This lecture examines the life and times of Oscar Wilde from his Irish roots to his days as a student at Oxford and his meteoric rise to the heights of celebrity. We travel with him to the United States and examine his starring role within the artistic and theatrical worlds of late 19th century London. We visit his home in bohemian Chelsea and some of his favourite West End haunts. Finally, we learn how ‘tired of being in the heights, he plunged into the depths’ and became famous for being infamous.

Simon Whitehouse 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.

Picture: Oscar Wilde
Copyright, Napoleon Sarony, 1882

What is the origin of the double portrait? Are the sitters posed in a single image or in two separate portraits meant to hang together? And what happens if one of the paintings is lost? What do these images tell us about the subjects, for example, is there a power struggle going on between the two figures? Is there a male/female hierarchy? Are same gender double portraits simply a modern notion or have they been around for much longer?  Alice answers these questions through a wide ranging selection of images from medieval donor portraits to the twentieth century. All are linked by the common theme of double portraits.

Alice Foster has lectured for Oxford University Department of Continuing Education since 1998. She lectures regularly at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Her busy freelance career includes organising History of Art study days with colleagues, and regular weekly classes in Oxfordshire and Worcestershire. In 2004 Alice joined The Arts Society and has lectured in Britain and in Europe. 

Since 2003 Alice has been a tutor on study holidays in Italy. Currently, Alice is a residential tutor at the Argyll Hotel on the Isle of Iona, specialising in Scottish art. In 2010 she was elected President of Banbury Fine Arts Society.

Picture: Double Portrait of the Dukes of Urbino, Piero della Francesca, circa 1473 and 1475

“Europe has a great deal of art, and America has a great deal of money,” remarked Joseph Duveen. It was a simple enough observation, but there was only one man who was perfectly positioned to combine his quintessential English charm with an unparalleled gift for creative salesmanship, allowing him to convince the tight-fisted titans of Wall Street (Frick, Morgan, Mellon etc.) that there was indeed one thing more important than money - art - and, “when you pay high for the priceless, you’re getting it cheap”.

Mark Meredith is the founder of American Aristocracy.com and lectures regularly in Europe and the United States, notably at the New-York Historical Society. After leaving Stowe School, Mark worked for twenty years as a plumber in London. However, his real passion has always been history, and he delights in 'telling a story,' not 'giving a lecture'. Packed with facts and laced throughout with humour, he takes a particular joy in bringing to life the stories behind the people that shape houses; and, his area of special interest lies in the great American houses and American social history, from pre-revolution to the end of the Gilded Age. 

Picture: Sir Josepf Duveen, 1920s
Copyright, Library of Congress, Washigton, USA

Richly illustrated with art of the period, this fast moving talk is not essentially about the preservation of art but rather delves into the dramatic story of King Charles I’s execution & King Charles II’s six week escape across ten counties of England to France after defeat at the Battle of Worcester.

It explores how ‘the traitor Charles Stuart’, the most wanted man in England, eluded troops of Parliamentary cavalry to make it to freedom. The talk includes less known aspects of his nine year exile on the Continent, the restoration (1660) and his Coronation in 1661.

Paul Cordle
No biographical information has been provided

Picture: Charles II Dancing at a Ball at Court, Hieronimus Janssens, circa 1660

This is the gripping and sometimes hilarious story of how a band of heroic curators and eccentric custodians saved Britain’s national heritage during our Darkest Hour.

As Hitler’s forces gathered on the other side of the Channel to threaten these islands, men and women from London’s national museums, galleries and archives forged extraordinary plans to evacuate their collections to safety.

In a race against time, they dispatched them throughout the land, to country houses from Buckinghamshire to Cumbria, tube tunnels, Welsh mines and Wiltshire quarries, on a series of secret wartime adventures.

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives and before that a senior archivist at the National Archives, and a fellow of a number of learned societies.

She is an award–winning author and has appeared at various literary festivals, including Hay and Cheltenham; has broadcast on BBC Radio 4, LBC and various international radio stations; has appeared on TV including BBC 2’s Timewatch, and for the Discovery Channel; and has written  opinion pieces for The Guardian and The Literary Review , and book-reviewed for The Spectator.

Her third book, National Treasures. Saving the Nation’s Art in World War Two, the subject of this lecture, was published in November 2021 and shortlisted for the Historical Writers Association Non-Fiction Crown.

Picture: Book Cover

Uzbekistan in the heart of Central Asia boasts glittering mosques, madrassahs and minarets in the Silk Road cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, which contrast wonderfully with the brutalist Soviet buildings of Tashkent, Urgench and Nukus.

This lecture is an overview of the country, and a primer for anyone thinking of visiting. It explores the Savitsky Museum in Nukus, with the second largest collection of Russian Avante Garde Art, collected at a time when these artistic styles were banned by the state.

Chris Aslan was born in Turkey, and was raised there and in war-torn Beirut. This set him on a course for an adventurous life; he spent two years at sea, and lived in Central Asia for 15 years. He started off in Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, and becoming the largest non-government employer in town. He was deported as part of an anti-Western purge, and took a year in Cambridge to write A Carpet Ride to Khiva. 

Chris then spent several years in the Pamirs mountains of Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down. Next came a couple more years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut wood and establishing a wood-carving workshop.

Chris now divides his time between lecturing for The Arts Society, writing fiction and non-fiction in his mountainous home overlooking the sea in North Cyprus. Having left a large chunk of his heart in Central Asia, he returns whenever he can, to lead tours there. His latest book is Unravelling the Silk Road.

Picture: Foreground, Anonymous Mausoleum No. 2 (Shah-i-Zinda), c. 1385?
Photo, Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, 2011

How does a mere mortal go about creating an image of a heavenly being? Across religions and centuries artists have sought to make spiritual messengers, protectors and protagonists visible through their skill and imagination. In Christian iconography, angels have been visualised in a myriad of different ways - Leonardo da Vinci depicts the Angel Gabriel with the realistic wings of a bird while, in contrast, a few years later, Raphael paints a pair of pensive toddlers. Van Eyck’s angels sing and play musical instruments while in the work of William Blake, they appear like phantoms in both poems and pictures.

From Byzantine mosaics to contemporary sculpture and much in between, this lecture explores the depiction of angels in art, intertwining well known images with some of the more unusual and surprising visualisations. 

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

Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia, as well as online. She is a Tour Director for an award winning travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. Sarah became an Arts Society accredited lecturer in 2021 and since then, has given lectures and run study days for Arts Societies throughout the UK, as well as in Germany, Holland and New Zealand.

Picture: Song of the Angels. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1881, Forest Lawn Museum, Glendale, California

Joaquin Sorolla hated darkness. Claude Monet once said that painting in general did not have enough light in it: Sorolla could not agree more. Sorolla believed painters could never reproduce sunlight as it really is, and he could only “approach the truth of it”.  Most of us when standing in front of one of his canvases would agree he was the master of light. He managed to capture like no other the light of the Mediterranean beaches he loved and the energy of Spanish life. He painted what he saw, quickly, to capture that precise moment. As he said "I could not paint at all if I had to paint slowly.

Arantxa Sardina is an official volunteer guide at Tate Modern, covering the permanent collection and some of the temporary exhibitions at both galleries, Modern and Britain. She completed her MA in Art History at the Open University in 2019, where her dissertation focused on fellow Spaniard Joaquin Sorolla. She is an enthusiastic amateur musician, playing the cello and the piano and a lover of opera and ballet. A member of The Arts Society in Bromley, Arantxa takes every opportunity to learn about art and to find out more about the stories behind artworks. She enjoys sharing her knowledge and continuously learning from others. 

Arantxa is an Ambassador for Amantaní: www.amantani.org.uk, focused on promoting inclusion and equality for rural Peruvians through opportunities in education, employment, and fair trade. A percentage of fees from all lectures goes to support their mission. 

Picture: Strolling Along the Seashore, Joaquin Sorolla, 1909, Museo Sorolla, Madrid

London’s growth in the nineteenth century created a public-health crisis: its increasing population drawing water from and emptying its waste into the River Thames caused epidemics. These only diminished after a controversial campaign to provide a clean water-supply and a system of main drainage.

The Metropolitan Board of Works’ engineer, Joseph Bazalgette, improved the physical appearance and quality of life in London more than any other individual of his generation.

Mike Higginbottom has lectured widely in the Midlands and North at universities and other educational establishments on architectural and social history. Now freelance, he lectures to local societies in South and West Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. He has also broadcast for BBC Radio Sheffield, BBC Radio Nottingham and BBC Radio Derby.

Picture: Part of the Kings Scholars Pond Sewer constructed between 1848 and 1856
With acknowledgement to RIBA

Having had access to the jewels designated Heirlooms of the Crown and with a spectacular collection of her own, the Queen Mother had so much jewellery to choose from over the course of her long life that it would be almost impossible to describe it all.

This talk chronicles her passion for jewels by concentrating on a selection of items which are of particular gemmological and historic interest … and have an intriguing story attached.

Jeremy Mainwaring-Burton
Following graduation at Durham University, Jeremy had a 5 year spell in the Irish Guards, the last two and a half years on secondment to Clarence House as the Queen Mother’s equerry. With his degree in geology, the magnificent gemstones in the Queen Mother’s jewellery were naturally of interest and, if he admired a piece being worn, she would sometimes hand it to him to have a closer look.

He was inspired to study gemmology and on leaving the army he qualified as a Fellow of the Gemmological Association. From working as an exploration geologist in South Africa and a gold miner in California, Jeremy spent several years as a jewellery and precious stone dealer in London’s Hatton Garden.

After the Queen Mother died in 2002 he helped develop the Castle of Mey as one of northern Scotland’s most popular visitor attractions.

Picture: Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother;
Richard Stone, 1986

How did a German refugee from Hitler, an internee and a jobbing journalist, become the Grand Old Man of English architectural history? The answer lies in his extraordinary one man survey of all the architecturally significant buildings in the country, county by county. This lecture explores what Pevsner said, rightly or wrongly, about the buildings in Suffolk – churches, houses, shops, town halls, tower blocks, factories, cinemas – and sets his pronouncements in the context of The Buildings of England as a whole.

The series has both detractors and passionate defenders, but no imitators. Pevsner himself said, ‘There won’t be another madman so soon.’

Susie Harries

Susie is a writer, editor and lecturer, specialising in 20th century culture and the arts. She has published eight books on subjects including official war art, opera, the composer Elisabeth Lutyens and most recently a biography of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner. Susie has wide experience as a lecturer 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.

Picture: House in the Clouds, photo by Andrew Dunn

Today we talk of “symphony concerts” and “symphony orchestras”, but where did these concepts originate? The answer involves a fascinating story stretching across the whole of the eighteenth century, as the new and strange idea of just sitting and listening to music, rather than singing or dancing to it, gradually took off in musical life across Europe.

One of the most surprising aspects of this story is the part played in it by Britain. This talk begins with Haydn’s five seasons in 1790s London, which he described as the happiest of his professional life. It then shows how Mozart and Beethoven, both friends of Haydn, followed his new idea of how to arrange concert programmes. And like so many good ideas, this one really did begin in a London pub.

Robert Samuels

Robert is a Senior Lecturer in Music at The Open University. He has written and taught on the music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Schoenberg, Weill, Shostakovich, Britten, Cage, Boulez and Birtwistle, and others. His book Mahler’s Sixth Symphony: A study in musical semiotics was published by Cambridge University Press in 1995. He is currently writing a study of the symphony and the novel in the nineteenth century.

Robert worked on the award-winning BBC4 TV series Symphony, in 2012, has spoken on BBC Radio 3, has organised and spoken at study events for the Oxford Lieder Festival, and gives talks for The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Picture: The Mitre Tavern, Fleet Street, demolished in 1829

As the most senior of upper servants, the housekeeper typically carried a family’s secrets with her to the grave. She ran the English country house, controlled its female servants and conserved its many treasures – and yet she has not been remembered in history.

Using old letters, secret diaries and neglected archives, this lecture sets this role in its historic context, looks at some of the stories uncovered and then focuses more deeply on Grace Higgens who joined the unconventional Bell household at Charleston aged 15. For the next fifty years she propped up the Bloomsbury Set, in London and at Charleston.

Vanessa Bell couldn’t live without her housekeeper’s cooking – or her regular posing as an artist's model - while Virginia Woolf tried to poach her for her baking. Grace’s candid diaries paint a picture of bohemia rather different from the official narrative.

Tessa Boase

Tessa is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer and campaigner with an interest in uncovering the stories of ‘invisible’ women from the 19th and early 20th-centuries, to reveal how they drove industry, propped up society and influenced politics.

She is the author of three books of social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale; The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (2014); Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds (first published as Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather, in 2018); and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams (2022).

Since uncovering the feminist origins of the RSPB, Tessa has been campaigning for public recognition of its female founders with plaques, portraits and a statue.

