Dame Tracey Emin is one of the most important contemporary artists of her generation. She was catapulted into the public eye in the 1990s with iconic works like her Turner Prize nominated My Bed, which sparked fierce critical and public debate, challenging what art could be. Emin’s highly confessional and deeply personal work epitomised an historic moment in British culture and global art history. Through painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation, Emin continues to challenge boundaries using the female body - her body - as a powerful tool to explore passion, pain, and healing. Dame Tracey Emin-a radical national treasure.

NOTE: Tate Modern will hold a major retrospective of Emin's work (Feb-August 2026)

Cindy Polemis is an art historian, independent lecturer and art guide. She has a BA in Modern History from Oxford University and as a mature student she went back to university to study first for a BA and then for a Masters in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London University. Before that she spent many years as a radio producer and presenter for the BBC World Service working in news and current affairs. Since 2016 Cindy has worked as  a lecturer and an official art guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has also been a trustee at the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum. Cindy has accumulated a wide range of art historical knowledge ranging from 18th European and British art to the contemporary international art scene. She has been an official guide for  Frieze Masters art fair in London. She is particularly keen to draw parallels with art and social history and her lectures are accessible and engaging, drawing out the stories of art and artists which are steeped in human emotions and experiences which we all share.

David Hockney has become a ‘national treasure’. Although a fine draughtsman, he first came to fame in the early 1960s for his graffiti-like paintings. The late 1960s and early ’70s saw him painting in a number of different styles, from the precise naturalism of Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy to extremely unnaturalistic works paying homage to his great hero, Pablo Picasso. With all his media and style changes, Hockney continues to delight and enchant people from all walks of life.  

Frank Woodgate

Lecturer and Guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, for the Art Fund, the National Trust, U3A and other organisations, including on Zoom. Lectured for Dulwich Picture Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester and on cruises on behalf of Tate. Previously script-writer for The Living Paintings Trust (art for the visually-impaired).

For over a century, W. Heath Robinson, whom the novelist, Philip Pullman called ‘the immortal contraptioneer’, has been famous for drawing rickety, bizarrely complicated devices that carry out the simplest of tasks like potato peeling, wart removal or pancake making. He became so famous for them that in 1933, he was the obvious person to illustrate Norman Hunter’s Professor Branestawm books and, in 1943, Bletchley Park named one of their code-breaking machines after him.  Much later still, some of the contraptions in Wallace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers are based on a scale model of a gadget filled house that he made for the Ideal Home Show in 1934.

Barry Venning

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. 

AGM at 10 am followed by the lecture at 11 am, NOTICES at 10.50 am 

The spectacular galleries showcasing the V&A’s outstanding collection of renaissance art opened to critical acclaim in December 2009. Paula Nuttall, Director of the V&A Medieval and Renaissance Year Course from 2010-2023 and with thirty years' lecturing experience at the Museum, looks at the challenges facing the curators of this ambitious project, and introduces some of the many treasures on display, including monumental statues from Italian gardens, an entire Florentine chapel, sculptures by Donatello, a wax model by Michelangelo, stained glass windows from Bruges, Italian marriage-chests, the Medici’s private study, and the only house-front to survive the Great Fire of London.

Paula Nuttal
Specialist in Renaissance art, both Italian and northern European, on which she has published widely, notably From Flanders to Florence: the Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500 (Yale, 2004). Has collaborated on major exhibitions including Jan van Eyck: an Optical Revolution (Ghent, 2020).  Before retiring in 2023 Paula was Director of the V&A Medieval and Renaissance Year Course, and has taught at – among others – the Courtauld Institute and the British Institute of Florence.  She now focuses on the Arts Society, her own online courses, and research.

Jazz is one of music’s most important genres: a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free-wheeling creativity, close-knit ensembles and imaginative improvisation. Drawing on his experience both as musicologist and gigging musician, Sandy can shed light on jazz from the inside. His talk covers the early years of jazz up to the Second World War, and touches on the disparate influences which lay behind the emergence of jazz. Musical illustrations range from the blues, ragtime and the very first jazz recordings through to classics by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and the dawn of the Swing Era.

Sandy Burnett
Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. Combining engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise, he devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, is a highly sought after double bassist on the London jazz scene, and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season.

Mario Testino and David Bailey may be household names that spring to mind when we think of the great fashion and portrait photographers of the 20th century. But where does Jorge Lewinski’s reputation lie amongst these significant individuals? Have you heard of him? 

Pamela Campbell-Johnson

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.

Also conducted numerous guided tours, residential trips and focused gallery talks on individual works of art. Specialises in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art - with a particular love for the 1920s and 1930s. A permanent career at Royal Academy of Arts for 12 years.

Work experience also undertaken at Bonhams, Art Loss Register and National Trust. 

Now a freelance art consultant and lecturer. Recently curated a collection for the Lansdowne Club.

Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun was an eighteenth century artist, painting the aristocracy of France during the Revolution and in the shadow of the Guillotine. She created portraits for the nobility of Europe and even travelled to England. She also painted over twenty-five self-portraits throughout her life, and wrote her memoirs. I will focus on three aspects of Elisabeth’s life – Mother, Heroine and Artist – illustrating her story with her art and her own words. The search for Elisabeth will take us to France, Italy and England during the exhilarating and dangerous time of the French Revolution.

Alison Barker

Dr Alison Barker taught History and Art History at further and higher education for eighteen years before her current role as a Frontline Support Assistant at the University of Essex, Albert Sloman Library. She speaks widely to diverse groups on many historical and art historical topics, and has led guided tours at the British Museum and the National Gallery. Alison wrote her PhD thesis on the depiction of Saint George in art and has published work on his image in both England and Italy. Her forthcoming book, The Dissemination of Saint George in Early Modern Art will be published by Routledge in 2025.

This is one of the quirkiest lectures you will ever hear. There is a universal delight in being deceived and in this lecture Bertie Pearce takes his audience on a whistle stop tour of art which fools, surprises and amuses the viewer. Beginning and ending with the Belgian surrealist, René Magritte, it encompasses Trompe L’eoil, Banksy, Bridget Riley, Arcimboldo and Escher to name a few. Hold on to your seats and get ready to be visually fried

Bertie Pearce

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

Possibly the greatest figure painter of the second half of the 20th century, Lucian Freud, also led an extraordinary life, from his family’s escape from the Hitler regime in the 1930’s to his colourful and combative life in London. This talk will look at his unforgettable paintings (many of which have a penetrative scrutiny that is almost the visual equivalent of his grandfather Sigmund’s analysis of patients) as well as his relations with his models and fellow artists.

Biography:

Lecturer and Guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Ran an MA course in Heritage Interpretation at St Mary's University College. Has lectured freelance to numerous art societies, to the National Trust and the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery in Venice. Lectures on art for cruises. In 2012, he wrote the new guidebook to the newly opened Strawberry Hill.

This lecture charts the rise of the precocious youth that was Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg in the Holy Roman Empire on 21st May 1471. It will explore his early life and works, and also the long lasting influence that Dürer had on the Italian Renaissance, not mention the influence that the Italian Renaissance had on Dürer. The years following the early Renaissance in Europe opened up a world of cultural, artistic and intellectual exchange for the gifted and the curious.

Biography:

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

When Picasso died in April 1973, he was by some way the most famous artist in the world, but one whose reputation was severly contested. His 'Late Period' works, which were exhibited in Avignon, just after his death, were dismissed by some critics as the feeble works of an old man. As it turned out, they were among his most influential works, and are still admired and copied by younger artists. This lecture takes an overview of Picasso's life and work, and looks at his many different legacies, and asks, who is Picasso, fifty years (and counting) after his death? 

Biography

Dr John-Paul Stonard is an art historian and writer, whose 2021 book Creation. Art Since the Beginning was nominated a Sunday Times Art Book of the Year, and described as a ‘worthy and richly-illustrated successor’ to E.H. Gombrich’s The Story of Art. Following training as a painter, Stonard studied art history at the Courtauld Institute, where he went on to work as a part-time lecturer. He has also worked as an editor at The Burlington Magazine, and as a Senior Fellow at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. He has curated exhibitions, including Kenneth Clark: Looking for Civilisation (Tate Britain, 2015), and written books including Creation. Art Since the Beginning (Bloomsbury 2021), Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now (Penguin, 2021), and (as editor) The Books that Shaped Art History (Thames & Hudson 2013). He is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books. 

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was one of the great figures of the late nineteenth century: a poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, wit and subversive thinker. He lived a life crowded with incident, spanning great success and humiliating failure. This talk charts a way through his life and achievement by examining, and contextualizing, half a dozen of his celebrated epigrams, from ‘Every day I find it harder and harder to live up to my blue china’ to ‘I am fighting a battle to the death with my wallpaper: one of us will have to go.’ 

