This Study Day will examine the:

The Two Faces of Russia: An exploration of the art, architecture and character of two cities looking in different ways and representing Russia’s divided soul.

    - the oriental-looking city of Moscow 
    - the western-looking city of St. Petersburg

Catherine the Great : The remarkable story of how an obscure German princess 
transformed the Russian Empire into one of the great powers of Europe . The enormous 
Hermitage museum in St Petersburg is a lasting testament to her legacy. 

Tchaikovsky, Chekhov and Levitan : Together the lyrical quality of Tchaikovsky’s 
music, Chekhov’s writing and the work of Isaak Levitan, Russia’s greatest landscape 
painter, provide s a compelling and moving evocation of late Imperial Russia.  

Rosamund Bartlett is a writer, lecturer and translator, based in 
Oxford, specialising in Russian studies. She is the author of 
several books, including biographies of Chekhov and Tolstoy, and 
a study of Wagner's influence in Russia. 

For more details and application form click here

For centuries, China was a country with a rich artistic tradition but closed to Europeans. Chinoiserie was a whimsical and fanciful European response to the exotic designs on Chinese porcelain, wallpaper and furniture. It influenced European decorative arts, architecture and garden design from the 17th to the 18th centuries

After studying Modern History at Durham University, Anne trained and became a senior specialist in ceramics for Bonhams (1981-1986) and Christie’s Fine Art auctioneers (1987-1995). From 1995 to 2002, she was resident in Shanghai and gave lectures on the history of the China trade and European Chinoiserie to diplomats and expatriates in Shanghai and Beijing.
She has been a lecturer and guide at the Victoria and Albert Museum for more than 20 years and lectures extensively for many organisations and private groups. She lectured for the British Museum and the Royal Collection Trust for 14 years, guiding private tours of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. She is currently a member of the Heritage Advisory Panel for the Haworth Art Gallery in Accrington, Lancashire. 

This lecture explores the role fashion designers played during the Second World War.  Coco Chanel took a German lover and was viewed as almost 'untouchable' until 1954.  Hardy Amis became a British spy in Belgium communicating with resistance groups.  Lucien Lelong dressed the wives of the German high command whilst working tirelessly to save the lives of thousands.

Connie Gray is the leading authority on the history of 20th-century fashion illustration.  As a curator, educator, and lecturer, she advises internationally on exhibition curation and collections research, and presents at institutions including Central Saint Martins and the Courtauld Institute of Art.  Her research and writing focus on the evolution of fashion illustration, wartime style, and key fashion artists.  She has collaborated with major museums and archives on projects, including Pioneers of Fashion (Lee Miller Archives), Crown to Couture (Kensington Palace, London), and 100 Years of Fashion Illustration (Society of Illustrators, New York). 

By the 18th century dyers had learned how to make a much greater range of colours and we see the growth of two particular activities - embroidered clothes and embroidered art.  In particular this period saw the birth of the gentleman’s three-piece suit comprising waistcoat, jacket and breeches, all adorned with matching embroidery. It was also the period of botanic art, based on the finds of the plant hunters, but as Mrs Delany showed in the 18th cent. flowers could be depicted in paint or in thread.

For 17 years from 2007 to 2024 Susan was 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.  In 2015 she was made a Fellow of the Society of Dyers and Colourists in recognition of her work on the history of dyes. Susan published her first book, "The Story of Colour in Textiles"  in 2013. She has lectured across the world as well as for the V&A .  Susan published "An Unbroken Thread: the 150 year history of the Royal School of Needlework"; the second edition in 2024 included the RSN's work on the coronation. She is currently the President of the Society of Dyers and Colourists. 

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

Mark Cottle was born on the Isles of Scilly, educated at Truro School in Cornwall and graduated from Birmingham University with an MA in Late Medieval Society and Culture. His whole career has been teaching and lecturing in Further and Higher Education.

He joined The Arts Society (NADFAS) IN 2007.  His subjects  focus on the English medieval and the sixteenth century periods together with  two twentieth century topics: Ernest Shackleton and Winston Churchill.   His lectures include up-to-date annotated reading lists to encourage further study. Mark has lectured for The Arts Society throughout the British Isles and abroad, most recently in Germany and Australia.  He has been invited back to Australia for another month’s lecture tour in 2026 and also for one in New Zealand.   

Walter Sickert, one of the most celebrated of English artists working at the turn of the last century, is often considered to be ‘a painter’s painter’. The well-known crime writer Patricia Cornwell has claimed this much-loved artist was responsible for the murders attributed to the infamous Jack the Ripper. This lecture will attempt untangle the truth of this claim following a trail of murder, mystery, mayhem and paint.  Was this much-loved, colourful and enigmatic painter Jack the Ripper? - Come and judge the evidence for yourselves! 

Michael Howard is President of The Arts Society Bolton and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.  Although retired, he continues to teach at the Manchester School of Art. He has published widely on European art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including books on L. S. Lowry, the Impressionists, Gauguin and  Monet.  A recent book, "The Human Touch: Ghislaine Howard" is about his wife’s life and work.  Michael is a practising artist, and has exhibited at the Royal Academy and the New York Art Fair . He is represented in Manchester Art Gallery and in many private collections. He has made many media appearances. In 2004 he and Ghislaine worked the film, "Degas and the Dance" that gained a prestigious Peabody awards. 

Since the pandemic, audiences have been behaving badly. They have booed opera singers, heckled comedians and fought in the stalls. Even at the best of times, all of us have been irritated by crisp packets, mobile phones and inappropriate conversations. But is this such a new thing? In this entertaining lecture, Mark Fisher revisits the audiences of the past to discover outbursts, protests and punch-ups. From the fatal Astor Place riot in 19th-century New York to the reception of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, he looks at the stories behind the greatest controversies in the performing arts.

Mark Fisher is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a contributor to publications all over the world. He has run criticism workshops at schools, universities and theatres all over the UK and abroad. His online workshops have attracted participants worldwide. He is the co-editor of the play anthology "Made in Scotland" (1995), and the author of "The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide" (2012) and "How to Write About Theatre" (2015). He is also editor of "The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls" (2017) and "What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book" (2019), both Mark Fisher Ltd.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was the favourite of King James I and later, chief minister to King Charles I. A favourite at court, he was also a superb dancer. When he ‘cut capers’ during a court masque, King James startled visiting ambassadors by shouting out ‘By God, George, I love you!’ Buckingham loved to surround himself with beautiful things, like the fabulous white silk suit, encrusted with diamonds, that he wore to visit the Queen of France.

However, he was also a discerning collector and patron. He owned paintings by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese but also commissioned new work from artists such as Van Dyck and Rubens. In his great house on the Strand he put together a collection of art works as fine as King Charles’s. Inigo Jones renovated his houses. John Tradescant was his garden designer. At the age of 35 Buckingham was murdered. His collection was scattered, but contemporary inventories allow us to reconstruct it.

Lucy Hughes-Hallett is an award-winning author whose biography of George Villiers, "The Scapegoat", published in October 2024, has been shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize. Her previous biography, "The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio" won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Costa Biography Award.

She also writes fiction. Her novel, "Peculiar Ground", set in the 17th century, was described as 'almost Tolstoyan in its sly wit and descriptive brilliance' (The Guardian) and 'full of drama, vivid characters, wit, gorgeous writing and fascinating detail’. (New York Times). 

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

In the 19th century, three remarkable men - Verdi, Wagner and Puccini - revolutionised the world of opera, in three very different ways, from romantic heartbreakers (La Traviata and Rigoletto) via mystery and magic (The Ring Cycle) to melodramatic tear jerkers (Tosca and La Bohème). Enjoy their remarkable journeys and the innovative, dynamic and thrilling theatricality that highlights so much of their work. This illustrated lecture features the great opera productions which have graced the world’s opera houses.

Jamie Hayes trained at RADA and subsequently worked for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Bristol Old Vic and the BBC. He became an Assistant Director with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Kent Opera and English National Opera and soon began directing productions of his own, working overseas in Reykjavik, Malta and Melbourne as well as in the UK. Jamie was Associate Director on the original production of the hit musical Miss Saigon in the West End and on Broadway. He has directed productions in all the major UK conservatoires and was Director of Productions for British Youth Opera for over a decade. As well as lecturing for The Arts Society, Jamie is a regular speaker with various leading cruise ship companies.

