her thesis on painting and patronage in Renaissance Perugia. This return to study as a mature student has given Lydia a passion for the benefits of life-long learning and she hugely enjoys writing and delivering lectures for audiences of all ages. She is an art history tutor for CityLit and regularly speaks to other adult learning groups. Lydia’s research interests centre on painting production in Central Italy in the Renaissance. Lydia lives near Sevenoaks and in the Umbrian region of Italy.

Charles Dickens has often been proclaimed as “The Man Who Invented Christmas” and indeed on hearing that Dickens had died, a cockney barrow-girl said: “Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?”  Dickens revived the Christmas traditions with his warm portrayal of Christmas in the domestic setting; with plum pudding, piping hot goose, games, dancing  and family cheer by the hearth. Although he celebrated Christmas in numerous works it is his enduring master piece, ‘A Christmas Carol’ published on 19th December 1843 which immortalises the spirit of Christmas Cheer. Dickens was a man of extraordinary energy and talent: literary genius, reformer, public speaker, actor and amateur magician. In this lecture Bertie Pearce reveals a Dickensian Christmas with readings, biographical details and conjuring tricks.

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

We have all heard about the great achievements of the Italian Renaissance, but there is little acknowledgement of the artistic events that took place in Britain over the same period of time, which will be the focus of this lecture.

In this lecture, experienced lecturer Toby Faber uses the art of the 19th century to tell the story of the westward expansion of the United States from the first explorations and contacts with native Americans to the near-extermination of the buffalo.

Most people love watching and listening to birds. In this lecture we will see them depicted in Aboriginal rock decorations, millennia ago, then as the attributes of gods, such as Juno’s peacocks or Minerva’s wise owl in classical times, right up to the present day. 

Holds Master’s and First Class Honours degrees in History of Art from Birkbeck College, University of London. Is a gallery guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern and the National Portrait Gallery and has lectured at many galleries including the Dulwich Picture Gallery, Plymouth City Art Gallery and the NPG. He is also a London Blue Badge Guide and City of London Guide.
Edward Burne-Jones embodied many of the principles of the Pre-Raphaelites though he was not one of the original seven members. Inspired by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and encouraged by the Pre-Raphaelites’ great champion John Ruskin, Burne-Jones had a particular talent for story-telling and skill at capturing the melancholy in winsomely beautiful women. This lecture examines the life and career of Burne-Jones from humble beginnings in Birmingham to the title of baronet and a memorial service in Westminster Abbey. It considers the work of this great Victorian artist and his achievements in painting and applied art.

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

In 2023 the RA will host the first ever UK exhibition on Marina Abramović (23 September - 10 December 2023 https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/marina-abramovic) and she will become a hotly debated artist. Many only know a little of this incredible woman and so this lecture is an amazing opportunity to learn more. Abramović is the pioneer of performance art and Helen will discuss her 50 year career from its dramatic beginnings to how the artist, now in her 70’s, has developed her work to reflect her changing perceptions of the world. Helen will look at the question of whether performance art can outlive the performance itself; are the photos, videos and re-performances of younger artists just as valid? Abramović has a superbly powerful presence and creates a very intense relationship between the performer and the viewer, more so than is achieved in the theatre. Some of the images in this lecture include blood which can be removed upon request.

Rosamund Bartlett a writer, lecturer and translator whose work as a cultural historian ranges across the arts. She completed her doctorate at Oxford and is the author of several books, including biographies of Chekhov and Tolstoy, and a study of Wagner's influence in Russia. She is currently writing a history of the Russian avant-garde. Her new translation of Anna Karenina for Oxford World’s Classics was published to acclaim in 2014. She has written on art, music and literature for publications such as The Daily Telegraph and Apollo, and received commissions from institutions including the Royal Opera House, Tate UK, and the Salzburg Festival. Her lecturing work has taken her from the V&A and the National Theatre in London to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and she contributes regularly to Proms events and opera broadcasts on the BBC.
This lecture tells Ukraine's story through the shared culture which binds its proud people together. We will explore the sacred art and architecture of Kyiv and its links to Byzantium, as well as the distinctive characters and ethnicities of Odesa and Lviv. Tracing Ukraine's complicated multi-ethnic history also means looking at its rich folk culture traditions. These range from native song and the secret codes embedded in ancient embroidery, which have exerted a surprising impact on modern painting and contemporary haute couture, to Cossack dancing and borshch.

