London's history is fascinating and full of colourful characters, from William Shakespeare to Dick Whittington's cat!  In this lecture we gallop through almost 2000 years of London's history brilliantly illustrated through the stained glass windows found in the city churches and livery halls.  Often overlooked, these provide a unique insight into the milestones which have made up London's story.  As well as 18th, 19th century and 20th century windows, we look at some of the most up-to-date and contemporary glass makers. 

Our lecturer 

Anna studied for her BA in History of Art & Italian at the University of Sussex and has an MA in Renaissance Decorative Arts & Design at the Royal College of Art.  Anna worked for 6 years as a curator in the Sculpture Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum as well as in smaller collections such as the Henry Moore Family Trust. 

Stained glass in All Saints Church, Margaret Street, London W1  by Alexander Gibbs 1870s

The history of art is peppered with first rate bust ups: between the great early Renaissance artists, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, between Constable and Turner in the early 1830s, between Salvador Dali and the Surrealist leader, Andre Breton in the 1930s and, most recently, between the graffiti artists Banksy and ‘King’ Robbo, who painted out and amended each other’s works. There are many more. They are highly entertaining but they also tell us a great deal about key issues in art history.

Our lecturer 

Barry Venning is an art historian whose interests and teaching range from the art of late medieval Europe to global contemporary art. He has published books, articles and exhibition catalogue essays on Turner, Constable and European landscape painting, but also has an ongoing research interest in postcolonial art and British visual satire. He works as a consultant and associate lecturer for the Open University. His media work includes two BBC TV documentaries, radio appearances for BBC local radio and abc Australia, and a DVD on Turner for the Tate. 

Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin's self portraits-Wikimedia Commons

 In December 2024, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, often referred to as the Soul of the City, reopened to the public after a devastating fire had threatened to destroy it 5 years earlier.  A seemingly impossible target had been set by the French President to rebuild; yet huge sums of donated money and teams of expert restorers ensured the timescale was met. Such is the symbolic power of this cultural icon in the psyche of the French people and indeed people beyond.

Our lecturer Carole Petipher 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.

Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris- photo by Benjamin Miller

This talk, illustrated with extraordinary art and photography, focuses on three Icelandic works of literature to tell the fascinating story of the island and its culture over a millennium. It features the country’s own art from the Viking age to the 20th century, together with British works inspired by Iceland. These include paintings, sketches and even stained glass windows by Henry Fuseli, Edward Burne-Jones and W.G. Collingwood, together with the intrepid travel journals of Henry Holland, William Morris, W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice. 

Our lecturer James Vaux is a researcher and lecturer specialising in Nordic arts, culture, design and history. He has presented extensively on diverse topics throughout his career to demanding audiences across the globe, including CEOs and government ministers. His talks now focus on understanding art through its historic, cultural and political context.  

The Eruption of the Great Geyser in Iceland in 1834, Friedrich Theodore Kloss, 1835, SMK Copenhagen, Public Domain

Georgians of all classes dined out in pubs, coaching inns, French ordinaries and confectioners. They also ate all kinds of street food and had an almost insatiable appetite for buns. On a journey through London we will discover the early morning drinks consumed on the street before dawn, ‘nunchions’ served at coaching inns, Billingsgate dinners, confectioners’ cakes, syllabubs and ices, the proverbially thin ham dished up to diners at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, as well as the Jewish takeaway foods of the East End and even London’s first ‘Indian’ restaurant. Our journey will be illustrated from prints, paintings and broadsides of the period, some long neglected as a source for a forgotten but fascinating part of our Georgian ancestors’ way of life.

Our lecturer Peter Ross has a BA in the History of Art, an MA in London History, and a PhD in the cultural history of the early eighteenth-century criminal, Jack Sheppard. Until 2023, he was the Principal Librarian at the City of London’s Guildhall Library. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Peter has appeared on television and radio as a consultant on crime in eighteenth-century London, the history of English food, and Shakespeare’s First Folio. Peter’s The Curious Cookbook, Viper Soup, Badger Ham, Stewed Sparrows, and a Hundred more Historic Recipes was published in 2012 by the British Library and subsequently published in the US, China and Taiwan. Peter is currently engaged in writing a book - Insatiable Appetites: Eating Out in Georgian London to be published by Bodleian Library  in 2026.

Hot spiced gingerbread from Modern London by R Phillips (1804)

In this lecture, Steve Carroll, compares Rococo, an early 18th century style of painting, often considered frivolous, with Pop Art of the 1960s. He will do this by cpmparing and contrasting the life and work of Anton Watteau (1684-1721) with that of Andy Warhol (1928-1987). By doing so he will argue that the spirit of Rococo is very similar to the philosophy of Pop Art. An ideal lecture if you want to reassess either movement.

Our lecturer Steve Carroll has taught courses on a whole range of subjects, including: Medieval Art, the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Romanticism, Impressionism and Modern and Postmodern art. He has also taught on the art of Britain, America and Russia, as well as the Art of the Ancient and Classical world. This has given him a very broad appreciation of global art, which he puts together to create lectures on themes that spread across all cultures in space and time. As well as teaching Art History he also teaches practical art and is an award-winning artist in many fields. This means he is able to speak with experience on the techniques and challenges of artworks.

Image Jean Antoine Watteau "Quellnymphe" c. 1718, private collection.

Leading Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones was consumed for decades by his Briar Rose series of paintings, one of the greatest works of Victorian art. They tell the story of Sleeping Beauty in a mystical dream-world that intertwines medieval romance, decorative craftsmanship and natural beauty. Their exhibition in 1890 caused a sensation, and artists, royalty and thousands of ordinary people flocked to see them. This lecture will look at these beautiful paintings in depth, and recount their creation, exhibition, and the magnificent setting that Burne-Jones designed for them at Buscot Park in Oxfordshire, where they still hang today.

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 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.

 "The Council Chamber" from the "Legend of Briar Rose" by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, located at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire.

Theatrical scene design is one of the world's most beautiful, varied and lively art forms. In his talk, Bertie looks at the relationship between actor and audience and how this transformed the space and architecture of theatre throughout the ages. Beginning with the Greeks and their remarkable innovations to pageants, masques, liturgical drama, through the science of perspective, to court theatre. A quick glance at Commedia dell'arte before entering the Elizabethan stage of the Globe and the Fortune and arriving at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.

Our lecturer

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

Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Athens, Greece Photo credit to Robert Anders

Bonnard and Vuillard are normally often considered as painters of the simple pleasures of life - but their works offer so much more. When they began painting in the 1890s, Impressionism seemed to be a thing of the past - young radical artists wanted an art that spoke to the spirit, to the imagination. Bonnard and Vuillard were inspired to create a modern art that would spring from a powerful engagement in modern life - that would suggest not just how things look, but how things feel. Their art reaches deep into the psychological aspects of our shared experience - its joys and its anxieties in paintings that rank with those of Chardin and Vermeer as objects of sheer visual seduction.  Original works by both artists will be available for viewing at the lecture.

Our lecturer

Michael is a familiar face to The Arts Society. He 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.  Michael is a practising artist, and has exhibited at the Royal Academy, the New York Art Fair and elsewhere. He is represented in Manchester Art Gallery and in many private collections both here and abroad.

Dining Room in the Country by Pierre Bonnard (1913), oil on canvas 

In 1925, 16 million visitors witnessed PARIS’S EXPO - The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. What would we have seen in this landmark exhibition, if we had been one of those visitors? What drew the crowds? And how did this seminal exhibition play a fundamental role in giving rise to a new international and truly global style that we have come to know as ART DECO? 

Our lecturer

Pamela 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 RA’s Adult Education Department.

Pamela specialises in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art - with a particular love for the 1920s and 1930s.She has had a permanent career at Royal Academy of Arts for 12 years and is also a freelance art consultant and lecturer. Recently curated a collection for the Lansdowne Club.

Screen of iron and copper by Edgar Brandt called "Oasis" displayed at the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts- photo by SiefkinDR

This talk looks at the travels and art of Henri Matisse. On both these counts, he was in search of the sun and light-filled colours. He was born in the north-east of France in 1869, and moved to Paris in the 1890s. But from 1905 onwards, he took inspiration from trips to the south of France, Corsica, Algeria, Morocco and, in his 60s, Tahiti. The pull of the sun was so strong that in 1916, he left his wife and children in Paris, and took up permanent residence in Nice. The lecture will feature his most famous paintings, and his most important paintings, that arose from his travels, and attempt to explain why the sun, light and colour had such a profound impact on him. Later on in his life, following surgery for cancer, he had to abandon his travels, but even then, from his bed or wheelchair, he still recalled in his cut-outs, the feelings and sensations that the sun had brought to him when he was younger. 

Henri Matisse-Les toits de Collioure 1905, oil on canvas.

Our lecturer

Ray has had a life-long love of art. However, in his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. These studies led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. But all that changed in 2011, when Ray became a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Then from 2014 to 2017, he studied art history at the Open University, and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he gained an MA in the History of Art. And to cap it all, Ray became an Arts Society lecturer in 2017. Ray also knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of lectures as he is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

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

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge- winner of The Stirling Prize in 2002 

Our lecturer

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

London's royal parks are among its most beautiful and beloved spaces: just as much as the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace or St Pancras Station, the mere mention of Hyde or Regent's Park is enough to evoke the capital in all its glory for residents and tourists alike. They have a grand history - some were royally owned as far back as the Norman conquest, others were acquired by Henry VIII during the Reformation - and since being opened to the public during the eighteenth century, they have hosted some of London's great events, including the Great Exhibition and innumerable jubilees and celebrations. This lecture tells the story of all eight of the parks from the point when they were acquired by the monarchy until the present day, including the major historic moments and events with which they are associated.

Fashionable people thronging St James's Park, c.1745  Attributed to Joseph Nickolls

Our lecturer

Paul Rabbitts graduated at Sheffield with a BA Honours in Geography followed by a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh. He is currently studying for a PhD at the University of East Anglia on the subject of music and entertainment in public parks from the 1830s onwards. He is a qualified landscape architect and celebrated parks and open spaces manager and has worked for several local authorities across the UK, and is currently Head of Parks at the City of Norwich. He is a passionate advocate for public parks and in particular, the Victorian and Edwardian bandstand and is a prolific author on the subject.

