In 1882 Gertrude Jekyll wrote a short but seminal article in The Garden in which she urged the readers to “remember that in a garden we are painting a picture”.  As an accomplished watercolour artist, Miss Jekyll was familiar with the principles of using colours, but she felt that in gardens these principles “had been greatly neglected”.  This talk looks at how to apply these principles in designing a border, but it also looks at the ways in which a border is different from a painting.  However, it goes further than this and looks at how contemporary work of the likes of Turner, Monet, Rothko, Jackson Pollack evolved in parallel with ideas about what a garden or border should look like.

TIMOTHY WALKER

Timothy read Botany at University College Oxford and after graduating worked as a trainee at Oxford Botanic Garden, the Savill Garden Windsor, and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. In 1985 he was awarded a Master of Horticulture by the Royal Horticultural Society of London. From 1988 to 2014 he was director (Horti Praefectus) at the Oxford Botanic Garden. In 2009 the Botanic Garden was awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for providing imaginative educational programmes for adults, students, children, and the general public, thereby breathing new life into education for people of all ages and enriching their lives. In 2010 Timothy was elected as a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London and n the same year he presented a 3-part series of films on the history of botany on BBC4.

Since 2014 he has been a tutor in Plant Biology at Somerville College, Oxford.    

The art of Sandro Botticelli (c1445-1510) epitomises the golden age of Florentine Renaissance art. Under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici and his circle, he executed large mythological paintings – including the iconic ‘Birth of Venus’ and ‘Primavera’ – as well as devotional pictures and portraits for the palaces of his illustrious patrons. Botticelli enjoyed a high reputation beyond Florence, including the prestigious commission from Sixtus IV to assist with the decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. 

Botticelli’s style fell out of fashion when he abandoned his depictions of idealised beauty for disturbing religious works influenced by the fanatical prior Savonarola and, as well as considering his overall output, this lecture also explores this latter aspect in more detail.

JAMES LINDOW

Dr. James Lindow was the first Renaissance PhD from the Royal College of Art and the V&A. He has convened and presented at international conferences, lectures widely in the UK and overseas and is currently a fine art underwriter in the City. He has written articles on diverse aspects of the Renaissance, and his book entitled 'The Renaissance Palace in Florence: Magnificence and Splendour in Fifteenth-Century Italy' was published by Ashgate Press in 2007 to widespread critical acclaim.

Turner and Constable were exact contemporaries, born just one year apart. Tate Britain is commemorating the 250th anniversary of the birth of these two giants of British art with the exhibition Turner and Constable running from November 2025-April 2026.

Both artists painted mostly landscapes but had a very different vision of art, each radical in its own way. But their personalities couldn't have been more different: the rough and ready Turner, likened to a 'dirty farmer' by Delacroix, was in sharp contrast to the genteel Constable.  Their critical reception was also very different: Constable was not elected as a full member of the Royal Academy until he was 52; Turner was just 27. Why was this?

This talk will contrast the careers of these great artists with a detailed look at some of their most famous paintings.

ANTONIA GATWARD CEVIZLI

Dr Antonia Gatward Cevizli 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 including Sabanci University, Istanbul; Sotheby’s Institute of Art; the National Gallery; the V&A Academy and The Courtauld summer school. Her interests are wide-ranging and she also worked across the collections of both Tate Modern and Tate Britain as a professional guide. She has lived in Siena, Venice and Istanbul.

How do you turn a huge sprawling novel like Gone with the Wind into a film to be seen in one evening? Why do some novels make the transition so much better than others? Is there any difference between one adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and any of the others? From Dickens to Austen the classic novels constantly reappear as movies but this lecture moves from All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930 through the social realism of the post-war British novel to The Godfather in 1971.