Angela Findlay is a professional artist, writer and freelance lecturer with a long career of teaching art in prisons in Germany and England. Her time ‘behind bars’ and later as Arts Coordinator of the London-based Koestler Arts, gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation. Though novel, her ideas were effective and in 2016 she was invited by the Ministry of Justice to support the case for the arts to be included in new, progressive programmes of rehabilitation and education. Brexit unfortunately reversed the direction of prison policy but art's role is still vital.
In the past decade Angela’s Anglo-German roots led her to research Germany’s largely unknown post-WW2 process of remembrance and the extraordinary culture of 'counter memorials' and site-specific artworks that emerged to express national shame and apology. With the current debates on statues and monuments, the ways Germany has tried to deal with its dark past is more relevant and inspiring than ever.
Angela has a BA(Hons) in Fine Art, a Diploma in Artistic Therapy (specialising in colour) and her paintings have been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her book - In My Grandfather’s Shadow - expanding on the above subjects was published by Penguin Transworld in July 2022.
Years of working as an artist within the Criminal Justice System in England and Germany have given Angela unique insights into the destructive and costly cycle of crime, prisons and re-offending. In this thought-provoking talk she offers a deeper understanding of the minds, lives and challenges of offenders. With extraordinary slides of art projects and prisoner’s art, she demonstrates how within the process of creating art of any discipline, there are vital opportunities for offenders to confront their crimes and develop the key life skills so essential in leading a positive and productive life. A frequent response to this talk has been “I had no idea!” and indeed it casts light onto areas of our society where the Arts not only are visual, decorative or commercial, but absolutely vital, hugely relevant and potentially life-changing.
This talk is moving, informative and very original. Interspersed with personal accounts of humorous or slightly horrifying situations, these talks have kept audiences across the country engrossed.

Helen combines her many years’ experience as an educator and professional artist to explain Late Medieval Italian Art and Eastern Orthodox iconography from a different perspective. Her interdisciplinary lectures weave together (with passion and humour) art historical scholarship, technical expertise and devotional context to provide a unique narrative for understanding 13th -14th century Italian panel painting. She has lectured, delivered art history and medieval panel painting courses for over thirty years to educational trusts, colleges, art societies, faith organisations, schools and HLF projects, as well as teaching independently and leading art pilgrimage tours in Sinai and Italy.
Helen has received numerous commissions from cathedrals, churches and private patrons and has been described as one of the UKs leading iconographers. She is a MA graduate of the Courtauld Institute (Edmond J. Safra Scholarship) and holds a first-class BA Hons, Fine Art Diploma and Adult Education Teaching qualification. She has worked in the museum sector at London’s leading Russian Art Auction House, MacDougall Arts and at Christie's.
Ideal for Lent and Easter-tide, this mini ‘visual pilgrimage’ takes a reflective look at a selection of Eastern Orthodox icons and Italian art works from the 6th to 14th centuries, in relation to the most important days of Holy Week and the theme of Witness.

I 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.

I have 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 I was awarded Strip Cartoonist of the Year by the UK Cartoon Trust. I am 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 I have been performing my cartoon workshop Release Your Inner Cartoonist in its many different guises, to audiences as diverse as schoolchildren, business executives and festival goers.

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).

He was awarded UK Strip Cartoonist Of The Year for his Guardian strip Clare In The Community, which he adapted into a Radio 4 sitcom. 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).