We've told supernatural tales at midwinter for a very long time. In this talk Kirsty Hartsiotis takes us back to the earliest winter tales of the Middle Ages, and the age of Shakespeare and Marlowe. She explores the lost years of the 17th and 18th centuries, where it’s often thought that Christmas wasn’t celebrated much – but ghost tales at Christmas-tide were very part of the season.  In the 19th century many traditional Christmas ghost tales were collected, and even now it’s considered one of the spookiest times of the year.

Kirsty Hartsiotis was the curator of the decorative and fine art at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham from 2008 to 2023.  She’s curated many exhibitions on the Arts and Crafts and Private Press Movements. She is currently at Swindon Museums, and is organising  a touring exhibition about British studio pottery.

Kirsty is researching Arts and Crafts war memorials, and the work of Arts and Crafts designers in churches in the South West of England. She’s been an oral storyteller for over 20 years, publishing collections of stories. She is a regular columnist for Cotswold Life, writes for diverse other publications on art history and folklore, and was the newsletter editor for the Society of Decorative Art Collections. 

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

Julia Musgrave got her first degree in Chemical Engineering and became a Chartered Information Systems Engineer and IT project manager. In 2008 she 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, researching Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group, and the development of the Contemporary Art Society from 1910 to 1939. She teaches Art History at the City Literary Institute (City Lit) and the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution (HLSI) in London.

A study day that will transport you to the glories of ancient Sicily; Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans all discovered the joy of this island and made their mark.  This series of richly illustrated talks will bring the Sicilian sunshine and sites to you. Click here for details and registration form.

Giilian Hovell has a BA (Hons) Latin and Ancient History, Exeter University, and branched out into archaeology. Ex-BBC, lecturer for British Museum and York University, she is 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. Her publications include "Visiting the Past: A guide to finding and understanding Britain's Archaeology" and "Roman Britain", and works to come include " A Mediterranean Tour: Not just a Load of Old Stones".  She teaches adult education courses in Latin, archaeology and ancient history and lectures widely and passionately, on cruises and tours, for museums and at universities, literary festivals, and societies including Classical Associations, the U3A and the National Trust.  She has her own website http://www.muddyarchaeologist.co.uk

Many of Britain’s best-loved country houses were created in the ‘Baroque’ period (c. 1660-1720). Visiting some of the most iconic houses of the period, including Chatsworth, Petworth, and Blenheim, we will meet the patrons who created them, and look at some of the highlights of their sumptuous interiors, gardens and collections, addressing the question: what is ‘Baroque’? 

Dr Amy Lim is an art historian and curator, specialising in British fine and decorative arts from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. She is curator of the Faringdon Collection at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire and of the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, and a tutor at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. She was recently an exhibition researcher at the Tate, contributing to British Baroque: Power and Illusion (2020) and 'Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520-1920' (2024).  Amy has degrees in History and Literature & Arts from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. She runs an online art dealership, and has published articles and essays on a variety of art-related topics from gothic garden monuments to female patronage.

In this talk Andrew shows that following the turbulent political times between 1870 and 1929, that culminated in the final collapse of the Russian and European Monarchies, countless astonishing art and jewel collections were dispersed, looted or sold. Fortunately, this coincided with the growing wealth and power of America and its industrial millionaires, who were intent on creating sumptuous palaces of their own and filling them with the greatest paintings and furniture, together with weighing down their wives and daughters with the finest of recently purchased royal jewels.  Andrew explains how these fabulously wealthy heiresses then married into the British aristocracy, bringing many of these treasures with them. He shows with the decline of aristocratic power and the British Empire, how these legendary jewels have again been parted with and can now to be seen by everyone, in the world's great museums.

Andrew Prince has had a passion for jewellery since he was a small childAged nine, he was taken to the Princely Magnificence exhibition at the V&A, exhibiting Renaissance jewels. Dazzled by the splendour and opulence of the jewels, Andrew decided then and there that he wanted to devote his life to creating jewellery. His passion for jewellery grew when, at an exhibition in Bond Street, he was allowed to handle beautiful 18th century gold boxes and magnificent imperial Russian pieces by Fabergé. In 1987, just before leaving school, he visited Geneva to view the astonishing Sotheby’s auction and handle pieces of the Duchess of Windsor's jewellery collection; a life-changing experience. In August of that year, two weeks after his 16th birthday, Andrew started working for The Antiques Roadshow expert Ian Harris.  Andrew developed an appreciation of the design and craftsmanship of jewellery. He then joined the renowned contemporary jeweller Elizabeth Gage and worked with her on design and production. Elizabeth Gage had an enormous influence on Andrew's sense of what was possible within the realm of jewellery design. He realised that beautiful jewellery didn't require expensive stones, and that it was the elegance of the design and the quality of the workmanship that truly mattered. Private commissions started to trickle in. The trickle turned into a flood, as celebrities such as Michael Jackson (a large crystal and pearl shoulder jewel) and Shirley Bassey (necklaces) were seen wearing Andrew's creations. In 2002, the V&A commissioned a collection of jewels to accompany the resplendent Tiaras, Past and Present exhibition. The exposure led to Andrew's jewellery appearing in film. In 2005, he was asked to make tiaras and jewellery for Mrs Henderson Presents starring Judy Dench. In 2009, pieces were commissioned for 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, with the aristocratic female characters adorned with elegant tiaras, combs, earrings and necklaces.

This lecture is about the development of the British seaside and how the entertainments there evolved. Pierrot troupes and concert parties were ubiquitous throughout the seaside resorts of Britain, but what is a pierrot troupe? Where did they come from? How do they impact us today? Find out in this lively and intriguing talk - featuring unique archive materials from Tony’s vast personal collection. There maybe a chance to join-in with the live performance of a song!  

Tony has been a showman, researcher and teacher for over 40 years: he has run theatre venues, companies, festivals and events for and with a wide range of diverse communities. He specialises in historical popular entertainment forms and their application to contemporary contexts.  In 2017 he was awarded a doctorate by Exeter University for his research into itinerant British performance forms, and where he is now a part-time lecturer.  He regularly broadcasts for both radio and television – such as David Walliams’ and Lee Mack’s episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? and most recently with Miriam Margolyes on Channel 4 as part of her programme about Dickensian Christmas. However, he is perhaps best known by families throughout the country, as ‘Uncle Tacko!’ - ringmaster of his extraordinary flea circus and the founder of ‘The Pierrotters’, Britain’s last professional seaside pierrot troupe. Tony is the author of "Don’t Forget The Pierrots!'' The Complete History of British Pierrot Troupes & Concert Parties, published by Routledge in 2022.

The establishment of a Dutch Republic independent of Hapsburg rule stimulated the Dutch economy and a flourishing Art Market. A wide range of paintings including portraits, narrative scenes, landscape and still life were produced, and provide fascinating insights into seventeenth-century Dutch life. Outstanding artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan Vermeer and Rachel Ruysch developed distinctive styles in their favoured subjects. This talk will explore their and other artists' remarkable achievements that astonished and delighted contemporaries, and that have continued to captivate viewers ever since.

Ailsa Turner BA (Hons), PGCE, has recently retired as a tutor in Art History for the University of Glasgow’s Short Courses (Life Long Learning) programme. During the seventeen years she worked for the University of Glasgow, Ailsa provided courses and specialist study days on Renaissance Art and Architecture, 17th Century Dutch and Flemish Painting, Spanish and Scottish Painting. Ailsa is a graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art, and before moving to Glasgow with her family was a full-time lecturer for ten years in the education department of the National Gallery in London. Ailsa's married name is Ailsa Bhattacharya but she has always worked under her maiden name Ailsa Turner as she rather likes being an art historian who shares the name of a famous artist!