Biography:

Matthew Sturgis is the author of acclaimed biographies of three of the great cultural figures of the late nineteenth century: Oscar Wilde, Walter Sickert and Aubrey Beardsley. (His biography of Oscar Wilde was shortlisted for the 2019 Wolfson History Prize.) He has also written a history of the English Decadence of the 1890s. A.N. Wilson - writing in the Times Literary Supplement - described him as ’the greatest chronicler of the 1890s we have ever had.’ His historical and cultural interests also led him to write a book - When In Rome - chronicling the history of how Rome has been visited, and the artworks tourists have admire there, over the millennia - from Classical and Medieval times, via the Renaissance and the Grand Tour, to our own era.  

In the early 1860s Japanese prints started to pour into Europe; in Paris young radical painters, seeking fresh pictorial ideas appropriate to modern subjects, collected them (they were very cheap).  These prints by Japanese artists such as Hiroshige, Hokusai, Utamaro and Kunisada became hugely influential on the direction painting was to take. We focus on the works of Manet and Van Gogh, two major artists of the latter half of the 19th century, and look at the way Japanese prints had a powerful impact on ideas about composition, space, colour, form and expression of line.  

Biography:

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

The 19th century saw a growing number of independent career women. In the art world, more and more women became professional artists and a number of them were at the forefront of artistic innovation. Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was one of them. From her first Impressionist paintings in the 1860s and 1870s to her bold late works, she worked with a passion and dedication that used to be socially accepted only when displayed by men. She continuously pushed herself and adopted a bold style yet remaining attached to domestic subject matters and landscapes. We will come back on her origins and training, her relation with Edouard and Eugène Manet, as well as her place in the Impressionist group and on the art scene. Her style and painting technique will also be considered.

Biography:

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

This lecture gets up close and personal with the dynamic east London street art scene.  You’ll see art on the walls, the sides of buildings and sidewalks…..  In this lecture we will look at work by Banksy, quite possibly the most famous living street artist in the world, as well as street art by Ben Eine whose piece “Twenty First Century City” was recently presented by Prime Minister David Cameron to Barrack Obama. We will also see work by Shepherd Fairey the most celebrated street artist working in the US today, known around the world for his Obey and Hope campaigns.   You will discover how the huge growth and popularity of Street Art is reflected in the astonishing transformation of Spitalfields and Shoreditch from a once seedy and deprived area into one of the most vibrant, most fashionable, most happening neighbourhoods in London.

Biography:

I qualified as a London blue badge tourist guide in 2011, graduating at the top of my class. Since qualifying as a guide I have specialised in the graffiti and street art of East London. Prior to becoming a London blue badge, I was a tour manager for 15 years, travelling extensively, all over the world.   I can organise and arrange lecture facilities in central London. I can also combine a lecture with a walk of street art and graffiti in the East End and I can also organise a practical spray session, giving your group an opportunity to have a go at creating their own works.

At the beginning of the 20th century, artists were pushing boundaries in every direction. For some, the great achievement was abstraction. Egon Schiele was at the opposite end of the scale. His modernity was associated with the eroticism of his subject matter, which was unprecedented. But he wasn’t a one-off. Working in Freud’s Vienna, he was merely giving form to the city’s unique version of modernity, which has changed the world we live in.

Andrew Spira studied at the Courtauld Institute and Kings College, London.

For several years, he worked at the Temple Gallery, London (specialists in Byzantine, Russian and Greek icons) and as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum where he worked on the British Galleries and for the Silver, Metalwork and Jewellery Department.

Subsequently he was Programme Director at Christie’s Education for 14 years. Besides lecturing extensively on a wide range of subjects, he has taken numerous groups (including ADFAS and Arts Society groups) on cultural visits to Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Romania, Crete, Turkey, Tunisia and all over Europe.

His book The Avant-Garde Icon, on the relationship between Russian icons and Russian Avant-Garde art, was published in 2008. His two books on the relationship between art and personal identity, from the Middle Ages to the present day, were published in July 2020. A further book on the Russian artist Kasimir Malevich's pioneering painting 'Black Square', of 1915, was published in 2022.

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 possession of the son 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. She set up the Central Registry on Looted Cultural Property and served as a member of the Working Group for the Holocaust Era Assets Conference in Prague. 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. Her publications include articles for The Art Newspaper, The Times Literary Supplement and Art Quarterly. She is a contributor to the book Insiders/Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British Visual Culture.

Paul Cézanne said he would astonish Paris with an apple, and he did just that. His still lifes, landscapes, portraits and nudes rewrote the rulebook on composition and form and revolutionised the way we see and the way we look, creating a new visual language which changed art forever.

Cindy Polemis

Cindy Polemis is an art historian, independent lecturer and art guide. She has a BA in Modern History from Oxford University and as a mature student she went back to university to study first for a BA and then for a Masters in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London University. Before that she spent many years as a radio producer and presenter for the BBC World Service working in news and current affairs. Since 2016 Cindy has worked as an official art guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has also been a trustee at the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum. Cindy has accumulated a wide range of art historical knowledge ranging from 18th European and British art to the contemporary international art scene. She has been an official guide for both Frieze Masters and Frieze Art Fairs in London. She is particularly keen to draw parallels with art and social history and her lectures are accessible and engaging, drawing out the stories of art and artists which are steeped in human emotions and experiences which we all share.

A larger than life character, Augustus John was the archetypal bohemian artist. Wild, promiscuous and an early new age traveller he became the top portrait painter of his generation. Whilst still a student at the Slade, Augustus John suffered a severe accident when he hit his head on a rock diving into the sea. This seemed to bring about a radical change of character and he became known for his mood swings, womanizing and artistic talent. An early encounter with Irish tinkers led to a life long fascination with Romany culture and way of life. In 1903 John fell hopelessly in love with Dorothy McNeill, an obsession that was to last sixty years and as he was already married, a ménage à trois was formed. This lecture tells the fascinating story of John’s unusual lifestyle and his loves that made him the artist he was.  

Jennifer Toynbee-Holmes

Jennifer Toynbee-Holmes is an experienced guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern and lectures at various art societies and institutions. She has a special interest in British and European art of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th century. Having gained an MA in film and television practice, Jennifer had a long-standing career spanning twenty years as a television producer/director making documentaries and factual programmes for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. She was also a visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths College and Birkbeck, University of London and a senior lecturer at Southampton Solent University in the Faculty of Media, Arts and Society.

Like its name, the Roaring Twenties was a loud and boisterous decade, marked by novelty, modernity and huge social, technological, and economic change. Following the dark days of the Great War, it spawned a generation of wealthy and privileged Bright Young Things who were determined to shock and who broke with the conventions of the past to pursue a life of hedonism and promiscuity, fuelled by an endless round of champagne, cocaine, parties and jazz. Women wore fur coats and cloche hats, donned new boyish fashions and had short, cropped hair. Men drove fast cars, mixed cocktails and smoked American cigarettes. Society ate in new restaurants like The Trocadero, danced the Charleston in ballrooms like the Savoy, and drank in clubs like the Embassy and the Café de Paris. Valentino, Tallulah Bankhead, and Noel Coward emerged as major celebrities through the growing popularity of cinema and the stage. The Roaring Twenties was also a period of enormous vitality in art and design. Fashionable society was immortalised by portraitists like John Lavery and Cecil Beaton who brilliantly captured the glamour of the age. Leisure, pleasure, and the excitement of jazz were portrayed in paintings by Burra and Roberts, while the speed of the city and travel were explored in work by McKnight Kauffer and Nevinson.  Furniture and decoration showed the influence of Cubism, Vorticism, and other styles associated with the avant-garde, while events like the discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb ushered in an obsession with all things Egyptian and Oriental. This lecture aims to conjure up the energy and originality of the decade and to explore the lives of its leading figures and examples of its most innovative art and design.

Joanna Banham 

Joanna 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 is currently curating an exhibition on William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement.

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

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. 

Although Botticelli is today one of the best loved artists of the 15th century, he died in virtual obscurity. Yet his art can be seen to encapsulate the cultural, religious and indeed political life of late 15th century Florence, from the scholarly circle of Lorenzo de’Medici to the mysticism of Savonarola. To celebrate his 500th anniversary, this lecture will look again at the enigmatic works of this artist and of the life and times in which he worked. 

By Shirley Smith 

Graduated from the University of East Anglia with a first class honours degree in the History of Art, specialising in the Italian and Northern Renaissance. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a part-time lecturer for the University of East Anglia and for the Department of Continuing Education of the University of Cambridge. Has run study days and certificate courses as well as residential weekend courses. Also lectures to the Art Fund and individual clubs and societies. She is particularly keen to set the art and architecture of the period in the context of the society for which it was produced.

David Nash is a contemporary artist, working mainly in wood. His large wood sculptures are sometimes carved or burned to produce blackening, his tools include chainsaws, axes, fire blowtorch, and yet his work shows an extraordinary knowledge of and sensitivity to the wood that he works with. This lecture provides an overview of his career, including some of his most famous works, such as Wooden Boulder and Ash Dome

By Rosalind Whyte

BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. Experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. Lectures at Tate, to independent art societies and on cruises. Leads art appreciation holidays.