Freelance specialist in the art and culture of Latin America. Has lectured in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. Has curated exhibitions, and assisted on TV documentaries for BBC and Channel 4. Has made collections in Mexico and Belize for the British Museum, and is Research Associate in the Department of World Cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum. In 2016 she was awarded the prestigious Ohtli medal by the Mexican government for her long-standing commitment to Mexican culture. Her many publications include Mexican Textiles (British Museum Press, 1990), Arts and Crafts of Mexico (Thames & Hudson, 1990), Focus on Aztecs and Incas (Watts Books, 1995), The Incas - The Ancient World (Wayland, 1998), Textiles from Mexico (British Museum Press, 2002), and Mexico: Clothing and Culture (Royal Ontario Museum, 2015). Has also published articles in travel guides, newspapers and magazines.
Peruvian textiles are among the most splendid and enduring of world traditions. This lecture will look at the textile achievements of Peru's many civilisations, past and present. At Paracas, ancient burial grounds have yielded up sumptuous woven textiles vibrantly decorated with embroidered animals, mythological creatures, and geometric patterning. For the Incas, who ruled the Andes of South America after AD 1200, the textile arts took precedence over other media. Chosen women devoted their lives to spinning and weaving for the Sun and the Inca State.
Today, Andean societies remain among the most textile-oriented cultures in the world. In rural areas, the use of traditional clothing is central to the lives of the Aymara and the Quechua. Men and women clothe themselves and their families with astonishing virtuosity, and no festival is complete without an abundance of fine textiles. The British Museum is currently planning to mount a sumptuous exhibition of Peruvian textiles towards the end of 2021.

Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. Combining engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise, he devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, is a highly sought after double bassist on the London jazz scene, and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season.
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. An overview of Bach’s life and achievement precedes a close look at this magnificent work which draws on various forms ranging from recitative, arioso, aria, chorale, and instrumental sinfonia through to full-blown choruses which are infused with the joyous spirit of the dance.

A writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. 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, is published in June 2022.
In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. The images, charting the course of a year, changed the way we view the world through art. Landscape had previously been a decorative backdrop to dramas both sacred and profane. But in Bruegel's hands the landscape and our interaction with it became the focus. Looking at paintings such as The Return of the Herd, Hunters in the Snow and The Gloomy Day, this lecture explores how Bruegel pioneered a whole new way of thinking about the environment and our individual places within a shifting cosmos.

Kirsty Hartsiotis has been the curator of the decorative and fine art at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham since 2008, and prior to that was the curator and manager of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. At Cheltenham she looks after the Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection, which includes the important private press archive, the Emery Walker Library. She’s curated many exhibitions on the Arts and Crafts and Private Press Movements, most recently Ernest Gimson: Observation, Imagination & Making.
Passionate about sharing her deep love for and knowledge of the arts, she’s also a freelance researcher, currently researching Arts and Crafts war memorials and the work of Arts and Crafts designers in churches in the South West. She’s also been an oral storyteller for over 20 years, and has published a number of collections of stories. She’s the newsletter editor for Society of Decorative Art Collections, a regular columnist for Cotswold Life, and writes for diverse other publications on art history and folklore.
Between about 1890 and 1930, Arts and Crafts designers built and contributed to hundreds of churches across England. Some are famous schemes including the church building and all its interior fittings, such as Brockhampton in Herefordshire; Holy Trinity, Sloane Square, London; St. Andrew’s, Roker. Sometimes it’s just one commission – a stained glass window, a screen, a font cover. Discover how these designers, Morris & Co. in churches like Selsley changed the course of church furnishing in England, and how the next generation of Arts and Crafts designers revolutionised church design. With a particular focus on Brockhampton, just over the border in Herefordshire, perhaps the finest Arts and Crafts church in Britain.

So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Music and different instruments play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

The lecture will begin at 8 pm.

The story of Blenheim Palace’s construction is a fascinating catalogue of excess and outrage. Anthony will explore these themes and the characters involved, marvelling at the genius of Vanburgh and considering the real impact the palace has left on the nation.

The lecture will begin at 8 pm.