Picture: Commemoration of Grace Higgen’s time at Charleston

In the years between 1919 and the rise to power of Hitler in 1933 there was an amazing flourishing of different art styles in Germany. After losing WW1 Germany was thrown into political, economic and social turmoil and was on the brink of revolution. This was reflected in art, as the pre-war domination of Expressionism gave way to newer forms and as, with the relative stability of the Weimar Republic, new art forms flourished and new art schools were established. This talk covers the gamut, from the ‘anti-art’ movement of Dadaism (that arose as a reaction to the insanity of the war) through John Heartfield’s political satire, to Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) and a cool, detached and often sardonic realism.

Colin Pink

Colin has a BA in Philosophy and Politics from the University of Southampton and an MA in the History of Art from Birkbeck, University of London. He specialises in twentieth century and contemporary art in Europe and North America and lectures at Morley College London. He has also curated exhibitions of contemporary art and has published four books of poetry: Acrobats of Sound, 2016, The Ventriloquist Dummy’s Lament, 2019, Typicity, 2021 and Wreck of the Jeanne Gougy, 2021.

Picture: Rooftop Studio, Rudolf Schlichter, 1922

A richly illustrated talk, tracing the development of the residential interior from the 17th to the 21st centuries and examining ways in which historical spaces may be reinterpreted to accommodate contemporary living. An inspirational selection of interiors within farmhouses, cottages, country estates and townhouses, as well as those located within buildings from our industrial heritage and some non-traditional contexts, are presented as stylish and successful examples of this approach to interior design.

Anthony Rayworth
Anthony is President and Founder of the International Decorative Art and Design Association. He has a Masters of Design (MDes) from the Royal College of Art, London and over 30 years of international experience in interior design, garden design education, exhibition curating, decorative arts management and design practice.

Anthony is a Freeman of the City of London, an Educator Member of the British Institute of Interior Design, a Member of the European Academy of Design and has previously served on committees of the Society of Garden Designers and the British Institute of Interior Design.

His wide experience of exhibition curating, collaboration, management and design includes a host of domestic and international projects.

Picture: Gallery in Salts Mill, Saltaire, Bradford

The unique location of Venice brought the city into contact with the different powers of the Eastern Mediterranean including the Byzantine Empire, the Mamluks and the Ottomans.

This lecture explores the ways in which these interactions left their mark on the artistic heritage of the city as can be seen in Venetian architecture, painting and the decorative arts.

Dr Antonia Gatward Cevizli
Antonia is an independent art historian specialising in both Italian Renaissance art and Ottoman art. She gained her PhD from the University of Warwick. Her publications focus on cultural and diplomatic exchange between the Italian city-states and the Ottomans.

Antonia has lectured for a number of institutions in the UK and overseas; her wide-ranging interests led to her working as a professional guide across the collections of both Tate Modern and Tate Britain.

Picture: The Ducal Palace

The history of Perugia, the capital of the Umbrian region of Italy, was so fraught with violence that in 1500 the streets of the city were said to run with blood. At the same time, the city was home to some of the most sought-after artists of the Renaissance, including the young Raphael and Pietro Perugino, then described as ‘the best painter in Italy’.

This talk explores the highs, and the lows, of Renaissance Perugia and its exceptional artistic heritage.

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

Picture: Pergia '1462' Festival

Before the British arrived in India, the Indian subcontinent was ruled by the Mughal Emperors. The stunning buildings and gardens they constructed from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century have left an indelible stamp on India’s architectural and cultural landscape.

Mughal architecture fused elements from Islamic, Persian, Turkish and Indian architectural traditions and gave rise to some of the most beautiful and iconic buildings in the world. From the Jama Masjid in Delhi, to the Taj Mahal in Agra and to the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, this lecture will take you on a tour of some of India’s greatest buildings and provide insight into the historical contexts and colourful personalities involved in their construction.

Dr John Stevens
John gained his PhD in History from UCL, before going on to teach British Imperial History, Indian History and Bengali Language at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London). His biography of the Indian guru Keshab Chandra Sen – Keshab: Bengal’s Forgotten Prophet – was published by Hurst and Oxford University Press in 2018.

John is a regular visitor to India and Bangladesh and has lectured at numerous Indian universities. He also works as a consultant on Indian affairs and teaches the Bengali language to private students. He has appeared many times in the Indian media, and was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time, discussing the poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore.

Picture: The Taj Mahal

An extraordinary tale of how a small bronze statue, which had sat in the garden of the lecturer’s grandfather for 40 years, was discovered as a masterpiece and ended up in the Getty Museum, California.

Adriaen De Vries (c.1556-1626) was a Northern Mannerist sculptor born in the Netherlands. A technical virtuoso, he created spectacular bronzes for the most discerning patrons of his time, including the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II of Prague. He excelled in refined modelling and bronze casting and in the manipulation of patina and became the most famous European sculptor of his generation.

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

Picture: The Dancing Faun in its garden location

Women have played many different roles in art, from Mary the mother of Jesus, perhaps the holiest of women, as portrayed by such artists as Rembrandt, to the brazen hussies depicted by Jan Steen.

Some of the masterpieces of the Mauritshuis will be used to explore not only the roles played by women, but also as a way of introduction to some of the artists, the kinds of works they produced and the styles they used.

Jane Choy-Thurlow
Jane is a docent, she enjoys giving lectures and tours at the Mauritshuis, Prince William V gallery and Huygens Museum Hofwijck in The Hague. Among the many exhibitions at the Mauritshuis in which she has participated are the legendary Johannes Vermeer event; Rembrandt by Himself and Holbein, Portraitist of the Renaissance.

She is a founding member of DFAS of The Hague and has fulfilled many committee positions within the Society.

She received her BSc from Salem State University, USA, her MEd from Trinity College Dublin and continued art history studies at Leiden University. In 2018 she was given the honour of Knight in the Order of Oranje Nassau, by King Willem Alexander of Orange, for her knowledge and work in the field of the Arts especially 15th to 17th century Dutch and Flemish art.

Picture: The Mauritshuis

Dukes, Popes, Doges and Medici were patrons of the greatest art of the Renaissance - but how much do we know of the women who commissioned and collected art, often in a pattern quite distinct from that of men?

Lucrezia Borgia confounded her image as murderous and promiscuous by commissioning church buildings and artefacts; Alfonsina Orsini used architecture and sculpture to negotiate for power. Most formidable of all was Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, - “Hungry for art” as she described herself, she was unscrupulous in building a collection which was one of the wonders of Italy, commissioning paintings from Leonardo, Titian and Mantegna, assembling classical gems and statuary and unhesitatingly stealing, when required, what she coveted.

Who were these women and how did they overcome social constraints and restricted means to contribute to the glory of the age?

Picture: Titian, Portrait of Isabella d’Este, c.1534–36

Nicole Mezey studied Art History at the Universities of Sussex, York and Paris.  She was Senior Lecturer at Queen’s University, Belfast until 2009, working primarily with adults, managing and teaching on both the Part-time Degree and Extra-Mural Programmes and conducting annual international study tours.  She also established and was first Director of the Department of Art History, the first in the north of Ireland.  Nicole now lives in Central London and is a freelance lecturer, working for organisations including the National Museums, universities, the National Trust and private companies.  She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Higher Education Academy and her publications focus on adult education and the arts.

More than any artist of her day, de Lempicka's most striking portraits, especially her depictions of women, have come to personify the age of Art Deco. What is it about this extraordinary artist, who broke away from the mould and was so unique in her stylistic output when compared to her peers, that makes her so popular for certain art collectors? 

Lempicka derived a distinct style of painting that was unlike most of her male contemporaries. She infamously stated “I live life in the margins of society and the rules of normal society don’t apply to those who live on the fringe”. Her style of classic portraiture was revamped for a new age; with glamour and feminine allure, her subjects oozed a seductive appeal with influential roots from the cubists, neo-classicists and de Lempicka’s infatuation with Hollywood and its contemporary cinema. We follow her from her early days in Warswaw, St Petersburg and Paris to New York, Hollywood and, finally, Mexico.

The lecture also looks at her appeal to individuals like the American singer-songwriter, Madonna, who has not only purchased a number of Tamara de Lempicka’s work but also made reference to them in her music videos - notably, Open your Heart, and the chart topping song Vogue.

Picture: Tamara de Lempicka, 'Young Lady with Gloves'

Pamela Campbell-Johnston has an MA in Art History from St Andrew's University and has more than 30 years experience of lecturing - to undergraduates, adult groups, and to Friends and Patrons of the Royal Academy of Arts. Pamela specialises in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art and has worked with Bonhams, the Art Loss Register, and the National Trust. She is now a freelance art consultant and lecturer and recently curated a collection for the Lansdowne Club.

The doctrine of Purgatory was the greatest single spur to charitable spending the late Middle Ages. The Church taught that acts of Charity would speed your way out of Purgatory on up to Heaven. Works left behind for Eternity would work even quicker.

This lecture looks at the artistic and architectural consequences of this belief, from the founding of burial chapels for Chantry masses, schools and hospitals to gifts of plate, paintings, sculpture and on occasion, whole churches. A feast of late medieval art.

Picture: Madonna of Mercy, Orvieto

Francis Woodman has a lectureship at the University of Cambridge and is based at the Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley Hall, where he has academic responsibility for all the Art History and Architecture programmes at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education and is Academic Director of the Building Conservation Certificate programme. Francis is also joint Academic Director for the University's Certificate in Early Historical Studies in England.

A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, he specializes in art and architecture from the Romans to the Reformation.  Amongst many publications are books on Canterbury Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral and Kings’ College Chapel and he has published papers and chapters on a wide range of topics including the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey, as well as chapters on women’s birthright and the endless inheritance dispute by the daughters of the earl of Warwick.

Francis is also an experienced tour leader, having led many international art and architecture tours.

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

Russell Nash trained and worked as an actor, writer, puppeteer and theatre maker for 15 years. In 2015 he qualified as a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide. Around this time he rekindled his love of art and art history and he now regularly guides at the major galleries and museums in London, including the National Gallery, Tates Modern & Britain and the British Museum. He has delivered lectures for many institutes, museums, and societies. 

One might call the paintings of Johannes Vermeer typical examples of Dutch art from the so-called Golden Age. Yet, when compared with the works of his contemporaries, such as Pieter de Hooch or Nicolaes Maes, Vermeer’s serene interiors emerge as somehow oddly different. It is the explanation of this particular difference that has preoccupied scholars ever since the ‘rediscovery’ of Vermeer in the nineteenth century, and it will be the point of entry for this lecture.

What exactly is the subject of a painting by Vermeer? Is it the merry couple enjoying wine and music, the elegant furnishings, or is it the light and shadow which suffuses every detail and creates the tonal nuances of his compositions? We will review the various interpretations that have accrued around Vermeer’s art over time while also considering the circumstances that may have influenced the artist in his own day.

Picture: Johannes Vermeer, Art of Painting, ca. 1666-68, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

Albert Godetzky gained his PhD from the Courtauld, with a thesis on ‘Haarlem Mannerism’ and is now an Associate Lecturer there, focing on rearch on Northern European art of the early modern period. Before joining the Courtauld, Albert was Visiting Lecturer at The Victoria & Albert Museum and the Harry M. Weinrebe Curatorial Fellow at the National Gallery, where he contributed to exhibitions including Rembrandt: The Late Works and Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure. Albert also works as a cultural advisor to several international corporate institutions and private individuals.

Despite being labelled “Das Land Ohne Musik” in 1904, Britain has a rich operatic tradition. From its beginnings, with the works of Henry Purcell in the 17th century it enjoyed a golden age under George Frederick Handel in the 18th. After the uncertain period of the 19th century, the works of Benjamin Britten in the 20th initiated a vibrant rebirth, which has continued into the 21st Century. Composers like Harrison Birtwistle, Thomas Ades and Mark-Anthony Turnage have broken new ground and kept the genre alive. This lecture, fully illustrated with musical examples, explores this fascinating legacy. 

Picture: Scene from Handel's 'Acis and Galatea'

Roger Askew was a chorister at Wells Cathedral School and a choral scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with an honours degree in English. He combined a teaching career with professional singing in London and, after obtaining a further degree in Music, became Director of Music at Daniel Stewart’s and Melville College in Edinburgh. After retiring in 2003 he returned to the south of England. He is President Emeritus of The Stoke Poges Society.

The sons of George III - the Prince Regent and his brothers - formed spectacular collections of silver. Mostly sold after the collectors died, we can reconstruct them from the auction catalogues compiled at the time. These collections provide a fascinating window into the very different characters of the royal dukes.

Timothy Schroder has a DLitt at Oxford and is a historian of gold and silver. His career has been wide-ranging, including stints as a director of Partridge Fine Arts, Keeper of the Gilbert Collection and Consultant Curator at the V&A. He has twice been Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and is a Trustee of the Wallace Collection Trustee and of the City and Guilds Art School.  Timothy is also a Member of Westminster Abbey's Fabric Commission.