When social historian Tessa Boase told the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds she wanted to write their early story, they refused to let her visit their archives. To a former investigative journalist, this was a challenge she could not resist . . . This lecture shines a light on the intriguing story of women’s love affair with plumage ­ – and of the brave eco feminists who fought back on behalf of the birds. Moving from a polite Victorian tea party to an egret hunt in a Florida swamp; from a suffragette ‘monster rally’ to a milliner’s dusty workshop, you’ll be taken back in time to a world where every woman, of every class wore a hat. 

Shocking and surprising, entertaining and moving, this pacy lecture remains Tessa's most popular. 

Tessa Boase is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer and campaigner with an interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women from the 19th and early 20th-centuries – revealing how they drove industry, propped up society and influenced politics. She’s the author of three books of social history: "The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House" (2014); "Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds" (first published as Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather in 2018), and "London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams" (2022). Since uncovering the feminist origins of the RSPB, Tessa has been campaigning for public recognition of its female founders with plaques, portraits and a statue. 

The Portland Vase arrived in Britain by 1783. In 1810 it was placed on loan in the British Museum where it remains today as one of the most intriguing and popular examples of Ancient Roman cameo glass anywhere in the world. Its origins are surrounded in mystery but its ability to inspire subsequent generations of glass makers is obvious. This unique vase was the starting point for a whole range of British cameo glass in the later 19th century that exemplified technical virtuosity and creative artistry as techniques that had been lost for hundreds of years were rediscovered in the glasshouses of Stourbridge, in the heart of England’s industrial Midlands.

Trained as an archaeologist at Leicester University, Scott Anderson was a professional archaeologist for ten years before his interests shifted to the world of art, antiques and auctioneering. In 1994 he joined the team at Southampton Solent University lecturing on the only BA(Hons) degree course of its kind to look at the commercial art world. Now, as a Senior Lecturer, he teaches courses on the history and theory of interior design and visual culture. He has lectured to many adult audiences for a variety of University Extra-mural departments and the Workers Educational Association (WEA). For the last few years he has also worked as a consultant valuer for the BBC television programme Flog It.

The finest private art collection ever bequeathed to a nation, the Wallace Collection is a rich and varied treasure trove that is relatively little-known despite being a short walk from London’s Oxford Street. Paintings by Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Hals and Velazquez sit alongside Sevres porcelain, French eighteenth century furniture and princely armour. This lecture will relate the history of the collectors, the wealthy and eccentric Hertford family, from the scandalous third Marquess, to Sir Richard Wallace, illegitimate son of the fourth Marquess.

Rupert Dickens is an art historian based in south London with a special interest in Dutch and Flemish 16th and 17th century painting. He works at the Wallace Collection as a guide conducting public and private tours and lecturing on aspects of the collection. Rupert is also a tour director for a Cambridge-based company accompanying groups on art-themed tours to the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria and Italy. He has lectured to large audiences on subjects as diverse as the game of chess in art and Madame de Pompadour’s artistic patronage in 18th century France. He studied art history at Birkbeck College before undertaking a Masters in Dutch Golden Age Studies at University College London. Before that Rupert had a 26-year career as a BBC journalist ending as an editor in radio news. 

Armour was equipment for war and costume of a profoundly impressive kind. Iron and steel can be sculpted into whatever extraordinary form the artist can imagine. As the heroes and monsters of Classical antiquity proliferated in the Renaissance psyche, noblemen began to self-identify in those terms, casting themselves as the descendants and heirs of Hercules, Hector, Alexander and Caesar. On the front line of this movement, armourers were tasked with proving those claims, and they met the challenge with some of the most magnificent expressions of their art.

Toby Capwell is an independent scholar and leading authority on medieval and Renaissance arms and armour. Over the last thirty years he has worked with many of the world's great collections, including the Imperial Armoury in Vienna, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Royal Armouries in Leeds, and has served as curator of Glasgow Museums and the Wallace Collection, where he worked for sixteen years until January 2023. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Armourers in London. He is the author of many books on armour, weapons and tournaments, has curated numerous exhibitions, and frequently appears in film, television and online media.

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

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

A dazzling array of artists have worked in Venice. The celebrated Giovanni Antonio Canaletto and his circle captured the glory of the city’s monuments and festivals in the 18th century, while artists such as Walter Sickert and John Singer Sargent provided colourful snapshots of Venetian life in the 19th century. Artists today continue to flock to the city to take up the challenges and opportunities of this unique city with its thoroughfares of water.  

Patricia Andrew has been a curator of museums and galleries in Eastbourne, Chelmsford and Durham plus Deputy Director, Scottish Museums Council. She is now a heritage consultant, and lecturer to a wide range of organisations, including the National Galleries of Scotland and their Friends, and on cruises. Her publications include articles in Apollo, The Burlington Magazine, Country Life and The Walpole Society’s Annual Volume; contributions to Allan Ramsay and the Search for Horace's Villa (2001), The Grand Tour and its influence (2008), Scots in London in the 18th Century: Patronage, Culture and Identity (2010), and numerous reviews. Her book A Chasm in Time: Scottish War Art and Artists of the Twentieth Century (2014) won the Saltire Scottish History Book of the Year 2015. 

Join Anita Manning and her staff from Great Western Auctions for an enjoyable and informative day!

Anita will give us an insight into her career as an auctioneer.  We’ll have the opportunity to delve into the world of antiques and auctions, enjoy talks on antiques-related topics and test our own knowledge with a quiz!                                                                         

Coffee/tea from 10.30 am . Lunch included, £25 per person. Click here for Application Form

Guests welcome!  Non-members please email - info@tasbam.org.uk

The lectures are held on the second Monday of the month, begin at 2.00pm and normally finish by 3.15pm. Tea or coffee is available in the hall from 1.30pm.

Taking Adam’s influence as its starting point, this lecture charts the spread of neo-classical design and decoration on furniture; from that of the most fashionable and wealthy to that of the upwardly mobile middle and professional classes of the late 18th century. Many fashionable items such as semi-circular, fold-over, Pembroke and Sofa tables lent themselves to economical manufacture and decoration in the neo-classical style - a fact exploited successfully by the thriving furniture trade of the period.

Janusz Karczewski-Slowikowski retired from a 35 year-long career in Higher education. He worked part time in an antiques shop whilst studying for his first degree, later taking it over as proprietor. Such was his interest in collecting that he became known as the dealer who bought but never sold. My lectures seek to explain furniture in terms of the skills and materials employed in its design and construction and also its socio-economic significance.  He has lectured on antique furniture since 1975.  Being in the NADFAS Directory since 1982 he has lectured to over 300 NADFAS societies including those in Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, The Hague and Spain.

Lecture starts at 2pm (tea/coffee available from 1.30pm)

In this talk we wind the clock back to the seventeenth century and enjoy an armchair tour of some of Wren’s magnificent structures including City Churches, the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich and, of course, his greatest masterpiece St Paul’s Cathedral. Wren was primarily a mathematician and astronomer, and we’ll see how these disciplines are harnessed in his work. We will also look at the origins of the classical orders of architecture and discover how Wren’s love of this ancient system is everywhere to be seen in his legacy.

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

In the Ancient Egyptian city of Tanis in the Nile Delta, an entire complex of royal tombs was discovered during the 1939-1940 excavation season by the French Egyptologist Pierre Montet - three were still intact! The treasures uncovered there are one of the greatest, and most beautiful, archaeological discoveries of all time, rivalling even those of Tutankhamun. But because of its discovery during World War II, and published only in French, it went unnoticed. This lecture covers the exciting discovery of the tombs of the pharaohs Psussenes 1, Sheshonq 11, and Amenope with explanations and images of the gold and silver treasures, fine jewellery and artefacts which are now housed in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.

 Eileen has an MA from the Department of Archaeology at the University of London, is a published author and an authority on the ancient cultures of the world. She specialises in the History and Culture of the ancient worlds of the Mediterranean, South America and Australasia and spends her time doing further research and giving lectures to the Arts Society, on cruise ships and to various local organisations.

 Her first book “What Did the Poor Take with Them? “is an academic treatise on Ancient Egyptian funerary goods, while her second book “Understanding Ancient Egypt” is a more accessible introduction to the subject.