The designs of William Morris re-introduced craft to modern Victorian taste. Function, simplicity and beauty were aligned, and a feeling for how things were made became something to value. But the price of the new artisan furnishings was beyond the pocket of artisans.

Frank Lloyd Wright's 1901 lecture Craft and the Machine sought to reconcile craft values with new materials and industrial production, and the talk traces this idea in Wright's early work and the pioneer designs of the Vienna Secession. Their approach moved to the mainstream in the 1930s as interiors throughout society began to reflect 'The Modern', sometimes at the expense of traditional materials.

However, Scandinavian design in the 40s and 50s emphatically re-introduced natural materials to modernist taste and, you could say, solved Morris' problem of how to make craft values available to the masses: Ikea was born.

Designers and designs include Morris' Red House; Voysey's The Orchard, Joseph Hoffman and Villa Stocklet; Alvar Aalto's Villa Mariea and current Ikea design. 

Stephen Taylor

Artist and art historian: studied John Constable as a post graduate at Essex and Yale, taught art at Felsted School and went on to became Head of Painting at The Open College of the Arts and course director for the Inchbald School of Design. In 2000, Stephen turned to landscape painting with early shows at King's College Cambridge, Meisel’s New York and Vertigo in London. Now has pictures in private collections world-wide and his book Oak: One tree, three years, fifty paintings was featured in The Guardian, The New Statesman and on Oprah Winfrey’s website.

In the years after the Second World War, London was dark, grimy and gap-toothed by bomb damage. Yet alongside austerity and the frantic race to rebuild and refurbish there was also enormous creativity and a longing for beauty and glamour.

Jo Walton 

Has combined teaching and lecturing with a career in art bookselling and has been a volunteer guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Now a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society, the Art Fund, and Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery and local art societies.

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) rose to an almost mythical status as the preeminent modernist artist in early 20th century America. She did so at a time when painting was still considered not a suitable occupation for women and despite spending decades in the isolation of Northern New Mexico and away from the artistic hub of New York.

We will look at her iconic landscapes, cityscapes, skull paintings and notorious outsized flower paintings and address the question of the role of photographer, leading gallerist and O'Keeffe's husband, Alfred Stieglitz, in the shaping of her career.

Lydia Bauman

Born in Poland and studied for her BA in Fine Art at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (John Christie Scholarship and the Hatton Award), and an MA in History of Art from Courtauld Institute of Art, London, (19th-20th century art - Distinction for thesis on Matisse's Illustrations to Poetry). She has since divided her time between painting and exhibiting as well as lecturing widely to adult audiences. She has taught at London's National Gallery for more than 35 years, and intermittently at Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery as well as collections such as Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Hermitage and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the latter as a guest speaker for travel companies. Since the pandemic began in March 2020 Lydia had devised and delivered a programme of upwards of 180 online lectures to her own group Art For The Uninitiated.

2024 marks the bicentenary of the founding of the National Gallery. This lecture tells the story of the establishment of the NG collection beginning in 1824 when Lord Liverpool’s government purchased 38 paintings for £57,000 from the collection of businessman and philanthropist John Julius Angerstein. The paintings were initially displayed at 100 Pall Mall, Angerstein’s townhouse and by 1838, it was decided that a purpose built building was required, giving us the William Wilkins designed building we know and love on Trafalgar Square. During the course of the lecture we examine some of the high (and low) points of the early years of the gallery including suffragette sabotage, bombs and theft. We also take a close up look at some of the original "Angerstein 38” paintings.

Simon Whitehouse

Simon is a (recovering) actor, lecturer, presenter, Alexander Technique and voice teacher and award winning London Blue Badge guide.

He has worked as a guide lecturer in house at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Opera House, the BBC and the National Gallery guiding both public and private tours. He is on the faculty of Ithaca College and also lectures for the Blue Badge Guide training course on the performing arts and English literature.

Simon’s specialisms and passions are theatre, literature, fashion and art history but whatever the subject, Simon will weave a wonderful story from it.

When the new process of photography was formally introduced and demonstrated to a joint meeting of the Académie des Science and Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris in January 1839, the history painter Delaroche is reported to have exclaimed “from today painting is dead!”. Far from sounding the death knell of painting, photography in fact gave rise to a fascinating dialogue between both art forms. This lecture charts and outlines the birth of photography in the early nineteenth century and how its invention transformed and influenced the use, purpose and aesthetic of painting.

Aliki Braine

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

Change of Lecture 

Jackie Klein our booked Lecturer is unable to come.

Lecture 

Tirzah Garwood, wife of Eric Ravilious, was an English surrealist to whom Lewis Carroll would have felt akin. Before she was twenty-two she was making bold, intricate wood-engravings. When Eric died in 1942, Tirzah began making collages and oil paintings. Colourful, fantastical, and slightly sinister, they show toy soldiers and giant hornets, tiny houses and huge kittens.

As a student at the Grosvenor School in the 1930s, Suzanne Cooper was showing wood-engravings, and paintings, comparable to those of Christopher Wood, in West End Galleries. Then came the war. Cooper married, and laid aside her artistic ambitions. Her first solo show, 25 years after her death, at the Fry Art Gallery in 2018, was greeted by critics as ‘revelatory’, and a ‘rare and exciting event’.

It’s a joy to celebrate these two brilliant artists, especially as Suzanne Cooper was my mother-in-law.

Lucy Hughs-Hallett

 is a British cultural historian, biographer, and novelist. In November 2013, she won the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction for her biography of the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio, The Pike. The book also won the 2013 Costa Book Award (Biography) and the Duff Cooper Prize.

Lucy Hughes-Hallett has written three works of nonfiction: Cleopatra, Heroes, and The Pike: Gabriele d'Annunzio. She has also written a novel, Peculiar Ground, set partly in the 1660s and partly during the Cold War. In her collection of short stories, Fabulous, she reimagines stories from classical mythology, the Bible, and folklore, setting them in modern Britain.

Hughes-Hallett was a Vogue Talent Contest prizewinner in 1973 and subsequently worked for five years as a feature writer on the magazine. In 1978 she won the Catherine Pakenham Award for Young Female Journalists for a profile of Roald Dahl. Since then she has written on books and arts for all of the British broadsheet newspapers including The Sunday Times and The Guardian. She was television critic of the London Evening Standard for five years.

She has judged the WH Smith Award, The Duff Cooper Prize, The Encore Award, the RSL Jerwood Award, the Rathbones Prize, and the Hawthornden Prize.

In 2021 she was the Chair of the Judges of the International Booker Prize.

She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the Historical Association.[7]

Professional rivalries and bitter competition can be frustrating, even dangerous - but they’ve also fuelled some of the greatest works of art ever made. How did the epic clashes between Leonardo and Michelangelo, Ingres and Delacroix, Manet and Degas, Turner and Constable, Van Gogh and Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso, Bacon and Freud, drive forward their revolutionary art? Who were the victors - and why is it so often the best artists who’ve had the most acrimonious battles? This lecture looks again at some of the most well-loved images in the history of art and tells the stories of their creation – rich in personal detail and surprising, often shocking, anecdotes of fistfights and love battles, spilt coffee and sliced ears – to uncover how artistic tugs-of-war have played a crucial part in art’s development.

Jacky Klein

Jacky Klein is an art historian, publisher, writer and broadcaster, specialising in modern and contemporary art. After studying at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she worked as a curator at a number of leading galleries: Tate, the Barbican, the Courtauld and the Hayward. In 2008, she moved sideways into the world of art publishing, first as Commissioning Editor at Thames & Hudson, then as Executive Editor at Tate Publishing and subsequently as Director of HENI Publishing, a small independent arts publisher. She is the author herself of a bestselling book on British artist Grayson Perry (Thames & Hudson, 3rd edition 2020) and co-author of a number of other titles including Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe (Ben Uri Gallery / Alfred Cohen Art Foundation, 2020), Body of Art (Phaidon, 2015) and What is Contemporary Art?  (Thames & Hudson, 2012), a children's guide to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which has been translated into 11 languages. 

Jacky has presented and contributed to a range of television programmes for the BBC, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's arts review programme, 'Front Row'. She has appeared on Channel 5, the Travel Channel and Bloomberg TV, and has written and presented a number of online films and livestreams for Tate, Christie's and the Art Fund. She regularly delivers digital talks including Zoom lectures, ‘Instagram Live’ events and Crowdcast broadcasts which have reached live audiences of many thousands of people across the world. An experienced lecturer in museums, galleries and at literary festivals, she has taught at a number of arts institutions including University College London, Christie’s Education, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts. A public and passionate advocate for the arts, she is a Trustee of the UK Association for Art History, and is currently Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute on their Masters programme, 'Curating the Art Museum'.