Few gallery-goers are aware that Rubens was not only the most influential artist of his period, but also a high-ranking diplomat and informal spy. During his glamorous and prestigious career, Rubens travelled throughout Europe and was esteemed by the mightiest kings and queens of the age. He was intelligent, good-looking and could speak several languages. His career as an artist was an excellent cover for international travel and private meetings. So, acting on behalf of the Governors of the Spanish Netherlands, Rubens had covert summits with Europe’s most significant power brokers like Marie de’Medici of France, King Philip IV of Spain, and King Charles I of England. His aim was bringing peace to his native Flanders and to Europe as a whole during the Thirty Years War. Rubens is unique in the history of art as a painter who not only depicted the great events of his age but helped to shape them. Once you know about Ruben’s little-known career as a diplomat and spy, you will never look at his art the same way.

Sir Peter Paul Rubens -Self Portrait 1623 in the Royal Collection

Our lecturer

Matthew studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and is an author, lecturer, and educator. As a freelance journalist he writes for numerous publications including BBC Culture, The Spectator, The Economist and Aesthetica Magazine. He has written two books on symbolism – ‘Symbols in Art’ (Thames & Hudson, 2020) and ‘The Hidden Language of Symbols’ (Thames & Hudson 2022) and his latest book is 'Art Unpacked' - a fully illustrated introduction to understanding art (Thames & Hudson 2023).

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 16th century 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. It includes a discussion of the changing ways in which wallpaper was made and a survey of designs 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. It also includes a discussion of the ways that wallpapers were used within grand and more ordinary homes and hopes to justify the claim that they were indeed a truly Decorative Art.

Fruit or Pomegranate wallpaper design by William Morris

Our lecturer

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

Born the son of a plantation owner and his Senegalese-born slave, St Georges gained fame in France, and was called “the most accomplished man in Europe” by US President John Adams. His skills at horse-riding and fencing earned the admiration of his peers, but it was his skill as a musician and the first recognized black composer which have preserved his name and reputation. He taught Queen Marie Antoinette to play the harpsichord, met Mozart in the court of Versailles, after the Revolution he fought in the army as the Colonel of the first regiment made entirely from men of African ancestry. 

Mather Brown's portrait of Joseph Bologne (1788), National Portrait Gallery,London.

Our Lecturer

Canon Chris Newlands is a retired Anglican priest, having ministered across England from Portsmouth to Durham, and from Essex to Lancashire. Before ordination, he worked for the British Council in Algeria, and after ordination was posted to Romania and Bulgaria as Embassy Chaplain and Envoy of the Anglican Communion to the Orthodox Churches of Eastern Europe. Chris is a guest lecturer on cruise ships where his lectures relate to the destinations in the Baltic, Black Sea, and Mediterranean regions.

This lecture looks at King Henry VIII and his world through a rather special lens of the institutions concerned with gold and silver (the Mint, which made it into money), the jewel house (where the king’s plate was stored) and the Goldsmiths’ Company (which controlled the trade and supplied the king’s goldsmiths). At the heart of all this sat Thomas Cromwell, who we all know now through Hilary Mantel’s novels, but who is seen in a rather different light in this lecture. 

Portrait of Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein the Younger 1552 -1553 The Frick Collection

Our lecturer

Timothy Schroder FSA joined the Silver Department at Christie’s in 1976 and became Curator of Decorative Arts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1984. After returning to London, he worked as an antique dealer for some years before becoming Curator of the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House. He was subsequently a consultant curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum and is now a freelance lecturer, curator and adviser. 

Bath is famous as England's most beautiful Georgian city, a vision of sweeping crescents and neat squares in golden stone, framed by wooded hills. But this was a medieval and ancient city, too. So what were its origins- how did it burst out of the old walls to develop into its elegant final form; which ideas fell by the wayside, and what do the major individual buildings have to tell us when we look at them closely?

The Roman Baths (Thermae) in the city of Bath. Phototograph by David Iliff . License: CC BY-SA 3.0

Our lecturer 

Jonathan Foyle is not an 'establishment' academic, but uses the original research he has gained over a 25-year practical career in the world of historic buildings and applied arts to inform architectural conservation projects, broadcasts, books, articles, and talks for groups including the Arts Society. A former Curator at Hampton Court, and Chief Executive of World Monuments Fund Britain for eight years, he has authored seven volumes on great cathedrals and castles, and is best known for presenting series such as BBC2's Broadcast Award-winning Climbing Great Buildings and contributing to series like Channel 4's Time Team and currently Channel 5's Secrets of the Palaces. His talks combine humour with personal insights to offer in-depth and fresh analyses of architecture, furnishings, sculpture, paintings and their all-important symbolism, through which we can better understand them.

A look at the astonishing flowering of this highly decorative style that flourished briefly around 1900.  Art Nouveau arose, initially in Belgium and France, as a reaction against Victorian historicism and the so-called “battle of the styles”.  It was the emergence in the 19th century of iron as a building material that allowed for the creation of new forms of architecture.  In a search for these new forms, architects such as Victor Horta and Hector Guimard turned to nature for their inspiration, having been influenced by Britain’s Arts and Crafts movement and the ideas of William Morris.

Photograph of El Capricho (1883-1885) in Comillas, northern Spain. 

Our Lecturer

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

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

"The Return of the Herd" is an oil on wood painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

Our lecturer

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

From the wax seal to the microchip, man has exploited the skill of the artist and artisan in his attempt to manufacture a forgery-proof document. Taking you through three centuries of passport design, this lecture explains the overt and uncovers the covert to illustrate the defences built in to the passport and the tricks the forger uses to defeat them. You will never see your passport in the same light again!

Our lecturer

Martin Lloyd has been lecturing to various groups, including U3A, National Trust, historical societies, Gresham College and business groups since 2008. Martin previously worked for HM Immigration Service, and has broadcast on local and national television and radio.

Deborah Devonshire, the youngest of the Mitford sisters and wife of the 11th Duke of Devonshire, lived at one of Europe’s greatest treasure houses, Chatsworth. 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.

Debo had a lasting impact not just on Chatsworth but on everything she touched and everyone she met; Simon was lucky enough to work for and with her over more than 20 years and in this lecture he pays tribute to an astonishing life.

Photo credit: Gary Rogers

Our lecturer

Simon Seligman studied art and architectural history at Warwick University. For 19 years until 2010, Simon worked at Chatsworth in a variety of roles, latterly as Head of Communications. Simon has lectured about Chatsworth, the Devonshire Collection and associated topics, throughout the UK and on several US tours. Alongside his lecturing, he is a Life Coach in private practice, and works part time for John Ruskin’s charity the Guild of St George.

Ealing Studios is often hailed as the most quintessentially English of all film studios. Run by Sir Michael Balcon for decades, the studio reached its zenith in 1949, its annus mirabilis, releasing Passport to Pimlico, Whisky Galore!, and Kind Hearts and Coronets. Now most celebrated for these and the similarly magnificent comedies that followed, Ealing's films have a reputation for cosiness, whimsicality, and an ever-so gentle subversiveness. This talk revisits these films and reads them again, this time in the light of the post-war new waves that were beginning to emerge across Europe. Ealing films – like the masterpieces of Italian neo-realism – are films set amongst the ruins, documenting the lives of citizens in bombed cities. Viewed as comedies of rubble, they take on a far more serious set of meanings than their whimsical reputation suggests.

Benedict Morrison  is a lecturer in Literature and Film at the University of Exeter. He has recently published a book entitled Complicating Articulation in Art Cinema with Oxford University Press and is now producing works on post-war British comedy films, the response by the arts and humanities to Covid-19, and cultural narratives of extinction. He spent seven years studying at the University of Oxford, but finally traded the dreaming spires for the cultural bustle of London, where he lives with his partner. He loves nothing more than settling down in the darkness of a cinema to enjoy a great film.

This talk tells the story of one of the most fascinating investment "bubbles" in the history of economics. In the late 16th Century, the humble tulip bulb made its way from China through to the courts and gardens of the Ottoman Empire where its beauty and rarity were admired by the wealthy sultans. In time its fame spread, triggering a collecting craze in 17th Century Holland, which we now know as the beginning of the so called Dutch Golden Age.

Illustration is an anonymous 17th-century watercolour of the "Semper Augustus" famous for being the most expensive tulip sold during the tulip mania.

Our lecturer

Dr Tom Flynn is a UK-based art historian, writer and art consultant. He holds a First Class Honours degree in Art History from the University of Sussex, a Masters in Design History from the Royal College of Art and a doctorate from the University of Sussex. His interests include contemporary art; sculpture history; museology and the history of  museums; art crime; issues in cultural heritage; and the historical development and professional practice of the European art markets.

Watercolourist, muralist, ceramicist and wood-engraver, Eric Ravilious was one of the most distinctive young British artists working between the two World Wars; he is also an artist who is of increasing interest and popularity, as recent exhibitions and sales of his work have revealed. This lecture explores Ravilious’s career, looking both at his place in the long tradition of watercolour painting in England, as well as within the social and cultural context of England in the 1920s and ‘30s, leading up to his untimely death as an official war artist in Iceland in 1942.

Watercolour "Two Women In a Garden"  Eric Ravilious 1933

Our lecturer 

Dr. David Haycock is an established freelance art historian and curator. He is best known for his 2009 book, A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War, and the subsequent exhibition he curated at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Educated at the University of Oxford, and a former curator at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, he is a specialist in British art and culture in the period 1860 to 1940. His latest books include a new biography of the young Augustus John, and a new biography of the equestrian painter Lucy Kemp-Welch. An Arts Society lecturer since 2011, he is based in Oxford.

From the late thirteenth century to about the middle of the fourteenth, in England, Northern France and Flanders specifically, the artists of illuminated manuscripts were to produce some of the greatest and most imaginative works in this genre. Within the margins and borders of religious texts such as books of prayer and psalms and of secular romances and epic poetry we see an astounding assortment of the amusing, absurd, fantastic, the ridiculously obscene and monstrous creations alongside scenes from everyday life and the natural world. 

This lecture discusses the beliefs, inventions and ideas which led the illuminators to produce such strange images, the role of the patrons who bought or commissioned their work, and the social context of the period before the apocalypse of the Black Death from 1348. For us, they can provide insightful commentary about the cultural climate, values and beliefs in the northern Europe of the time.

Our Lecturer Martin Heard

Studied History of Art at Manchester University and afterwards spent three years in the editorial department of a fine art publishing company. Martin's later career took a detour into the world of information technology, during which time he had the opportunity to work and live for several years in both continental Europe and North America. Having 'retired' from this field of endeavour he now devotes his time to researching mainly English eighteenth and late nineteenth century French art and architecture.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was the domination of shipping routes to and from America that was the golden prize.