Publications include: English Domestic Silver (1988); Renaissance Silver from the Schroder Collection (2007); Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum (2009); ‘A Marvel to Behold’, Gold and Silver at the Court of Henry VIII (2020); and numerous articles.

This lecture compares and contrasts the different experiences of Western and Japanese printmakers. In the West, prints are often created using a press, whereas Japanese woodcuts are entirely handcrafted. The exploration is based on observations by the lecturer in her capacity as a tutor, teaching both press-based and mokuhanga techniques to adult learners. Many of her students are young professionals and spend increasingly long periods of time at the computer, where the sense of touch is limited to the keyboard. The lecture questions what it means when we limit our experience of touch and run the risk of losing touch-intelligence.

Carol Wilhide Justin is an artist-printmaker who specialises in Japanese woodcut. In 2014 Carol was awarded a residency at the MI-LAB studio, Fujikawaguchiko, Japan, where she was taught the mokuhanga technique by Japanese sensei. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2017 with an MA in Print and has exhibited in a number of independent shows and larger mixed exhibitions, such as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair and Bankside Gallery. Her work is held in private and public collections including Clifford Chance and the V&A. Carol also teaches Japanese Woodcut at Morley College, the City Literary Institute and the Art Academy.

In the early years of the 18th century English lead glass was prized for its strength, its  satin-smooth surface and its dazzling brilliance. The brilliance of this glass was enhanced when decorated with simple shallow wheel cut facets, polished to reflect and refract light like a diamond. It was both a luxury and very expensive.  By 1800 decorative techniques had become so sophisticated that English cut glass was sought after world wide.  The apogee of taste and style was in the Regency period, 1800-1830. 

We will look at the rise of this craft from its humble beginnings in the early 1700s in the mirror grinders’ workshops round St Martin’s Lane in London to the glittering services of the Regency. One of the finest ever made, of over 400 pieces, was ordered by the Prince of  Wales from Perrin and Geddes of Warrington 1806-10.  It is still in use at Windsor Castle.

Caroline MacDonald-Haig is a Design and Decorative Arts journalist and author and is a London Blue Badge Guide, specialising in themed tours for American Museums and Art Galleries. Her specialist subjects include the history of glass and London's history, galleries, museums and architecture. She is also a freelance lecturer for Adult Education Groups. 

Palladio (1508-1580) was an architect in and around Venice. He trained as a stone mason until a local landowner took him up, showed him ancient Rome and promoted his work. He became an architect, designing town palaces and country villas, including the famous Villa Rotonda. He also designed major buildings in Venice, such as San Giorgio Maggiore. His handsome illustrated book, The Four Books of Architecture, was published in 1570. It included many of Palladio’s designs, as well as the classical orders and Roman buildings. It was enormously influential, and is still in print. 

Caroline Knight is an architectural historian who trained at the Courtauld and specialises in 16th to 18th century architecture. She is a Lecturer at the V&A on year courses and short courses, and lecturer for the Art Fund, and for the Royal Oak Foundation in the US. She wrote London's Country Houses (2009) and has researched and written a history of Kensington Palace. Caroline has also contributed to books on the Cecil family and the history of the Royal Academy and has written several articles on architectural and social history and the history of travel.

From the ancient world to artists like Tracey Emin and Lucien Freud, portraits have been used to show power, status, virtue, beauty, wealth & taste. Cindy looks at how portraiture has changed throughout the ages and how the genre shows us how to communicate with the past and present in exciting and surprising ways.

Cindy Polemis
Cindy is an art historian. She has a BA in Modern History from Oxford University, and as a mature student studied for a BA and a Masters in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London.
Since 2016 Cindy has worked as a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has also been a trustee at the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum.

Picture: Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with Ermine. National Museum Krakow

So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

Sophie Williams

Picture: Three Female Musicians, by Master of Female Half-Lengths, circa 1530. Collection Rohrau Castle, Austria

This is a survey of a hundred years of Art in Britain from the Victorian Leopold Augustus Egg to Francis Bacon. The talk examines ways in which Britain’s isolated position resulted in an art which, while occasionally showing European influences, for the most part remained steadfastly and uniquely British. Expect a tongue in cheek analysis of such popular British archetypes as the "stiff upper lip",  a "nice cup of tea", "no sex we are British" and of course "the weather"! 

Lydia Bauman was born in Poland and studied for her BA in Fine Art at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and an MA in History of Art from Courtauld Institute of Art, London. 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 the Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Hermitage and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the latter as a guest speaker for travel companies.

Picture: Augustus Egg. The Travelling Companions, 1862.
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Faber and Faber is the last of the great publishing houses to remain independent. Since its foundation in 1925, Faber and Faber has built a reputation as one of London’s most important literary publishing houses and as the grandson of its founder, Toby grew up steeped in its books.  

Part of Faber’s success relates to the editorial team that Geoffrey Faber and his successors built around them - TS Eliot was famously an early recruit - but a large part is also due to the firm’s insistence on good design and illustration. This lecture traces the history of Faber and Faber through its illustrations, covers and designs. Along the way, it has employed some of our most celebrated artists as cover illustrators – from Rex Whistler and Barnett Freedman to Peter Blake and Damien Hirst. Slides will range from book covers, advertisements and photos of key individuals, to illustrations of the concepts behind the designs. The talk will also be peppered with personal insight and anecdote. 

Toby Faber’s career began with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. He has been through investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of Faber and Faber, the publishing company founded by his grandfather, where he continues as a member of the board. He is non-executive Chairman of sister company, Faber Music and a director of Liverpool University Press.

Toby has written three narrative histories: Stradivarius – Five Violins, One Cello and a Genius; Faberge’s Eggs; and Faber & Faber – The Untold Story, and a novel: Close to the Edge.

Picture: Cover design by Neil Gower

This surprise change of programme for Valentine's day will look at the symbolisism and depiction of love in art, in interesting and often amusing ways.

Lydia Bauman was born in Poland and studied for her BA in Fine Art at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and an MA in History of Art from Courtauld Institute of Art, London. 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 the Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Hermitage and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the latter as a guest speaker for travel companies.

The dunes of the Taklamakan Desert in Northwestern China rise to several hundred meters.  Every year they shift slightly, blown by the prevailing winds.  And as they shift they often reveal signs of Silk Road settlements: the skeletons of houses, irrigation canals, orchards and tree-lined lanes.  The climate ensures that even organic materials are preserved, remains of rugs, furniture, clothing and documents.  These give us unprecedented glimpses into the lives of the people who once lived in these ancient Silk Road kingdoms.

This lecture will tell something of these remarkable finds and what they reveal about their owners.

Dr Susan Whitfield is a writer, scholar, lecturer and traveler of the Silk Roads.  During the 25 years curating the collections of over 50,000 medieval manuscripts from Central Asia at the British Library, she also helped found and then developed an international collaboration working on the art and artefacts of the eastern Silk Roads.  She has lectured and written widely on the history and arts of the Silk Roads.  Her latest book Silk Roads: Peoples, Culture and Landscapes was published by Thames & Hudson 2019 and translated into six languages.  She has also curated several major exhibitions with a forthcoming show at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich and has organized field trips to archaeological sites in the Taklamakan Desert.

Picture: The restored Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar, Merv, Turkmenistan.
Photo by Dr. Alexey Yakovlev, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The frescoes by Giotto covering the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua constitute one of the most important picture cycles in the history of art and represent a major turning point in Western painting.  Why was this?  The lecture examines what exactly makes Giotto’s art so innovatory, using examples taken from the chapel and comparing them to similar scenes depicted by artists working within the previously predominant Byzantine tradition.  It traces the history of the building and its patron, Enrico Scrovegni, and takes the audience through each of the three cycles contained within:  The Life of Joachim and Anna, The Life of the Virgin and The Life of Christ.  Each of the illustrated examples is described in detail and encourages the audience to look at familiar Biblical scenes in a new light, thanks to Giotto’s emphasis on a new humanistic approach.

Sian Walters is an art historian and the director of Art History in Focus.  She has been a lecturer at the National Gallery for 20 years and also lecturers for The Wallace Collection, The Art Fund and many art societies and colleges throughout Europe.  Sian taught at Surrey University for many years. Her specialist areas include 15th and 16th century Italian Art, Spanish Art and Architecture, Dutch and Flemish painting and the relationship between Dance and Art.  She studied at Cambridge University, has lived in France and Italy, where she worked for the eminent Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon and for the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice.  She spends much of the year organizing and leading specialist art tours abroad including bespoke trips for The Arts Society.

Picture: The Scrovengi Chapel, Padua

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 the 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).  She is Historical Adviser to BBC and Arts Council, and is an international speaker on art and curator of exhibitions.

Picture: Nicholas Hilliard self-portrait, 1577, V&A

The work of art is not just a symbol of creative genius but a historical object and the result of a laborious process of creation.  This lecture looks at the development of stained glass, its purpose, the process by which it was created and some of the extraordinary survivals.  From vast cathedrals to tiny chapels, we concentrate on the great achievements of the Middle Ages but consider, too, the reasons for the decline in popularity of this once pre-eminent art form and some of the projects in which it has been reconsidered and revived.

Nicole Mezey studied Art History at the Universities of Sussex, York and Paris.  She was Senior Lecturer at Queen’s University, Belfast until 2009, working primarily with adults, managing and teaching on both the Part-time Degree and Extra-Mural Programmes and conducting annual international study tours.  She also established and was first Director of the Department of Art History, the first in the north of Ireland.  Nicole now lives in Central London and is a freelance lecturer, working for organisations including the National Museums, universities, the National Trust and private companies.  She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Higher Education Academy and her publications focus on adult education and the arts.

Frederic Leighton’s Studio House (now Leighton House Museum) is one of the most remarkable buildings of the nineteenth century.  First built in the 1860s, Leighton continued to extend and embellish his home over the next thirty years, transforming what had been a relatively modest house into a palace of art filled with fascinating collections of fine and decorative art.  The construction of the exotic Arab Hall, lined with Islamic tiles collected as Leighton travelled through the Middle East brought new fame to the house as Leighton’s reputation continued to grow.  This lecture explores Leighton’s motivations in lavishing such attention on the construction of his home and how it came to embody the idea of how a Great Artist should live.

This lecture ties-in to a forthcoming Day Visit - click here for further information.

Daniel Robbins is Senior Curator, Museums with the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and is responsible for two of London’s most significant house museums: Leighton House Museum and 18 Stafford Terrace. Formerly with Glasgow Museums, he has organized many exhibitions and contributed to numerous catalogues and publications around Nineteenth-century Art, Architecture and Design, including the authorship of the companion guide to Leighton House Museum (2011). He was responsible for leading the award-winning project to restore the historic interiors of the house completed between 2008-2010 and is now leading a £7 million refurbishment project addressing the additions to the building in the twentieth century. 

Picture: The Silk Romm, Leighton House

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, he spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. He devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, runs an online classical music appreciation Listening Club, 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.

Picture: Jitterbug dancers 1938

Christina Rossetti is among the most popular of Victorian poets, her colloquial style and musical clarity speaking directly to us today. She had close links with artists; her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Julia Margaret Cameron, Frederick Sandys and Arthur Hughes were all inspired by the intense imagery of her poetry. This lecture tells Christina Rossetti’s story through their portraits, illustrations and paintings.

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. She wrote a doctoral thesis on Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations to Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome, at University College, London.

Picture: James Collison, Mother and Child by a Stile, Isle of Wight, c.1849-50
Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

This lecture provides a colourful introduction to the secret world of our 2000-mile inland waterways network and looks at all aspects of their exceptional artistic, architectural and engineering vernacular. Features range from sweeping aqueducts to tiny bollards; from colourful historic narrowboats to ‘Roses and Castles’ artwork; from grand World Heritage Sites to quirky listed buildings.

A well-known architectural historian once described our canals as a “poor man’s art gallery”.

Roger Butler

Roger Butler is a landscape architect and an experienced writer, photographer and lecturer. He has a particular interest in the unique history, architecture and traditions of our canal network and has worked on some of the UK’s major canal restoration projects.  He has also been a consultant to bodies such as Waterways Ireland, Natural England and the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.

Picture: A courful, historic narrow boat

In Spring 2000 an archaeological drama began to unfold on the banks of the Euphrates river in Turkey, close to the border with Syria. A small team of French and Turkish archaeologists found a Roman city on the banks of the river, with mosaics and wall-paintings finer than those of Pompeii. However, just beside them was the almost completed Birecik Dam, and the Turks had begun to flood the great reservoir behind it, taking the city under water. This lecture tells the story of the extraordinary archaeological rescue excavation that then took place (racing the waters for four and a half months as they rose at a rate of two feet a day) and the fabulous treasures recovered, including mosaic floors depicting colourful scenes from myth and legend.