What is the sublime? In this talk we’ll examine definitions of the sublime, and ideas about our relationship to the world and the transcendent, by thinkers such as Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant and the early German Romantics.

We’ll see how notions of the sublime have been manifested in art from ancient Greece to the present day, with a special focus on art from the early nineteenth century to now. Artists discussed include Caspar David Friedrich, J M W Turner, Frederic Edwin Church, Georgia O’Keeffe and abstract expressionists such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Clifford Still and Jackson Pollock.

Finally, we’ll examine how contemporary installation artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Richard Serra, James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson aim to induce sublime experiences in the viewer.

Colin Pink 

Colin Pink has a BA in Philosophy and Politics from the University of Southampton and a MA in the History of Art from Birkbeck, University of London. He specialises in the interrelationship between the history of ideas and the history of art and has lectured on aspects of modern art at a wide range of cultural organisations: Putney School of Art and Design; the Temenos Academy; APT Studios; Mascalls Gallery; the Museum of Futures, Surbiton; the Jerwood Gallery, Hastings and the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea. He also curates exhibitions and has published two books of poetry: Acrobats of Sound, 2016 and The Ventriloquist Dummy’s Lament, 2019.

This lecture provides a comprehensive insight into how highly decorative and expertly created costume and textiles were utilised at the Chinese Imperial Court to denote the rank and status of the wearer. Insignia and symbols, defined within extensive regulations, identified where the person resided in the 12 Ranks within the Imperial family or the 9 Ranks which existed for both Civil (Mandarin) and Military Officials. Particular consideration will be given to the utilisation of the Dragon as an emblem of Imperial association together with the birds and animals that signified the ranks of the civil and military officials. In addition to textiles there will be consideration of dress accessories that were utilised to determine rank. The focus will be on the Qing Dynasty but there will be contrasts with examples of Imperial costume from the earlier Ming Dynasty. The images used will be predominantly drawn from our collection. Where practical a range of textiles illustrated in the talk can be displayed

David Rosier

A Chartered Insurer by profession and a Fellow of the Assurance Medical Society, with extensive international experience as an author and lecturer in Medical Risk Assessment. He has in excess of 25 years of working and living in Asia. Whilst living in Hong Kong (1991-2004) he assembled a collection of approximately 700, predominately Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Imperial and related textiles/costume accessories. Past Committee Member of the Hong Kong Textile Society and frequent speaker on Imperial Insignia and Badges of Rank.

David can organise and lead Imperial Art Tours to China for Societies. In late 2019 the Collection of Imperial Court Costume was acquired, in its entirety, by The Shanghai Musuem, Peoples' Republic of China to be displayed in a the new annexe of the museum opening in 2021.

"The fun of being a New York painter is that landmarks are torn down so rapidly that your canvases become historic records almost before the paint on them is dry."  John Sloan

The term 'Ashcan School' was used to describe the realism and contemporary subject matter of a New York based group of artists, exhibiting as 'The Eight' in 1908. In fact, they were not a formal school or an 'ism', nor were their subjects confined to gritty realism, but they shared a fascination with zesty everyday life scenes, delighting in depicting the leisures and pleasures of the city's working inhabitants, as well as their trades and toils. 

Each had an individual style, and all rejected the stolid conservatism and rigid teaching practices of the National Academy of Design. In this lecture we will explore the work of this extraordinary group of individual artists and friends who came together to exhibit paintings, share ideas, and created vivid and stunningly beautiful images of New York city in transition at the beginning of the twentieth century. 

Although artists such as John Sloan, William Glackens, George Bellows, Robert Henri, Maurice Prendergast, and Everett Shinn (who painted the famous Oak Room murals in the Plaza hotel) are well known in the USA and abroad, their work is less well known in the UK and will be a revelation. In particular, the RA exhibition of George Bellows' work in 2013 aroused huge public interest here, and in the following year the National Gallery acquired his widely admired 'Men of the Docks'. 

We will also consider the powerful emotional range and poignant subject matter of the Ashcan group, and its influence on the younger second generation artists such as Edward Hopper and Theresa Bernstein.

Mary Alexander 

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.

Lecture Change

For the series and film Downton Abbey, Andrew was commissioned to make many jewels for the main characters and this inspired him to create a talk based on this unique period.

Jewellery and Fashion are often seen as two entirely separate and distinct fields of design, but this is very far from the case.

In his talk, Andrew guides you through the extraordinary decades and events between 1890 and 1929, where the great couturiers collaborated with the finest of jewellers to produce jewels and clothes of outstanding quality and glittering opulence.

Along with this, he illustrates the clients and patrons who commissioned the jewels and shows how they were worn with their sumptuous gowns.

Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge has been described as “one of the country’s most intimate and spellbinding museums, the collection of one man and his unerring eye; restorative,  homely yet life-changing”. This man was H.S. ‘Jim’ Ede, curator, writer, collector and friend to artists. In1957, he opened his Cambridge home to university students as “a  living place where works of art could be enjoyed… unhampered by the greater austerity of the museum or public art gallery.” His collection included works by Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska which were carefully placed alongside pieces of furniture, ceramics and natural objects. His curated home remains, by and large as he left it, characterised by its unique atmosphere,  fascinating juxtapositions and personal connections. This lecture will discuss the life of Jim Ede, his collecting, his vision for Kettles Yard and its enduring legacy.

Sarah Burles

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University before doing a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years.  

Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia. She is also a Tour Director for a travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Sarah moved her work online, offering art history courses to audiences all over the world. 

Without Carl Linnaeus, many aspects of the modern world would be poorer. Of his many innovations, the establishment of the binomial system is considered the greatest – thus, we humans are known as Homo sapiens or the common lawn daisy as Bellis perennis; this scientific lingua franca has enabled communication across the centuries and between societies. Linnaeus’s legacy was far wider than this, he was the first person in Europe to flower and fruit a banana and he developed a technique for growing seed pearls. His plant collection (herbarium or hortus siccus), library and archives are now housed at the Linnean Society of London and attest to his achievements.

Mark Spencer 

I have been fascinated by plants since I was a small boy. Originally a horticulturist, I studied horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I also studied botany and mycology at university, after which I worked as a field botanist for a regional conservation organisation. After 12 years as a senior botany curator at the Natural History Museum, London I am now a consultant forensic botanist, public speaker and occasional radio and TV presenter. I am the honorary curator of Carl Linnaeus’s herbarium at the Linnean Society of London, one of the most significant collections in the history of science. I have a strong interest in the history of botany and botanic gardens, invasive non-native species and the flora of North-West Europe.

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

Sandy Burnett

Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. Combining engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise, he devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, is a highly sought after double bassist on the London jazz scene, and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season.

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

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

In the Elizabethan age, these exquisite miniatures capturing transient expressions (‘these stolen glances’) were regarded as jewels, to be held in the hand. Only about 1-2 inches in size, they were painted on vellum mounted on playing cards; the pleasurable symbolism of the hearts suit was chosen for pictures of spouses or lovers. Miniatures provide a portrait of the age, from its monarchs and courtiers, to grand ladies, city merchants and military men. The tiny miniatures reproduce excellently on screen, showing every detail of the astonishingly elaborate costumes: even down to ruffs, which were worn ever larger, so that in the end even eating became difficult. 

Carolyn Leder is the Adviser to the Stanley Spencer Gallery and a former Trustee. Publications include a book on Spencer’s Scrapbook drawings (Stanley Spencer: The Astor Collection, 1976) and a contribution to ‘The Holy Box’ (2017). Historical Adviser to BBC and Arts Council Spencer films, she was keynote speaker in Australia at Carrick Hill’s 2016 Spencer exhibition (the largest ever held in the Antipodes). Consultant to Spencer’s writings edited by his grandson John Spencer, and to Nicola Upson’s novel Stanley and Elsie, she is also regularly consulted on Spencer by Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Apart from Spencer’s daughters, she knew his brother the artist Gilbert Spencer, the maid Elsie who features in the Scrapbook drawings, and Daphne Charlton with whom Stanley had an affair (the subject of Carolyn’s 2017 exhibition, An Artistic Affair: Stanley Spencer and Daphne Charlton). 

Lecture Notes

For many years, I have been asked by numerous societies of The Arts Society to talk about my travels and the experiences that I encountered whilst living and traveling amongst the nomadic tribes, whilst in search of their woven art.

My time spent in Iran and Afghanistan during the 1970s began to foster a passion for the wonderful woven art produced by nomads on basic ground looms. My subsequent visits were spent travelling and searching amongst nomadic tribes for these exquisite 19th century weavings, which have become harder to find and have now virtually disappeared amongst the tribes themselves.

This lecture illustrates the woven art of the nomads as they moved over the lands they have travelled for generations. The audience will have the opportunity of seeing their way of life and looking at the 19th century rugs and utilitarian weavings, similar to those which I discovered during my forays into the different tribal territories. The lecture also brings to life some of the unforgettable stories and adventures I experienced whilst looking for them. 