Rock art has been produced in Australia since at least 40,000 years ago and probably even longer, but continues to be produced in some regions - and major new discoveries of rock art are still being made in remote areas. The talk presents an account of some of the major regional variations in both rock paintings and rock engravings, and presents a brief account of what we know of their many meanings, particularly in relation to Aboriginal creation myths and creator-ancestors.

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

The reputation of Japan as a country fabulously rich in silver and gold reached the west in the 14th century through the writings of the Venetian merchant and explorer, Marco Polo. Gold was used generously to adorn Buddhist icons in Japan from the sixth century when Buddhism was introduced from Korea, and for centuries gold was considered to be the most appropriate precious material for decorating Buddhist halls and statues. The perception of gold as a sacred material underwent a radical change in the sixteenth century when newly powerful warrior rulers began to decorate their castles with magnificent screens and wall paintings with gold-leaf. This lecture examines the significance of gold in Japanese Art as the symbol of the sacred on one hand and the symbol of wealth and power on the other.

Dr Meri Arichi studied Art History in London and Florence, and worked at Christie’s in Kings Street, London, from 1989 to 1993. She completed Post-graduate Diploma in Asian Art (1994), MA (1996) in History of East Asian Art, and PhD in Japanese Art (2003) at SOAS. She taught History of Japanese Art in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS as a Senior Teaching Fellow from 2007 to 2016. She worked as a tutor for the Post-graduate Diploma in Asian Art course at the British Museum from 2001 to 2007, and at SOAS from 2008 to 2016. She contributes to the Diploma course at SOAS as a guest speaker now. She has run course at the V&A, Birkbeck College, the British Museum and the Coutauld Institute Summer School. She is Trustee of the Japanese Women’s Association in Great Britain and the Chair of the Circle of Japanese Art London.

When Thomas Lawrence and his family arrived in Bath in 1780, he was eleven years old and already well known for his astonishing skill in drawing likenesses. His extraordinary gift as a maker of fashionable pastel portraits, pencil drawings and copies after Old Masters made him the main breadwinner for his family. Sitters included such celebrities as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and the actress Sarah Siddons. On turning eighteen, he left Bath for the Capital, ready to ‘risk my reputation with any painter in London’. Two years later, he painted the Queen and his success as Britain’s leading portrait painter was secured.

Amina Wright is a curator of historic art collections and exhibitions.  She has produced several major exhibitions on eighteenth-century British Art and Old Masters and published and lectured widely in these areas. At the Holburne Museum in Bath she was a key member of the team that delivered the museum’s highly successful redevelopment, and has also worked as a collections and interiors curator for English Heritage and for the National Trust, among others. Amina has recently been awarded an MA in Christianity & the Arts at King's College London and is now Senior Curator for the Faith Museum in Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

From 17th century Renaissance gardens to a garden of Cosmic Speculation. From General Eisenhower’s holiday home to the garden where Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes acquired his extensive knowledge of poisonous plants. View an artist's garden, an author's garden, see where Clive met Louise and Henrietta, and learn what the size of your walled garden said about your social status in Georgian Britain.

Nancy Stevens is a retired journalist with a passion for art and gardens.  She is a past Chairman of Baldernock Gardening Club, and experienced speaker with extensive Zoom experience throughout the UK and extending overseas from California USA to Melbourne, Australia.

This lecture deals with the ways in which science can complement connoisseurship in exposing fakes and forgeries. Methods including x-rays, pigment identification and dating techniques such as tree-ring dating; all combine to make the forger's deceptions easier to detect and the authentication of genuine works of art possible. Despite that, forgers such as Han Van Meergen successfully duped museums and eminent art historians into purchasing his paintings. Forgeries in paintings, ceramics, stained glass, the famous Piltdown Skull and the less famous 1933 penny are among those revealed in this lecture.   The new fakes produced by a "mystery forger" sold recently for millions by Sotheby's, will show how science achieved what art experts could not!

Emeritus Professor of Conservation Science in the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam and Visiting Professorial Fellow in the Department of History of Art of Glasgow University. Formerly head of conservation at the National Trust for Scotland and, prior to that, section founder and head of conservation science with Glasgow Museums. Has taught and lectured in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. Main areas of lecture focus are art conservation, technical and authenticity studies, and - as a qualified Scottish tourist guide - the travels of musicians, artists and writers in Scotland.

This lecture tells the story of men's tailoring over the past 200 years, told through the lives of the men who commissioned and created and wore it. Tailors, shirtmaker, hatters and other craftspeople in London’s west end, especially around Savile Row & Jermyn Street have shaped the way men dress since the Regency. How did men such as Beau Brummell, The Duke of Windsor, Tommy Nutter, Montague Burton, Alexander McQueen and John Stephen create their signature looks which influenced the mens fashion? This lecture also looks at the wider cultural shifts since the early 19th century to the present day and how they affected the way that men present themselves.

Russell trained and worked as an actor, writer, puppeteer and theatre maker for 15 years. In 2015 he qualified as a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide. Around this time he rekindled his love of art and art history. He now regularly guides in the major galleries and museums in London such as the National Gallery, Tates Modern & Britain and the British Museum. He has delivered lectures for institutes and museums, as well as numerous U3A groups and other societies. During Covid lockdowns he devised and delivered more than 30 different virtual tours and lectures to groups from the UK and across the globe

Beginning in Lübeck and Hamburg in the 13th century, the Hanseatic League eventually linked some 60 European cities in a series of trade agreements that transcended national bounds. Riga, Tallinn, Stockholm, Bruges, London, King’s Lynn, Nuremberg, Bremen, Danzig, Stettin and Konigsberg were all connected by an intricate series of contracts, defended by armed forces and a powerful navy, and vital to the economic prosperity of each city. The Brick Gothic style of architecture developed during this period, and many important churches, town halls, guildhalls, warehouses and offices were built in this style, many of which survive to this day. Understanding the importance of the Hanseatic League is essential to a knowledge of European mercantile history from the 13th to the 17th century, and to an appreciation of the art and architecture inspired by – and paid for by – this vital transnational association.

Studied at Colchester Royal Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, receiving a BA and an MA in English Literature. Taught in Italy and Japan, exploring the art and architecture of both countries. From 1989 to 2012 was Dramaturg at Welsh National Opera in Cardiff, working with set, costume and props designers and giving lectures on their work in opera production. Now a freelance writer and lecturer, lectures widely on opera, art history and literature, travelling extensively with travel companies. Has published several novels, including the award-winning The Devil's Looking-Glass, poems and opera librettos.

The Study Day,  from 11am to 3pm, consists of two lectures, the first covering how the US Government encouraged art during the 1930s.

The second, after lunch, takes us to the glamorous world of the Hollywood musical.  A quiz to test your knowledge will follow! Visitors welcome.

Click here for an appliocation form

John Francis is an artist, film maker and lecturer.  He grew up on Merseyside, and was educated in Fine Arts and pedagogy in the UK and New York. He woked as a painter and ivory engraver in the USA being drawn to the more traditional image of America, i.e. Texas. 

Several years later John relocated to London, developing an interest in Film and Video and studying for his Masters at the prestigious Central St. Martins School of Art, London. He was commissioned to produce several corporate and art videos and was later involved in studying film making in Eastern Europe.  He was awarded a one year visiting exchange ‘Professor’ post at Southwestern College, California and was commissioned to produce a video on border culture for the ‘white washed’ Exhibition in the El Centro Museum, San Diego.  He has also worked in the Malaysia and Australia

John later worked at the Arts Institute Bournemouth, and was accredited as a Lecturer by the Arts Society (UK) in November 2017.

Art Deco has the reputation of being the most glamorous and popular style of the 20th century, and was prevalent during the 1920s and 1930s.  This lecture will review the development of the style within the context of its social and economic environment, and look at specific examples of objets d’arts, including silver, jewellery, furniture, ceramics, clocks and architecture.  The range of designers, craftsmen and artists considered includes, but is not limited to, E-J Ruhlmann, René Lalique, Tamara de Lempicka, Jean Dupas, Georgia O’Keeffe, Eileen Gray, Romain de Tirtoff (Erté), René Vincent and English ceramicist, Clarice Cliff.  In addition to some examples of domestic and civic Art Deco buildings in the UK, the lecture will also touch on certain architectural buildings in New York, Miami, Mumbai, and Napier, thus confirming Art Deco’s full global reach and appeal.