Louise Schofield is an archaeologist who was a Curator of Greek Bronze Age and Geometric Antiquities at the British Museum from 1987-2000.  Her book ‘The Mycenaeans’ was co-published by the Getty Museum and the British Museum in 2007.  She now writes, lectures and runs international archaeological projects, previously in south-eastern Turkey, Greece and Albania and currently in Ethiopia.  She has recently been appointed Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the American University of Rome.

Picture: 3rd century mosaic from Zeugma on the Euphrates depicting the god Poseidon

The ‘poor little rich girl’ who changed the face of twentieth century art. Not only was Peggy Guggenheim ahead of her time but she was the woman who helped define it. She discovered and nurtured a new generation of artists producing a new kind of art. Through collecting not only art but the artists themselves, her life was as radical as her collection.

Alexandra Epps

Official Guide & 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 covering many aspects of the arts. A member of the City of London Lecturers Association, Alexandra is co-author of the book Lord Mayor’s Portraits 1983-2014 (2015). Her background is in design, having practiced as a graphic designer running her own design consultancy for many years. She is BA Saint Martins School of Art, MA London College of Printing.

Picture: Peggy Guggenheim, Paris, c.1930, photograph Rogi André (Rosza Klein). In the background, Notre Dame de Paris

Standing in the nave of Ely Cathedral when I was 14, I stopped listening to the guide saying how long and how high and started wondering how on earth ordinary human beings created sky-scraping, dizzyingly high buildings on which even the top-most parts were delicately decorated. How, why and for whom were my questions. For God, for personal redemption and to make a living are the answers to the last two of those, but the “how” was harder to fathom.

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

Imogen Corrigan

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

Picture: Self portrait of Adam Kraft, sculptor, 1493, Church of St Lawrence, Nuremburg

The story of the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel’s appearance to the Virgin Mary as told in St. Luke’s gospel, has inspired some of the most beautiful images in Western Art. These include Simone Martini’s altarpiece for Siena Cathedral, now in the Uffizi Gallery and Fra Angelico’s frescoes in the monastery of San Marco in Florence. The earliest depiction of the Annunciation is thought to date back to the 2nd century AD. Since then, the narrative has been reimagined by numerous artists including Van Eyck, Botticelli, Durer and Rossetti. This lecture will take you on a journey through a range of different depictions of the Annunciation and explore the ways in which artists have captured this pivotal moment of the Christian story. A perfect subject for the Christmas season.

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 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.

Picture: Pietro Cavallini (1259- c. 1330)
The Annunciation, c 1296-1300
Mosaic. Apse of the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was a man out of step with his time. Scorning the traditional idealized interpretation of religious subjects, he took his models from the streets, painting them realistically and heightening the emotional intensity by his dramatic contrasts of light and shade. Such a revolutionary style was condemned by many as was his equally dramatic personal life and uncontrollable temper, which involved him in endless brawls and even murder. The lecture will study the life and works of this enigmatic man and of his influence on later artists.

Shirley Smith

Shirley graduated from the University of East Anglia with a first class honours degree in the History of Art, specializing 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. She has run study days and certificate courses as well as residential weekend courses. Shirley 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.

Picture: The Supper at Emmaus
Courtesy: The Web Gallery of Art, www:wga.hu

Houses made from wool that warm in the depths of winter, carpets that tell stories, woven bands that appease ancestors, embroideries that ward off evil, and kilims that store kitchenware, with everything ready to be packed and carried on yak, or camel at a moment’s notice; the little-known nomadic textile cultures of the Kyrgyz, Turkoman and Karakalpak are explored in this lecture, along with the rise and fall of Nomadism and where Nomadism fits within the modern world. Chris also shares from his own experience of working with nomadic yak herders in the High Pamirs for three years.

Chris Aslan Alexander

Chris was born in Turkey and spent his childhood there and in war-torn Beirut. He studied Media and Journalism at Leicester University. He travelled to Uzbekistan, to Khiva, a desert oasis and established a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries. He was forced to leave as part of the anti-western purge and took a year in Cambridge to write A Carpet Ride to Khiva. From there, he spent three years in the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their beasts for their cashmere-like down. Next came two years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut forest and establishing a wood-carving workshop. He is currently working on a new book on the Silk Road that marries travel and textiles. He leads tours to Central Asia.

Picture: Chris Aslan Alexander and yak.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (published 1865) transformed children’s literature with its fantastic originality and brilliant use of nonsense.  Since then it has never been out of print, has been translated into many languages and has spawned not only imitators but also a huge amount of analytical commentary.  We start with the origins of the book and its first illustrators – the writer himself and then Sir John Tenniel.  So iconic was the book that as soon as it came out of copyright a host of artists produced their own versions – including Arthur Rackham, Mabel Lucie Attwell and Charles Robinson (brother of Thomas Heath Robinson).  Throughout the 20th century we see how illustrators reflect different aspects of the book as well as the preoccupations of their own times.  We look further at some of the most interesting artistic portrayals including those by Willy Pogany, Mervyn Peake, Jonathan Miller and Salvador Dali, and will end with one or two current interpretations.

This lecture coincides with the V&A exhibition “Alice, Curiouser and Curiouser” which runs until the end of the year.

Elizabeth Merry

Elizabeth has over 25 years’ experience lecturing on a range of subjects.  She has lectured for the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association), the Universities of Bristol and Southampton, Departments of Continuing Education, Royal Society of Arts, Dillington House, Jane Austen Society, Thomas Hardy Society, Brussels Bronte Sisters Society, The Finzi Society and many more.  She has also lectured on Study Tours extensively, in the UK, Europe and the Antipodes. 

Picture: “Off with her ​head!” Alice with the Red Queen,  Illustration by Charles Robinson

In 1932 the artist Edward Bawden and his wife Charlotte moved into Brick House, in the Essex village of Great Bardfield, initially sharing the house with another artistic couple, Eric Ravilious and Tirzah Garwood. It was to be the beginning of a fascinating artistic community.

While Bawden and Ravilious saw active service as War Artists (Ravilious died in 1942) other artists captured the soon-to-change world of rural England through the Recording Project.  By the mid-1950’s a diverse, innovative and highly creative group had made Bardfield their home.  In 1954 the artists invited the public into their homes and studios and the popular ‘Open Studios’ movement began .

Jo Walton
Having been a volunteer guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern Jo has also combined a career of teaching and lecturing and art bookselling.  She is now a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society, the Art Fund, Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery and local art societies.

Picture: Eric Ravilious; Two Women in a Garden. Watercolour, 1933. Courtesy of the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden

Icons are religious panel paintings developed early in the history of Christianity. The term ‘icon’ comes from the Greek word eikon meaning a likeness, image or picture. Their religious power made them amongst the most valuable objects in the medieval Christian world: icons are art, but not as we know it! This lecture will evaluate the power of the icon by exploring the origins of this type of portrait, the earliest surviving icons, their spiritual otherworldliness, the process of their creation (and why they often look the same), and the religious context in which they were displayed and used in daily worship.

Helen Rufus-Ward
An Art Historian with a doctorate (DPhil) from the University of Sussex who has published on Late Antique & Byzantine Ivory Carvings and 19th Century Plaster Cast Collecting Helen has worked since 2007 at Sussex as an Associate Tutor.  An experienced speaker who has delivered lectures at many universities, art institutions, The Wallace Collection and the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Picture: St Peter, 6C encaustic icon, St Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai

An exploration of the history and legend of Edmund, King and Martyr, starting with the Old Testament of English history, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle where the near contemporary entry the year 869-870 seems to say that King Edmund was killed in battle near Thetford, defending his kingdom against the ‘great army’ of the Danes, led by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok.  Our exploration will be enlivened by the later legend of St. Edmund, especially the stirring Old English version of Abbo’s Passio Sancti Edmundi (written c.991) and the art it inspired.

Dr. Sam Newton
Sam is the author of “The Origins of Beowulf” and “The Reckoning of King Raedwald: The Story of the King,” linked to the Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial. He is director of the study centre at Sutton Hoo and a Time Team historian.

Picture: King Edmund and the Legend of Goldbrook Bridge – Hoxne Village Hall
© Dr Sam Newton

This lecture will examine how after the ‘Reconquista’ of Spain, which began long before 1492, Christians continued to build in a Moorish style, called Mudejar. The lecture begins in Toledo in 1085 showing buildings which fuse Muslim, Christian and Jewish building styles. It ends in Granada at the Alhambra. It will chart the gradual take back which took 400 years and affected a whole continent. It will examine how the Christians took back Spain, mostly destroying 800 years of cultural heritage yet at the same time there are examples of how they preserved and admired the culture.

Jacqueline Cockburn
Jacqueline is Managing Director of an arts tours company running residential courses in Andalucía on the art and culture of the region. She is a lecturer at the V&A plus many other arts organisations here and in Australia.

Picture: Real Alcázar, Seville

Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense has never been out of print, but what isn’t realized often is that he made his living producing topographical watercolours of great delicacy. “A man of original and versatile genius”, ornithologist, diarist, musician, traveller – this warm and delightful human being expressed his simple philosophy through timeless humour. This illustrated lecture focuses on his biography with quotations from his writings throughout.

Tim Stimson
Tim is a freelance cultural arts historian, specializing in 17th and 19th century arts and society. He lectures at Cambridge University and to a number of other universities in the UK.

Picture:Edward Lear in 1887

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

Elizabeth Gowing
An Oxford graduate, Elizabeth moved to Kosovo in 2006 to work with the Ethnological Museum in Prishtina and co-founded 'The Ideas Partnership', a charity working on education and cultural heritage. She speaks fluent Albanian and is a regular contributor to BBC radio.

In 1932 the artist Edward Bawden and his wife Charlotte moved into Brick House, in the Essex village of Great Bardfield, initially sharing the house with another artistic couple, Eric Ravilious and Tirzah Garwood.  It was to be the beginning of a fascinating artistic community.

While Bawden and Ravilious saw active service as War Artists (Ravilious died in 1942) other artists captured the soon-to-change world of rural England through the Recording Project.  By the mid-1950’s a diverse, innovative and highly creative group had made Bardfield their home.  In 1954 the artists invited the public into their homes and studios and the popular ‘Open Studios’ movement began.

Jo Walton - Having been a volunteer guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern Jo has also combined a career of teaching and lecturing and art bookselling.  She is now a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society, the Art Fund, Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery and local art societies.

Picture: Eric Ravilious; Two Women in a Garden  (Watercolour, 1933. Courtesy of the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden)

Icons are religious panel paintings developed early in the history of Christianity.  The term ‘icon’ comes from the Greek word eikon meaning a likeness, image or picture.  Their religious power made them amongst the most valuable objects in the medieval Christian world: icons are art, but not as we know it!  This lecture will evaluate the power of the icon by exploring the origins of this type of portrait, the earliest surviving icons, their spiritual otherworldliness, the process of their creation (and why they often look the same), and the religious context in which they were displayed and used in daily worship.

Helen Rufus-Ward - An Art Historian with a doctorate (DPhil) from the University of Sussex who has published on Late Antique & Byzantine Ivory Carvings and 19th Century Plaster Cast Collecting Helen has worked since 2007 at Sussex as an Associate Tutor.  An experienced speaker who has delivered lectures at many universities, art institutions, The Wallace Collection and the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Picture: St Peter, 6C encaustic icon, St Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai

Arguably the greatest Victorian polymath.  Ruskin stoutly defended both Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites.  A patient and enthusiastic teacher of drawing, he was a significant collector of paintings and a perceptive critic.  A scholar of the Northern Gothic, he also elucidated the evolution of Venetian architecture.  Generous with his treasures, he endowed a museum for working men in Sheffield, supporting the Working Men’s College in London and did much to encourage the education of women.  In the Arts and Crafts he advocated high quality workmanship, whilst criticising exploitative industrialists.  His books influenced Tolstoy, Gandhi and the founders of the National Trust.

David Cross - Hon. Research Fellow, Durham University.  Founder of the Cumbrian Biographical Project and past President of Cumbria DFAS.  Author of the biography of George Romney.  Art History lecturer to undergraduate and adult classes.  Catalogued the Paintings in Durham Castle.  In recent years David has been a guest lecturer on Cruise ships.  He has edited two volumes of the illustrated letters of Percy Kelly.  His volume in the national series on public sculptures is Public Sculpture of Lancashire & Cumbria was published in 2017.

Picture: View from my window, Mornex, J Ruskin, 1862

Diamonds were formed below the crust of the earth millions of years ago erupting into our mountains, glaciers, rivers and seas.  Until the early 18th century the only known source was in India with subsequent finds throughout the world.  We will look at both the history and qualities of diamonds – what makes them unique, why and how we prize them.  This lecture goes into the next chapter in the history of diamonds, because on the market now there are man-made/synthetic diamonds.  So how do you make a diamond and how can you tell the difference?  Also addressed is the big question of how synthetic diamonds will affect our love and appreciation of them and in turn the value which we give them.