Here is the fascinating story of how each company positioned itself in the size of liners, the luxurious environments with posters, art, ephemera and the offerings across the Atlantic Ocean either side of the Great War. We look at the breathtaking interiors as portrayed in the Shipbuilder special supplements of the day and the Sales Brochures. What were the reasons for the tragedy of both the Lusitania and Titanic? What art was lost on Titanic? Was it just plain sailing on the Atlantic?

Howard Smith’s lectures have a reputation for stunning graphics - this lecture is no exception and also has vintage film of RMS Olympic with the building and launch as well as a glimpse of the First Class dining experience - these were floating luxury hotels for the seriously rich and below decks a cramped one-way ticket for the 12 million immigrants to the States.

Our lecturer

Howard Smith was born during the Second World War, educated in Scotland and gained an MA from Trinity College Dublin before embarking on a career in Graphic Arts with major national and international advertising agencies. In the 1980s he set up his own design and print company in Canterbury until retirement when he became an accredited lecturer for the Arts Society. All his lectures are on subjects he has worked on or collected over his life and feature in his series of Graphic Icons of the Twentieth Century 1900-1950. He is a recognised authority on both the Rupert and Eagle magazines.

There have been pictorial representations of The Magi from as early as at least the 6th century, such as depictions in Byzantine ivories with origins in places such as Constantinople. Indeed, a vast array of artists, such as Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516), Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), Pieter Bruegel the Elder (active 1550/1; died 1569), Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Masaccio (1401-1428/9?), and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) to name but a few, have been clearly fascinated by story and its possibilities when it comes to visual depictions. However, these depictions over this vast period of time have been anything but consistent. All the aforementioned artists will be mentioned in this lecture, as Leslie seeks to will unravel the myth and the iconography behind the proliferation of the story of the adoration of the magi from its Eastern and pagan roots to its current Christian interpretation. To aid his examination of this story, and to trace the changes in iconography and depictions of the kings themselves, Leslie will be illustrating it with a variety beautiful works of art, images made across many centuries that will illuminate this fascination as never before. The lecture will begin by looking at the etymology behind the term ‘magi’ and how it has come down to us and what is now means in contemporary society. 

This lecture will then look at the changing iconography behind the depictions of the story and the various meanings behind these changes in its iconography, not to mention the changes in the story of the adoration of the magi itself.  Moving on the lecture will then look at the origin of the names of the magi and the significance of their gifts to the Christ Child.  Following this exploration of the fundamental roots of the story Leslie will then come to the issue of the inclusion of the black king, where he came from, why he would be included, how significant was he and how European artists tackled the problem of depicting this magus when they themselves had little or no knowledge of such people of colour.  

Finally, Leslie will examine the actual origins of the story and how much of a bearing does that story, as we understand it, have on the actual story written in the Bible.  To examine this final question, Leslie will contrast the relevant passages the biblical with images from many sources to help clarify the difference between those and the example images.  This final part of his lecture will set out to ask what it is we want this story to mean and why do we hold on to the legendary story rather than biblical tale in our mostly Western secular society.

Our lecturer

Leslie Primo holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. He was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and 2007, gave lectures and guided tours, plus special talks, at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery for 18 years. Currently he lectures at the City Literary Institute, Imperial College, London, and has presented a series of talks at the National Maritime Museum and the Courtauld Institute.

Lt Col Jones provides a personal account of the behind the scenes preparation and build up to the National Day of Remembrance held at the Cenotaph at Whitehall in November each year in the presence of His Majesty the King and Royal Family, Heads of State on behalf of the Royal British Legion and the Nation. Timing and precision are everything; find out how the music for this event is prepared ahead of the big day in this fascinating behind the scenes presentation.

Our lecturer Graham Jones:

Dr Graham Jones started his professional life as a musician in the British Army and over a glittering career spanning nearly forty years he retired as the Senior Director of Music, Household Division and Director of Music, Coldstream Guards a position unequaled throughout military music in Great Britain. During his illustrious career he has recorded over 40 albums and been responsible for the largest commissioning programme of wind band music in recent history commissioning over 30 new works for wind band. He pioneered a music education programme with the University of Salford for military musicians resulting in a new Master of Music in performance degree. Graham was made a Member of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace for outstanding service to military music in 1993.

Having retired, at the start of 2012, from military service Graham is enjoying a second career as a guest conductor, adjudicator, guest speaker, lecturer, clinician, recording consultant and educator. He is also the Artist Director of London International Band Week, music consultant to Henley Music Festival, resident conductor of the British Imperial Orchestra, visiting conductor in residence at Troy University, Alabama, USA and guest lecturer on cruise ships. 

Édouard Manet (1832-1883) is one of the key artists to challenge the great art traditions of the past as laid down by the Art Academies in Europe, the arbiters of taste. His early works such as The Luncheon on the Grass, 1862-3 and Olympia, 1865 both paid homage to the Old Masters so respected by the Establishment, however controversially brought them up to date so they became paintings of modern life –attracting younger, experimental artists who saw Manet as a father figure of a new age of Modern Art. Manet’s paintings were revolutionary and changed the direction of art – but was he an intentional or unintentional revolutionary? 

Sarah Ciacci has an MA in History of Art (Late 19th century French Painting and 20th Century Art) from University College London. She has been a Blue Badge Guide for London since 2008, specialising in art, museums and galleries. Since 2008 she has trained Blue Badge Guides in the National Gallery and is an art lecturer for trainee guides in Tate Britain, Tate Modern and for a period the National Portrait Gallery. She is a gallery educator and Adjunct Faculty at Richmond University (since 2008) teaching the History of British Art, the History of Museums in London and the History of London, and runs regular courses and independent lectures on a variety of art historical periods.    

During the Gilded Age the historic port of Newport, Rhode Island, was often referred to as the 'Queen of Resorts' or 'New York By the Sea' where the social elite of New York relocated in the summer season. The new palatial mansions were quaintly referred to as 'cottages', whereas quiet 'old money' continued its cultural activities and social exclusion alongside the new arrivistes. 

Taking a carriage ride along Bellevue Avenue, using my vintage postcard collection, we will meet the movers and shakers, recreate the experience of cultural life in Newport and the role played by artists and designers. This will include watching tennis at the stunning new Casino building by celebrity architect Stanford White; planning a ball to be held in the glorious  ballroom overlooking the cliffs at Rosecliff mansion (film set location for The Great Gatsby 1974). John Singer Sargent was a frequent visitor and his international friendships and correspondence will throw light on the links between artists, designers, patrons and collectors in Paris, London, New York and Newport at this time. 

We will also view the social scene through a very different lens - one of huge generational change when daughters demand the right to vote, to dine together, to play sports in radical new fashions,  to sail a boat solo, or even to bathe on a private beach without stockings! Daring plans hatched in Newport one summer, lead to the founding of the first women only club in Manhattan. 

Our lecturer Mary Alexander has:

Thirty years' experience as a lecturer, with a BA in History and History of Art and a MA with distinction in History of Art from University College London. Experience includes public lectures in museums, tutoring for the Open University, visiting lecturer at Christie's Education in London, museum curator at Platt Hall, the Gallery of Costume, Manchester. Now a freelance lecturer to various arts, heritage and antiquarian societies. She also worked in Pentagram design consultancy in London and New York, organising conferences and special events. Author of various articles on design and visual awareness issues, her background combines an unusual blend of academic and visual communications skills. Lectured for ADFAS Australia and New Zealand in 2011, 2013 and 2016. Mary is an enthusiastic member and President of The Arts Society Glaven Valley.

Red House was the only home William Morris (1834-1896) ever owned and helped design. When the house was completed in 1860, Morris’s friend Edward Burne-Jones described it as, “the beautifullest place on earth”. The challenge of furnishing his new home inspired Morris to start his decorating company Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. Often described as ‘the cradle of the Arts & Crafts Movement’, Red House is one of the most important and influential buildings in the history of domestic architecture. This talk is copiously illustrated by beautiful photographs, internal and external, of Red House and Morris furnishings.

Our lecturer Fiona Rose:

Fiona Rose has been lecturing about topics she feels passionately about since 2010 including William Morris and his circle, the Arts & Crafts Movement, Frida Kahlo and Frank Lloyd Wright. She has a BA in Social Psychology and aims to include the human story behind the artistic endeavours of her subjects. After an early career in public health Fiona founded and runs a home interiors business featuring the work of the great C19th designers such as Morris, Dearle, Voysey and Mackintosh. Fiona is a member of the museum Collections committee for The William Morris Society where she served as a Trustee. She is also a contributor to the Society’s Magazine and Journal of William Morris Studies. Fiona is a volunteer Tour Guide with the Arts & Crafts gem The David Parr House.

1685 was an extraordinary year for music. Two of the world’s greatest composers were born 130km and just one month apart. Much of their childhood development mirrored the other – including the tragedy of losing their fathers at the age of ten. Their careers took very different directions, and they never met, despite several near misses. Patrick will reunite these two giants, tracking their lives across six decades, with a special focus on their vocal music, which has inspired his career as both a countertenor and a conductor. 

Our lecturer  

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

The River Thames has inspired artists for over three hundred years and continues to do so today. Discover a selection of artists from the historical to the contemporary and experience their fascinating views of the river and interpretations of its eventful history.

Our lecturer Alexandra Epps :

Official Guide and Lecturer at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Guildhall Art Gallery. Qualified Guide to the City of London, offering lectures and walks about many aspects of the arts for societies, corporations and private individuals. Member of the City of London Guide Lecturers Association. Co-author of the book Lord Mayor's Portraits 1983-2014 (2015). Alexandra’s background is in design having practised as a graphic designer running her own design consultancy for many years. BA Saint Martins School of Art, MA London College of Printing.

In the last few years the top end of the art market has flourished, and collectors have been prepared to pay astonishing amounts to own a modern masterpiece. This lecture is about the works that have sold for over $100 million and is an excuse to examine some beautiful and varied art. These works would not achieve such sky-high prices if they were no good. So, we’ll see some wonderful paintings including those by Picasso, Cézanne, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Modigliani, Klimt, Bacon and Pollock, all held together by the common thread of their extraordinary commercial value. But we will also look at the buyers and sellers, the stories behind the works, the reasons for changing hands and I will try to answer the question “Are they really worth hundreds of millions of pounds?”

Our Lecturer Ian Swankie:

A Londoner with a passion for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral, and gives tours around each venue. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and leads regular tours for various corporations and organisations. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. He is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.

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

Our lecturer Imogen Corrigan:

After nearly 20 years in the British army, went to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History and Art, graduating with 1st class honours, followed by an MPhil from the University of Birmingham. Works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe as well as lecturing on small cruise ships and running study tours and courses on land. Has written Stone on Stone: the Men Who Built the Cathedrals, published 2019. A Freeman of the City of London, being a Member of the Company of Communicators.