COLIN SHINDLER

Colin Shindler has been lecturing on American and British social and cultural history for over 30  years. He was awarded his PhD at Cambridge University and subsequently lectured on film for their History Faculty between 1998 and 2019 exploring its relationship to modern British and American social and cultural history.  Between 1975 and 1999 he pursued a wide-ranging career as a writer and producer in television, radio and film. He won a BAFTA award for his production of A Little Princess, wrote the screenplay for the feature film Buster and was the producer of various television dramas such as Lovejoy and Wish Me Luck. He has written three novels as well as numerous television scripts and radio plays but regards his greatest cultural contribution as choosing the title music for the police series Juliet Bravo. His most recent radio play to be broadcast on Radio 4 was Leni Goes to Hollywood, about the German film director Leni Riefenstahl. Other radio plays for R4 included How To Be An Internee (about P.G. Wodehouse) and one on Private Eye & The Profumo Affair (Rumours). He is best known for his childhood memoir Manchester United Ruined My Life which was short listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. His other publications include Hollywood Goes To War: Films & American Society 1939-1952 and Hollywood in Crisis: Films & American Society 1929-1939.  His next book is called Boom!: The Story of a Generation. 

When Diego Velázquez arrived at the court in Madrid from Seville, he stepped into a world that was the polar opposite to the bustle and chaos of his hometown. The court of Philip IV was governed by strict codes, hierarchies and prejudices. Yet, in his portraits of the king, courtiers, jesters, and dwarfs Velázquez manages to peel away the mask of formality to reveal the individual beneath.

This lecture explores these paintings and the relationships behind them and end swith a discussion of Velázquez’s greatest and most enigmatic masterpiece, Las Meninas.

ISABELLE KENT

Isabelle is an academic and educator specialising in the baroque, with a particular focus on Spain and its empire. She received a BA and MPhil in History of Art from Trinity College, Cambridge, where she is currently completing her PhD on the art of Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán. From 2017 to 2019 she worked as a curator at the Wallace Collection and in 2020 her book 'Collecting Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in Britain and Ireland' was published by CEEH. Alongside her academia, Isabelle is an expert guide for a travel company, leading groups around Spain and beyond, and she also teaches regularly for the V&A, Art Fund, Royal Academy, Chelsea Arts Club, Wallace Collection and University of Cambridge.

Speed! Technology! Destruction! The battle cry of the Futurists. WWI heralded the appearance of the car as a powerful symbol in avant-garde art. Soon the Art Deco masterpieces of the great car builders came to epitomise style, luxury and craftmanship, works of art in their own right.  The romance of speed continued to be a major theme in how cars were depicted in art, but, since the 1950s the car has become art, used as a canvas for artists as celebrated as Peter Blake, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst.   

This lecture will showcase the beautiful and the bizarre, celebrating the dynamic, creative, and sometimes unsettling relationship between cars and art.

JULIAN RICHARDS

Julian studied archaeology at Reading University and has since worked as a professional archaeologist, in commercial archaeology, for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent consultant. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992 and has an honorary doctorate.  His career in broadcasting involved researching and presenting Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4. He has written a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and landscape. Julian's museum work includes curating Stonehenge related exhibitions in the UK and abroad (Germany and Austria) and he has just curated the new permanent ceramics gallery for Salisbury Museum. With no intention of retiring he is still passionate about Stonehenge, pots and old cars.   

To kick off our seasonal celebrations, musician and broadcaster Sandy Burnett is on hand to share his selection of much-loved Christmas tunes. Expect an hour of the finest festive music from across the globe – his selections include sparking moments from Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, a heartwarming ballad from Mel Tormé, something from Soweto, a heavenly chorus from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Leipzig, an illustration of the English carol tradition at its finest - and something more cynical from Eartha Kitt.

SANDY BURNETT

Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3.

Combining engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise, he devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, is a highly sought after double bassist on the London jazz scene, and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season.

Aristocrat, politician, rake and revolutionary: William Cavendish, 4th Earl and 1st Duke of Devonshire, is certainly one of the more colourful of seventeenth-century noblemen. So wicked was he, that an Italian visitor to Restoration England described him as ‘the most dissolute man in London’. Yet Cavendish is also remembered as one of the great saviours of English civil liberties, part of a small group of aristocrats who overthrew James II and brought William of Orange and constitutional monarchy to the throne.

In addition, he remodelled his Elizabethan family seat and transformed it into one of our greatest country houses and a monument to his success, Chatsworth in Derbyshire. So this is a lecture about depravity, politics and fine architecture, as we look at Cavendish’s morals, his political redemption and his wonderful house and gardens: truly, ‘a Palace for a Prince’.

GILLIAN WHITE

Dr Gillian White specialises in the history and visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England. After beginning her career at the Warwickshire Museum, she then worked for the National Trust as Curator/Collections Manager at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, about which she wrote her PhD at Warwick University. Since then she has taught part-time at Leicester University in the Centre for the Study of the Country House and continues to teach History of Art in the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University and elsewhere.