Patricia Law - Patricia is a Fellow of the Gemological Society and a Fellow of the Institute of Registered Valuers.  Having spent 25 years working for International Auction Houses preparing jewellery sales for London, Geneva & New York she established her own valuation business.  Patricia enjoys a role in teaching gemology and jewellery history to newly qualified brokers within the insurance industry as well as lecturing to private associations and charitable groups.

Picture: Diamond from the earth.

Armour was equipment for war and costume of a profoundly impressive kind.  Iron and steel can be sculpted into whatever extraordinary form the artist can imagine.  As the heroes and monsters of Classical antiquity proliferated in the Renaissance psyche, noblemen began to self-identify in those terms, casting themselves as the descendants and heirs of Hercules, Hector, Alexander and Caesar. 

On the front line of this movement, armourers tasked with proving those claims, met the challenge with some of the most magnificent expressions of their art.  Italian armourers transformed their patrons into living sculptures – the Greco-Roman ideal of physically perfect supermen or, conversely, scaly reptilian monsters out of some medieval nightmare.

Tobias Capwell - Toby is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection and an internationally acknowledged authority on Medieval & Renaissance weapons.  He is the author of numerous books and articles on the subject.  Toby appears regularly on television most recently on “A Stitch in Time” BBC4 as presenter and armour advisor on “Richard III: The New Evidence”.  Toby had the unusual honour of serving as one of the two fully armoured horsemen escorting the remains of Kind Richard III from the battlefield at Bosworth to their final resting place in Leicester Cathedral.

Picture: Armour helmet of the Italian Renaissance

In his tribute to Shakespeare on the publication of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays in 1623, Ben Jonson addresses him as ‘Sweet Swan of Avon’ , ‘Thou Star of Poets’ and ‘Not of an Age, but for all Time’. 400 years after his death Shakespeare’s words still have the power to thrill, to move, to uplift the soul. His popularity undiminished, it is said that a Shakespeare play is being performed somewhere in the world every minute of every day. In this lecture we explore what is known about his life in the turbulent and often dangerous world of Elizabethan and Jacobean England, and look at the development of English Renaissance theatre. We will also focus on some of the portraits purporting to be of Shakespeare and examine the theories behind them.

Elizabeth Merry - Elizabeth has over 25 years' experience lecturing on a 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 Workers' Educational Association, the Universities of Bristol and Southampton Departments of Continuing Education, Royal Society of Arts, Dillington House, Jane Austen Society, Thomas Hardy Society, Brussels Brontë Society, Finzi Society, the Art Fund, Dorset County Museum and literary, historical and philosophical societies nationwide: has also lectured on study tours to Rome, Aachen, Cologne, Brittany, the Dordogne, and throughout the UK. Mary lectured in Australia and New Zealand in 2011 and is returning to Australia for two further lecture tours.

Picture: Ben Jonson, who described Shakespeare as ‘Sweet Swan of Avon’.
Painting by Abraham Blyenberch, c 1617

John Singer Sargent's reputation as the leading international society portraitist left him open to attack from jealous rivals and critics with their own modernist agenda. We will explore the extraordinary inventiveness (curious was a favourite word), modernity, and psychological insight in Sargent's work, as well as his technical brilliance across a range of media and subjects. These will include many personal themes and preoccupations in landscape, seascape, light and tone and intimate portrait studies. Also less well known projects and experiments in sculpture. Caricatures, letters and diaries will be used to bring the personalities to life and to shed light on the life and interests of John Singer Sargent - a charismatic, unconventional and complex artist who was equally at home in England, Europe and the USA.

Mary Alexander - Mary’s background combines an unusual blend of academic and visual communications skills, with a BA in History and History of Art and a MA with distinction in History of Art from University College London. Her thirty years' experience as a lecturer 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, and a freelance lecturer to various arts, heritage and antiquarian societies.
Mary 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; she 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.

Picture: Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, by John Singer Sargent, 1892
credit: National Galleries Scotland

Modern art is often considered difficult, but it is much less so when seen through the eyes of some of the greatest cartoonists of the last 150 years.  They provide a humorous and skeptical but constructive view of modern art from Courbet to the Britart of the 1990’s.  This is a chance to enjoy the insights and cartoons of Daumier, Larry, Thelwell, Matt, amongst others, and the immortal Giles. 
 

Collectively, they provide an absorbing, illuminating and above all a funny, revealing and sidelong view of 150 years of modern art.

Barry Venning - Barry graduated from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth with a BA in history, formed a touring theatre company bringing new plays to audiences in rural Wales, was then employed for a year as an actor/writer with the Channel Theatre Company in Ramsgate, Kent, befor giving up acting and becoming a cartoonist!
He has had work published in the UK and abroad, including the strip 'Clare in the Commuity',  a weekly feature in The Guardian since 1996. In 2016 he was awarded Strip Cartoonist of the year, by the UK Cartoon Trust.
Barry is also a Sony Award winning writer of radio comedy, including the shows 'Coach Karen's Half Time Team Talk' and 'Clare in the Community' starring Sally Phillips, currently recording its twelfth series.
He runs a cartoon workshop 'Release Your Inner Cartoonist' to audiences as diverse as schoolchildren, business executives and festival goers.

Murder, poison, corruption and incest: all perfect ingredients for sensational popular culture. But in an age known for its brutality and church corruption were the Borgias really so bad?
This lecture reveals the real family that dominated the Papacy and Italian politics during the last decade of the 15th century: the charismatic figure of Pope Alexander VI, living inside his sumptuously decorated apartments, the career of his son, Cesare, cardinal, general, employer of Da Vinci and the model for Machiavelli’s The Prince, and the journey of Lucrezia Borgia from “the greatest whore in Rome” to a devout and treasured duchess of the city Ferrara.
Sometimes truth is more intoxicating than myth.

Sarah Dunant - Novelist, broadcaster and critic. Sarah read history at Cambridge, then worked for many years as a cultural journalist in radio and television on such programmes as Kaleidoscope (BBC Radio 4), The Late Show (BBC 2), and Night Waves (BBC Radio 3). She has taught renaissance studies at Washington University, St Louis, is a visiting tutor on the MA in creative writing at Oxford Brooks and has lectured around the world at festivals and conferences. Her most recent novels (of 14) have been set within the Italian Renaissance.  In the Name of the Family, published in 2017, completes the story of the Borgia family and the remarkable period of Italian history in which they lived.

Picture: Cesare Borgia by Altobello Melone

An eclectic mix of artistic and moral landscapes in eighteenth century England. The silken thread starts with the gnarled mulberry tree that still dominates Thomas Gainsborough’s childhood garden in Sudbury, Suffolk. The work of silkworms has associations with the town’s silk manufactory and his sitters’ clothes. Contemporary with England’s greatest landscaper, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, Gainsborough was an originator of the English landscape painting school. We will examine a selection of his paintings and portraits to identify what we see in the managed countryside. Art as nature or nature as art?
Gainsborough trained with William Hogarth whose landscapes are rather more urban with explicit moral messages. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens provide a striking contrast between the rural idyll and urban fabrication as well as social mores.

Caroline Holmes - Caroline has a very broad knowledge as a garden historian of ancient, modern and contemporary places, people and plants. She has lectured in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Europe and Japan, and on many cruise liners.
She lectures for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education (Course Director for International Summer Programme), the Royal Horticultural Society, museums, and specialist travel companies.

A consultant designer specializing in evoking historic, artistic and symbolic references, Caroline is author of eleven books, a theatrical producer and presenter and contributor on television and BBC Radio 4.

Picture: East Lake Pavillion, Stowe, Buckinghamshire
Credit NT images & Andrew Butler

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 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. Currently runs two small companies providing training and study breaks

Picture: Endurance, trapped in the ice

This programme change has been made following the sad death of Peter Warwick, author, historian, event organiser, lecturer and specialist in naval, maritime and polar history, who was to have been our lecturer this day.

Leonardo da Vinci, painter and draughtsman of the High Renaissance was an artist whose works were informed by scientific investigation.He observed the world closely, describing nature as his teacher, and studying anatomy and physiology in order to create convincing images of the human form.

He understood that science was the systematic study of structure and function as representatives of human gesture and expression. Science and art are different paths that lead to the same destination.

This talk reviews Leonardo’s approach to linear perspective, human proportion, emotion, and light and shade, together with the fashion in which his scientific investigations influenced his art.

Guy Rooker
Guy is a retired surgeon with an interest in Leonardo!

Picture: ‘Vetruvian Man’ by Leonardo da Vinci c 1490

This lecture celebrates the 200th Anniversary of the births of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who were first cousins and born just three months apart in 1819. Their shared enthusiasm for art and music endured throughout the twenty-two years of their marriage and they demonstrated their love through the works of art and jewelry they gave each other for birthdays, Christmases and anniversaries. Victoria and Albert understood and appreciated sculpture more than any of their predecessors since Charles 1.

They furnished and extended Buckingham Palace, made significant changes to Windsor Castle and commissioned two other royal residences, Balmoral Castle and Osborne House.

The partnership of patronage by a monarch and her consort is unique in the history of the British monarchy.

Barbara Askew grew up in Eton with Windsor Castle as part of her daily view. She graduated with an Honours Degree in History and taught History for 15 years before qualifying as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide. She is a lecturer, examiner and course director on Blue Badge training courses and an acknowledged expert on royalty and on Windsor Castle.

She has been the Site Liaison Representative at Windsor Castle for the Blue Badge Guides' Associations since 1990. She is a rota guide in the British Museum, the Houses of Parliament and the Albert Memorial and conducts historically-themed walking tours in Windsor for Windsor Festival and further education groups.

Picture: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

Tantrums and Tiaras is a look at backstage life at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the pressures faced by performers, be they singer, dancer, conductor or musician. We see how the building copes with the demands of modern productions and examine audience expectations both inside the theatre and out. We also look at some of the highs and try to understand some of the lows that have been the fortune of the Royal Opera House over the years. The lecture is fully illustrated, and includes audio and video clips.

Nigel Bates is Music Administrator of The Royal Ballet and has been a performer for almost forty years in and out of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.  

In the course of over 6000 performances, broadcasts and recordings he has worked with many of the leading figures in the classical music industry. He began his musical career in the Regimental Band of the Scots Guards before joining the Orchestra of Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet and working as a freelance player with most of the London orchestras and ensembles.

He was Section Principal Percussion of the ROH Orchestra from 1993-2009 and joined the The Royal Ballet Music Department in 2012. He has given lectures and presentations for many years both in the UK and abroad. He is a regular contributor to the printed and online content of the Royal Opera House and was also a producer for BBC TV's documentary series ‘Maestro at the Opera’ and ‘Pappano's Classical Voices’.

This lecture is an introduction to the Art and Culture of Japan in a broad chronological progression. A selection of representative works of art from the early archaeological materials to the contemporary architecture are discussed in their historical and social contexts to encourage a better understanding of Japanese Art which is characterized by the contrasting aspects of simplicity and complexity.

The introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the 6th century brought an influx of the Continental cultural influence, however, the indigenous tradition survived to create a synthesis of artistic styles that is unique to Japan.

The examination of Buddhist sculpture, secular paintings, and a wide variety of art forms, including ceramics, lacquer, gardens and architecture, will visually trace the development of Japanese culture.

Meri Arichi
Born in Japan, Dr. Arichi has lived in the UK since 1963. She studied Art History in London and Florence, and worked at Christie's in London, from 1989 to 1993. She returned to university to study Asian Art at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London in 1993, where she completed her PhD.

She has been teaching History of Japanese Art in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS as a Senior Teaching Fellow since 2007 and has run courses at the Birkbeck College, V&A, British Museum, and the Courtauld Institute of Art Summer School. She has led tours to Japan and lectured on Swan Hellenic cruises.

Picture: The Golden Pavilion, Kyoto

There are many illustrious gardens on the shores of Lakes Como and Maggiore in the mountainous far north of Italy. The ones described in this lecture include the Villa Cicogna Mozzoni, with its 16th-century parterre and water staircase; Isola Bella, a baroque extravaganza on an island in the middle of an alpine lake; Villa Melzi and Villa Carlotta, two lakeshore gardens made by rival Napoleonic grandees; and the Villa San Remigio, a garden created by two Edwardian lovers, one Irish, one Neapolitan, as a kind of alfresco theatre for celebrating their love of art and nature.

These considerable achievements and others are set in a climate ideal for garden-making amid some of the world's most glorious scenery. Where Wordsworth, Shelley, Liszt and Bellini found inspiration, it could also work for you.