From the 1890s to the 1960s, Winston Churchill’s life was captured in countless photographs. He was a prolific writer and speechmaker - the definitive edition of his speeches alone runs to four volumes. He was a successful and enthusiastic artist, producing some 500 paintings in a span of over fifty years.

Churchill was a complex and sensitive man of many parts and many interests – a discriminating contemporary, Kenneth Clark, was to write of him, “I have never been frightened by anyone except Churchill … he was a man of a wonderful and very powerful mind”.

The aim of this lecture is to try to capture the richness and diversity of this great man’s life and character which can still inspire us today

Our lecturer,  Mark Cottle, was born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and Birmingham University. His career has been spent in education and training at home and abroad. He has lectured at Exeter College on Medieval and Tudor history, St Mark's & St John's University College, Plymouth, and at Bath University on Anglo Saxon and medieval England. 

Photographs have the ability to stop time, to provide a freeze-frame of a moment in time and space. They give the observer the opportunity to think, to react, to feel and to soak in the details of the circumstances surrounding the image. This talk examines some the most important images and photographers of the past century. It explores why these images are so powerful and influential in our understanding of history. 

Our lecturer Roger Mendham

A keen and accomplished photographer Roger has gained Distinctions from the Royal Photographic Society  and is currently the President of the Surrey Photographic Association. A scientist by background, his interest in art was sparked by his wife’s academic studies into the History of Art and he has a particular interest in 20th century art.  With his focus on the visual aspects of art he has studied the evolution of photography from its earliest days in the early 1800s to becoming a major art form in the late 20th and now 21st centuries. An experienced public speaker, his talks are all richly illustrated with both his own and images from some of the leading photographers in history. 

After moving to Hollywood, Hitch created several masterpieces of cinema including Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960). Vertigo has been recently voted by critics as the best ever film overtaking Citizen Kane. Together we will explore Hitchcock's dark film about sexual obsession. Taking a shower still fills many people with dread and forboding thanks to the Hitchcock modern Horror classic of 1960. A full analysis of Hitchcock's masterful technique and influences will be the central focus of this lecture. The French New Wave critics of Cahiers du Cinema argued that Hitchcock’s films should be regarded as artistic masterworks. Alfred Hitchcock remains by far the most studied and revered film director of all time.

Our lecturer John Francis 

John is an inspirational speaker who has delivered lecturers, workshops in the US (Texas, California, Massachusetts), Beijing, Malaysia and the UK. Initially trained as a painter, John was awarded the Max Beckmann Memorial Scholarship in painting in Brooklyn, New York and went on to be artist in resident for the state of Texas. Later in his career John produced and directed several short films and animations. He has taught film, art and pedagogy at the University of Exeter, Arts University Bournemouth, University Sains Malaysia, Southwestern College, California, Brunel University, London and Kingston University. Lectures and workshops.

The Bayeux Tapestry is instantly recognisable and one of the most outstanding cultural objects to survive from the early Middle Ages. Long admired for its vivid narrative, today it is the unanswered questions that most intrigue modern audiences: was it made in England or France? Was it stitched by men or women? This sparkling lecture looks not only at its creation, but also at its more amazing afterlife. Displayed by Napoleon to bolster French ambitions for a new cross-channel invasion; cherished by Victorian embroiderers as an icon of women’s heroic joint efforts; hunted down by Hitler, who was outwitted by bureaucratic obfuscation. A fluent French speaker, Timothy Wilcox brings a lifetime’s interest in Anglo-French relations to bear on a famous object set to become even more celebrated as it enters its next, surprising chapter.

Our lecturer Timothy Wilcox

is a writer, lecturer and exhibition curator with special interests in British art, in landscape and in watercolour painting. He was a museum curator in the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings following positions at the V&A, in Liverpool and Hove. As a freelance curator and lecturer since 1997, he has organised exhibitions on Laura Knight, Hilda Carline, John Sell Cotman and John Constable, at venues including Tate, The Lowry, the Wordsworth Trust and Dulwich Picture Gallery. He contributes regularly to the educational programmes at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and lectures at museums and galleries in Britain, Europe and the USA.

Agatha Christie is undoubtedly the world’s greatest crime writer, her books sell over four million copies worldwide every year and there is a continual demand for new adaptations to be made of her work. She led a sheltered and privileged life in her native Torquay which was not dissimilar to the characters she invented. She was brought up in the comfort of upper middle class society and she too had mystery in her life. To find out more about this remarkable author who created Poirot and Miss Marple book this biographical talk. It will surprise and enlighten you about how she developed her talent for writing having never attended a proper school.

Our lecturer: Jane Tapley lectures regularly to theatre going societies, National Trust, history and fine arts groups. She is also a Registered Blue Badge Guide and Lecturer.

Between the wars something extraordinary happened to the British seaside: it became glamourous, exciting... modern. Enticed by eye-catching railway posters, holidaymakers grabbed their new cameras and slinky new bathing suits, and headed for the coast. Meanwhile artists galore found inspiration on the beach, from Laura Knight in Lamorna and Eric Ravilious in Newhaven to Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore in North Norfolk. With eye-catching artworks, glorious posters and startling archive photos, this exuberant, colourful lecture explores a remarkable period in 20th century British culture.

Our lecturer: James Russell - having studied History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, enjoyed a lengthy stint selling contemporary paintings and sculpture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an experience that inspired him to begin writing and lecturing on 20th century art. Of his dozen or so books, one was a Sunday Times book of the year, while his writing has been described by critics as 'insightful', 'informative' and 'enjoyably readable'. James has curated major exhibitions at Dulwich Picture Gallery and for museums around the country.

The story of the British Grand Tour... the perils and pleasures of the journey via Calais, Paris and the Alps, to the delights of Florence, Venice and Rome, where we meet the unmissable events of the Venetian tourist calendar, and the tutors, tour guides, art dealers and swindlers of Rome. We examine the (sometimes dubious) purchases of paintings and antiquities that filled the country houses of the time, and return home to see how the tour influenced the exterior and interior of the British Town and Country House.

Our lecturer, William Forrester, has written and presented programmes for Central TV, Thames TV and BBC Radio 4, as well as lecturing for the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, the National Gallery and the National Trust

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is the most isolated piece of permanently inhabited land on the planet, and yet it produced a most extraordinary Stone Age culture: hundreds of sophisticated coastal stone platforms, more than a thousand enormous stone statues, the richest rock art in the Pacific, and a unique writing system. This talk will provide an introduction to the history of the discovery of this culture; to its principal features; and to what archaeology, oral traditions and, more recently, palaeobotanical evidence have combined to teach us about the island’s cultural rise and decline, its environmental crisis, and the lessons all this can teach us about how we look after the Earth as a whole.

Our lecturer, Paul Bahn has studied archaeology at the University of Cambridge, and completed a 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.  His main research interest is prehistoric art, especially rock art of the world, and most notably Palaeolithic art, as well as Easter Island. 

The British musical grew in its own unique way, with style, heart, guts and masses of fun. We are still entertained by revivals of Me and My Girl, The Boy Friend and Oliver! But what of the many more hit shows, such as Noel Coward’s Bitter Sweet, Ivor Novello’s King’s Rhapsody and the bitingly satirical Expresso Bongo, that are no longer staged? This lecture rediscovers a distinctive West End story to give a new perspective on the shows and the people who made them. It’s an aspect of culture and personality unique to Britain – and fascinating in variety and success. 

Our lecturer, John Snelson has been fascinated by musicals all his life and is now a leading expert in British musical theatre. John has given talks for, among others, the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, the Garsington and Glyndebourne festivals and for BBC radio. For 20 years he worked for the Royal Opera House. He currently lectures at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is completing a book on British musical theatre for Bloomsbury Publishing.

Of all the things the great Sun King created, he is best remembered for Versailles, the immense palace he caused to be built on the site of his father’s old hunting lodge which became the seat of French government, the setting for all great court ceremonial and the envy of all other European monarchs. This lecture will be an introduction to the grand state apartments, the vast gardens, the spectacular entertainments and the whole etiquette of life at one of the greatest courts of Europe.

We look at how the Great Depression and the Second World War had such an extraordinary impact on fashion and jewellery design with the rise of Cinema and Hollywood. With the development of advertising, labour saving devices and leisure time, people had more opportunities to enjoy themselves and spend money on the finer things in life.

From the likes of Marlene Dietrich to Grace Kelly, we see how the various Screen Goddesses were portrayed and what they gave to such dazzling effect. We also show how The Belle Epoque and Art Deco styles did not end at the outbreak of the Second World War, but combined, to flower again with Christian Dior’s “New Look”.

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

Our lecturer, Barry Venning, is currently an Associate Lecturer with the Open University and lectures on a freelance basis for The Arts Society, Christie's Education and other organisations

See the wonderful art and architecture that has been restored as Dresden has risen from the ashes. We take you on a visual journey including The Frauenkirche, and the wonderful collections built up by the Elector Augustus and his son at the end of the 17th Century, all preserved in beautifully restored buildings.  

Our lecturer Claire Ford-Wille has lectured widely on art history for over 30 years, including for the National Gallery, V&A and the National Trust

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

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

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

Our lecturer Tony Rawlins has spent his career in advertising working for major agencies, and now lectures widely on the subject

The story of some of the most spectacular balls and parties ever staged. Since the nineteenth century various festivities of the great and good have been described as legendary. Four of these – the Devonshire House Ball (1897), the Beistegui Ball (1951), the Black & White Ball (1966) and the Proust Ball (1971) – were all extravagant visual spectacles. The way in which they were reported, at once celebratory and caustic, reveals much about contemporary attitudes and tastes and helps to explain why such events are largely confined to the past.

Our lecturer Dr Benjamin Wild is a cultural historian. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Contextual Studies (Fashion) at the Manchester Fashion Institute (Manchester Metropolitan University). His second book, A Life in Fashion: The Wardrobe of Cecil Beaton, was published in 2016 by Thames & Hudson. He has recently published Carnival to Catwalk: Global Reflections on Fancy Dress Costume with Bloomsbury.

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

Chantal has over 40 years experience as a lecturer and has taught at Sotheby's Institute of Art since 1989.

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

Chantal has over 40 years experience as a lecturer and has taught at Sotheby's Institute of Art since 1989.