This lecture reveals the extraordinary story of how the USA covertly used both Modernist design and Abstract Expressionism as cold war tools against the Soviet Bloc in the 1950s. It demonstrates how US furniture and homeware designs were used to unsettle Soviet Bloc citizens and how American artists were unwittingly deployed in European exhibitions to demonstrate American cultural superiority to wavering intellectuals.

The talk focuses on International Style architects and designers such as Mies van der Rohe, Charles and Ray Eames and Florence Knoll and Abstract Expressionist painters such as Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.  It compares their styles with Soviet-imposed Socialist Realism.  In particular, the presentation focuses on works in US exhibitions such as The New American Painting (Europe,1958/9) and The American National Exhibition (Moscow 1959) to demonstrate US intentions…and lays bare the secret agenda of the CIA and its extensive links to New York’s Museum of Modern Art.  

JAMES VAUX

James took a law degree at Oxford with First Class Honours and qualified as a solicitor before switching career. As a managing director of the international bank Rothschild, he advised governments and corporates worldwide. He set up and ran the bank’s Nordic operations, living and working in Scandinavia and immersing himself in the countries’ arts, culture and history.

James then gained an MA (Distinction) at UCL in Language, Culture and History (Scandinavian Studies). His dissertation was on Swedish design, and he specialised in landscapes, the Viking Age, politics and literature. He has also studied interior design at Inchbald, Mid-Century Modern at Sotheby’s Institute and electronic music at Point Blank. He hosted a local radio show for four years. He is currently lecturing in Sussex on Scandinavian Modern design, Danish design, Icelandic literature, Swedish literature and the role of modernism in the Cold War.

By 1960 interest in rock ‘n’ roll had started to fade, its biggest star was moving on and a new generation of teenagers were seeking something different. It came in the form of the Beatles, who broke all the rules and all the records. 

This is the story of the first five years of the 1960s, one of the most creative and innovative periods in the history of music, featuring all the major artists, important songs and principal musical genres.

STEVE KING

Steve King has spent 35 years working in the radio industry as a Broadcaster, Programmer and Events Director. He has managed some of the biggest radio brands in the UK and has interviewed and worked with many well-known popular music artists. He has also directed over 50 multi-artist events at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, London Palladium and Manchester Arena. Steve has lectured at various media conferences, industry events and for several cruise lines drawing on his extensive knowledge of popular music, and his experiences in the radio business.

American Impressionism has been unjustly neglected by European art historians and critics for many years, yet some wonderful paintings full of life, colour and vigour, were produced in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

James McNeil Whistler is an important figure in this story ,being the first American to establish a reputation in Europe. He was an inspiration to the many American students who came to Paris after the Civil War to study at the Academie Julian and other ateliers. Mary Cassatt was the only American to exhibit at the Impressionist Exhibitions in Paris and was very close to Edgar Degas, while John Singer Sargent, although born in Florence, worked both in Europe and in the United States. He, like Whistler, was an important influence on the younger American Impressionists.

In 1898 The Ten was established in New York – a group of ten American Impressionists all of whom had studied in Europe and many of whom had met Claude Monet at Giverny and had been deeply influenced by his work. William Merritt Chase is perhaps the most outstanding of the group, a brilliant teacher and accomplished painter admired by Whistler and Sargent. Childe Hassam painted wonderful street scenes depicting the drama of modern New York, while his Flag series is a celebration of colour and pattern. Willard Metcalf painted evocative views of New England in the various seasons and is maybe one of the finest painters of snow ever. Robert Reid painted women in interiors often dressed in kimonos and deeply influenced by the Japanese cult of which Whistler was a leader, while Edmund Tarbell painted his family in various settings as did his close friend and fellow teacher in Boston, Frank Benson.

This lectures reveals a subject very little known in this country and is illustrated with striking images.

JULIAN HALSBY

Julian studied History of Art at Cambridge and was Senior Lecturer and Head of Department at Croydon College of Art. His publications include Venice - the Artist's Vision (1990, 1995), The Art of Diana Armfield RA (1995), Dictionary of Scottish Painters (1990, 1998, 2001, 4th edition 2010), A Hand to Obey the Demon's Eye (2000), Scottish Watercolours 1740-1940 (1986, 1991), A Private View - David Wolfers and the New Grafton Gallery (2002). He also interviews artists for the Artist Magazine and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and The Critics Circle.