The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo spent most of her life in dreadful pain after a horrifying traffic accident she suffered as a teenager. This violent early trauma is clearly referenced in a good deal of her work, as is her complicated mixed-race heritage, and her radical politics. For much of her career her work was overshadowed by that of her much more famous husband, the muralist Diego Rivera, and despite several successful exhibitions in Europe and the United States, she had to put up with a good deal of dismissive and patronising criticism. However, her work was highly regarded by many, including the Surrealists, who appreciated her talent for making a strange and wonderful art out of her own suffering. After her death, the women’s movement revived interest in her career, and nowadays she is acknowledged as an extremely important figure in twentieth-century art.

Linda Smith 

Holds two first-class degrees in Art History. A broad knowledge of art historical subjects, but specialises in British Art and twentieth century art. Experienced lecturer and guide, especially at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Has lectured to a wide variety of audiences in different venues, including school and university students, and independent arts societies in the UK and overseas.

Without Carl Linnaeus, many aspects of the modern world would be poorer. Of his many innovations, the establishment of the binomial system is considered the greatest – thus, we humans are known as Homo sapiens or the common lawn daisy as Bellis perennis; this scientific lingua franca has enabled communication across the centuries and between societies. Linnaeus’s legacy was far wider than this, he was the first person in Europe to flower and fruit a banana and he developed a technique for growing seed pearls. His plant collection (herbarium or hortus siccus), library and archives are now housed at the Linnean Society of London and attest to his achievements.

Mark Spencer 

I have been fascinated by plants since I was a small boy. Originally a horticulturist, I studied horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I also studied botany and mycology at university, after which I worked as a field botanist for a regional conservation organisation. After 12 years as a senior botany curator at the Natural History Museum, London I am now a consultant forensic botanist, public speaker and occasional radio and TV presenter. I am the honorary curator of Carl Linnaeus’s herbarium at the Linnean Society of London, one of the most significant collections in the history of science. I have a strong interest in the history of botany and botanic gardens, invasive non-native species and the flora of North-West Europe.

Artists have always used jokes to make serious statements – about themselves, about the world, about the nature of art. This lecture looks at artists’ jokes through the ages, from medieval monks doodling graffiti in the margins of manuscripts to Banksy turning supermarket walls into social satire. Caravaggio put his own face on Goliath's severed head as an apology for a racy lifestyle, Michelangelo hid a self-portrait on the hide of St Bartholomew on the Sistine ceiling to express the agony of creation. When Van Gogh attacked formal art education and Salvador Dali got at Picasso, they did it in paint. Trompe l'oeil, parody, visual puns, the mustache on the Mona Lisa - all in fun, all deadly serious: artists' jokes tell you a lot once you know

Susie Harris 

A writer, editor and lecturer, specialising in 20th century culture and the arts. Has published eight books on subjects including official war art, opera, and the composer Elisabeth Lutyens. The most recent is the biography of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, published in August 2011. Lectured to a range of audiences, from the Imperial War Museum and British Museum to the Twentieth Century Society and the RSA, most recently at the Cheltenham and Bridport Literary Festivals and the Victorian Society.

Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor are amongst the most well known sculptors working in Britain today and have both 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, and the differences in style, technique and themes.

Rosalind Whyte

BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. Experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. Lectures at Tate, to independent art societies and on cruises. Leads art appreciation holidays.

Lecture Change : Jackie Klien: The Greatest Riveralies in History,  who was originally booked is sadly unable to join us - we have rebooked her for May 2023. 

Treasures of the Turf, looks at the history of horseracing. From the late seventeenth century to the modern period, this lecture looks at the development of the sport in this country 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 takes as its starting point the earliest origins of the sport including the development of Newmarket and the Jockey Club as racing’s ‘Headquarters’. 

Christopher Garibaldi 

Independent Researcher. 2010–2019 Director of Palace House, Newmarket (National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art: www.palacehousenewmarket.co.uk). 2008–2010 Co-Director of the Attingham Summer School for the Study of Historic Houses and Collections. 1998–2003 Senior Curator & Assistant Keeper of Art (Decorative Art) at Norwich Castle Museum: co-curator of Flower Power – The Meaning of Flowers in Art and Eat, Drink and Be Merry, the British at Table 1600 to 2000. 1994–1997 Catalogued the silver in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and other royal residences.

Dame Zaha Hadid died on March 31 st 2016 at age of 65. Architectural historians of the future will surely recognise her as one of the most important architects of the early 21st century. She was born in Iraq and her reputation was global, but she made Britain her home. This lecture tells the story of her career from the visionary projects of the 1980s, through the years of frustration when her designs were considered unbuildable, to the prolific crop of successful projects built all over the world in the last decade of her life.

Image : Dame Zaha Hadid in Heydar Aliyev Cultural center in Baku nov 2013

Colin Davis

Prof of Architectural Theory. Former editor Architects Journal and contrib to mags worldwide. Books: Thinking About Architecture, Key Houses of the Twentieth Century,The Prefab Home, High Tech Architecture, A New History of Modern Architecture (published by Laurence King) and monographs on work of Foster, Hopkins, Grimshaw.

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

Mark Cottle

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. Currently runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.

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

Mark Cottle

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. Currently runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.

This Lecture will be a live online ZOOM presentation - more information will be e-mailed to all members nearer the date.

As mistress of the King, Madame de Pompadour used her power, wealth and influence to promote the arts at the court of Louis XV. She sat for portraits by the leading painters of the day, Francois Boucher, Maurice Quentin de La Tour and Francois-Hubert Drouais. This lecture explores the way Pompadour used these commissions to craft her image and ensure her survival in the precarious world of 18th century court politics. These portraits chart the changing public face of this remarkable woman, from the sensuous temptress of her early years, through enlightenment intellectual in mid-career, to her final phase as faithful counsellor and companion. 

Rupert Dickens 

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

From cathedrals to churches, cottages to coastlines we are never very far from a place John Piper has painted, written about or undertaken a commission for. One of the most versatile British artists of the twentieth century - painter, designer, stained glass artist, photographer and writer on the arts - a man of many parts.

Alexandra Epps 

Official Guide and Lecturer at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Guildhall Art Gallery. Pallant House Gallery Lecturer. 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.

This Lecture will be a live online ZOOM presentation - more information will be e-mailed to all members nearer the date.

The Day Parliament Burned Down

In the early evening of 16 October 1834, to the horror of bystanders, a huge ball of fire exploded through the roof of the Houses of Parliament, creating a blaze so enormous that it could be seen by the King and Queen at Windsor and from stagecoaches on top of the South Downs. In front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses, the great conflagration destroyed Parliament's glorious old buildings and their contents. No one who witnessed the disaster would ever forget it. Based on the acclaimed book of the same name, this talk takes the audience through the gripping hour-by-hour story of the fire through contemporary depictions of the disaster by Turner, William Heath and others

Dr. Caroline Shenton

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013 and Mary Beard called it ‘microhistory at its absolute best’. Its acclaimed sequel, Mr Barry’s War, about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, was a Book of the Year in 2016 for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was described by Lucy Worsley as "a real jewel, finely wrought and beautiful". Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in 2017, has appeared at the Cheltenham, Hay and Henley literary festivals and on BBC radio and TV.

Carolyn Leder's Lecture has been postponed to Tuesday 3rd May 2022

These Stolen Glances:Elizabethan Miniatures of Nicholas Hillard & Isaac Oliver

In the Elizabethan age, these exquisite miniatures, capturing transient expressions, ‘these stolen glances’, were regarded as jewels to be held in the hand. The tiny miniatures 1 to 2 inch in size reproduce excellently on screen, showing every detail of astonishingly elaborate costumes: even down to ruffs.

Carolyn Leder

An art historian who has written widely on Stanley Spencer, including a book on his autobiographical Scrapbook drawings. A trustee of the Stanley Spencer Gallery, she has featured as a talking head on television and radio. Acted as the historical adviser to BBC television and Arts Council films on Spencer, and her work is frequently cited in the art historical press. For many years, she was Curator of the Old Speech Room Gallery, at Harrow School which has a distinguished collection of antiquities and fine art, for which she researched and published a series of catalogues. She curated over 80 exhibitions and ran a thriving arts society for the boys, taking them on over 200 visits to museums and exhibitions in London.

This Lecture will be a live online ZOOM presentation - more information will be e-mailed to all members nearer the date.

What caused American painting to take off as it did in the mid-20th century? The painter Willem de Kooning attributed its initial success to the work of his friend Jackson Pollock whom he credited with ‘breaking the ice’.  The talk looks at the career of the famous action painter and assesses how his contribution to painting, including his infamous drip technique, contributed to Abstract Expressionism becoming an artistic phenomenon worldwide.  Pollock’s path left a particularly significant legacy in terms of future developments.