A ‘cracking’ talk.  It will fundamentally change your view of William Hogarth. Pots, crocks and chinaware tumble through Hogarth’s domestic dramas.  His detailed paintings and prints are wittily infiltrated with recognizable ceramics  - earthenwares, stonewares and ‘china’-  in an age drunk on Luxury.  Potters across continents compete with each other, fuelled by the ‘china mania’ gripping the emerging middle classes.  And Hogarth catches them. And in an ironic twist: Hogarth’s own images are themselves translated onto clay. A typical post-talk plaudit: “I shall never look at Hogarth in the same way again”

Our lecturer, Lars Tharp is a well-known TV presenter on BBC Antiques Roadshow and an expert on ceramics

According to historian Barbara Tuchman, the invention of the ball ranks as highly as the invention of the wheel. Our lecturer, Simon Inglis agrees, especially after spending years delving into cubbyholes at pavilions and museums, in workshops and factories, finding out how these apparently simple objects came into being and how their design and manufacture has evolved. He asks, why are marbles glass? Why did the discovery of gutta percha transform golf? Why were games such as lawn tennis and ping pong made possible only in the mid 19th century? Why did some billiard balls explode, and why are rugby balls such an odd shape? In 1853 the ingredients of one manufacturer's cricket balls were listed as cork, worsted, hemp, brown oats, suet, lard, alum, stale ale and dragon's blood. Can this really be true, or is it, perhaps, just a load of old balls?

Our lecturer, writer and historian Simon Inglis specialises in the architecture and heritage of sport and recreation. Since 2004 he has edited the Played in Britain series for English Heritage. Although sport and recreation might seem an unlikely subject for The Arts Society, non-sporty types need have no fear. Simon’s themes are architecture, design, heritage and popular culture.

(In association with The Arts Society Horsley Lovelace) PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE BY ZOOM - THE LINK WILL BE SENT TO ALL MEMBERS. If you are not a member but would like to see the lecture, please email info@thearts societyhorsley.org.uk for details of our one-off 'visitor' fee.

No matter where you are in Denmark you will never be more than 30 miles (50 km) from the Sea. With 4,500 miles (7,000 km) of coastline, and 400 islands, unsurprisingly artists have been drawn over the centuries to record its beauty. 

In the 1880s the colony of Skagen was attracting many artists from all over Europe and the USA. Long before the railway reached this northern peninsular, travellers and artists had to make the arduous journey there by packet boat to Frederikshavn followed by 22 miles on a horse and cart. Painters such as Peder.S. Krøyer, and Michael and Anna Ancher, Martinus Rørbye, Laurits Tuxen and Oscar Björck, conveyed the harsh lives of the fishing communities and the extremes of weather, providing a backdrop for an extraordinarily rich seam of Denmark’s art history.

The lecture will also include examples from the Golden Age of Danish painting.

 (In association with The Arts Society Horsley Lovelace) PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE BY ZOOM - THE LINK WILL BE SENT TO ALL MEMBERS. If you are not a member but would like to see the lecture, please email info@thearts societyhorsley.org.uk for details of our one-off 'visitor' fee.

LS Lowry (1887-1976) is known especially for his paintings of the north of England industrial scene, but he also painted landscapes, seascapes and portraits, including strange cartoon-like grotesques. Often regarded as provincial, naive, a Sunday painter, he in fact studied art for more than twenty years and went to life drawing classes for twelve of them, saying that 'is the foundation of painting'. He focused intensely on his painting: when asked what he thought about when he wasn't painting, his answer was, 'Painting!' This despite a day job working as a rent collector and the onus of caring for his bed-ridden mother. This lecture explores the far from simple art of this quintessentially English artist.

Our lecturer Sarah Stopford is a lecturer and guide for Tate Britain and Tate Modern

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE BY ZOOM - THE LINK WILL BE SENT TO ALL MEMBERS. If you are not a member but would like to see the lecture, please email info@thearts societyhorsley.org.uk for details of our one-off 'visitor' fee.

This lecture looks at who the Pre-Raphaelites were and what they were trying to achieve in their art.  It examines the biographies and careers of the key figures and how their work developed over the years.  It also explores the impact their work had at the time and the considerable influence they had on other artists.

Our lecturer, Rosalind Whyte, has a BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. She is an experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich.

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE BY ZOOM - THE LINK WILL BE SENT TO ALL MEMBERS. If you are not a member but would like to see the lecture, please email info@thearts societyhorsley.org.uk for details of our one-off 'visitor' fee.

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

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

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE BY ZOOM - THE LINK WILL BE SENT TO ALL MEMBERS. If you are not a member but would like to see the lecture, please email info@thearts societyhorsley.org.uk for details of our one-off 'visitor' fee.

The Nazis looted over 20% of Western Art during World War II, confiscating art from Jewish families and emptying museums throughout Europe. This lecture will provide an overview of Nazi looting by setting the scene in Nazi Germany, discussing Hitler’s obsession with art and how the Monuments Men recovered art after the war. Several landmark cases will be discussed in detail, including Gustav Klimt’s celebrated Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer and the stash of over 1200 artworks found in the possession of a notorious Nazi dealer

Shauna Isaac has been active in World War II art restitution for several years and has worked with families and government organisations to recover Nazi looted art. Shauna studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art in the UK and Smith College in the USA. She is a regular lecturer at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art. 

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE BY ZOOM - THE LINK WILL BE SENT TO ALL MEMBERS. If you are not a member but would like to see the lecture, please email info@thearts societyhorsley.org.uk for details of our one-off 'visitor' fee.

On coming to the throne George IV instinctively understood the majesty and splendour appropriate to the monarch of the richest and most powerful country in the world. This lecture traces his developing taste as Prince of Wales, Regent and King and examines connections between his royal residences as well as his spectacular legacy to the Royal Collection – the greatest by any monarch since Charles I.

Our lecturer, Barbara Askew, is a Historian and London Blue Badge Guide,  and an acknowledged expert on Royalty.

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE BY ZOOM  - THE LINK WILL BE SENT TO ALL MEMBERS 

Of all the things the great Sun King created, he is best remembered for Versailles, the immense palace he caused to be built on the site of his father’s old hunting lodge which became the seat of French government, the setting for all great court ceremonial and the envy of all other European monarchs. This lecture will be an introduction to the grand state apartments, the vast gardens, the spectacular entertainments and the whole etiquette of life at one of the greatest courts of Europe.

We look at how the Great Depression and the Second World war had such an extraordinary impact on fashion and jewellery design with the rise of Cinema and Hollywood. With the development of advertising, labour saving devices and leisure time, people had more opportunities to enjoy themselves and spend money on the finer things in life.

From the likes of Marlene Dietrich to Grace Kelly, we see how the various Screen Goddesses were portrayed and what they gave to such dazzling effect. We also show how The Belle Epoque and Art Deco styles did not end at the outbreak of the Second World War, but combined, to flower again with Christian Dior’s “New Look”.

Dresden has risen from the ashes.  See the wonderful art and architecture preserved in beautifully restored buildings, including The Frauenkirche and the superb collections built up by the Elector Augustus and his son at the end of the 17th century. 

Our lecturer, Clare Ford-Wille is an art historian who lectures regularly for the National Gallery, the V&A, the Art Fund and London University. 

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

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

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

The merchants of seventeenth century Holland filled their town houses with paintings. A favourite subject was scenes of everyday life: depicting behaviour both good … and bad. But these upright Calvinist citizens rejected Catholic Baroque melodrama. They wanted nothing to alarm the in-laws or corrupt the children. Innocent objects hint at adult themes: plucked chickens and lap dogs, lutes and virginals, oysters and artichokes, foot warmers and bed warmers. This is a world of subtle hints and double-entendre, spoken through a language of symbols, emblems and motifs.

Join me to explore the hidden meanings in everyday scenes and become a fluent reader of ‘Double Dutch’.

2020 is the 500th Anniversary of this extraordinary event.

In June 1520 Henry VIII and Francis 1 meet to ratify an Anglo-French alliance and celebrate the betrothal of Henry’s daughter Mary to the Dauphin. The two handsome ‘Renaissance Princes’ are in their 20’s with similar reputations in military prowess, sport and patrons of the arts.  Both have imperial ambitions and are eager to display themselves as magnificent nobleman and warrior kings.  Each brings an entourage of 6,000 to a field south of Calais for 18 days of various events and entertainments staged to display the skill and splendour of each King and country.  The logistics of transporting, accommodating, ordering, feeding and watering, protecting and entertaining the English contingent for this spectacular event is staggering and the supply chain, often through the City of London Guilds, is equally fascinating. 3,217 horses shipped across the ‘Narrow Sea’ to Calais; a vast quantity of wood sourced from Flanders and floated along the coast; a huge temporary palace is built on stone foundations with brick and timber-framed walls reaching to 40 feet.  Royal palaces were virtually emptied of their silver, gold, tapestries and furniture to decorate the temporary palace, other principal tents and a chapel (with an organ); gold and silver cloth, velvet and sables, jewels and pearls were imported to ‘dress and impress’.

How was it all achieved?

Raphael is often referred to as one of the three giants of the High Renaissance in Italy, alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, yet his fame and position in the canon of art history may seem hard to explain. He made no discoveries like those of his celebrated rivals: although undoubtedly a draughtsman of exceptional talent he made no great progress in the fields of anatomy, science and construction nor did he share the wide-ranging talents which Leonardo and Michelangelo demonstrated in so many disciplines. Furthermore, his career was short-lived as he died tragically young, aged 37. Yet in this relatively short space of time Raphael managed to move from humble initial commissions in and around his home town of Urbino to the covetous position of one of the leading artists at the court of the most important patron in Italy, Pope Julius II, for whom he created some of the most sublime and influential frescoes of the early 16th century. We explore how Raphael achieved this extraordinary rise in status, tracing the development of early works and influences to the masterpieces created in Rome.

Our lecturer, Siân Walters is an art historian and lectures for the National Gallery, The Arts Society, The Wallace Collection and many other art societies in the UK and Europe. She was also a lecturer at Surrey University for many years. Siân runs her own company, “Art History in Focus” which organises regular lectures, study days and art holidays abroad and was named a Highly Commended finalist in the World’s Best Guide Awards in 2016

In this lively presentation John shares his knowledge and enthusiasm for wine and the contribution that ‘wine art’ makes to our colourful world. Wine can be a civilising influence upon us and it is made to be shared and enjoyed. As a consequence there are numerous wonderful paintings of wine being made and wine being drunk in celebration but it also lends itself to wicked cartoons and striking posters. In addition we shall examine wine labels from around the world which now display such style and creativity.