A practising artist, he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1994 and appointed Keeper in 2010.

John Ruskin, the leading critic and aesthete, wrote in the 1850s that photography could never be Art. This lecture traces the struggle to overturn that view, beginning with the Pictorialist school of Victorian photographers and closing with the recent emergence of photographic art inspired by digital technology. Along the way we examine the contested virtues of colour images and the present revival of old-fashioned film cameras.

BRIAN STATER

Brian Stater lectured at University College London for 25 years, retiring in 2021 as a Senior Teaching Fellow. His principal academic interest lay in the appreciation of architecture and he has a lifelong enthusiasm for photography. 

He has written on architecture for a wide range of publications and an exhibition of his own photographs was held at UCL. He is a member of the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography and he works with a pre-War Leica camera, as used by his great hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others.

The Frick Collection, New York, is one of the finest-quality museums in the world. It belongs largely to the Gilded Age of American connoisseurship of the early years of the 20th century and is a testament to the taste of its founder, steel magnate, Henry Clay Frick. He died on the eve of WWI after being able to collect some of the best pieces available in Europe and America. His agents were really effective and the result is a first rate collection of fine French furniture, enamels, porcelain, paintings by Bellini, Van Eyck, Holbein, Titian, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Dyck, Rubens, El Greco, Velázquez, Fragonard, Ingres, Renoir, JMW Turner, Constable, Whistler and many others. These are all set within an outstanding mansion in Manhattan.

This lecture introduces us to these wonderful works of art and explores some of them in more detail.

HILARY WILLIAMS

Formerly Print Room Superintendent at the British Museum, Hilary is now the museum's Art History Education Officer. She lectures for the British Museum, the London Borough of Bexley and for the Wallace Collection. Hilary also guides Special Interest Private Tours of the State Apartments at Buckingham Palace.

The first decade of the sixteenth century in Florence was an exhilarating place for an artist to work, brimming with new ideas and approaches. For a brief but intense period Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael coincided in Florence. These are the years of Mona Lisa, David and Raphael’s many serene Madonnas. 

ANTONIA GATWARD-CEVIZLI

Dr Antonia Gatward Cevizli 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 including Sabanci University, Istanbul; Sotheby’s Institute of Art; the National Gallery; the V&A Academy and The Courtauld summer school. Her interests are wide-ranging and she also worked across the collections of both Tate Modern and Tate Britain as a professional guide. She has lived in Siena, Venice and Istanbul.

In 1951, up and down the country, the nation celebrated. It celebrated with events ranging from the lavish displays on the South Bank of the Thames and at Battersea to the events held on village greens and in village halls across the land.  A nation still recovering from the physical, financial and mental struggles of the recent World War decided to hold a party for the country.

This talk will consider the reasons why the Festival was held, some of the characters involved, what motivated them and the resulting events and the wonderful design, art and architecture that flourished during the Festival year.

MATTHEW DENNEY

Matthew has spent his working life as an auctioneer and valuer of fine and decorative arts and is currently a senior valuer and head of department at Lawrences in Crewkerne, one of the country's leading provincial auctioneers. He has also worked in Higher Education as Course Leader and a Senior Lecturer on the no longer extant Fine Arts Valuation Degree at Southampton Solent University, and taught on a range of subjects including furniture, silver art and design history. He completed his PhD in the Arts and Crafts Movement and has written on design history for a number of publications. 

You are invited to join us for a special social and fund-raising event

on Thursday 5th December 2024, 6.30 - 8.00pm. (Doors open 6.15pm)

Venue: The "Old Music Room", Queen's College, Taunton.

A welcome drink and canapes on arrival followed by a fascinating talk by Gavin Plumley on the life and works of 

John Singer Sargent - The Private Radical

Places are limited and entry is by ticket only. - £17.50 for TASTE members, £20.00 for Guests.

To obtain tickets please contact Ginnie Rhodes, Event Organiser, at ginnie.shopping@gmail.com or telephone: 07484 123877

For more details, please click here.