Anna Moszynska

Is a London-based lecturer and writer specialising in contemporary art. During the 1990s, she oversaw the development of the first British Masters Degree in the subject, at Sotheby’s Institute. Sha has also taught at institutions including The City Lit, the Royal Academy and Tate London, as well as lecturing in cities ranging from Dubai to New York. She currently teaches at academic institutions in London and Paris and runs her own courses. Her books include Abstract Art (1990) and Sculpture Now (2013), both published by Thames & Hudson. Anna enjoys introducing art to audiences in a lively and approachable way to make modern and contemporary art both accessible and interesting.

This Lecture will be a live online ZOOM presentation - more information will be e-mailed to all members nearer the date.

Lecture synopsis 

Why is it that so many icons appear so similar, so dark, so primitive even? It takes a trained eye to reveal the fascinating language of icons, the symbolism of colour and line, the meaning of reverse perspective, elongated fingers and faces and desexualised features. Combine this with an understanding of the process of creating or 'writing' an icon and the many variations of a particular theme, and suddenly it all makes sense. Through a close look at their construction, common themes and characteristics of Russian icons in particular, this lecture will help de-mysticise these intriguing artworks and help explain why they are so central to Orthodox belief.

Brian Healey

A senior modern languages teacher in an independent grammar school for many years, I have also enjoyed a successful parallel career since the 1980s as a professional artist and interior designer. Since 2006 I have been regularly appointed to a number of prestigious ocean and river cruise lines, either as resident artist, guest lecturer on art history or as destination speaker for more than forty countries. Most recently this work has successfully extended to art guiding through important towns and museums in France, Belgium, Holland and Spain. 

This Lecture will be a live online ZOOM Presentation - Zoom Meeting Link, ID and Passcode have been emailed to members. If you have not reveived pleased contact us at info@tassoutheastsuffolk.org.uk

Cinematic images are modern art forms. In the ‘golden age’ of cinema – before the development of CGI technology – film-makers had to construct sets to represent landscapes, townscapes, and interiors. Sometimes they used paintings and photographs, sometimes they built scale models, sometimes they constructed full-size replicas. In each case, they created an art installation. Which they then captured as a celluloid image.

Drawing on new insights from the archaeology of cinema, this lecture will use the films of the renowned British director David Lean, to explore the art of cinema. How do the ‘artists’, in this case formed of large collaborative teams, choose locations, construct sets, dress actors, and, more generally, ‘imagine’ the world they seek to represent? How much is authentic, and how much preconception and prejudice? What are the influences on the way the cinema depicts the world?

Dr Neil Faulkner

Educated at King's College Cambridge and the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. Works as lecturer, writer, archaeologist and occasional broadcaster. Research Fellow, University of Bristol. Editor, Military History Monthly. Director, Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project. Director, Great Arab Revolt Project. Author of The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain, Apocalypse, Hidden Treasure, Rome: Empire of the Eagles, and The Ancient Greek Olympics: a visitor's guide. Author of Lawrence of Arabia's War. Major TV appearances include Channel 4's Time Team, BBC2's Timewatch, Channel Five's Boudica Revealed and Sky Atlantic's The British.

This Lecture will now take place on Tueday 5th April 2022

For many years, I have been asked by numerous NADFAS societies to talk about my travels and the experiences I encountered whilst living and travelling amongst the nomadic tribes, in search of their woven art. Finally, I was persuaded and it has since been very successfully received.

This lecture illustrates the woven art of the nomads as they moved over the lands they have travelled for generations. The audience will have the opportunity of seeing their way of life and looking at the 19th century rugs and utilitarian weavings, similar to those which I discovered during my forays into the different tribal territories. The lecture also brings to life some of the unforgettable stories and adventures I experienced whilst looking for them. 

Brain MacDonald

Brian has been a dealer and consultant in antique oriental rugs and carpets since 1979 after his return from Iran. He is the author of 'Tribal Rugs - Treasures of the Black Tent' which was originally published in October 1997. Brian is one of few western dealers to have lived and worked among tribal groups in remote areas of Iran and Afghanistan during the 1970s and then again, in 1990 after the Iranian Revolution. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1990 for his work among the Persian tribes. He has lectured for The Arts Society since 1986.

Surprise Lecture 

This lecture gives our Society an opportunity to welcome a newly accredited 2020 Arts Society Lecturer from the lecture presentations at the Arts Society Annual Directory Day held at Central Hall Westminster in March 2020.

As mistress of the King, Madame de Pompadour used her power, wealth and influence to promote the arts at the court of Louis XV.  She sat for portraits by the leading painters of the day, Francois Boucher, Maurice Quentin de La Tour and Francois-Hubert Drouais.  This lecture explores the way Pompadour used these commissions to craft her image and ensure her survival in the precarious world of 18th century court politics.  These portraits chart the changing public face of this remarkable woman, from the sensuous temptress of her early years, through enlightenment intellectual in mid-career, to her final phase as faithful counsellor and companion.   

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

Covid-19 - This Lecture is cancelled and has been rearranged for Tuesday 7th September 2021.

Dame Zaha Hadid died on March 31st 2016 at age of 65. Architectural historians of the future will surely recognise her as one of the most important architects of the early 21st century. She was born in Iraq and her reputation was global, but she made Britain her home. This lecture tells the story of her career from the visionary projects of the 1980s, through the years of frustration when her designs were considered unbuildable, to the prolific crop of successful projects built all over the world in the last decade of her life.

Colin Davis

Professor of Architectural Theory. Former editor Architects Journal and has contributes to magazines worldwide. Books: Thinking About Architecture, Key Houses of the Twentieth Century,The Prefab Home, High Tech Architecture, A New History of Modern Architecture and monographs on works of Foster, Hopkins, Grimshaw.

IMAGE : View on the Port House (Havenhuis) from Antwerp's historic dry dock park. The original building was designed in 1922 by Emiel Van Averbeke while the newly build 'ship' rising above it was designed by Zaha Hadid.

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

Mark Cottle

Mark 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. He currently runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.

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

Christopher De Hamel  FSA

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

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). His compositions were derived from small pencil and oil studies and for each Constable painted a full-size sketch. These sketches are extraordinary creations for the early 19th century and were unseen by all but his closest friends during his lifetime. 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 Counstable: The Great Landscapes in 2006.

Sarah Cove

Sarah Cove is an accredited painting conservator/restorer, technical art historian and lecturer with more than 35 years experience working on paintings for the heritage and private sectors. She is based in London and Falmouth and is a specialist in British portraits, 19th- 20th century British landscapes and oil sketches on paper and board. In 1986 she founded the Constable Research Project and she is now the leading authority on Constable’s materials and techniques. She has appeared in several TV programmes for the BBC, notably Constable in Love with Andrew Graham-Dixon and twice on Fake or Fortune? where she was instrumental in the discovery of three ‘lost’ Constables. Other research interests include Tudor and Jacobean Portraiture, the 19th century Newlyn and St Ives schools and early-to-mid 20th century British painting generally. She has been a lecturer for The Arts Society since 2003 and is an experienced international speaker having lectured independently at major public and gallery venues across the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand.

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.

Tony Rawlins

Tony was educated at Highgate School, starting his career in advertising in 1965 as a mail boy in J.Walter Thompson. He graduated through the training system there to become an account director and subsequently worked in a number of agencies before setting up on his own in 1985. There he handled primarily Guinness advertising in Africa and the Caribbean, where he produced many commercials and print ads for them over a period of 15 years. He remains active as a consultant in the industry, but now concentrates on more philanthropic projects - producing a film in the rural villages of Nigeria for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. More recently he has completed a sanitation project in Haiti after it was devastated by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.  

He has been a member of The Arts Society for many years. His earlier lecturing experience includes presenting to client groups, sales conferences and students of creative advertising in the UK and overseas. More recently he has been lecturing to Arts Societies in the UK and Europe.

2020 marks the 500th anniversary of Raphael's death. Raphael is often referred to as one of the three giants of the High Renaissance in Italy, along side 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 in the fields of anatomy, science and construction. Furthermore his career was short-lived as he died tragically young aged 37. Yet in this short time Raphael managed to become a leading artist at the court of Italy's most important patron, Pope Julius II, for whom he created some of the most sublime frescos of the early 16th Century. This lecture explores Rapael's extradionary rise in status.

Sian Walters

Sian studied at Cambridge University, and has lived in Fance and Italy where she worked at the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice. She is a lecturer at The National Gallery and The Wallace Collection and specialises in 15th and 16th Century Italian painting, Spanish art and architecture and the relantionship between dance and 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 hands 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.

This Lecture looks 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.

Dr Susan Owens

Dr Susan Owens is an art historian, writer and curator. She studied English literature at Oxford University and European art at the Courtauld Institute and then wrote a doctoral thesis on Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations to Oscar Wilde’s play Salome at University College London. She worked as a curator for the Royal Collection before becoming 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. She is a regular contributor to publications including the Times Literary Supplement and The World of Interiors. Now freelance, Susan lives in Suffolk. Her book The Ghost: A Cultural History, was published in 2017.