At the age of ten Turner travelled out to Brentford to stay with his uncle. It was the first time he’d seen the open countryside. Born in 1775, the son of a barber, he was brought up in the bustling market place of Covent Garden; the only landscape he knew as a child was the misty reaches of the Thames. That first, momentous vision of nature set the course of his career and, as a young man, he walked hundreds of miles across southern England, the Lake district and Scotland, recording his observations in rapid drawings and watercolours that he worked up later into full scale paintings. At the turn of the century he became the youngest member of the Royal Academy and his romantic interpretations of stately homes and sweeping parkland became the cherished possessions of the English aristocracy. His love of travel took him to Europe and, at the age of 44, he made his first trip to Italy in search of the clear light he’d seen in paintings by Claude Lorrain. It made a powerful impression on him and from then on the mountain passes of the Alps, the pines of Rome, the canals of Venice became part of his mythical world of mist and vapour, shimmering light and deep shadow. At the time of his death in 1851, Turner stood alone in English painting; a master of technique, colour theory and perspective with a near spiritual comprehension of nature - the giant of Romantic Art.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert expressed their love for each other through art. Every birthday and Christmas they exchanged gifts of paintings, sculpture and jewellery, and they commissioned artists to record their lives together at Balmoral and Osborne House. They were keen amateur artists, sitting side-by-side to draw and to try their hand at etching. And they took pleasure in arranging their collection of portrait miniatures, drawings and prints in a special room the prince designed at Windsor Castle.

We will look not only at glamorous paintings by Landseer and Winterhalter, but also at the lesser-known watercolours the couple took pleasure in arranging in their treasured ‘souvenir albums’. This lecture tells the story of these royal patrons and collectors who were every bit as passionate about art as they were about each other.

Our lecturer Dr Susan Owens is an art historian, writer and curator. She has worked as a curator for the Royal Collection and has been Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Susan has written or co-authored books on decadent interiors, natural history illustration, watercolours, drawings and self-portraits, and is a regular contributor to publications including the Times Literary Supplement and The World of Interiors.

For over a century, postcards have pictured our shared history across the globe. They have documented the changing role of women, the growth of cities, evolving styles of architecture, home decoration, royalty, celebrity, the rise of cinema, aviation, the automobile, fashion trends, celebrations and holidays. Few people, places or things have not become the subject of a postcard. But the age of the postcard is over. With our mobile phones, we take and send images in an instant. This lecture celebrates the history and scope of picture postcards — bearers of news and repositories of memory. 

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

Stephen is a Classics Tutor for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, and Professor of History of Art for the European Studies Program of Rhodes College and The University of the South. He has spent much of the last 30 years travelling extensively in the world of the Greeks and Romans both physically and intellectually. He has published A Brief Guide to the Greek Myths (Robinson, 2007) and A Brief Guide to Classical Civilization (Robinson, 2010) and is currently working on A Brief Guide to the Roman Empire.

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The interior design, fashion and art inspired by the artists, writers and musicians who overwintered on the Cote d’Azur in the 1920s

Since the 19th century, English high society had 'wintered over' on the Côte d'Azur, but always left by April. In the early 1920's, however, an intoxicating mix of artists, writers, musicians and international visitors, inspired by a mythological seascape of luminous colours, created a new summer season. Sun tans and sportswear soon became 'de rigueur' in the chic new coastal resorts, villas and hotels. This liberating playground of ideas across the visual design arts was stimulated by impresarios Serge Diaghilev and Paul Poiret. Traditional boundaries were torn down. Matisse, Picasso, Dufy, Cocteau, and Chanel merged the worlds of fashion, theatre and interiors. Cole Porter, Scott Fitzgerald, and the intriguing Gerald and Sara Murphy, introduced an American perspective and attracted an influential new set of discerning atrons and collectors. We will 'time travel' to meet them

No jeweller since the time of Benvenuto Cellini in the 16th century has captured the imagination of the cultivated world like Peter Carl Fabergé. Peter Carl Fabergé, taking over his father’s somewhat hum-drum jewellery business at an early age, created for himself a reputation which, within a very short period, made his wares some of the most desirable known to the fashionable world in the last years of the 19th century. His reputation rested on the quality and ingenuity of his works. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Fabergé sought to create objects which would delight and amuse the eye of his blasé and spoiled clientele. The size of the stones was of secondary importance in creating confections which by their novelty and style were in a different league to other craftsmen working at the time. This lecture looks at some of the works created by this genius, which range from personal jewels such as tiaras, through hardstone figures, cigarette cases, and writing accessories to the Easter Eggs which were created in the main for the Imperial family. 

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

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, ‘Lewis Carroll’, lived his whole life within the limited confines of an Oxford College yet wrote one of the most extraordinary and influential books for children, as absorbing today as it was in the 1860’s. He was also one of the most accomplished photographers of his time and his photographs of children have elicited many contradictory responses.This lecture explores the enigma of this paradoxical figure with particular reference to his most popular works, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass”.

This lecture analyses Wren’s life and his career as a scientist, astronomer and architect. It features all his buildings in London, Oxford and Cambridge, before focusing on his City of London churches. In addition to photographs of most of Wren’s buildings, the lecture includes original research into the work of architects in Rome and Paris, which influenced Wren and provided much of his inspiration.

The Bible gives us very little information about the wise men who came from the East bearing Christ the famous gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. All reference to them is housed in the opening chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel and what information is given is surrounded by ambiguity and approximation. However, by contrast, there is no shortage of music, poetry and art that has been inspired by these men, and this lecture examines the impact of the Three Kings on the culture of later generations. Music performed includes: The Three Kings – Cornelius, The People that Walked in Darkness from Messiah – Handel, The Coventry Carol – Traditional, I Saw Three Ships – Traditional, Where is He that is Born King of the Jews? From Christus – F Mendelssohn.

Possibly the first universally acknowledged ‘great’ British-born artist, Hogarth demonstrated his genius in an astonishing variety of forms: engraving, satirical ‘progresses’ like Marriage a la Mode, portraits and ‘history’ paintings. He was a determined and pugnacious man battling for artists’ rights and for recognition of home-grown artists in a climate of prejudice in favour of their continental counterparts. He was a good man (a major supporter of Thomas Coram’s new Foundling Hospital) and an exposer of greed, corruption and hypocrisy. Above all he can be enjoyed as a lover and illustrator of the seething vitality of eighteenth century London life.

From the mountains of Jiangxi province in far-off China, down river, over lake and mountain, and finally across oceans, nearly all the Chinese ceramics on display in European museums, stately homes, palaces and personal collections are survivors of an epic journey and of monumental human labour - luxury created in the labour of millions. Each year in the 1600s and 1700s millions of pieces - services, vases and ornamental wares - were portered over the mountain border into Guangdong province, passing through the aptly-named ‘Gate of Heroes’. Lars will take us on the same journey, the one you may have seen in his 2011 BBC film Treasures of Chinese Porcelain. And knowing the great human labour involved you will never again pass or look at a piece of Chinese porcelain without this journey coming to mind. 

Lars is a Ceramics and a Hogarth specialist and a regular lecturer and broadcaster. Born in Copenhagen, he read Archaeology at Cambridge, was at Sothebys for sixteen years, and is today London's Foundling Museum's 'Hogarth Ambassador'. He holds an Honorary Doctorate in Art, is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and sits on the court of The Company of Weavers, London's oldest guild. He has served twice on the Art Fund's Annual Prize to Museums and Galleries, and has presented numerous programmes on TV and radio.

This wonderful river, often referred to as “The River of Light” , was a major influence on the development of Impressionism. This lecture will follow the course of the river; a travelogue with the Impressionists at its core. Beginning where it all began with Open Air Painting, our lecturer, Carole Petipher, will track the rise to recognition of this new wave of artists, introducing little known facts about them, and featuring their art and their colourful exploits.

Carole has been a guide and lecturer on combined history/art tours in France. She has over ten years experience of life aboard river vessels on the Seine, Oise, Marne and Rhone - this offered her the chance to explore and further research certain riverside locations linked to art, so helping to develop her in-depth knowledge of this fascinating subject.

The work of S.J. Peploe and J.D. Fergusson was seen in Edinburgh and London in the decade leading up to World War 1. They, together with Hunter and Cadell, were all bold pioneers in the field of rich colour and exhuberant brushwork. The strong light and bright colour they discovered in France was easily harnessed to their favourite places in Scotland. People, places, interiors, still life were among their favourite subjects.

in the 1900s these Scottish Colourists were amongst the most admired of early twentieth century British artists, but Peploe, Fergusson, Cadell and others are now largely forgotten. Our lecturer, Alice Foster, will explain why.

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

Today Holbein among others is thought of as a British artist, but our lecturer Leslie Primo will reveal otherwise...! He will explain why foreigner painters were preferred by the aristocracy to the native-born English painters, and why the foreigners came in the first place - what was their motivation, and what was the impact of foreigners in London on English art and art practice. 

The lecture will also look at the various formats and uses of art, tracing foreign artists from the Tudor period through to the Renaissance and Baroque, looking at their origins and how they came to work in England. It will examine the contributions of artists such as Holbein, Gerrit van Honthorst, Marcus Gheeraerts the younger, Lucas and Susanna Horenbout, Isaac Oliver, Paulus van Somer, van Dyck, Peter Lely, and Rubens, and we will learn how these artists influenced the British School of painting and assess their legacy.

Leslie holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. He was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and 2007, and gives lectures and guided tours, plus special talks, at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. He also lectures at the City Literary Institute, and has presented a series of talks at the National Maritime Museum and the Courtauld Institute.

At the turn of the last century, Vienna was the capital of a vast empire and one of the most exciting artistic laboratories in the world. It produced painters such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, architects like Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos and Josef Hoffmann, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the composer Gustav Mahler and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Looking at these and others figures in the context of the society in which they worked, this talk asks how and why the City of Dreams became a cultural hotbed around 1900.

Our lecturer Gavin Plumley is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to The Independent on Sunday and The Guardian.  He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries, including to the National Gallery, the British Museum, the V&A, the Southbank Centre, the Tate and the Neue Galerie, New York, as well as for history of art societies and The Art Fund. 

Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor are amongst the most well known sculptors working in Britain today and both have had major commissions for public works of art.  With a wide range of inspirations and motifs, the work of these two artists provides an interesting insight into contemporary views and preoccupations in Britain.  This lecture will look at examples of both artists’ work, exploring the common ground between them, as well as the differences in style, technique and themes.

Our lecturer, Rosaline Whyte has a BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. She is an experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. She also lectures at both the Tates and Dulwich Picture Gallery, as well as to independent art societies and on cruises. 