There is no name more evocative of Bohemian life: of high spirits, decadence, poverty, and revolutionary art in Paris, than Montmartre. In reality it was little more than a rundown suburb overlooking the city, bristling with windmills. But the garden cafes, the dancehalls and cabarets, and the ramshackled studios that spilled down the hillside of Montmartre 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 Offenbach’s music, to the shabby garrets of the Bateau Lavoir where a group of artists headed by Picasso would paint canvases that would shake the foundations of Western art, this lecture charts the course of this extraordinary artistic life.

DOUGLAS SKEGGS

Douglas read Fine Art at Magdalene College Cambridge and has been a lecturer on paintings since 1980. In that time he has given over 8000 lectures to universities, colleges and art societies. He was the director of  The New Academy of Art Studies for three years and is presently a regular lecturer at The Study Center, Christie's course 'The History of Art Studies' and other London courses. Among his more improbable venues for lectures are the bar on the QE2, MI5 headquarters, the Captain's Room at Lloyds, and an aircraft hanger in a German NATO base. Overseas he has lectured in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain, and has taken numerous tours around Europe. He has written and presented various TV documentaries, notably the Omnibus programme on Whistler and the exhibition video on William Morris. Three one-man exhibitions of his paintings have been held in England and Switzerland. He has published five novels, which have been translated into 8 foreign languages, and his book on Monet, River of Light, has sold 30,000 copies in England, America and France.

This lecture will look at Gonzagan Court Life in the fifteenth & sixteenth centuries and concentrate on three key players in Mantua’s rich artistic heritage. Pisanello, a painter of courtly life and chivalrous encounters. Andrea Mantegna, whose Classicism and Humanism made Mantua very trendy. Finally Guilio Romano whose artistic naughtiness perfectly suited the ribald tastes of a brash Gonzaga Duke. Although their work covers a period of 200 years and each artist is distinct in their respective Gothic, Renaissance and Mannerist style, Dan will reveal how their working environment has caused unintended co-ordination.

DANIEL EVANS

Dan is an educationalist with a passion for all things Italian. Dan is a Housemaster and Teacher at Cheltenham College, a full boarding and co-educational independent school established in 1841 and was formerly Head of History of Art at Wycombe Abbey School. He has been lecturing since 2001, and spent 9 years working as a senior lecturer, tutor and tour guide for Art History Abroad. He was voted the British winner of the World Guide of the Year Awards in 2008 and alongside his lectures and special interest days he also leads educational study trips for groups of friends to a range of destinations in Italy.

The Maya lived in Central America between 1000 B.C. and 1528 at which time they were conquered by the Spaniards. The peak of their civilization was between 300 and 900 AD. During that time, they built enormous monuments, produced jade and ceramic items of great beauty and developed a calendar that was far more advanced than anything in Europe at the time. They had an advanced understanding of mathematics and astronomy and developed a hieroglyphic script which scholars are beginning to decipher, allowing us to understand their achievements much more fully. 

DUNCAN PRING

Educated at Oxford (BA, MA) and London (MA, Ph.D) universities. Duncan's PhD thesis was on “The Preclassic Ceramics of Northern Belize”. Subsequently he has written articles, mainly on Mayan ceramics. His book, The Protoclassic in the Maya Lowlands was published in 2000 by British Archaeological Reports. Duncan is current involved with other North American archaeologists in pulling together different ceramic sequences in Belize. 

Mankind has exploited the medicinal properties of plants for thousands of years, yet the role of plants in modern medicine is still considered to be peripheral by many people. This talk attempts to put the record straight and to show that plant products are used every day by all of us to relieve pain and suffering, to heal wounds and cure diseases.

This is a talk with a very wide appeal and relevance.

ACCREDITED ARTS SOCIETY LECTURER

Timothy read Botany at University College Oxford. After graduation, he worked as a trainee at Oxford Botanic Garden, the Savill Garden Windsor, and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. In 1995 he was awarded a Master of Horticulture by the Royal Horticultural Society of London.

From 1988 to 2014 Timothy was director (Horti Praefectus) at the Oxford Botanic Garden. Between 1992 & 2000 the OBGHA won 4 gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show London. In 2009 the Botanic Garden was awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for providing imaginative educational programmes for adults, students, children, and the general public, thereby breathing new life into education for people of all ages and enriching their lives.

In 2010 Timothy was elected as a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London. In the same year he presented a 3-part series of films on the history of botany on BBC4.