Shrines, stupas, cave temples, colonial grandeur and modernist architecture – Georgina will look at the history of this beautiful island through its intriguing art and culture. For much of Sri Lanka's past Buddhist and Hindu have lived alongside each other peaceably and much of its culture is evidence of this spirit of tolerance and generosity.

The lecture will begin at 8 pm.

Between 1919 and Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, the Weimar Republic saw an amazing flourishing of the arts, including art schools such as the Bauhaus. Colin shows how artists, photographers and satirists reflected the political turmoil in their work and developed a new sardonic realism that was not to last.

NB: Our AGM will be held on this date, starting at 7 pm before the lecture.

"CABARET ..." by mrbill78636 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Who was Mary Magdalene? The saint as we know her in the West is actually a conflation of four different female characters from the Gospels. This lecture will explain the fascinating stories and startling depictions of this popular saint in western art.

This lecture looks at three great mosques, the Friday Mosque in Cordoba, the Mosque of Suleyman the Great in Istanbul and the Royal Mosque in Isfahan and explores their different styles of architecture and their skylines. We will also see some of the rich designs of Islamic art that adorn these magnificent buildings.

What is the meaning of jewellery? In this thought-provoking lecture Judy expands the concept of jewellery, how it is used and why people wear it. Jewellery can be a vital tool of communication, from ancient burial ornaments and objects of ritual to desirable works of art that harness the skills of goldsmiths, gem-setters and enamellers.

The London Christmas season was invented at Covent Garden, and today’s operas and ballets can be traced back to Harlequin and Columbine and those early shows. Panto has moved elsewhere, but Sarah’s lecture shows how pantomime still lives on in the seasonal operas and ballets staged at the Royal Opera House today.

Alice provides a painter’s perspective on famous artworks from the 17th to the 21st centuries. Rembrandt and Turner are revealed as artistic risk-takers, whose new combinations of glazes, surfaces, pigments and processes re-defined the language of painting.

These two forefathers of experimentation lead the way for modern artists such as Pollock and Fontana, who went beyond the brush, the canvas, and the gallery wall itself in search of the meaning of making.

Explore the mess and methodology of the creative process: from broken brushes to smudged thumbmarks, raw pigment to secret sketchbooks, slashed canvases to immersive light installations, this lecture uncovers a new way of seeing painting.

Alice White is a contemporary oil-painter, and a Tutor at the University of the Arts London and University College London. She has provided Guest Lectures at Kings College London, The Art Worker’s Guild, the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Her essay 'A Painter's Perspective' is published in Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe (Alfred Cohen Art Foundation and Ben Uri Gallery 2020). Her article ‘How to Look at Painting’ was printed in The Art Society Magazine (July 2020). 

Alice’s solo show ‘A New Wave’ documented her year’s residency as Artist for Animals at ZSL London Zoo. Recent projects include ‘The Art of Science’ (Scott Polar Institute, University of Cambridge 2021). She regularly exhibits at the Mall Galleries in London. 

Awards include the Russell and Chapple Prize for an Outstanding work in Oils (Royal Society of Marine Artists 2017) and the Time Space Money Bursary (A-n The Artist Information Company/Arts Council England 2020).

Rembrandt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sarah is a leading authority on Constable. Her expert eye managed to identify two ‘lost’ works by Constable on BBC’s Fake or Fortune. In this lecture she will be exploring the artistic legacy that Constable bequeathed to today’s modern artists through a closer examination of his great landscape paintings.

Please join us at 7pm for cake and sparkling wine to celebrate 50 years since our inaugural meeting in AS in Sevenoaks.

For the first time, the early development of the technique of watercolour during the Renaissance, was to have been explored in an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum during the summer of 2020. It was postponed and was due to open in November of that year; then once again it did not open because of further Covid restriction, but was cancelled. Exquisite watercolours are to be found in manuscripts, or albums or on a large scale, as in the Raphael cartoons. They show innovative and fascinating observations of the human figure, the exploration of the natural world and landscape as in the work of Dürer or van Dyck.  The exhibition would have been a showcase for the versatility of the technique, in outstanding examples almost never seen by the public. Instead, the lecture will explore the technique and reveal the beautiful images, more easily seen on a screen, which are usually kept hidden in the print rooms of the Victoria and Albert and British Museums, as well as those in Berlin, Vienna and Paris. 