Pamela has an MA Hons in Art History from St Andrew's University. She has over 30 years of lecturing experience to undergraduates, adult groups, and to Friends and Patrons of the Royal Academy of Arts as part of the Adult Education Department's programme of events. Also she has conducted numerous guided tours and focused gallery talks on individual works of art. She specialises in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art and has over 12 years' experience at the Royal Academy. Work experience also undertaken at Bonhams, Art Loss Register, National Trust.  She is now a freelance art consultant and lecturer, and recently curated a collection for the Lansdowne Club.

The mansions built during America’s “Gilded Age” came in all shapes and sizes, but a significant number of them were inspired by - some may say copied from - a varied selection of classic English houses. They were resurrected and lived in by an eclectic mix of millionaires, all with their own aims and ambitions staked within: the man dubbed 'The American Prince of Wales'; the woman who swapped a necklace for what is now a flagship store on New York’s Fifth Avenue; and, both the victim and accused of one of the most highly publicized crimes of the 1980s. Their counterparts in England were no less colourful, and include the real-life Squire Allworthy. Through the splendour of the architecture on both sides of the Atlantic, we’ll delve into the characters, quirks, and frequently amusing stories behind these truly international treasures. 

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

What is Chinese painting? What makes it Chinese and why is it different from Western painting? In this lecture we will look at paintings from the Tang dynasty (618-907) to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and at the ideas that shaped a unique pictorial language. Landscape painting was considered the superior subject for painting, as it was felt it could best express moral and cosmic principles. The Chinese word for landscape painting is sanshui (山水画), meaning mountain-water painting. Landscape painting was to harmonise yin with yang, mountain with water. The paintings are made with the incredibly versatile Chinese brush, the same as is used for their calligraphy, to which painting is closely connected. Daoist and Confucian thought underpin just about every aspect of the paintings.

Born 1958 Oliver Gosling is a painter who trained at the Royal College of Art. He exhibits internationally and has work in collections around the world. He has lived and exhibited in Japan for two years (1998-2001), in China for eight years (2007-2015), where he continues to be represented by two galleries. He has lectured widely in China on contemporary art in Britain and his own work, and for Christie’s in Hong Kong: The Impact of Western Contemporary Painting on Far Eastern Painting.    From 1994 to date: Lecturer, BA Fine Art Painting and MA Fine Art, University of Brighton; From 2001 to date: Lecturer, Certificate in the History of Art, University of Oxford (Materials and Techniques of Western Painting). He is currently represented by the Fanxi Delarue Gallery, France.

James Grant is a retired country doctor with a lifetime of working in the NHS both in hospital and in rural practice who is passionate about all aspects of medicine, its history and its relationship to art and artists.  He feels very strongly that lecturing should be stimulating, informative and entertaining, and considers himself very privileged to be able to share his interests with others by lecturing to a variety of different groups including The Arts Society.

It is well known that both physical and psychological illness can affect the creative process. Both can act as a stimulus but illness can also act as a major modifying influence on an artist’s perception of the world and on an artist’s creative output.This lecture seeks to explore this relationship in artists such as Durer, Goya, Monet and Kahlo in an endeavour to understand better how different illnesses impacted on their genius.

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

Chris Aslan was born in Turkey (hence the name Aslan) and spent his childhood there and in war-torn Beirut. After school, Chris spent two years at sea before studying Media and journalism at Leicester University. He then moved to Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, and becoming the largest non-government employer in town. He was kicked out as part of an anti-Western purge, and took a year in Cambridge to write A Carpet Ride to Khiva. Chris then spent three years in the Pamirs mountains of Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down. Next came two 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 and focussed on writing fiction, including Alabaster, Manacle and Mosaic, and The Broken Hexapus. He is currently working on a new book on the Silk Road that marries travel and textiles, and lectures for The Art Society. He also leads tours to Central Asia, returning whenever he can having left a large chunk of his heart out there.

This talk deals with the fascinating story of a diamond mine in South Africa which remains the source of the largest piece of diamond rough in history.  From the creation of diamonds deep within the earth’s crust to images taken by the speaker as she travelled 750m underground to examine the workings of the mine, and of course a look at some of the famous diamonds it has produced, this talk gives a behind the scenes look at something most of us only ever see in shops.

Clare Blatherwick is an independent jewellery consultant based in Scotland.  She has over twenty years of experience in the jewellery business, ten of which were spent as Head of Jewellery for Bonhams in Scotland, a role which saw her travel internationally searching for wonderful jewels to be auctioned around the globe. She has a keen interest in the historical aspect of jewellery and has lectured extensively on her subject as well as having appeared on various TV programmes in the UK and US as a jewellery expert.  She is also a member of The Society of Jewellery Historians.

Gaudier-Brzeska’s was one of many brilliantly promising young lives lost in the First World War. Though less well known than Wilfred Owen, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska has had a seminal influence on British 20th century sculpture, notably on the work of Moore and Hepworth. In 1911 Gaudier and his Polish companion Sophie Brzeska made London their home in hopes of establishing themselves as artist and writer. In the space of only four years he emerged as one of the leaders of the London avant-garde, admired as a brilliantly versatile draughtsman and a sculptor of astonishing talent. Jacob Epstein, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound and Roger Fry were among his rivals, friends and supporters. This talk will trace his meteoric rise and explore his work, such as his Red Stone Dancer and Bird swallowing Fish. The vigour of his forms reflects his study of non-European art from China to New Zealand and his swift assimilation of Cubism and Futurism. The talk will also shed light on his turbulent relationship with Sophie Brzeska.  A mercurially brilliant outsider and natural rebel, Gaudier comes across as the epitome of the bohemian artist determined to dare all in the face of a stuffy establishment, whatever the personal cost. The title of the talk echoes that of H S Ede’s famous biography of Gaudier "Savage Messiah", that in turn inspired Ken Russell’s 1972 film of the same name.

Evelyn Silber was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Pennsylvania, worked at Birmingham Museums and Art Galleries, then in 1995-2001 was Director of Leeds Museums and Galleries, and in 2001-6 was Director of the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow. Author of books on Jacob Epstein and Gaudier-Brzeska, she has lectured for societies, universities and museums in Britain and the USA.  Former Chair of Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society.  Lectured for ADFAS in Australia and The Arts Society in New Zealand in 2014. Advises and leads cultural tours in and around Glasgow.

The Christmas that we now celebrate is largely based on the one that the Victorians invented but there are many traditions that we take for granted that have their origins in much earlier times…Who  invented mince pies, Christmas pudding and cake? Where did cross dressing, and slapstick from theatrical performances become part of the Christmas tradition? Who invented and designed the first Christmas card and what themes were popular in this artistic industry?

All will be revealed in this light hearted and informative talk.

Jane is currently Special Events Organiser at the Theatre Royal Bath.  She interviews visiting actors, writers, directors, and lectures regularly to theatre going societies, NT, and history and fine arts groups. West Country Tourist Board Registered Blue Badge Guide and Lecturer. Author and researcher of theatre programme notes on Hamlet, Sheridan's The Rivals and Jane Austen's Emma. Theatrical landlady! Home Economist. Consultant to various TV productions of Jane Austen adaptations on food in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hosts and cooks period meals in her Regency house in Bath for the Jane Austen Festival and other literary groups.

TASBAM Christmas Event after the Lecture

One custom is for us to have Wine and Festive treats after the Lecture in December.  We shall also hold a Christmas Raffle.

Born in Bonn in December 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven became one of the greatest and most disruptive figures in the history of classical music. This talk presents an overview of this brilliant, cantankerous, visionary and astonishingly original composer, someone who tore up the rule book of classical music; visual illustrations include a selection of contemporary portraits, while musical examples are drawn from his genre-busting piano sonatas, quartets and symphonies, and from the revolutionary opera Fidelio. It reveals how Beethoven became a true Romantic artist, or as he preferred to describe himself, a “poet in sound.”

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.