Since 2014 he has been a tutor in Plant Biology at Somerville College, Oxford.
 

What skills did it take for a woman to become a painter in 17th century Europe?

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654) was by no means the only woman painter of her period, but she is a rarity, and she also ranks amongst the greatest painters of the 17th century.  Her career spanned a time of great change in Italian taste, from the power and earthiness of Caravaggio to the more elegant classicism of Reni and Domenichino.  Her family connections meant that she moved between a number of different centres in Europe - Rome, Florence, Naples, and London, and her work reflects the different tastes of these centres. 

This lecture considers her training in the very male world of the roman studio, and explores her skills in painting in a style which is both individual but which also put her in the forefront wherever in Europe she found herself working.

THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER

Chantal Brother-Ratcliffe

Chantal has an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh and a PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University. With 40 years' experience as a lecturer, Chantal has taught at Sotheby's Institute of Art on the MA in Fine and Decorative Arts couirse since 1989, and she is a freelance lecturer for a number of societies and institutions in London, including the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection.

Having also trained as a paintings conservator, she brings an understanding of the making and the physical painting to her lectures and study sessions.

This lecture combines looking at furniture with looking at the interiors for which it was designed. 

It takes us on a tour that follows the Baroque style from St Peter’s in Rome, through Versailles in France, to numerous English houses designed by William Kent, whose Palladian classicism was to dominate the early 18th century.

After having gone baroque, English style went rococo - this lecture will illustrate the difference! 

ACCREDITED ARTS SOCIETY LECTURER

Janusz Karczewski-Slowikowski is a freelance lecturer and researcher in English furniture history and also an antique dealer. 

This lecture offers an introduction to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: the collection, the building, its history and the recent 10-year renovation that has brought back the splendour of architect Pierre Cuypers' original neo-gothic decorations.

The collection of the Rijksmuseum includes works by Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh as well as medieval art, jewellery, musical instruments, Asian art and even an FK 23 Bantam plane from 1918. It also houses Rembrandt's famous Night Watch - but only on loan! All this and much more about the most famous museum in the Netherlands.

ACCREDITED ARTS SOCIETY LECTURER

Sophie Oosterwijk was born in Gouda (Netherlands). She has an MA and PhD in English Literature (Leiden), an MA in Medieval Studies (York) and a PhD in Art History (Leicester).She has taught at the universities of St Andrews, Leicester and Manchester, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, National Trust, V&A, U3A, WEA and other organisations, and organised many study days, tours and visits. She is also a regular lecturer for Cambridge University and travel companies, and Honorary Research Fellow with the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews. She has numerous publications.

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and Diego Rivera (1886-1957) have iconic status in Mexico.

Rivera's intricate visual narratives, rich with allegory and symbolism, adorn the walls of public buildings. Inspired by Aztec and Maya imagery, and by early Italian fresco painting, his vast murals combine social criticism with faith in human progress.

Kahlo's work, unlike Rivera's, is small in format. Arguably Mexico’s most original painter, she made herself the principal theme of her art. Her paintings reflect her experiences and dreams.

This lecture surveys the work of both artists; it chronicles their turbulent marriage and Mexico's history after the 1910 Revolution.

THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER

Ms Chloe Sayer

A freelance specialist in the art and culture of Latin America Chloe has lectured in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand and has also curated exhibitions and assisted on TV documentaries for BBC and Channel 4. Chloe has made collections in Mexico and Belize for the British Museum, and is Research Associate in the Department of World Cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum.

In 2016 she was awarded the prestigious Ohtli medal by the Mexican government for her long-standing commitment to Mexican culture. Her many publications include Mexican Textiles (British Museum Press, 1990), Arts and Crafts of Mexico (Thames & Hudson, 1990), Focus on Aztecs and Incas  (Watts Books, 1995), The Incas - The Ancient World (Wayland, 1998), Textiles from Mexico (British Museum Press, 2002), and Mexico: Clothing and Culture (Royal Ontario Museum, 2015). She has also published articles in travel guides, newspapers and magazines.

This lecture will tell the remarkable story of Carry On actor Peter Butterworth and his wife, Britain’s first female television impressionist Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher. Using classic film and tv clips, personal mementos, and rare photographs and letters from his family’s unseen collection, Tyler will reveal the private story behind his parents’ public lives.