Further information

The hilltop Tuscan town of Siena, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was arguably the most important centre of artistic patronage and craftsmanship during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, where the foundations were laid for the 15th century Renaissance. With the intention of creating the most beautiful of city republics, the Sienese government spent lavishly, fostering the talent of native artists such as Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini and Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, as well as enticing other Tuscan craftsmen such as Giovanni Pisano to work in Siena.

Further information

Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) was a key player in early twentieth-century avant-garde art, design and literary/theatrical circles in Paris.  As a widely travelled polymath, Dufy’s charismatic personality, wit and curiosity about the world was infectious.  His imagination and technical virtuosity – across a range of media including painting and lithography, posters, book illustration, theatrical set design, textiles and fashion, ceramics and large murals – cut across all conventional boundaries.

Further information

Paula Nuttall has spent many years researching and teaching on Bruges and its artists, and in this lecture she evokes the city during its late-medieval heyday, when it was the richest and most vibrant city in northern Europe. Bruges was a cosmopolitan trading centre, a luxurious hub synonymous with good living, and attracted an international merchant clientele, as well as the Burgundian rulers of the Netherlands with their magnificent court, and great painters such as Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling whose masterpieces, interwoven with sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, and the buildings of Bruges itself, conjure up life in this medieval metropolis.

Further information

The idea of art as a medium for artistic expression has transformed glass making in the present century from an industrial process making vessels to a major form of fine art and sculpture. The lecture will explore this new development with reference to Helen Maurer, Colin Reid, Vanessa Cutler and Peter Layton.

Further information

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 last 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.

Further information

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.

You can view a video clip here 

Further information

In the Renaissance, Christmas was a popular time to hold jousts, tournaments and courtly spectacles. In the dark dead of winter, a colourful, glamorous celebration of chivalry very much took on the role of a kind of sixteenth-century 'festival of light'. In England, Christmas jousts became especially popular under that famous lover of armour and fighting, King Henry VIII. Such events were a kind of performance art, which fused real armoured combat with fantastical, mythological and allegorical themes. In this lecture, we explore this rich history through the personal experiences of the lecturer, an academic specialist but also one of the world’s foremost jousters and medieval martial artists.

Further information

This is a colourful, entertaining lecture examining and enjoying miniature paintings created at the Ottoman Court in Istanbul during the glory days of their empire when sultans were most keen to record history and above all their own place in history. The typical subject matter is portraiture, the stories of battles, vivid scenes of brightly coloured cities under siege, sultans riding or hunting with courtiers,  or enthroned to receive homage under a bulbous floral tent,  the occasion and celebration of festivals.  They possess a quality of frankness, vitality and vigour which is not seen in other Islamic paintings. 

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The widespread misconception that Modernist interiors eschewed pattern and ushered in a fashion for plain walls is belied by the fact that the taste for wallpaper flourished as never before in the inter-war and post-war periods.  Patterns included brightly coloured geometric Jazz-Age designs, traditional florals, and pictorial panels as well as ‘Contemporary’-style and Op, Pop and Psychedelic designs.  Decorators like Laura Ashley, Colefax & Fowler and Sandersons created popular new styles and the more recent introduction of digital design and statement walls has seen a revival of wallpaper today.  This talk surveys the development of wallpaper production and design across the twentieth century.

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For over 500 years commentators have suggested that black-and-white images are more poetic, grave and serious than coloured ones. In Renaissance Florence artists maintained that the subject, which could be caught in a drawing or print, was the important part and colour was merely an enhancement, while the Venetians felt the drawing of a picture was its ‘body’ and colour its ‘soul’.

The controversy has continued with Poussin versus Rubens right up to Picasso versus Matisse up to the present day.