Steven Desmond is a  chartered horticulturist with a special interest in the historic gardens of Britain and Europe.

During a long and varied career of practical and academic experience he has been a professional gardener, lecturer, examiner, adviser and consultant. He now divides his time between writing for Country Life, lecturing to a wide range of audiences including the University of Oxford and The Arts Society, and leading specialist garden and architectural tours in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany and Italy. His well-received book Gardens of the Italian Lakes was published by Frances Lincoln in 2016.

Picture: Isola Bella gardens, Lake Maggiore

Before the Victorians reinvented it, the traditional Christmas was a very different affair. Devoid of Father Christmas, trees and commercialisation, the emphasis was on gentility, tradition and sociability. Jane Austen set many scenes from her novels during the Christmas period exactly because this was a time for social gatherings. We’ll look at the balls, parties, dinners, games, traditions and celebrations that filled the festive season. Novels, letters, paintings and engravings are used to bring the Georgian Christmas to life.

Claire Walsh
MA V&A and RCA; PhD European University Institute, Florence.

Dr. Walsh has lectured widely in Britain - at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Victoria & Albert Museum, Costume Society and Museum of London amongst others - and in Europe, the USA and Canada. She currently lectures for the Open University.

She has been published in numerous academic journals and edited volumes.

Picture: Jane Austen, by her sister Cassandra

The ‘Aphrodite of Knidos’ can aptly be said to personify the birth of a whole revolution in human imagination and universal ambition. Sculpted by the gifted Greek artist Praxiteles in his studio in Athens somewhere about 350 BC, the ‘Aphrodite’ came to embody the emancipation of society from prudery, prejudice and parochialism, and to herald the birth of the new all-embracing philosophies and ideals of Hellenism, many of which are with us to this day.

The Praxiteles ‘Aphrodite’ was so radical and innovative not only because she was said to be the most beautiful and natural representation of the female form ever created, but especially because she was sculpted undraped. For the first time a female deity had been carved totally unclothed, revealed in all her astounding beauty.

According to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, she became the most famous statue of all time and to this day there is none that has achieved anywhere near that same universal acclaim.

David Price Williams
Dr Price Williams has a first degree in Ancient Near Eastern languages, with a subsidiary in Attic and Koine Greek. His post-graduate work, and doctorate from the University of London, is in Near Eastern archaeology.

David has been associated with the eastern Mediterranean – Greece, Turkey, Jordan and the Near East for more than 40 years. He is deeply involved with all aspects of Near Eastern culture, history and archaeology and has designed, and lectured on, many tours to the area. He is very familiar with the archaeological sites of Turkey, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.

He is the author and co-author of numerous academic papers on the area and several books.

Picture: the Medici Venus in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Britain’s oldest fine arts institution celebrates its 250th Anniversary in 2018. 

This fully illustrated talk explores a selection of ground–breaking temporary loan exhibitions and considers the Academy’s role and impact on the art scene, in the UK and overseas.  There is a behind the scenes look at the Summer Exhibition – held without interruption since 1769. We also consider the influence of certain world-renowned Royal Academicians, exemplary artists in their chosen field, and the pivotal role that is played by the RA Schools.

Pamela Campbell-Johnston
Pamela has over 20 years of lecturing experience to undergraduates, adult groups, and to Friends and Patrons of the Royal Academy of Arts as part of the Adult Education Department's programme of events, and has conducted numerous guided tours and focused gallery talks on individual works of art. She specialises in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art. She is a freelance art consultant and lecturer.
Pamela gained a MA Hons in Art History at St Andrew's University.

Picture: The Royal Academy of Arts – promoting the Summer Exhibition

Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, has a history that saw Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans instil their individual cultures before the onset of the Middle Ages.
The scenery is spectacular, none more so than along the east coast, dominated by the towering cone of Mount Etna, Europe’s highest active volcano.
In this lecture, we follow the historical narrative and take a look at some of the remarkable sites that bear witness to the disparate civilizations that once ruled this beautiful island.

Group Captain Michael Clegg
Mike Clegg’s interest in archaeology was stimulated, during his Royal Air Force career, when he was able to visit many of the famous archaeological sites in the Mediterranean.
Later, based in Naples, he became a founder member of the International Archaeological Society and was lecturing, leading tours of the major sites of southern Italy and Sicily, and excavating Roman and pre-Roman sites.
Mike’s interest became firmly grounded through academic studies, resulting in a First Class Honours Degree and a Diploma in Classical Studies.
Retired from the RAF, he now works freelance, planning and leading ancient history tours for a number of travel companies.

Picture: The Temple of Segesta, dating from the 5th century BC

Nowhere in Paris is more evocative of Bohemian life, of high spirits, decadence, poverty and revolutionary art, than Montmartre. Little more than a rundown, suburban hill bristling with windmills, overlooking the city. But the garden cafes, the dancehalls and cabarets, and ramshackle studios that spilled down the hillside would become the inspiration and home to some of France’s greatest artists.
From the Moulin de la Galette where Renoir painted Parisians dancing in the afternoon sunlight, to Toulouse Lautrec’s vivid images of the Moulin Rouge, the smoke filled cabaret where the Can-Can was danced, to the shabby garrets of the Bateau Lavoir, where a group of artists headed by Picasso painted canvases that would shake the foundations of Western art. This lecture charts the course of this extraordinary artistic life.

Douglas Skeggs

Douglas read Fine Arts at Cambridge. He is a writer, Artist and TV Presenter, also a lecturer to many London art courses. He is Director of the New Academy of Arts, and author of 6 novels.

Picture: Le Moulin de la Galette, 1887, van Gogh

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, Renee 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

Bertie Pearce is a Member of The Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star. He has performed all over the world in weird and wonderful places.

Equipped with a BA(Hons) in drama from Manchester University, Bertie went on to the Ecole Internationale du Theatre Jaques Lecoq in Paris.

He has starred in a number of successfjul ‘magic shows’, and is widely sought after for close up magic and cabarets for private parties and fundraisers. He has ‘served time’ on cruise ships and has toured extensively sharing his passion for Magic, Punch and Judy, Victorian Pastimes and Charles Dickens

Vivaldi is the one Baroque composer whose music is a direct reflection of the city in which it was composed. Listen to a Vivaldi concerto and hey presto you are transported directly to the heart of 18th century Venice.

The reasons for this are many. First, Vivaldi was a son of Venice and had an innate understanding of Venice’s unique aesthetic, which included a passion for colour, spectacle and display of emotion, points that are reflected time and time again in his music. Second, Venice solved its problems with abandoned and orphaned children in an altruistic manner and the way in which that was done impacted on Vivaldi as a composer, teacher and musical director. Third, Vivaldi’s health problems and his eccentricities as a man and a priest dictated his path as a musician and performer in Venice’s cultural life.

Against the luxurious backdrop of 18th century Venice, and with live musical performances, the lecture explores the amazing world of Vivaldi’s music – music that is as intrinsically Venetian as the canvasses of Canaletto.

Peter Medhurst

Peter’s work as singer, pianist, lecturer-recitalist, and specialist tour leader, has taken him to some of the best known music and art venues in the UK, in Europe and throughout the world.

He is a familiar face to an eclectic range of audiences; he is a broadcaster, and recording artist.

Peter did his musical training at the Royal College of Music where he studied singing, organ, composition and music history. A scholarship from the Austrian government gave him the opportunity to have coaching with the accompanist Erik Werba in Salzburg. Later, in the UK, he took harpsichord lessons with Ruth Dyson, who became his accompanist and fellow keyboard duettist in a professional partnership that lasted until her death nearly 20 years later.

Peter has lectured for universities, directed a wide range of choirs, vocal ensembles and instrumental groups, and adjudicated and given masterclasses for the British Federation of Music Festivals.

The lecture will give insight into the mandated Court Costume, and dress accessories that would have been worn by men and women on formal and semi-formal occasions whilst at Court or holding positions within Central or Provincial Government during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

It will consider the nature, structure and iconography of formal, mandated, Court Costume, and the Insignia of Rank, worn by the Imperial Clan, Civil and Military Officials.

For contrast, the robes and dress accessories worn by high ranking officials on informal, or special family occasions, in their private lives, will also be reviewed.

The lecture will include coverage of the highly decorative costume worn by high ranking Chinese Ladies.

David Rosier

In his working life, David spent over 25 years focused on business in Asia, and China, and for 14 years, he and his family lived in Hong Kong.

During the years in Hong Kong he, and his wife Wendy, created a collection of more than 500 Imperial Qing Dynasty, and related items, of costume and dress accessories.

Since returning to UK David has lectured extensively on Chinese Court Costume of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and the history, culture and arts of this period.

David is an Accredited Lecturer for The Arts Society and lectures regularly around the UK and Europe. In addition, he has undertaken lecture tours to New Zealand and Australia and leads tours to China that focus on Imperial Art and Culture.

Picture: A ‘Dragon Roundel’ insignia of rank for an Imperial princess, featuring a 5-clawed Lung Dragon. Mid 18th C

American glass artist Dale Chihuly is the superstar of the glass world. With his passion for glass, his larger than life personality, and his constant exploration of glass's luminous qualities and colour possibilities, he creates glass sculptures which are extravagant, colourful and spectacular.

From his early beginnings with vessels decorated with designs inspired by native American blankets and baskets, he has progressed to creating huge installations in historic cities, museums, and hotels around the world. In 2005 his organic sculptures filled the greenhouses, lawns and lakes at Kew gardens. His glass magic has transformed the studio glass movement and altered our visual perceptions of this extraordinary material for ever.

Charles Hajdamach

Charles is one of the top authorities on glass in the country. He graduated in fine art from Newcastle University, then worked for three years at the Manchester City Art Gallery where his fascination with glass began. From 1974 until 2003 he was in charge of Dudley Museums & Art Galleries including, from 1980, as Director of Broadfield House Glass Museum. Under his control Broadfield House quickly became recognised as one of the top glass museums in Europe. In 2009 he completed his book 20th Century British Glass. He lectures widely in Britain and overseas. In 2000 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Glass Technology. He is a member of the Advisory Board to the executive of the National Glass Centre in Sunderland. He is President of the Scottish Glass Society and also Life-President of the Glass Association which he was instrumental in founding.

Picture: Chihuly at Kew Gardens. Thames Skiff with assorted Chihuly glass sculptures, 2005. Photo by Charles R. Hajdamach

'International Gothic' is a modern term, which has been used to describe certain artists and their work, for example Gentile da Fabriano, Pisanello or the Limbourg Brother. Certain characteristics are commonly found such as a response to nature, seen in the exquisite details of plants, animals and landscape, or the overwhelming richness and sumptuousness of colour and use of gold-leaf. 'International Gothic' was essentially a courtly art, produced at the courts of the Burgundian dukes, the French kings and in the cities of Prague, Cologne and Verona, among other places, throughout Europe.

Clare Ford-Wille

Clare Ford-Wille is an independent art historian. She has led study tours to Europe and lectured on European art, architecture and sculpture for more than thirty years, primarily for the University of London, the National Gallery, the V&A and The Arts Society. She has also contributed to several academic guides.

 Picture: The Virgin and Child with Saints, Pisanello, circa 1435 – 41

Surveying a period of a thousand years through visual media as varied as carved ivory and wall-painting, embroidery and manuscript illumination, this familiar story will be shown to have had a multiplicity of manifestations in the art of the Middle Ages, some more familiar than others.

We will see the Christ Child as a small adult lying on an altar instead of a manger, and also as a vulnerable baby on his mother’s knee; we will discover how, over the medieval centuries, the Wise Men from the East turn into kings and how Joseph ages rapidly as he turns from young husband to a sleepy old man. We will ask what drove these changes and what they signify about the times in which they were produced.

Catherine Oakes

Cathy has pursued an academic career at Bristol and Oxford universities, where she has published books and articles on many aspects of Northern European and Tudor art and architecture.
She co-devised and lectures on the V&A medieval year courses, and also lectures for travel companies. She has been a lecturer for The Arts Society since 1982.

Picture: Detail from the lintel of a tympanum which formerly adorned the west front of the abbey church at La Charité-sur-Loire. C.1140.

Imagine Stirling Moss and Jenks (Denis Jenkinson) tearing round the Mille Miglia at a staggering average speed of 98.53mph. ‘Look', yells Jenks, 'that's Ravenna' - whoosh, too late, it's miles back. No pit stops or culture for them.

In her lecture, Libby Horner takes things at a slower pace and presents a multi-media extravaganza of art and architecture, history, food, wine and music interspersed with little known snippets about the cars and characters.

Libby Horner

Freelance art historian, curator, film producer, lecturer and writer. The irrepressible Libby has recently written film scripts about Fay Godwin, Fiore de Henriques, Gordon Russell, John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens (Patrick Reyntiens: Catalogue of Stained Glass was published in 2013).
Her lecture repertoire reflects her eclectic range of interests.