It’s a journey that will take in MI9, the building of a theatre in the notorious WW2 Prisoner of War camp Stalag Luft III, nights at Chequers with a Prime Minister, This Is Your Life and many more moments in their long, shared life in the theatre. 

THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER

TYLER BUTTERWORTH

Tyler Butterworth spent twenty-five years as an actor working extensively in film, television, theatre and radio. He then worked as a development producer in television documentaries and was closely involved with NASA on a landmark commemorative television series. He now works as a voice actor, recording audiobooks, documentaries and voiceovers, and produces walking audio guides to cities across Europe. He lives in Sussex where he walks on the South Downs and the South Coast.

The fleshy, painterly styles of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon take us deep into the folds and forms of the human figure, but also reach to something deeper: the human psyche on display.

While many famous and influential artists had flourishing relationships with others in their field – Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat or Edward Degas and Édouard Manet come to mind - there were also intense rivalries, harsh competitions, and an uncountable number of insults shared between artists. And in one instance, this seemingly contradictory relationship occurred simultaneously between two of the most famous artists of all time: Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.

Although they seemed to hold a great deal of disdain for each other, both personally and in an artistic sense, it is clear that the artists had a strong bond. Freud hung one of Bacon’s early paintings on his bedroom wall for many years and said on that matter “I’ve been looking at it for a long time now, and it doesn’t get worse. It really is extraordinary.” Under the surface of insults and bickering, there seemed to have been a deep admiration and respect for each other. 

ACCREDITED ARTS SOCIETY LECTURER

ALICE WHITE

Professional artist and tutor at Central St Martins College of Art, Alice White will explore the carnal, the colourful, the creative and the chaotic in the paintings and drawings of two of the most famous London-based artists of the 20th Century. Her lecture will provide a painter's perspective on these famous artists' work.  

Alice has exhibited her work at various exhibitions including the Society of Graphic Fine Artists at the Mall Galleries in London.  

This lecture will examine how, when at the peak of his success, a fateful decision led to disaster for Oscar Wilde. We explore the queer underworld of 'Naughty Nineties' London and how Wilde's passion resulted in him being at the centre of the most infamous series of trials of the 19th century.

The finale was to prison, exile and his untimely death. The lecture concludes with Oscar’s legacy and how he continues to influence and inspire us today.

ACCREDITED ARTS SOCIETY LECTURER

SIMON WHITEHOUSE

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

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

Simon’s specialisms and passions are theatre, literature, fashion and art history but above all he has a passionate interest in the life of Oscar Wilde and he will weave a wonderful story from it.

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, the new and amazing landscapes within which a remarkable human drama was 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.

A must see!

THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER

MR MARK COTTLE
Born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and Birmingham University, Mark's 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 Mark runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.

As an opera singer Tim has sung in all major European Countries.  He graduated in Law from Cambridge University where he was also a choral scholar 

Christopher has catalogued the Silver in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and other Royal Residences.  He is an independent researcher. 

The lecture looks at the amazing life of Garibaldi through the art of Risorgimento and uses paintings, documents and newspaper accounts to trace his popularity in this country and how he fits into the contemporary artistic fashions of the period. 

Helen Oakden is Head of History Art at St. Mary's School Ascot. Helen studied at Manchester University and the Courtauld Institute of Art.  She has worked at the Royal Academy and National Gallery as well as leading specialised art history courses across Italy.

Through the lens of British History and Politics this Lecture accesses the artistic contribution of artists starting with Donald Rodney and Keith Piper to Lubaina Himid and Sonia Boyce.  The Lecture will be hugely informative to many who feel they have missed a large cultural influence in Britain.  
This talk includes themes of racism, slavery, colonialism and violence.

John Ericson studied at Harvard University.  A former lecturer at the University of Bath.  He has worked extensively overseas as an educational consultant giving lectures all over the world. 
Norman Rockwell was a prolific 20th Century painter and illustrator whose work has probably been seen by a larger audience than any other artist in history!  
In America he enjoys popular appeal owing to his creating the cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post.  His work now sells for millions. 

Keith Bonser, a senior manager in education - a retired teacher.

A weekend in Dublin introduced Keith to Caravaggio.  Keith has travelled extensively throughout Europe, seeing Caravaggio paintings in situ.  Viewing Caravaggio's Paintings and delving into his 'life story' in the cities of Milan, Rome and Naples and the Islands of Malta and Sicily only served to wet Keith's appetite .  