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Robert Hughes wrote of Still Life painting: ‘Still Life is to eating what the nude is to sex’, although he did admit that Spanish Still Life painting is ‘more sacramental than gastronomic’.  The lecture will cover a cabbage that has been painted with such astonishing accuracy that the painted version is more alluring than the vegetable itself.  Goya’s painting of a pile of 6 silvery fish is a commentary on the disaster of war.  These bream have been abandoned on a beach in the middle of the night and left to rot.  Through this and other paintings by Velázquez, Zurbarán and Meléndez, we shall explore several themes that can be discerned form arrangements of simple foodstuffs.

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This surveys British colonial architecture from the neo-classical buildings of Calcutta through the Gothic revival and Indo-Saracenic buildings of Bombay to Lutyens and New Delhi, also the need for restoration of many of these buildings, with which the speaker was involved.

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This looks at the role wine has played in society since 5000 BC, showing the buildings, murals, paintings, pottery and cartoons which have coloured in the story.

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This will explore the great variety of approaches that artists have used in painting the scene of the Jesus’ body being taken down from the Cross, analysing and comparing works from Rogier van der Weyden, through Rubens and Rembrandt to Beckmann in the 20th Century.

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The East End is one of London’s most fascinating and dynamic districts.  It is essentially a story of immigration, wave after wave of people coming to London to seek refuge and a better life.  This Virtual Tour tells their story.  Using powerful images, video and google street view, the journey embraces 250 years of history.  Starting in the 1680’s with the arrival of French Huguenots and finishing in the late 1930’s with the arrival at Liverpool Street station of some 10,000 mainly Jewish children secretly evacuated from Nazi occupied Europe before the outbreak of WW2.

Pepe Martinez born and bred in the East End will lead the way.  He is an award winning London Blue Badge Guide and leads the programme for training virtual tour guides.

The virtual tour will begin at 11 am. There will be a charge of £10 per household.

The tour will be delivered via Zoom, with our usual welcome followed by questions and answers.  An email with application and payment details will be sent out 10 days before the event.

The 14th century artist Cennino Cennini recommended using “the chicken bones that you will find under the dining table” for making charcoaled bone black to paint with. His treatise, The Artists’ handbook, gives us an understanding of some of the surprising materials which any artist had to master before he could begin to paint, such as the tail of a squirrel to make his paintbrushes. But many of these materials were difficult to use and have an effect on the finished look of paintings from the centuries before industrial processes changed the artist’s world.

This lecture will explain the techniques and the reasons for some of the features of 15th and 16th century paintings which may seem odd to our modern eyes.

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This will explore not only the famous architecture but also the ivory caskets, bronze sculptures, ceramics and textiles which have survived from Islamic Spain.

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The quiet introspection of melancholy was often associated with creativity in the past, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries, when significant treatises, music and art were dedicated to this condition. The lecture will explore the response of artists and musicians to this, and will include the live performance of several pieces of lute music.

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Provincial towns expanded and altered substantially in the 18th Century with new buildings for social life, town houses for the gentry, the rise of the middle class, and improved communications. The lecture will examine towns such as York, Norwich and Nottingham and the rise of resorts such as Bath and Brighton.

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Between the two Revolutions of 1905 and 1917 Russian Art achieved international recognition with a further flowering in the 1920s. After the imposition of official art, Socialist Realism, in 1934 it all but disappeared, only re-emerging in the 1980’s and with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

With this re-emergence came a flood of previously undiscovered paintings, often supported by certificates from well-known ‘experts’ and apparently worth millions of dollars which, in the main, were fake. The lecture examines this faking industry, responsible for sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars and its denouement in the Ghent Museum scandal.

(Extra lecture by Member of Society)

A female artist whose portrait by Van Dyck hangs at Knole, Sofonisba is not one of the earliest known female artists but she achieved fame among her contemporaries through the number and quality of her paintings earning her a well-deserved place in art history.

She was praised by her contemporaries as the foremost woman painter of her day. She executed more self-portraits than any other artists in the period between Durer and Rembrandt.