Books of Hours are the most famous late medieval illuminated manuscripts. They are private prayer books for domestic use at home, and they often include enchanting illustrations and decorated borders, sometimes with scenes of daily life in the Middle Ages. The lecture looks at what a Book of Hours comprises and how they were used and who commissioned them. It shows how we can date and localise surviving manuscripts. It discusses how and where Books of Hours were actually made, and it follows through the various stages of writing, painting and illuminating a medieval manuscript.

“Immerse yourself in the medieval world of Christopher de Hamel” (Sir David Attenborough’s advice on life, quoted in The Evening Standard on his 90th birthday).  Christopher de Hamel, FSA, is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He has doctorates from both Oxford and Cambridge. He was a director of Sotheby’s for 25 years, responsible for illuminated manuscripts, and then librarian of the Parker Library in Cambridge for 17 years. His very many books on medieval manuscripts include the best-selling "Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts", that won the Wolfson History Prize.  He is widely known as a lecturer across six continents.

A tiny section of the Seine to the West of Paris, that would have represented the perfect antidote to the claustrophobia of mid 19th Paris, has been termed the Cradle of Impressionism. It was here to 5 neighbouring riverside villages that the artists, who would later become known as the Impressionists, became frequent visitors.  In some cases they even set up home for a while. The lives and early works of Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Morisot will be explored in this lively and entertaining lecture. Their desperation to gain recognition and make their mark is apparent. Both the painting styles adopted and subject matter depicted were to cause a revolution in the Art World. 

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

She also acts as a guide for a privately owned ancestral home in her native Chilterns.

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

Elizabeth Gowing studied at Magdalen College Oxford before training as a teacher and working in Lambeth, Hackney and Islington. Moved to Kosovo in 2006 and there worked with the Ethnological Museum in Prishtina and co-founded ‘The Ideas Partnership’, a charity working on education and cultural heritage projects. Speaks fluent Albanian and has translated two books (the unauthorized biography of Yugoslavia’s longest-held political prisoner, Adem Demaci, and the memoirs of one of the leaders of the 1912 uprising). Also the author of four books about Kosovo – Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo (2011), Edith and I; on the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo (2013); The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife; an unlikely friendship in Kosovo (2015) and The Silver Thread; a journey through Balkan craftmanship (2017).  Regular contributor to Radio 4 (Saturday Live, Excess Baggage, From Our Own Correspondent) and the BBC World Service.  Member of the advisory board of GuideKS, the NGO for Kosovan tour guides, and of the board of Faktoje, the Albanian fact-checking organisation.

Joan Miro is one of the most important names in twentieth-century art, and he is mostly associated with Surrealism. He was an enormously prolific artist, and had a very long career, so this talk focusses on three specific periods when his work was particularly closely related to the difficult times in which it was made. The first is the ten years following the First World War, when he was identifying himself and his work very strongly with the Catalan culture, followed by his first contact with Surrealism. The second covers the incredibly distressing and violent period from 1934 when Spain was descending into Civil War, and then the early years of the Second World War. The final part is the much later period from 1968 to 1975, covering the final years of Franco’s regime in Spain.

Linda Smith holds two first-class degrees in Art History. She has broad knowledge of art historical subjects, but specialises in British Art and twentieth century art.  As 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.

There is something special about Nordic nature. Its vastness, wilderness, and remoteness are some of the reasons it is so fascinating. Let’s not forget the exceptional light conditions, such as the midnight sun and auroras. Surely, nature has been a cornerstone of life in the Nordic countries. This importance is reflected in the history of art by the significant place held by landscape painting. We will explore various ways in which nature has been represented by Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish painters from 1840 to 1910. As we will see, nature was rarely just represented in a transparent, unmediated manner. It mirrored a national identity or an artist’s inner world.

Dr Caroline Levisse is an art historian based in London. She was born in France where she studied art history before moving to Copenhagen. In Denmark, she focused on research work and completed a PhD on the relations between art and religion in contemporary Scandinavian art. After graduating in 2013, she moved to London and started teaching art history with adult education providers. She has since developed a range of courses focusing on 19th and early 20th century Western art. She has published articles in French and English in academic journals as well as magazines and newspapers, such as Church Times and Arts Sacrés.

The art of medieval Europe (c.800-1400) is invariably interpreted in relation to the Christian religion which it was designed to serve. However, it also contains much that was supposed to make people laugh. The clergy, always powerful and sometimes corrupt, were often the target of wicked visual satire. The jokes took various forms. In manuscripts images often played on words in nearby texts. The humour was sometimes bawdy and sometimes obscene. Drunken gargoyles along the roof of Gothic cathedrals might be represented as if spilling their beer on people below. The famous Book of Kells contains figures that play with the religious texts they illustrate. Rude illustrations in legal manuscripts were intended to relieve the boredom of the students who had to read them. And the wooden stalls in which the clergy sat in church might be carved with images that poke gentle fun at clerical greed, laziness, and so on.  This lecture looks at a range of images from across Europe to uncover the visual jokes that in some ways parallel the humour found in writers such as Chaucer and Boccaccio.

Brendan Cassidy has an MA from Edinburgh University and a PhD from Cambridge. He has taught art history at Cambridge, London, Princeton and St. Andrew’s, and lectures to academic and other audiences in the UK, USA and Europe. Publications include: “Politics, Civic Ideals and Sculpture in Italy c. 1240-1400” (2007), “Studies in the Illustration of the Psalter” (ed. with Rosemary Muir Wright, 2000) and “Iconography at the Crossroads” (ed., 1992). He has published numerous articles in British, American, Italian and German art journals. 

Susan Bradbury, and her partner Paul Lucky, have run the Stained Glass Design Partnership for over 30 years based in a converted church at Kilmaurs in Ayrshire.  They have produced windows that have found their way into churches and public buildings across the UK.  High-profile commissions have included work on restoring stained glass in St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, the Burns Memorial Window in Alloway Kirk, an expanse of glass larger than a tennis court for the Norwich Union Insurance Group in Norwich and a major commission by Boyd Tunnock, of confectionery firm Tunnocks, in memory of his parents for Uddingston Parish Church.  Susan Bradbury has also produced 10 stained-glass windows for Cardross Parish Church, and, of particular interest to us, windows in New Kilpatrick Parish Church.

GPO film unit
The birth of documentary films in the 1930s, with clips from Victorian and Edwardian films, through the experimental Soviet era to the 129 films produced by the GPO Film Unit in seven years, including Night Mail with poetry by W H Auden and music by Benjamin Britten.

Born during the Second World War, Howard Smith was educated in Scotland and gained an MA from Trinity College, Dublin. In the 1960s he worked for UK and International Advertising Agencies before starting his own marketing and print company in Canterbury. His website on http://www.howardsmith.me.uk has full details. He was delighted to become an accredited lecturer of The Arts Society in 2017.
His lectures mainly cover an extraordinary thirty year period which saw immense change, ingenuity and creativity and set the theme of 'Graphic Icons of the Twentieth Century'.

‘The Christmas Story in Art’ replaces the originally advertised lecture "Angels - not just for the top of the tree - Celestial Beings in Art".  It had been hoped that we could have had Stella's lecture face to face in the New Kilpatrick hall, but as the lecture is now to be given by Zoom she has chosen this alternative talk as it is better adapted for this medium.

Art has adorned our Christmas cards and provided centuries of artists with a chance to add exotic colour and dramatic light to their works. This talk tells the Christmas story through a series of well-known and beloved images, including those by Giotto, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Jan van Eyck and Caravaggio.

Stella Grace Lyons is a freelance Art History lecturer, speaker and writer accredited with The Arts Society. She has lectured across the UK, Ireland, Spain, Norway, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Malaysia and will soon embark on a lecturing tour in Australasia.
Stella gained her BA in the History of Art with a 1st class in her dissertation from the University of Bristol (2007-2011), and her MA in History of Art from the University of Warwick. She spent a year studying Renaissance art in Italy at the British Institute of Florence, and three months studying Venetian art in Venice. In addition, she attended drawing classes at the prestigious Charles H. Cecil studios in Florence, a private atelier that follows a curriculum based on the leading ateliers of nineteenth century Paris.
Stella runs her own Art History lectures both in person and online. She is a regular lecturer in the UK and Europe for The Arts Society, Tour companies, and the National Trust, amongst others. Stella is also a part-time lecturer for the University of South Wales.
She has written about art for several publications and her article on Norwegian art was recently featured on the front cover of The Arts Society magazine.
In addition to her lecturing work, Stella works as an artist’s model for the internationally renowned figurative artist, Harry Holland.