Picture postcard of the 1932 Mille Miglia

As with LS Lowry, oil painter and watercolourist Edward Seago (1910-74) was immensely popular, but overlooked by critics; today the best of his landscapes look fantastic, while his life story is full of interest.

A prolific author, he overcame childhood illness before running away with the circus. He mixed in aristocratic circles and made friends among the Royal family.

A colourful wartime career and a trip to Antarctica add to this fascinating account.

In this lecture we explore a number of Seago’s finest oil paintings and watercolours in detail, looking at his choice of subject, design and technique.

James Russell

James studied History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, but was galvanized into writing about art by a lengthy stint selling contemporary paintings and sculpture in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
A passionate advocate of 20th century painting and design, he writes and lectures widely. He curated the 2015 exhibition Ravilious at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

In Britain, very little is known about Germany’s unique post-WW2 process of remembrance and the efforts undertaken to find art forms which honour the victims of one of history’s darkest periods.

With all traditional forms of memorial deemed irrelevant and inappropriate, German artists were faced with questions of apology and atonement. But how to express national guilt and shame rather than pride and patriotism? How to remember what you would rather forget?

The ‘counter memorial’ artists came up with art forms that are extraordinary, brave, and inspiring, and which aim to keep the memories and lessons of the past alive in the individual psyches of the people.

With her Anglo-German roots and personal connection to the subject, Angela is ideally placed to give insight into this hugely interesting and topical subject.

Angela Findlay

Angela is a professional artist, accredited lecturer, and writer with a long career of teaching art in prisons both in England and Germany. Her interest in the redemptive role of art in society led to extensive research into Germany’s complex post-WW2 process of remembrance. Angela is currently writing a book further exploring these subjects.

Betty Joel, born Mary Stewart Lockhart, ran a furniture making and design business. At its peak, in the 1920’s and 30’s, Betty Joel Ltd employed 50 craftsmen and had showrooms in Knightsbridge. With no formal training, she created, through a flair for branding and marketing, the leading furnishing company of the day in London. The talk explores her early life and marriage to David Joel, and her exhibitions and projects.
Royalty, high society, politicians, banks, hotels (such as the Savoy in London) were among her clients, as well as film companies and theatres.
With rare access to three surviving schemes, the style and glamour of 1930’s design is brought to life, retelling the story of a determined woman in a world still run by men.

Clive Stewart-Lockhart studied on the Sotheby's Works of Art course and has now been working in the fine art world for 40 years. Managing Director of Woolley and Wallis, the UK's leading regional auctioneers, in Salisbury, he has been a specialist on the BBC Antiques Roadshow for over 20 years. Clive has lectured on cruise ships and for many diverse groups. He recently published a major article in the Journal of the Decorative Arts Society on Betty Joel.

Portrait of Betty, painted in 1929 by Frederic Whiting

Paris is custodian for the famous ‘high jewellery’ houses such as Cartier, Boucheron, Chaumet and Van Cleef & Arples, houses responsible for creating jewels that have adorned Kings, Queens, Maharajahs, millionaire industrialists, bankers, entrepreneurs, Hollywood royalty, and some of the most beautiful women in the world.
They continue in their quest to create jewels that are innovative in design and beautifully crafted, ingredients necessary for iconic creations that will stand the test of time. Our lecturer has witnessed first-hand the unrivalled skills of the Parisian goldsmith in Cartier’s workshops to discover what goes into making the ‘high jewellery’ that will ultimately be sought after and collected by international connoisseurs.
By sharing the tales that lie behind the commissions and the fabulous diamonds, pearls and gemstones which bring alive these jewels, we will follow some of their remarkable journeys through history.

Joanna Hardy trained as a goldsmith before working for De Beers valuing and grading rough diamonds, then becoming one of the few women diamond dealers, trading in Antwerp, Tel Aviv, Mumbai and New York. She worked as a senior jewellery specialist for Philips Auctioneers, and for Sotheby’s London, where she was responsible for jewellery sales in New York, Geneva and London. Joanna is now an independent jewellery consultant, delivering seminars, jewellery masterclasses and lectures worldwide. She writes for the international press and is a published author with her book ‘Collect Contemporary Jewelry’. She curates contemporary jewellery exhibitions and is a regular jewellery expert on the BBC Antiques Roadshow.
Joanna is a Liveryman of the Goldsmith’s Company, a Freeman of the City of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Picture: Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala 1903. Cartier Emerald and Diamond Head ornament 

This lecture explores the importance of jade throughout all periods of Chinese history from the early tomb items to the magnificently carved decorative items of the 18th century.  Nephrite jade was used in the manufacture of objects until the Mongol emperors annexed northern Burma into the Empire and discovered jadeite, the most prized stone of all.  
The Emperor Qianlong (1736-95), with his passion for jade practically bankrupted the country, and was instrumental in building a three thousand mile long road from China to Burma solely for the purpose of transporting this stone.
The symbolism of the carvings and the manner of manufacture are also discussed in this lecture, which illustrates the fabulous qualities of this very precious gem.

Dr Peter Le Rossignol has degrees in Decorative Arts & Historic Interiors and Fine Art Valuation; also holds a DPhil in Art History. He has forty years' lecturing experience, including to the Art Fund in Jersey and Guernsey, the Ringwood Antiques Club Hampshire, the Jersey College for Adult Education. Peter has given talks on local radio, and held antique road shows for various organisations. His interests include eighteenth century fine & decorative art, the Grand Tour, Oriental decorative arts, and silver and jewellery. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Picture: 'Stone of Heaven'

“Antiques. I don’t understand them and they’re beyond my budget. Nobody even collects anymore. They’re not for me.”

This lecture offers a persuasive introduction to buying antiques and integrating and using them in today’s homes. It explores the state of the antiques market and the different meanings of the word 'value'. We take a look at what current and future generations of collectors are buying, why they are buying it and how they are displaying it.

Mark Hill studied History of Art & Architecture (BA Hons). He became director of an internet company forming and running a ground-breaking deal with eBay Live Auctions.

Since 2002 he has co-authored the internationally published Collectables Price Guide with Judith Miller. Mark has his own publishing company and has published books on specialist subjects in 20th century design and decorative arts.

He appears on the Antiques Roadshow, and co-presented three primetime TV series on antiques and collecting for BBC2. He has lectured widely, and contributed to many newspapers, magazines, radio and TV programmes. He is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and a Freeman of the City of London

Picture:  Integrating and using antiques in today’s homes

The traditional symbol of military might and fiscal power, an emblem of nature in all her gentleness and cruelty, and a sporting icon of impeccable breeding: the horse is a reflection of mankind’s most positive views of itself. These themes are discussed in this lecture through the medium of sculpture from pre-history to the present day. 

Vivienne Lawes studied History/History of Art at York University, followed by an MA in Fine and Decorative Art at Sotheby's Institute, London.

She teaches at several institutions in London, and lectures on 17th and 18th century East-West trade, and modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art at Sotheby's Institute and the Institut d'Etudes Supérieures des Arts (IESA), London.

Vivienne is an arts journalist for publications including The Art Newspaper, Art + Auction, Country Life, the Guardian and the Antiques Trade Gazette.

The world of maps extends from 3000 BC to Harry Beck’s London Underground map of 1931. In between, hand-drawn 15th century Portolan sea charts have been superseded by printed maps, initially by 2nd century Ptolemaic maps, which could now finally be published.

England played an important part in these developments. Christopher Saxton in 1579 was the first cartographer to publish a regional Atlas of any country, John Speed is a household name, whilst John Ogilby takes credit, in 1670, for the first road atlas.

Since time immemorial man has enjoyed walking with his fingers!

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, the Rotary Club, Women's Institute, Masonic Societies and Red & Blue Badge Guide audiences.
He is a qualified City of London guide and a past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards.
In addition to various magazine articles, his publications include The City of London Masonic Guide (2006), A Collector's Guide to Paper Money, and British County Maps.

Picture: Christopher Saxton 1575 Map of Suffolk

It would be easy to imagine artists recreating one of the most famous Biblical scenes since the dawn of Christianity. Yet the fabled manger, as we know it, does not appear in visual arts before medieval times. What is the reason for its late development? What is the agenda behind the obvious? Whose agenda was it? The lecture, illustrated with masterpieces by Giotto, Botticelli, Rubens and others, will explain the social and political history behind the popular Christmas scene.

Nirvana Romell ran art history courses in South Africa, before coming to the UK in 2003. Since then she has worked here as a freelance lecturer. She regularly presents art history courses and lectures at the Manchester Art Gallery, the Walker National Gallery in Liverpool, Wilmslow Guild (life-long learning centre) and Prestbury Art Appreciation Society. She also organises and presents tours of permanent and temporary exhibitions across the UK, and study tours to Croatia.

Picture: Giotto di Bondone: St Francis of Assisi preparing the Christmas crib at Grecchio, 1300, fresco, Upper Church, Assisi

This lecture chronicles the life and work of William Moorcroft from his employment in 1897 with the Burslem pottery of James Macintyre and his subsequent appointment as Art Director. His early ‘Aurelian’ and ‘Florian’ wares are discussed alongside his close relationship with Liberty and Co of London. His departure from Macintyre’s in 1912 led to the setting up of his own ‘state of the art’ pottery in Sandbach Road, opening in the autumn of 1913.

Despite the economic turmoil that accompanied the Great War, we see how he managed to tread water before, in the 1920s, taking the company to prosperity, and surviving the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The talk also looks at the post war years when after his death in 1945 the company passed to his son Walter, and his efforts to provide art pottery for the ‘modern’ home.

Eric Knowles has over twenty five years' experience lecturing to museums and galleries around the world, including the V&A, British Museum, Ashmolean Museum, Art Deco Society of New York, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, and the South African Antique Dealers Fair, along with countless antique societies in the UK. He hosts fine art, antiques and architectural trips in the UK, USA and Europe, and has broadcast for thirty years with the BBC's Antiques Roadshow.

Photo: Peacock vases, late 19th early 20th century

Early in his career John Constable made a momentous decision – to reject conventional ways of painting landscape, and instead, to go directly to nature. ‘The world is wide’, he wrote; ‘no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of the world; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from each other.’

But, if Constable was to stray from the well-worn paths of conventional representation, how was he to go about depicting the truth of natural form, in all its freshness and complexity? He was always searching for ways to achieve this, and over the course of his career he continued to devise new strategies.

This lecture takes us behind the scenes of Constable’s much-loved masterpieces, revealing the painstaking and sometimes surprising ways he constructed his paintings.

Susan Owens is a writer, art historian and freelance curator. Formerly Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Assistant Curator of the Print Room at Windsor Castle for the Royal Collection, Susan publishes and lectures widely on British art to institutions including the V&A, Royal Academy & Wallace Collection.

Among her books is The Art of Drawing: British Masters and Methods since 1600 (2013). She contributed to the catalogue of the exhibition held at the V&A in 2014-15, John Constable: the Making of a Master.

Picture: John Constable, Weymouth Bay, 1816 (V&A)

2016 marks the 200th anniversary of the purchase of the so-called 'Elgin Marbles' from Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, by the British Parliament. The lecture, beautifully illustrated with specifically taken slides and video, will explore the aesthetics, the back-story, and the heated debates surrounding these fascinating and controversial works of ancient Greek art: what do we mean by 'the Elgin Marbles'? How and why were they originally created? Why are they so highly regarded? What happened to them between their creation and Elgin's time? How did he acquire them? Why are they now in the British Museum? And why are there such passionately held views both for and against their repatriation to Greece?

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

British photography enjoyed a golden age in the 1960s. Young, talented newcomers broke out of the conventional studio to revolutionise perceptions of fashion, portraiture and popular culture. This lecture looks at a range of superb images from photographers such as David Bailey, Terence Donovan, Lewis Morley, Tony Ray-Jones and Jane Bown.

Brian Stater is a member of the Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography and an exhibition of his photographs has been staged at University College London. He has taught at UCL since 1997 and became a NADFAS lecturer in 2003.

Marking the 300th anniversary of his birth in the village of Kirkharle in Northumberland, this lecture will consider the life and work of Lancelot Brown who rose to become the Gardener to George III and the most famous landscape designer in England.

Working on landscapes such as Stowe, Blenheim Palace, Bowood House, Luton Hoo, Wrest Park and Croome Court Brown's naturalistic style echoed the Italian artists of the previous centuries and was popularised in contemporary paintings and fashions in the late 18th century.

Twigs Way is a garden historian, author, researcher and lecturer. She presented Lost Gardens for Channel 4 and has appeared on Gardeners' World. She conducts freelance research in the history of specific gardens and parks for bodies such as English Heritage, the National Trust and various private clients. She has a specific interest in the portrayal of plants and gardens in art and literature, and the social aspects of garden history. She is author of a number of related publications.