This lecture examines the complex and fascinating story of how Pantomine developed out of its Greek and Roman roots through to the religous plays of the Middle Ages and the Italian Commedia Dell'Arte. It looks at the characters of the Harlequinade, Grimaldi the 18th century clown, Music Hall and the soap stars of today. They have all contributed to the art of Pantomine and have helped to turn it into a peculiarly British institution.

Jane Tapely

Jane is currently a Special Events Organiser at the Theatre Royal Bath. She also is a frequent lecturer for The Arts Society, NT and many other fine art and theatre societies. She is a West Country Blue Badge guide, author and researcher of theatre programme notes on Hamlet, Sheridan's The Rivals and Jane Austin's Emma. She is also a theatrical landlady, home economist, consultant to various TV productions of Jane Austins adaptations, on food in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hosts and cooks period meals in her Regency house in Bath for the Jane Austin festival and other literary groups. 

This lecture gives our Society an opportunity to welcome a newly accredited 2019 Arts Society Lecturer from the lecture presentations at the Arts Society Annual Directory Day held at Central Hall Westminster.

In 1888 Gertrude Jekyll wrote a short but seminal article in The Garden in which she urged the readers to “remember that in a garden we are painting a picture”. As an accomplished watercolour artist, Miss Jekyll was familiar with the principles of using colours, but she felt that in gardens these principles “had been greatly neglected”. This talk looks at how to apply these principles in designing a border, but it also looks at the ways in which a border is different from a painting. However, it goes further than this and looks at how contemporary work of the likes of Turner, Monet, Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Hockney evolved in parallel with ideas about what a garden or border should look like. Gardens are often thought of as a place where science and art meet on equal terms. This lecture investigate this relationship.

Timothy Walker

We welcome Timothy Walker as a newly accredited Arts Society Lecturer for 2019. He is an established public lecturer having given 1,500 lectures since 1986 as part of his work as Director of the Oxford Botanical Gardens from 1988 to 2014. Since 2014 Timothy has been a college lecturer and tutor at Somerville College, Oxford. 

This Lecture will challenge our preconceptions of tattooing and celebrate its rich heritage. From John White’s remarkable 16th Century watercolours of native Americans in body paint, now held at the British Museum right up to the Edwardians where King George V and the Royal family inspired the fashion for tattooing in the late 19th Century. A different lecture giving us a historical insight into a branch of decorative art which is often viewed as controversial.

Dr Matt Lodder

Dr Matt Lodder is a lecturer in contemporary art and Director of American studies at the University of Essex. His research primarily concerns the history of Western tattooing from the 17th century to present day. He has given invited Lectures at venues including the V&A, The National Museum of Scotland and the Museum of London and published several academic papers contributing to the Royal Academy and Arts Society Magazines, History Today and the Guardian and his first book The History of Western Tattooing is in production. Matt recently curated an exhibition entitled British Tattoo Art Revealed which opened at the National Maritime Falmouth in 2018 and has subsequently travelled to venues across the country.

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 vision, will explore the aesthetics, the back-story, and the heated debates surrounding these fascinating and contraversal 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 so passionately held views both for and against their repatriation to Greece?

Stephen Kershaw

Stephen is a classics tutor for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, professor of history of art for the European Studies Program Rhosed 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. Steven has published books on Greek myths and the classical civilizations and is working on a brief guide to the Roman Empire.

King Charles I was a spectacular collector of art, reputed to have owned "the finest collection of pictures ever assembled in this county". This lecture focuses on many of his finest acquisitions. After Charles I was excuted, Oliver Cromwell sold a lot of his collection in what today might be called two huge car boot sales. Oliver's lecture explores both King Charles I's art collection and how the restored King Charles II managed to retrieve some for his father's collection and commissioned and became a collector in his own right.

Oliver Everett

Oliver was educated at Cambridge university, Tufts University UAS and the London School of Economics. Following service in the Foreign Office he became assistant secretary to the Prince of Wales 1978-80, private secretary to Diana, Princess of Wales 1981-3. He subsequesmty became libarian in the Royal Libary 1984 - 2002. Following retirement he is now libarian emeritus and lectures widely within the UK and abroad.

Image : The Duchess of Richmond - Sir Peter Liley

Sunny yellow has, paradoxically, been the most poisonous colour on the artist's palette. Its happy, golden appearance belies the perils of using and making it. Yellow is not always golden sunlight and sunflowers, it is the colour of treachery and cowardice. To Mondrian it symbolised the intellect, to Franz Marc feminity, to Kadinsky it just had to be a triangle. From costly gold to deathly orpiment, fetid Indian yellow to heavy metals, we will discover "The Peril of Yellow".

Lynne Gibson

Lynne works as a freelance lecturer in the history of art, critical and contextual studies, as well as practical drawing, painting and print making. For many years she lectured for the Universities of Sussex and Bristol, where she introduced "Understanding Art" to the Lifelong Learning Programme and residential summer schools. Lynne gives talks, lectures and guided tours to a wide range of organisations and institutions. Also when time permits, she works as a professional artist specializing in oil painting and etching.

Image : On White II - Kadinsky  

While plein-air painting came into its own with the art of the Impressionists, the tradition of making images of landscapes outside is one that can be traced back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed, Karel van Mander in 1604 encouraged artists to go to the countryside: “There we will look at many views, all of which will help us to create a landscape…” This lecture explores the historical practice of making landscape paintings out of doors from the late 16th century to Impressionism. 

 Aliki Braine

Aliki studied at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford, the Slade School of Fine Art, London and the Courtauld Institute, where she was awarded a distinction for her Masters in 17th century painting. She is a regular freelance lecturer for the National Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, Tate Galleries, Courtauld Gallery and the Wallace Collection. An Associate Lecturer for the University of the Arts, she teaches courses on the Slade School of Fine Arts Summer programme. Also regularly exhibits her photographic work internationally.

Joseph Wright of Derby's work is notable for its exploration of light, including his paintings of candle-lit subjects and his series of views of the eruption of Vesuvius. His paintings capture a period of industrialisation, scientific experimentation and discovery that had a massive impact on the history of England. This lecture explores some of his preoccupations as an artist and as a key figure in the period known as the Age of Enlightenment.

Rosalind Whyte

She has BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA from Birkbeck College. Experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. She lectures at Tate, Dulwich Picture Gallery, to independent art societies and on cruises. She leads art appreciation holidays.

Surprisingly today’s playing cards date back to 1377. Decks from 1475 still survive. The English deck is of French origin and the Company of Makers of Playing Cards was founded in 1628 to protect English makers from French importations. Cards were used as a medium of communication, propaganda or education. The 1678 Titus Oates plot is illustrated on a 52 card deck published at the time and known as The Horrid Popish Plot. Francis Barlow illustrated the cards depicting Marlborough's Victories in 1707. Modern cards follow in these old traditions with some wonderful collectors’ decks of today. 

Yasha Beresiner 

Qualified as a lawyer from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has lived in England since 1963. He has lectured extensively to antiques collector's clubs, Rotary Clubs, Women's Institutes, Masonic Societies.  He is a qualified City of London guide and a past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards. As well as various magazine articles, other publications include The City of London Masonic Guide (2006), A Collector's Guide to Paper Money, and British County Maps.

A supremely gifted and versatile German artist of the Renaissance period, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was born in the Franconian city of Nuremberg, one of the strongest artistic and commercial centers in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He was a brilliant painter, draftsman, and writer, though his first and probably greatest artistic impact was in the medium of printmaking. Dürer apprenticed with his father, who was a goldsmith, and with the local painter Michael Wolgemut, whose workshop produced woodcut illustrations for major books and publications. His watercolours also mark him as one of the first European landscape artists while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium.

Clare-Ford Wille

Honours degree in History of Art, Birkbeck College, University of London. Regular commitments include Centre for Lifelong Learning, London University, National Gallery, V&A Museum, WEA, Morley College, the City Literary Institute, the Art Fund and National Trust. Study tours abroad.

Years of working as an artist within the Criminal Justice System in England and Germany have given Angela unique insights into the destructive and costly cycle of crime, prisons and re-offending. In this thought-provoking talk she offers a deeper understanding of the minds, lives and challenges of offenders.  With extraordinary slides of art projects and prisoner’s art, she demonstrates how within the process of creating art of any discipline, there are vital opportunities for offenders to confront their crimes and develop the key life skills so essential in leading a positive and productive life.

A frequent response to this talk has been “I had no idea!” and indeed it casts light onto areas of our society where the Arts are not only visual, decorative, or commercial but absolutely vital, hugely relevant and potentially life-changing.

This talk is moving, informative and very original. Interspersed with personal accounts of humorous or slightly horrifying situations, Angela talks have kept audiences across the country engrossed. 