This lecture tells the remarkable story of the fabled Ballets Russes company which Diaghilev established in Paris in 1909. Building on the achievements of Tchaikovsky and Petipa, Diaghilev and his associates brought about nothing less than a revolution in classical dance, which was dazzling to the eye and would have a lasting impact not only on all the arts. The lecture will discuss how artists of the calibre of Bakst, Goncharova, Picasso and Matisse, worked with composers such as Stravinsky, Debussy and Ravel, choreographers such as Fokine and Balanchine, and dancers such as Pavlova, Karsavina and Nijinsky to create ballet stagings of genius.

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.

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. He is a specialist in the nearly 800 years of Moorish occupation and Christian reconquest of medieval Iberia. 

Founder and director of an art tours company specialising in guided cultural tours in Spain, Ian also lectures in London at institutions such as the V&A, SOAS, Christies Education, and the London Art History Society. Ian was formerly a Chartered Accountant and senior manager in multi-national IT companies, and has extensive public-speaking experience.

Doug Gillen is heavily involved in documenting the street art scene in London and abroad through his project Fifth Wall TV, and can offer a genuine insight into this world.  Previously he lectured for London Art and More, and when not filming he is an East End tour guide for Alternative London, specialising in culture and art.

The Bauhaus was arguably the single most influential modernist art school of the 20th century. Its approach to teaching, and to the relationship between art, society, and technology, had a major impact both in Europe and in the United States long after its closure under Nazi pressure in 1933. The Bauhaus was influenced by 19th and early-20th-century artistic directions such as the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau.

Andrew Spira -  Lecturer at Christie's Education. Ex-curator at the V&A (British Galleries and Metalwork Department). Icon specialist at the Temple Gallery. Regular tour guide to Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Romania, Turkey and Crete.

Damien Hirst is the most famous British artist since Henry Moore. Not even Francis Bacon had such a huge international presence. And yet in his home country he is often seen as a practical joker, pulling the wool over the eyes of the public, and not making proper art at all. This lecture aims to dispel this and show that he is a deeply serious artist making work that is significant and influential.

David Worthington has been drawn to abstract sculpture since seeing a Barbara Hepworth in a school history book aged 10. He graduated from Oxford University in 1984 with a degree in Philosophy and Theology, then studied fine art in London, Barcelona and New York. A maker he also curates and writes about art. He was shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize in 2009. David is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Sculptors, and was Vice President in 2010-13. He has carried out public commissions in the UK, America and Japan. His work is in the museum the Creative Cities Collection Beijing China. He has had solo shows at the Lefevre Gallery, Sladers Yard, Horatio’s Garden, the William Bennington Gallery, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and in October 2017 at the Lightbox Gallery Museum, Woking. He took part in exhibitions at Colyer Bristow Gallery and Contemporary Sculpture at Fulmer 2018.

Arts and crafts remain an essential part of Mexican life. After the Spanish conquest of 1521, the raw materials, techniques and art styles of Europe merged with those of the New World. Drawing on skills inherited from Aztec, Maya and Spanish predecessors, makers bring a modern vision to ancient traditions. Exquisite textiles, silver jewellery, wooden dance-masks, imaginative toys and fine pottery are still used in many regions.

Chloe Sayer - 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.

The Glasgow Girls, a group of women artists and designers studied and worked in Glasgow at the turn of the twentieth century. They contributed significantly to the development of the ‘Glasgow Style’, a distinctive branch of the Arts Nouveau movement of the same period. Several of the girls contributed work to Suffragette banners and jewellery.
Fra Newbery, Director of Glasgow School of art during this period, created an environment in which women could study, teach and develop their talents in both design and painting. The work produced by the principal artists is examined in detail. Exquisite embroidery, jewellery, ceramics and book illustrations were crafted by Jessie Newbery, Frances MacDonald, Ann Macbeth and Jessie Marion King,  whilst Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh, who devised  beautiful gesso panels and  lovely interior decor, is finally being given the recognition she deserves as she  emerges from under the shadow of her famous husband, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Elaine Hansen has a Master’s degree in Education and taught for twenty-seven years. She now splits her year between Italy and Scotland. After retiring twelve years ago she studied Art History at the universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde. She became a guide at Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow in 2009. In Italy Elaine researches her Italian lectures and in Glasgow attends seminars relating to her areas of interest in Scottish Art. She has been delivering lectures for the last four years in a number of venues in Scotland, many of which have requested return visits.

When first exhibited publicly, at TEFAF Maastricht in 2015, the Futurist work of Alexander Bogomazov attracted the attention of both critics and museums with the Kröller-Müller Museum from the Netherlands ultimately acquiring six works.

Unknown to many, the Russian Avant Garde featured many-Ukrainian born artists, Tatlin, Malevich, Burliuk and Exter among them. Whilst these chose to further their careers either in Moscow or abroad, one artist, Alexander Bogomazov, remained in Kiev, venturing beyond the borders of Ukraine only briefly and never to Europe.

Alexander Bogomazov is the unknown genius of the Avant Garde with a career that almost exactly mirrored that of his contemporary, Kazimir Malevich and a series of works that, had it not been for the tenacity of his widow who outlived him by 54 years, would have disappeared into obscurity.

The career of the artist was tragic, punctuated by war and pestilence, but a now-independent Ukraine is starting to see him as their national artist, a unique creator and theorist to rival the Italian Futurists, Balla, Boccioni, the artists with whom he is closest associated.

The lecture will give the timeline of Bogomazov’s life, examine his legacy and his almost total disappearance from the artistic canon, branded a formalist by Soviet critics, until 1991.

James Butterwick began collecting and selling Russian Art in 1985 and has established himself as one of the world’s leading experts. He moved to Moscow in 1994, becoming the only foreign member of the Russian Society of Private Collectors and began forming collections, taking part in museum exhibitions and lecturing on Russian Art, including at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in 2013 and the Museum of Russian Impressionism in June of this year. In 2008 James became the only foreign member of International Confederation of Antique and Art Dealers of Russia and the CIS and in 2013 joined the Society of London Art Dealers.James acts as a source of museum quality paintings with flawless provenance of both the Russian and European School and has access to all the leading experts, private collections and museums in any area of the arts. He travels regularly to Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan where, in October 2013, he opened an exhibition of leading Impressionist paintings. In 2015 James became the first gallery dealing in early 20th century Russian Art to be invited to exhibit at TEFAF, Maastricht – selling four works to the Kröller-Müller Museum. The following year saw a much-heralded personal exhibition of the Ukrainian avant-garde artist, Alexander Bogomazov (1880-1930) with further sales to both Kröller-Müller and subsequently to the Arkansas Art Centre. James also exhibited at the first TEFAF New York fair in 2017.

His private gallery is in London. He speaks fluent Russian.

Dame Zaha Hadid died on March 31 st 2016 at 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. 

Colin Davies - Professor  of Architectural Theory. Former editor Architects Journal and contributor to magazines worldwide. Books: 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.

Extra Lecture

The planned lecture for December was cancelled along with other lectures before Christmas. However the committee has arranged what promises to be a fascinating and entertaining presentation.

It will be a "Zoom" lecture by Bernard Lockett entitled ‘The Heritage of Gilbert and Sullivan’ and may include clips of performances.  Bernard has been steeped in G & S for most of his life.  He is a Trustee of the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, has published several books, gives regular lectures and has broadcast on his subject.  The lecture will be at 2pm and a Zoom link will be emailed to members nearer the time.

This lecture has been cancelled

A NATIONAL ARTS SOCIETY LECTURE

The Arts Society invites all members to watch the next live ‘Lectures at Home’ lecture on Friday 27th November at 1.00pm

The title of the lecture is ‘The Story of Indian Modern Art’ and it will be given by Georgina Bexon, an Arts Society accredited lecturer.