During the First and Second World Wars, artists became involved in designing camouflage, using new ideas about optics and perception to mislead, misdirect and deceive the enemy. In this talk we’ll consider the background to the development of camouflage and explore the ways in which artists such as Hugh Casson, Oliver Messel and Julian Trevelyan helped the war effort. From ‘dazzle camouflage’ for ships, to complex illusions that hid power stations and military installations from aircraft, this is a story of secrecy, deception and artistic derring-do, all in pursuit of the great goal – victory in war. 

Our lecturer, Jo Walton, will be returning to Horsley to give us this talk. Jo has combined teaching and lecturing with a career in art bookselling and has been a volunteer guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She is now a freelance lecturer for NADFAS, the Art Fund, and Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery and local art societies.

Nowadays many people are familiar with Mackintosh's striking and innovative designs:  his high-backed chairs and white-painted furniture. Yet in his day, at the turn of the twentieth century, only a handful of British clients recognised the outstanding talent of this Scottish architect and designer. On the Continent, however, and particularly in Austria and Germany, progressive designers marvelled at his work and considered him a hero.

Our lecturer, Anthea Streeter, will trace Mackintosh's career, looking at his major architectural commissions and interiors, such as those for the Glasgow School of Art and The Hill House at Helensburgh.

We will also look at Mackintosh’s less well-known but exquisite watercolour paintings, painted throughout his career but especially when he and his wife Margaret were resident in France towards the end of Mackintosh’s life.

Finally we will consider the consequences of the tragic fire at the Glasgow School of Art in 2014 and how the restoration of its world-renowned library is being addressed.

Our lecturer, Anthea, studied Fine and Decorative Arts in London and continued her studies at Harvard University. It was while at Harvard, where there was great enthusiasm for American design, that she became interested herself in 20th century architecture. Since returning from America she has taught on courses in Oxford and London, lectured on the Country House course in Sussex, and for several private groups around the country. Her special interest is in the architecture and design of 20th century.

Who is Santa Claus? The familiar image of the jolly fellow with the white beard and red suit was to a large degree the creation of American illustrator Thomas Nast in the 1860s. This lecture follows the various transformations of St. Nicholas through 1,600 years of history. Originating in Byzantine Turkey in the fourth century, the cult of ‘Nicholas of Myra’ was actually the result of two completely different Nicholases getting muddled up. In 1087, when a bunch of Italian sailors snatched the saint’s relics and took them back to Puglia, ‘Nicholas of Myra’ became ‘Nicholas of Bari’. Medieval Europe made St. Nicholas into one of the greatest miracle-workers of all time. His stories were painted everywhere. Saving poor girls from prostitution and sailors from shipwreck, rescuing boys from kidnappers, clerks from murderous innkeepers, and babies from boiling bathwater... Nicholas became the Mister Fix-It of western sainthood. Add a propensity for gift-giving, and a feastday during Advent, and what do you get...? Santa Claus. The ideal Christmas lecture! 

We are pleased to welcome back Janet Robson to give us this talk. Janet is an independent art historian with a BA in History from UCL (1980), an MA in Early Sienese Painting and a PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art (1997 & 2001). She has over a decade of lecturing and teaching experience, including summer schools and public programmes, for the Courtauld, Birkbeck (University of London) and Christie's Education, as well as private study groups. She has published extensively on thirteenth and fourteenth-century Italian art as well as numerous book chapters, essays and articles in journals including the Burlington Magazine, Apollo and Art Bulletin. She has travelled and studied extensively in Italy, having held research fellowships at the British School at Rome and at Villa I Tatti (Harvard University) in Florence, and now divides her time between Assisi and London.

Our lecturer, Professor Marie Conte-Helm is an established Arts Society lecturer with a BA in History of Art and an MA in Asian Art. She is currently Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, a Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, a Member of the Board of Governors for the University for the Creative Arts and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011 and previously held senior academic positions at various UK universities. Professor Conte-Helm was also awarded an OBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to UK-Japan educational and cultural relations. She is widely published and has lectured throughout the UK and abroad, including on cruises. 

In her lecture, Marie will invite you to explore Chinese landscape painting through the ages, showing how this important tradition has developed and evolved.

While the title, ‘Travellers Among Mountains and Streams’, is based on that of an 11th century work by the great Northern Song master, Fan Kuan, its key elements, mountains and water, or ‘shan sui’, represent the essence of all Chinese landscape painting.

By introducing a range of examples from different periods, this lecture will reveal ways of ‘reading’ Chinese landscape painting and understanding the differences in content, style and philosophical inspiration that have contributed to the uniqueness of this artistic genre.

Using ink and brush and a variety of techniques and formats, the artist’s response to the natural landscape and to man’s place within it, has been said to evoke ‘landscapes of the mind’.

Our lecturer, Anne Anderson, will tell us about how Lalique created stunning pieces of jewellery from gold, horn, glass and enamel, preferring opals and aquamarines to flashy diamonds. His jewels were about design and craftsmanship rather than vulgar ostentation.

Whilst he is best known for his Art Deco glass of the inter-war years, his career began in the early 1890s as the designer of the finest Art Nouveau jewellery. Patronised by Sarah Bernhardt,  his fame spread, but his style was copied and debased until Lalique felt that he had exhausted the potential of jewellery. At that very moment, around 1907, the perfumer Coty asked Lalique to design some labels for his scent bottles but Lalique went one better and designed a new stopper- he had created the first customised perfume bottle. The public loved the idea and a craze began. Soon Lalique was designing for Worth and other famous perfumers. After the war Lalique extended production into decorative vases, tableware, lamps and even architectural glass. All his glass was press moulded but of the highest quality. He survived the Depression with car mascots and paperweights. Lalique died in 1945 but his company is still going and his glass regarded as some of the finest ever created. 

Our lecturer, Anne, graduated in Art History and Archaeology from Leicester University in 1978 and worked as an archaeologist for 8 years, being elected to the Society of Antiquaries in 1997. Between 1993 and 2007 she was the senior lecturer on the Fine Arts Valuation degree courses at Southampton Solent University, specialising in the Aesthetic Movement, Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau and Modernism. She is currently Hon. Research Fellow at Exeter University; a Fletcher Jones Fellow of the Huntington Library, CA; a fellow of the Henry Francis Du Pont Winterthur Museum and Library; Cumming Ceramic Research Foundation Fellow (2007 and 2010) and consultant for Lord Frederic Leighton's Studio-House, Kensington. Her 2008 exhibition Ancient Landscapes, Pastoral Visions Samuel Palmer to the Ruralists attracted some 47,000 visitors. She has published books on Roman pottery, Art Deco teapots and Edward Burne-Jones. A NADFAS lecturer since 1993, Anne toured Australia in 2000, 2006, 2009 and has lectured on cruises. Her television credits include BBC's Flog It! Anne is also a tutor at the V&A on the Chardin to Cézanne year course.

In 1955 Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson won the 1000 mile open-road endurance race round Italy with a staggering average speed of 98.53 mph which didn’t allow them any time for pit stops or culture. In 2014 Libby, driving an iconic red Alfa Romeo, followed the route in more leisurely fashion.

In this multi-media lecture combining photographs, film, songs, and quotations from writers and poets Libby will give us a kaleidoscopic view of the cars and characters involved in the race from its inception in 1927 together with numerous detours to sample music, architecture and art. 

So do come along and join in this light-hearted, end-of-season tour around some of the iconic hill towns and villages of Italy; beautiful Soave, Palladian Vicenza, Henriques’ sculptures at Peralta, Giotto murals in Padua......

Libby Horner is a freelance art historian, curator, film producer, lecturer and writer. She has a PhD in Victorian Art & Architecture and has also worked as a graphic designer in the Middle East and Hong Kong. 

From the late seventeenth century to the modern period, this lecture looks at the development of the sport of horseracing in England through its associated cultural material. Using the wealth of paintings, archive material and decorative art objects associated with and depicting the ‘Sport of Kings’, the lecture will take us from the earliest origins of the sport to the present day, with a focus on our local racecourses - Epsom and Sandown.

Christopher is the Director of the National Horseracing Museum, Newmarket. He was previously Senior Curator & Assistant Keeper of Art (Decorative Art) at Norwich Castle Museum, and curated the exhibition 'George Wickes of Bury St Edmunds, Royal Goldsmith'. He also catalogued the silver in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Speaker's Residence at The House of Commons.

Our lecturer, Diana Lloyd, is a freelance lecturer in ceramic, glass and the history of interior decoration in Europe, North and South America. She lectures at the Inchbald School of Design, the Interior Design School and for American University Groups, NT and Antiques Societies and Christie's Education. Guides groups through museum collections and country houses. She collects ceramics and glass, and has a Diploma with Distinction in the Fine and Decorative Arts, Inchbald School of Design.

Her new lecture to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death is on the late Georgian interiors of her Heroines. The formal drawing rooms at Mansfield Park, Barton Park, Rosings and Northanger Abbey will be compared with the numerous lesser Georgian drawing rooms in the country, London and Bath. The design of the table with the newspapers, the chairs by the fire and the sofa which can seat three, as well as the mantelpiece on which the Heroes lean will be imagined. The new dining room created by the Coles, and the china and glass of 1814 will be contrasted with the Breakfast China of Norland park and Northanger Abbey coming from Staffordshire, as well as the new designs seen in London by General Tilney – in 1798 or when Northanger Abbey was revised in 1816. The possible wallpaper in Catherine’s bedroom at Northanger Abbey, the likely paper that Darcy would have chosen for his sister’s sitting room at Pemberley for the light, clearly Hepplewhite furniture that is mentioned, and Elinor’s choice for the parsonage on her marriage to Edward Ferrars. 

Our lecturer Frank Woodgate is a Lecturer and Guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and for Tate on cruises. He is also a lecturer at Dulwich Picture Gallery and scriptwriter for the Living Paintings Trust.

Frank will tell us about Sargent, the great society portraitist of the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. But his art was extremely varied and the breadth of his work can still surprise people. As well as his wonderful portraits, the lecture includes examples of his landscape paintings, inspired by the Impressionists, his work as an official War Artist in Word War I and his extremely beautiful and delicate watercolours.

In today’s society we are used to wearing costume jewellery and buying stones that have been enhanced in some way to meet consumer demand. But how did all this begin and when, if at all, did it become an acceptable practise? From counterfeit balas rubies found in the Cheapside Hoard to the foiling of precious gemstones and from the introduction of elegant paste in the C18th to the production of the cultured pearl by Mikimoto (referred to at the time as ‘fake pearls’ by natural pearl dealers), this lecture will take you on an exciting journey of the intriguing behaviour of gemstone dealers and jewellers across Europe since 1500 in their quest to deceive!