Angela Findlay

Angela Findlay is a professional artist, writer and freelance lecturer with a long standing interest in the role that the Arts can play in bringing about changes, on a personal level or within societies. Her long career of teaching art in prisons and Young Offender Institutions in Germany and England, followed by her role as the former Arts Coordinator of the Koestler Trust in London, gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation. She is currently advising the Ministry of Justice and presenting the case for the arts to be included in their new rehabilitation and education policies.​ Angela has a BA(Hons) in Fine Art, a Diploma in Artistic Therapy (specialising in colour) and her paintings are widely exhibited both nationally and internationally. 

Textiles provided the interiors of Elizabethan aristocratic houses with colour, glamour, texture and symbolism. Now only a fraction survives of the huge collections of textiles that once graced and invigorated Elizabethan mansions and palaces. This talk looks at the designs, techniques and uses of these textiles, as well as subject matter and the Elizabethans’ fondness for decoding hidden messages and devices. The talk is fully illustrated with a range of images including tapestries, bed hangings, cushion covers, wall hangings and table carpets, as well as references from contemporary inventories and paintings.

Gillian White

Specialises in the visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England. She formerly worked for the National Trust as Curator and Collections Manager at Hardwick Hall, about which she then wrote her PhD at Warwick University. She now teaches part-time at Leicester University, predominantly in the Centre for the Study of the Country House, and is involved with the Continuing Education Department at Oxford University, as well as freelance lecturing.

The Academie Royale de peinture et de Sculpture was founded in 1648 under Louis XIV of France, the "Sun King", and placed the visual arts under direct royal control. This lecture looks at the Academy's origins, its philosophy under court painter Charles le Brun, and its development into the most influential art institution in Europe. We then follow how the Academy reinvents itself after the Revolution, and how artists rebelled against its official proscriptions for "great art" – culminating in the Impressionists' attempts to break the monopoly of the official, state-sanctioned Salon exhibitions.

Richard Whincop
 
Richard is a professional artist who graduated in English and Art History from York University in 1986. From 1988-1994 he lectured at the adult education departments of Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities, and then went on to become a full-time figurative artist, executing large-scale public commissions, and exhibiting widely throughout the UK. He now lives and works in Chichester, West Sussex. He is currently teaching art history for the WEA in Chichester.

This Lecture gives an overview through the Centuries of the development of Byzantine Mosaics from 900AD Italy, where we see the earliest examples of the extensive use of coloured glass, the development of Christian Iconography through mosaic images, the concept of the church and its interior decoration as a microcosm of the universe. We then follow  the development to Santa Sophia Istanbul, San Marco and Torcello in Venice, finally reviewing the finest examples of 12c Byzantine art built by the Normans in Sicily, concluding with the 14c Church of the Chora in Istanbul.

Jane Angelini

Jane is a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society and other arts organisations. She runs her own art tours company, specialising in cultural visits. She speaks several foreign languages and has translated a number of works of 19th century Russian literature for Penguin Books and Oxford University Press. She has a BA in Russian Studies and an MA in Byzantine Studies.

The film and photography of Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley, and the paintings of Dr Edward Wilson and George Marston capture the wonderful world of Antarctica for the first time. Their images enthralled a whole nation with their beauty and prepared the way for today’s television natural history programmes. They are a poignant legacy because of the hardship and tragedy that haunts them.

Peter Warwick

An author, historian, high-profile event organiser and a recognised authority on Admiral Lord Nelson. Specialises in naval, maritime and polar history. Chairs The 1805 Club, which conserves the monuments of the Georgian sailing navy. Thames Alive which is re-introducing pageantry to the River Thames. In 2012 arranged the manpowered squadron of Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant and the Thames Olympic Torch Relay. A founder and Trustee of Gloriana The Queen’s Row Barge. As vice-chairman of the Official Nelson Commemorations Committee involved in the planning of The Trafalgar Festival and Sea Britain 2005. Lectures widely in the UK at schools, universities and defence establishments, overseas, and on sea voyages.

As adults we carry in our heads huge numbers of images from childhood, some of the strongest memories come from illustrations in books that we read as children. Images of “Tigger” and “Toad” or even “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” will probably remain with us forever! This Lecture examines how illustrations contribute to the development of understanding and how the interaction of image and narrative creates such powerful memories.

John Ericson

Formerly Director of Studies at Bath University responsible for the development of teachers; principle areas of research were course design and the role of pictures in education. John has taught presentation skills to his academic colleagues and has untaken extensive lecture tours of Australia 
and New Zealand.

Throughout history, mankind has been absorbed with understanding the concept of Time. We have developed all kinds of device to tell the time - using the Stars, Sundials, our Shadows, Clepsydra (water clocks), Mechanical Clocks and Watches, Burning Timers, Sand Glasses, Bells, Electronics and our fundamental Biological Clocks. But the ‘tick’ of all of these is the rhythms of the universe - the daily and yearly movement of the Sun, the monthly movement of the Moon and, more recently, by the buzz of the quartz and caesium atom. Such is our interest in the subject that craftsmen have always found commissions to create beautiful time telling things. This lecture charts how their use has risen and fallen as history, fashion and technology have progressed. 

Kevin Karney

Kevin has studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, VSO teacher in Borneo, and worked across the world as an underground engineer. Now a magistrate in Gwent. Has had a life-long interest in the history of timekeeping and cosmology, and in sundials in particular, as objects of art, craft and science. His specialist topic is the Equation of Time. Lectured on various aspects of sundials in UK and USA, including to the British Sundial and North American Sundial Societies. 

Charles Dickens was the most dramatic of writers. His characters, settings and plots all demonstrate a sense of the theatrical, as does the story of his life. From earliest childhood he was fascinated by the theatre and never forgot the shows he had seen. In his teens he very nearly became an actor. Then in the last decade of his life he performed extracts from his works in impassioned monologues in theatres across the country. This lecture explores the world of the stage and its importance in Dickens’s life and work.

Elizabeth Merry

Elizabeth has 25 year’s  experience lecturing on a wide range of subjects including classical art and architecture, aspects of the visual arts and the links between literature and art. She has lectured for the WEA, Bristol and Southampton Universities, royal Society of Arts and the Art Fund. Also for literary, historical and philosophical societies and on European study tours and in Australia.

In the medieval period highly distinctive styles of architecture developed in remote Transylvania and Moldavia. This lecture first illustrates the fine Gothic churches that the Saxon settlers built in Transylvania and which survive in their elegant towns and, uniquely, behind formidable fortifications in their villages. The main part of the lecture depicts the ‘Painted Monasteries’ of Moldavia, famous for their frescoes that stem from the Orthodox Byzantine tradition, and for the lovely architectural ensembles. The frescoes cover the entire outside walls of the churches and still maintain their wonderfully vivid colours and details. All this is set in the context of Romania’s landscape and history.

John Osborne

John Osborne graduated in Classics at Cambridge University. He taught Classics at Marlborough College for over thirty years. He worked for the British Council in Iran and Turkey; he lecturers on cruises and has lead numerous study tours to Bulgaria, Romania, Iran and Turkey.

Many people have claimed that Francis Bacon was the most significant British painter of the twentieth century. Yet his work is often described as horrific, violent, nihilistic, and ugly. 

Bacon always denied this, but there is no doubt that some of the images he produced can be difficult to look at. He was profoundly influenced by old masters like Titian, Velazquez and Degas; he worked in the figurative tradition. He tried to push that tradition to its absolute limits in order to try and deal directly with the nature of the human condition as he saw it. This lecture exams Bacon's career, focusing on his important works in order to explain why they came to look the way they do.

Linda Smith

Linda holds two first class Art History degrees. She is an experienced guide and lecturer at Tate Britain, Tate Modern and the Dulwich Picture Gallery. She lectures at secondary schools and independent art societies. We welcome Linda back to Ipswich DFAS; she will I am sure give us a unique insight into the works and mind of an artist many find disturbing.

Armour was one of the great Renaissance art-forms, but today it is usually overlooked by art historians. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries almost all the richest, most powerful noblemen in Europe were patrons of the armourer's art. This was an intensely personal art, both expressive and decorative. Its essence was the creation of a living sculpture, a process combining fantastic skill in sculpturing iron and steel, but also mastery of all the decorative techniques of the Renaissance metalworker. Not just about the splendour and richness of these living sculptures but also embodied more complex messages about social order, divine power, attitudes and status.

Tobias Capwell

Tobias Capwell is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, acclaimed author and an internationally-acknowledged expert on Medieval and Renaissance weapons and armour. He appears regularly on television most recently as presenter and armour adviser on "Richard III, The New Evidence 2014".

At the end of the 19th century “fin-de-siecle” Vienna was the capital of the vast Hapsburg Empire and one of the most exciting artistic laboratories in the world. This Lecture asks how and why the City of Dreams became at the turn of the century a cultural hotbed for artists such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, architects like Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the composer Mahler.

Gavin Plumley

Is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio and writing for the Independent on Sunday and The Guardian. He lecturers widely on the culture of Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries including to the National Gallery, the Tate, the British Museum, the V&A and the Neue Galerie New York.