Synopsis

At the birth of Indian Independence in 1947, a group of talented and determined artists set out to create a new art for a new country. They drew on ancient artistic traditions but also had a radical view of how Indian art could speak to its audience. This movement, known as the Bombay Progressives Artists’ Group, created an art very much for and of its time – acting as witness to a country in turmoil and relating the fascinating story of transition and growth of the new India. This talk offers an exploration of how art in the subcontinent threw off the yoke of colonial influence to create modern masterpieces and a thriving global business. 

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Georgina is an art historian specialising in South Asian art who has lived and worked in the UK, USA and Singapore. Her practice includes lecturing, writing, consulting and collecting and she has developed a network of gallery and artist connections in Europe, the USA and India, which she visits regularly.  

An official tour guide at Tate Modern and Art Historian at the Oriental Club, London, Georgina is also a guest speaker on luxury cruise ships for whom she has developed a series of art talks relating to Asian and Pacific destinations. She has been a visiting lecturer at UK universities, presents talks at leading art institutions including Christie’s Education New York and the Museum of Modern Art, Moscow and speaks at international art conferences, most recently in New York, Paris, London and Lisbon.

Georgina holds a BA in Art History from Southampton University, an MA in Arts Management and Policy from City, University of London and an MA in Art History from SOAS, University of London. Georgina is a Patron of the Contemporary Art Society, has been a Trustee of Salisbury Arts Centre and on working committees at Tate and the Art Fund. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Asiatic Society.

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In order to watch the lecture, log on to the Arts Society YouTube channel by clicking the link www.youtube.com/c/theartssociety at 12.55pm.on the 27th November.  If you are not familiar with YouTube, note that you can enlarge the video to full screen by clicking on the ‘square box’, hidden in the bottom right corner of the video screen.

This lecture has been cancelled

For a historian, there can be little to match the excitement of discovering a forgotten treasure. Dr Griffiths’s eventful research across Russia to unveil the Romantic figure of Leokadiya Kashperova (1872-1940), composer and concert pianist (previously known only as ‘Stravinsky’s piano teacher’), offers the perfect example.

Kashperova’s re-discovered music establishes her as the earliest-known female Russian composer of international stature. (Rimsky-Korsakov’s affectionate nickname for her was ‘Snow-maiden’.) Kashperova’s lyrical music and Griffiths’s research were selected by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) for inclusion in their 2018 celebration of ‘Five Forgotten Female Composers’.

This presentation offers narrative, images and musical performance at the piano illustrating ‘what it takes’ to recover the life and works of a composer whom History has completely forgotten. Until now?

This lecture has been cancelled

Fine art has provided advertisers and their agencies with a great deal of material to use in their creative campaigns. This lecture describes some of the processes by which these advertisements have been created and why the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo have been a particularly rich source.

From the Renaissance through to the present-day fine art continues to provide opportunities to enhance Brand imagery with admiration, humour, satire and irony- although on occasion not always entirely successfully.

This lecture has been cancelled

An entertaining lecture covering the birth of documentary films with many clips from Victorian and Edwardian films, through the 1920s experimental Soviet era to the 1930s GPO Film Unit. Under John Grierson, the Scottish father of documentaries, the unit produced 129 films in seven years, including the iconic Night Mail with poetry by W H Auden and music by Benjamin Britten. 

Why was the unit established and what was the influence on Britain’s view of itself?  This is the Night Mail crossing the border…

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.

Along the way, she became a best-selling author and sell-out speaker, champion of the countryside, its skills, traditions, livelihoods and food, trustee and patron of numerous charities, businesses and good causes, and the most famous poultry keeper in the country. She met Hitler and Churchill, was a trusted confidant of the Prince of Wales, played her part as the steady heart of the Mitford sisters’ melodrama and was friends with a dazzling array of some of the brightest and most fascinating of her contemporaries, including President Kennedy, Evelyn Waugh, Oscar de la Renta, John Betjeman, Lucian Freud, Tom Stoppard, Neil MacGregor, Patrick Leigh Fermor and Alan Bennett.

She said herself that charm was the hardest quality to describe in another person; hers lived in her unique turn of phrase, her stoic Mitfordian perspective on life’s challenges, her curiosity about everyone she met, her stylish beauty, quick wit and delight in all that life offered her. Debo had a lasting impact not just on Chatsworth but on everything she touched and everyone she met; I was lucky enough to work for and with her over more than 20 years and in this lecture I pay tribute to an astonishing life.

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. Alongside his lecturing, working part time for John Ruskin’s charity the Guild of St George, a trustee of three arts festivals, and a Life Coach in private practice.

This lecture was been cancelled - bad weather prevented the speaker from travelling.  A substitute lecture was given by one of our members.

This lecture is based on extraordinary research showing how thousands of women were forced to enter convents against their will in order to save their families the cost of their dowries. This was matched by huge growth in the number and wealth of Venetian Courtesans, who flourished in this distorted society and who were notorious throughout Europe. 

Illustrated with paintings by Pietro Longhi, Gabriel Bella, Francesco Guardi and others.

This well-illustrated lecture looks at what we mean by a 21st century garden, revealing changing trends and designs with examples of recent, current and innovative, planned creations in Scotland, Britain and abroad-from Hamilton Finlay to Jencks.

Wallpaper is often regarded as the Cinderella of the Decorative Arts – the most ephemeral and least precious of the decorations produced for the home. Yet, the history of wallpaper is a long and fascinating subject that dates back to the 16thcentury and encompasses a huge range of beautiful patterns created both by anonymous hands and by some of the best-known designers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

This lecture explores the history and development of this product from earliest times up to the present day from the first black and white patterns, the creation of elegant flock hangings, the fashion for Chinese hand-painted papers, the introduction of machine-printing, the designs of Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, and the taste for Modernist and Contemporary designs in the 20th century.

A comprehensive survey of his life and the development of his art, from his early struggles as an artist up to his final recognition as RSA and RSW. The people he met — Gauguin, Vuillard, Hornel- and the places he painted — Kirkcudbright, Normandy, Venice — form the core of the talk.

The illustrations used cover all aspects of his oeuvre – watercolour, oil, tooled leatherwork woodblock prints and sculpture. A journey with this ‘forgotten man’ of Scottish art will provide evidence of his skill as a colourist and reclaim his place in art’s pantheon.

Many of us would say “Antiques. I don’t understand them and they’re beyond my budget. They’re not for me.”

Mark Hill, who has made many appearances on The Antiques Roadshow will provide us with a persuasive introduction to encourage us to reconsider this view; buy antiques and integrate and use them in our homes. He will explore the state of the antiques market and consider the different meanings of the word value. We will then take a look at what current and future generations of collectors are buying; why they are buying it and how they are displaying it.

Delighting audiences at Christmas in the Royal Opera House for many decades, yet it was deemed a failure at its first performances.

We take a close look at how this well-loved ballet now takes its rightful place on stage and how the music of Tchaikovsky along with story-telling, design and dance all come together to make the most magical escape for young and old alike. Includes several performance video clips.

A pioneering Modernist ceramics artist famous for her sophisticated shapes, exploration of glazes and her use of bright colours.

The history of how tea was introduced to Britain from China and Japan-with tastings

The history, art and culture of this extraordinary tiny Himalayan kingdom known by its people as the land of the Thunder Dragon

The history of silver making in Scotland: its unique objects and styles

Bombay’s economic boom of the 1860s coincided with the high point of the Gothic Revival. Nowhere else in the world can claim to have as magnificent an assemblage of Gothic Revival buildings.

The different approaches that artists have used when painting birds and flowers; including herbals, ‘florilegia’, Dutch flower painting and the role of artists in Voyages of Discovery.

Ranging from ancient Egyptian sand core glass; ancient Roman mosaic bowls and cameo vases; to English 18th century air-twist and opaque-twist wineglasses to modern day.

Solomon and Peggy Guggenheim’s collections in 5th Ave New York and The Grand Canal Venice and other gallery projects

The science behind the art. Da Vinci’s artistic creations reveal the most amazing and inseparable affinity of his scientific and artistic concepts.

Bring along an object (at your own risk)