Photo: Blenheim Palace

Would you pay money to see a man climb inside a bottle?  People in 1749 did when a newspaper advertisement claimed that a conjurer would do just that.  A riot broke out at the theatre when the spectators discovered they had been duped; but the Bottle Conjurer Hoax inspired satirical prints through to the 19th century, long after the incident itself was forgotten.  Graphic artists, such as James Gillray and George Cruikshank, associated the Bottle Conjurer Hoax with Napoleon Bonaparte and the infamous trial of Queen Caroline for adultery by George IV in 1820.

Ian Keable graduated from Oxford University in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, qualified as a Chartered Accountant and then became a professional magician.  He is a Member of The Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star and has received The Magic Circle Comedy Award.  He has written and presented a Radio 4 documentary on mind readers.  He is currently performing a show about Charles Dickens, who was an amateur conjurer, called The Secret World of Charles Dickens.

Illustration: Solomon’s Glory
or
the Rival Mistresses, Anon

As the title suggests, this lecture will focus particularly on the development of the wine glass; it will also look at glasses designed for other beverages, such as beer, cider, ale, cordial, even the humble water glass.

It will consider the drinking habits of different countries and the types of glasses associated with those countries; for example, the fragile wing-stemmed glasses of Venice, the German roemer, the Dutch flute and the sturdy English baluster-stemmed glass; and will illustrate the prominence of fine glass drinking vessels in scenes of feasting and, above all, conviviality.

Jane Gardiner trained at the Victoria and Albert Museum and went on to become a Research Assistant and Lecturer in the V&A Education Department. In 1987 she was invited to join Sotheby’s Institute as tutor of 17th and 18th Century Decorative Art, going on to become a Senior Lecturer and a Deputy Director of Sotheby’s U.K. She continues to lecture for both organizations, and more widely. Her areas of specialization are early European Ceramics and Glass and Eighteenth Century European Design.

Photo: 17th century rummer engraved by Anna Roemers Vissher with her poem dedicated to Constantijn Huygens

Blue and white tin-glazed earthenware has long been admired and collected for its attractive appearance, but this lecture goes further by examining English delftware with a pharmaceutical purpose. Drawing on examples from collections at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, this talk will provide a beginner's guide to these beautiful yet practical vessels. By placing them in their wider historical context, Briony will also demonstrate that delftware drug jars have an undervalued role to play in understanding medical practices in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Briony Hudson studied History at Cambridge University, and Museums Studies at Leicester University. Having worked at museums as diverse as Hereford Cider Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Wakefield Museum, she was Keeper of the Museum Collections at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society from 2002 until 2010. Her publications include 'English Delftware Drug Jars: The collection of the Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society'. She is a past President of the British Society for the History of Pharmacy.

Found across Europe, as an ornament in medieval churches and secular buildings, the ‘Green man’ is a motif derived from the art of the pre-Christian past, and has been interpreted as a pagan nature god. This enigmatic mask has nothing to do with Jack in the Green, Robin Hood or other 'green' characters of folklore, but is an entirely Christian image.

David Bostwick is a lecturer and consultant in the cultural history of the Medieval, Tudor and Stuart periods. He is a former keeper of the Social History Collections at Sheffield City Museums, consultant to the National Trust, English Heritage and Historic Scotland and a visiting lecturer at the University of Glasgow. He is also a tour leader and lecturer for NADFAS and other art societies.

 Photo: Green Man from the Chapter House, York Minster  

Everyone knows the ingredients of a traditional Christmas: gathering round the Christmas tree, pulling crackers, eating Christmas pudding and mince pies. Those last-minute cards sent to people you’ve not seen all year! These are the festive celebrations with which most of us grew up and which still hold a special magic as representing the timeless Christmases of days gone by. But where did they start? This lecture looks at the characters and personalities of the people who began those traditions or introduced them to this country.

Alan Read travels countrywide to deliver his many lectures to NADFAS groups and at various art galleries. His particular interest is in nineteenth and early twentieth century British art and he has written two dissertations on the early work of Stanhope Forbes and the Newlyn School.

He holds a master’s degree in History of Art from Birkbeck College, University of London.

For over ten years Alan has been a guide at the National Portrait Gallery, at Tate Britain and Tate Modern and has lectured for Tate/P&O Cruises. As a London Blue Badge Guide he also tutors student guides in their gallery subject and runs courses for established Blue Badge guides on British art and modern art.

This is the story of how the dramatic appeal of the Cornish coast became an international tourist attraction. After Turner’s paintings and engravings from his visits in 1811 and 1813 became widely known, leading British marine painters painted in Cornwall, producing iconic images of places such as Land’s End, St Michael’s Mount, Kynance Cove, Gurnard’s Head and Tintagel.

In the 1880s, artists settling in Newlyn, St Ives and Falmouth featured the lives of the fisherfolk in their paintings. By 1900, the school of marine painting in St Ives, run principally by Julius Olsson, was attracting artists from America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Indeed, three of America’s leading marine painters - William Trost Richards, Frederick Judd Waugh and Paul Dougherty - made their names in their home country with Cornish seascapes. After the First World War, the marine tradition was continued in St Ives by ex-Olsson students, such as Borlase Smart and John Park, but it was the naive marine paintings on bits of rough cardboard by rag-and-bone man, Alfred Wallis, which were to inspire Ben Nicholson and, through him, a whole generation of British modernists.

David Tovey was born in 1953 and educated at his father’s preparatory school, Tockington Manor, near Bristol, and at Clifton College. He read Jurisprudence at Pembroke College, Oxford, and was for 20 years, a solicitor.

He returned to University in 1996 to read History of Art and is now an independent art historian, specialising in Cornish Art. His particular interest in St Ives art derives from the fact that his great-grandfather, William Titcomb, was one of the early settlers in the colony.

David has curated various exhibitions on Cornish art and has published five books on St Ives Art.

Picture: Stormy Evening Cornish Coast - Olsson

This lecture will look at a wide and glittering array of jewelled objets and jewellery created by the Russian imperial goldsmith Karl Fabergé. Famed for his ingenious precious eggs made for the Tzarinas from the mid-1880s to 1917, his reputation also rested on his superb enamelled boxes and picture frames, carved hardstone animal and flower studies, small trinkets and jewellery. We shall trace his rise at the extravagant but doomed Russian Court, follow his international triumph and eventual exile, all the while focussing on individual pieces and the diverse materials and techniques by which they were created.

Clare Phillips is a Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, specialising in the history of jewellery. She has written the standard work on this subject for the V&A and also for Thames & Hudson (World of Art series).

She was closely involved in the development of the V&A’s new jewellery gallery (opened May 2008) and contributed the jewellery component of many of the V&A's major exhibitions and books.

Photo: Imperial Coronation Egg with the ‘Surprise’ replica of the Coronation coach that it contained. 1897

From the simple bow-shaped instruments which existed thousands of years BC, to the beautiful and complex instruments we see today, Sarah uses illustrations from carvings, wall paintings, pottery, mosaics, sculpture, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, and 18th and 19th century art, to trace the history and development of one of the world’s oldest and most loved musical instruments.

Performing on her own reproduction and antique instruments, Sarah will demonstrate the evolving sound and repertoire of the harp throughout its history.

Sarah Deere-Jones is a classically trained harpist and whilst she still performs on concert harp, she has in recent years concentrated on traditional music played on the Celtic harp. She is known for her virtuoso playing on lever harp, her compositions are appreciated by harpists all over the world, and she also teaches the instrument.

Photo: 14th century stained glass, Exeter

A rich, varied and highly colourful story!

Design in early Islamic art differs dramatically from that associated with medieval Christendom. Arabic calligraphy was of prime religious importance, and early Islamic design focused on geometry and the arabesque, built on the late antique traditions of the Near East. The Mongol invasions of the early 13th century brought visual change through ‘chinoiserie’: peonies, lotuses, cloud scrolls, cloud collars, and different geometric designs. Under Timur (Tamerlane) c.1400, designs commonly used a central pointed oval cartouche. These designs moved effortlessly between book-bindings, illuminated manuscript pages, tilework, and later, carpets. In the 16th century, naturalistic flowers (roses, tulips, hyacinths and the like) appeared in both Ottoman ceramics and Safavid textiles, and designs based on ogival lattices.

James Allan read Arabic at Oxford, and spent most of his career in the Ashmolean Museum as curator of the Islamic collections and latterly Keeper of Eastern Art. He also set up an Inter-faith Exhibition Service. For the last 6 years before his retirement in 2012 he continued to teach Islamic art in the University. He has lead tours in the Middle East, and has published numerous articles and books on Islamic art, his most recent book being, “The Art and Architecture of Twelver Shi’ism: Iraq, Iran and The Indian Subcontinent”.Picture: Tamarid Squinch Tile 14th/15th Century

The Splendour and The Sorrow Stained glass was one of the most important arts of the Middle Ages, combining monumental painting with architecture, sculpture and other arts to create church interiors shimmering with sumptuous colours and miraculous stories. This richly illustrated lecture explains how and why stained glass was produced, the subjects that were shown, and the workshops and patrons who were responsible for both the glazing of great cathedrals as well as local parish churches. It traces changes in style and techniques and the wholesale destruction of these masterpieces during the religious reformations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The lecture will include examples from churches in Bury St Edmunds and neighbouring villages.

Roger Rosewell is a professional lecturer, award-winning author and widely published photographer. Since 2006 he has been the Features Editor of Vidimus, the online magazine published by the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (GB committee) and the author of Medieval Wall Paintings in English and Welsh Churches (2008); A History of Stained Glass (2012), The Medieval Monastery (2012) and Medieval Wall Paintings (2014). Forthcoming books include Medieval Saints, Shrines and Pilgrimages and a guide to medieval and renaissance stained glass in France. Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University; former Leader writer Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers. Picture: All Saints church, Icklingham, 14th century

A verbal, visual and musical kaleidoscope celebrating the British coastline, combining art, photographs, posters, saucy postcards, sounds of the sea, film, songs, music and quotations from writers and poets.

Libby Horner is a freelance art historian, curator, film producer, lecturer and writer. She is also the world's leading authority on the multi-talented artist Frank Brangwyn and in recent years has extended her area of expertise to include the stained glass artist Patrick Reyntiens, photographer Fay Godwin and sculptor Fiore de Henriques.

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

Through her involvement with a number of companies and organizations in London and the USA, Caroline Rayman has worked with patrons of American Arts Institutions and visited private collections in Great Britain, Ireland and Italy. She has subsequently lectured regularly on both sides of the Atlantic and recently in London gave a lecture on the major exhibition ‘Bronze’ at the Royal Academy. She has been a regular Guest Speaker on Noble Caledonia cruises. Caroline collects 18th Century porcelain, samplers and Georgian paste jewellery and has lectured on all these subjects. Picture: Cliveden

We are all familiar with playing cards but how aware are you that they go back to the 14th Century? There are surviving decks from as early as 1475. The English took their cards from the French and The Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards is one of the many trade guilds of the City of London that protected the importation of French and other foreign cards into England. The Company was granted its charter in October 1628 Playing cards become truly interesting when the face of the card deviates from the Standard ie when the Kings and/or Queens, for example, are recognisable Monarchs. Thus the potential of a pack of cards as a medium of communication, propaganda or education was not lost on our forefathers. Events in 1678 involving the infamous Dr Titus Oates are represented in a 52 card pack entitled The (Horrid) Popish Plot, the first of several political decks published to capitalise on both the popularity of gaming and the hunger for news and information.

Yasha Beresiner, born in Turkey of a Russian father and Greek mother, has dual nationality: British and Israeli, and spent much of his working life in Latin America. Thus he sees himself as an International citizen. He qualified as a lawyer from the Hebrew University on Jerusalem, before settling in England in 1968. Yasha is a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards, he has lectured extensively worldwide and he is the author of a total of 11 books on various aspects of collecting.

Artists’ Views of Australia – Aboriginal, Pioneer, Botanical and Impressionist. Inspired by the Australian landscape and the major art galleries in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide, the lecture explores the extraordinary climatic contrasts prompted by Dorothea McKellar’s celebratory poem ‘My Country’. The patterned hands of ancient Aboriginal cave paintings, the dreams of pioneers, the unique botanical treasures, the glorious light captured by the Heidelberg School, Australia’s own Impressionists, and finally the rediscovery of its indigenous art.

Caroline Holmes lectures widely to educational and special interest groups in the UK and overseas, on horticultural and, usually related, art and architectural subjects. She is author of nine books, the most recent being Impressionists in their Gardens - living light and colour and The Follies of Europe - architectural extravaganzas. She is also a horticultural design consultant. She devised and presented 'How does your garden grow, Mr. Shakespeare?' at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds. She co-presented 'Glorious Gardens' on Anglia TV and has presented several series for BBC Radio 4. Picture: Arthur Streeton Spirit of the drought (c.1895)