Susan Rumfitt, our lecturer, is an independent jewellery specialist based at her Gallery in the heart of Harrogate and one of the team of specialists on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow. Susan spent the early part of her career working for Christie’s auctioneers and then moved to Phillip’s in London where she ran one of their jewellery departments.

Although based in Harrogate, Susan travels extensively for her business which involves the valuation, selling and acquisition of jewellery on behalf of clients. Susan lectures for a large number of organisations including, Goldsmith's Hall and the "Friends of the Victoria and Albert Museum", as well as holding her own jewellery courses in Harrogate and throughout the UK. Susan also writes for Homes and Antiques and Antique Collecting magazines.

This lecture has been chosen as a follow up to our September visit to the Houses of Parliament, and it also provides a link to our forthcoming visit to Highclere in July, given that Charles Barry was the architect for both!

Our lecturer, Caroline Shenton, will tell us about the design and construction of The Houses of Parliament by Charles Barry, and how it was nearly never built at all! 

Battling the interference of MPs and royalty, coaxing and soothing the genius of his partner Pugin, fending off the mad schemes of a host of crackpot inventors and busybodies, and coming in three times over budget and twenty-four years behind schedule, Charles Barry created one of the most famous and staggering buildings in the world, as it rises serenely from the Thames at Westminster on a site which has been the centre of power and government in England from the earliest times. It is a masterpiece of Victorian architecture and a spectacular feat of civil engineering: a landmark which is today the essence of Britishness. 

The practical challenges, even by the standards of Victorian invention, were immense. Following the disastrous fire of 1834, the new building was required to cover eight acres of unstable gravel beds. Its river frontage, a quarter of a mile long, was to be constructed in the treacherous currents of the Thames. Its towers were so gigantic they required feats of engineering and building technology never seen before, in order to construct them on the cramped site. And the interior design - stained glass, metalwork, encaustic tiling and wall coverings - needed ancient craft techniques not used since the middle ages to be revived. 

Our lecturer, Caroline, is an archivist, historian and author. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives at Westminster and a senior archivist at The National Archives at Kew. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Historical Society and has appeared on national TV and radio and reviews books for The Spectator. Her first popular history book, The Day Parliament Burned Down, won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013.

Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael are household names today but few have ever heard of Lavinia Fontana or Sofinisba Anguissola, who was highly admired by arguably the greatest artist of the Renaissance, Michelangelo himself. How were these ladies able to make a living in the essentially male-dominated world of art, and why have they fallen into obscurity today? How were women depicted in paintings and sculptures of the period and what does this tell us about their place in society? And how independent were women when it came to commissioning works of art? This lecture will unravel these questions and examine the intriguing role of women in art from 1400-1600. 

Our lecturer, Sian Walters, studied at Cambridge University, and has lectured at the National Gallery and Surrey University. She specialises in 15th and 16th century Italian painting, Spanish art & architecture, and the relationship between dance and art. As well as being a NADFAS lecturer, Sian teaches private courses, and organises lectures, study days and art holidays abroad. She has also lived in France and in Italy, where she worked at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice.

This lecture looks at  Dickens's own playbill for a show where he called himself the Unparalleled Necromancer; in this he parodied, in a highly amusing manner, the playbills of contemporary performers.  

This talk includes some actual Dickensian conjuring tricks which Dickens is known to have done. So, with Ian's background as a professional magician, his talk is certain to be extremely entertaining as well as informative. And hopefully this will help to get us into the spirit of the fun of Christmas, and help make our Christmas lunch (which follows after the lecture) a festive time.

Our lecturer, Chloë Sayer, is a freelance specialist in the art and culture of Latin America. A Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, she has lectured in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Mexico and New Zealand. She also travels on Central American cruises as the NADFAS lecturer for Swan Hellenic. 

Chloë has also made ethnographic collections for the British Museum. She has worked on a number of television documentaries for Channel 4 and the BBC, and has curated several exhibitions of Mexican folk art. 

The ancient goldsmiths of Peru and Colombia produced some of the most spectacular treasures of South America. Adept at casting and hammering, they transformed this sacred metal into elaborate pendants and breastplates, ear-ornaments, musical instruments, flasks, human figures, funerary masks, and lifelike representations of birds and animals. Colour tones went from pale yellow to deepest red. These ritual objects were often destined for temples, burial sites, and places of offering. For most societies in South America, gold had a spiritual importance: its brilliance evoked the Sun — the golden disk that nourished the Earth.

Europeans, by contrast, saw gold as a commodity — the ultimate sign of wealth. After 1492, the search for precious metals in the Americas prompted colonial expansion by major powers. Gold was the magnet that lured Spanish conquistadors deep into the heart of Peru and Colombia. The Spanish Conquest would transform the lives of the inhabitants for ever. The dream of El Dorado led many Europeans to risk their lives searching for 'the Golden One', initially thought to be a lost city of gold. Later tales referred to a person rather than a place: a king who each day covered his naked body with powdered gold and traversed a lake on a golden raft. The legend of El Dorado kept European explorers fascinated for over two centuries.

Most of the golden treasures that the Spaniards found were melted down for bullion. Those that survive are works of sacred art — the technically sophisticated creations of once-great cultures. 

The Flying Scotsman, Golden Arrows, Belles and Pullmans; no wonder Betjeman still stands in awe at St Pancras. Covering the Golden Age of British Railways, the era of the Big Four 1923 – 1947, this lecture celebrates the most romantic period of our British travel history. You’ll see how the best travel posters connect with your heart and your mind, and how they have closely reflected the evolution of British holidays.

Mr Punch – the most famous puppet character of all time. Appearing in England in 1662, Punch is descended from the Italian Clown Pulcinella of the 15th Century Commedia Del’Arte tradition. His comic irreverence gave “Punch” magazine its title. This lecture will explore how his anarchic vitality has inspired opera, ballet and punk rock, as well as how his enduring popularity has seen his likeness on goods ranging from Victorian silverware to computer video games. Even today 'This Lord of Misrule' uses his slapstick to dispense with oppressive authority - be it politicians, political correctness or the devil - while proclaiming his notorious refrain: "That’s the way to do it!"

The Mediterranean has charmed generations with its sun, colours and ever-changing light. This lecture will explore how it has inspired artists and been a crucible for ideas, and that, as Empires have come and gone over the centuries, all have been the richer for the interchange of discoveries, philosophies and art .

Three Great Families and their Gardens is the story of three very different, but hugely successful families, the Sackville-Wests, the Astors and the Rothschilds. The Sackville Wests have been part of the establishment since the Conqueror and the other two families are wealthy immigrants who came to England in the l9th century. The talk traces the history of the families, discusses their contribution to life in England and celebrates the splendid gardens that they have created.

The operas of Gilbert & Sullivan are rich in contemporary satire and witty personal allusions. The lecture tells how each of the 14 operas, on which the partners collaborated, drew inspiration from the world in which they lived.  As a result, celebrities, politicians, social mores, manners, artistic taste, the class system – even Queen Victoria’s red drawing room at Windsor Castle – are poked fun at.

The lecture relates how the then first Lord of the Admiralty, WH Smith, became the model for Sir Joseph Porter KCB in HMS Pinafore, how Oscar Wilde inspired Bunthorne – the fleshly poet – in Patience, and how Gilbert himself was the model for the Judge, in Trial By Jury.  The lecture is illustrated with live arias accompanied on the piano.

Constable’s famous ‘six-footers’ include some of his most well-loved paintings: The White Horse (1819), The Haywain (1821), The Leaping Horse (1825) and Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1831). Their compositions were derived from small pencil and oil studies and for each Constable painted a full-size sketch. These ‘six-foot’ sketches were unique and extraordinary creations for the early 19th century and were unseen by all but his closest friends during his lifetime. Based on extensive technical research for a detailed catalogue essay for the ‘Constable: The Great Landscapes’ exhibition, at Tate Britain in 2006, this lecture discusses Constable’s diverse painting methods and brings to life his dynamic personality and artistic temperament, revealing a ‘Jackson Pollock of the 1830s’. It is illustrated with Sarah’s own highly detailed colour slides taken during studio examinations of the paintings in preparation for the Tate exhibition.

You will never look at these ‘chocolate box’ pictures in the same way again!

This lecture will be a feast for the eyes and the tastebuds and an inspiration for your cooking- and looking. It will feature the art, anecdotes and recipes of artists who loved their food. We will discuss Toulouse Lautrec, famous in his day for his truly fabulous meals and infamous cookbook, Renoir who introduced Paris to the pleasures of Provencal peasant cooking as well as Monet, Cezanne, Picasso and many others.

We are bombarded by photographs every day, in newspapers, magazines and on television. Most of us use a camera, with varying results. Photography is therefore a very familiar subject. So could we? -- should we? -- accept that the very best photographs can be regarded as Fine Art? And what is it that we mean by Fine Art in the first place?

These questions are asked, and answered, in a lecture which argues that photography can equal, not to say exceed, more traditional disciplines in the key genres of portaiture, landscape and still life. Photography, moreover, has carved its own area of excellence in depicting the human condition.

All these arguments are illustrated and discussed with reference to the work of some of the acknowledged masters of photography, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Fay Godwin, Bill Brandt, Ansel Adams and Wolfgang Tillmans.

At this our Christmas lecture, James Russell will take us to the secret world of the illustrated book, focusing mainly on popular titles such as Alice in Wonderland and Gilbert White's Selborne - showing the diverse ways in which artists have responded to the text. By their very nature, book illustrations tend to be hidden, and the work of even well-known artists is rarely seen. We will look at wood engravings, line drawings, pochoir illustrations and lithographs by a diverse range of artists, including John Tenniel and EH Shepard, Barnett Freedman and Eric Ravilious, Kathleen Hale and Quentin Blake. A visual and literary treat!

In this lecture Juliet Heselwood will tell us about three artists of the First World War: - Lady Elizabeth Butler who created fine paintings of wars during the Victorian era, but her work was soon to be seen out of date - Paul Nash, however, having fought in the trenches, wanted to bring home the 'bitter truth' of warfare. He painted the grim reality of the battlefield - similarly, the German soldier Otto Dix who was traumatised by his own experiences of warfare also brought home the reality of war through his ironic paintings of Germany after defeat.

The century between 1250 and 1350 was a watershed in Italian art, when the Middle Ages became the Renaissance, and in her lecture, Dr. Janet Robson will explain how this exciting transformation came about.

As we travel with her from Rome and Assisi to Padua, Florence and Siena, we will enjoy looking at some of the greatest paintings and sculptures ever created in Italy.