Having 'literally' fallen for Caravaggio with all his flaws and brilliance, Keith has never been the same since!!

Tony has been a showman, researcher and teacher for over 35 years.  He is a well respected authority and works with many academic institutions and archives.  He specialises in historical popular entertainment forms and their application.  Founder and Performer of the last remaining professional seaside Pierrot troup "The Pierrotters" .  
Tony was awarded a Doctorate from Exeter University for his research and teaches part time on Drama at Exeter University. 

Daniel Evans has a PhD from Bangor University.  He is an educationalist with a passion for all things Italian, hence his Lecture on the Sistine Chapel.

The Sistine Chapel is rightly considered one of the modern Wonders of the World. It is a sacred building where mysterious elections take place infrequently whilst for the rest of the time thousands visit it on a daily basis. This lecture will look at the decoration of the ceiling by Michelangelo and concentrate on some of the more unusual inclusions in the Old Testament scheme. It is a mighty piece of painting that demonstrates incredible artistic talent but contains plenty of somewhat subversive elements. Sin and punishment were key themes for much of Michelangelo’s career and it seems that he decided to project these ideas onto the Pope, Conclave and Tourist.

Sarah studied History of Art at Cambridge before doing a Masters at University College London.  She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education in three diferent museums and galleries before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge was founded on the death of Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam in 1816, five years after the Dulwich Picture Gallery and eight years before the National Gallery in London. His bequest included paintings, drawings, prints, medieval manuscripts and books and, in addition, a sum of money to build “a good substantial museum repository for the increase of learning”. Who was Lord Fitzwilliam? How did he acquire his extensive collection? What prompted him to leave it to the University of Cambridge and why was Napoleon partly responsible for the founding of one of the great regional museums? These, and many other questions, will be answered in a lecture that will also discuss some of the key works in Lord Fitzwilliam’s bequest.

Lars Tharp is a historian, lecturer and broadcaster.  He first appeared in the BBC television series Antiques Roadshow in 1986.  Lars is  Danish born he was at Cambridge University receiving a BA Honours degree in Archaeology and Anthropology.

It’s the BBC’s, longest-running, most treasured reality show. 

The lecture is a 'Cracking' talk.  It will fundamentally change your view of William Hogarth.  Pots, crocks and chinaware tumble through Hogarth's domestic dramas.  His detailed paintings and prints are wittily infiltrated with recognizable ceramics........'A Must'!

The Culture of Ukraine

Whatever the future brings, there is no doubting the feeling that the Ukrainian nation is being reborn.  But what do we really know about this country, the second-largest in Europe, which has struggled to be free for hundreds of years?  This lecture tells the Ukrainian story through the history of the shared culture which binds its proud people together. We will explore the sacred art and architecture of Kyiv, and its vital links to the Byzantine Empire, and consider the distinctive characters of two very different cities, Odesa and Lviv. We will also look at the rich folk culture of Ukraine's rural heartland, beginning with its music and the secret codes embedded in its ancient folk embroidery tradition, which have exerted a surprising impact on modern painting and contemporary haute couture.  Last but not least, this lecture promises to unravel the mysteries of wild cossack dancing and the myriad recipes for borshch.

Rosamund Bartlett is an acknowledged authority on the culture of Russia and its neighbouring colonies who has been travelling to Ukraine for over thirty years.  She is a biographer of Russia's greatest anti-war activist Tolstoy, and her annotated translation of Anna Karenina was published to acclaim by Oxford University Press in 2014.  She is also a biographer and translator of Chekhov, who had a Ukrainian grandmother, and grew up close to the border near the Black Sea.  Her edition of Chekhov's letters for Penguin Classics includes many written from his dacha in Sumy.  In 2008 she launched a campaign to rescue Chekhov's house in the Crimea, and remains a Trustee of the Anton Chekhov Foundation, a UK-registered charity.

http://rosamundbartlett.com

http://antonchekhovfoundation.org

This illustrated talk by Brunel's SS Great Britain guide and volunteer, Ian Caskie, tells the ship's remarkable story from her original design through the different phases of her working life.  It describes her incredible salvage and return to Bristol in 1970, and finally her restoration, preservation, and 're-launch' as a multi award winning museum of international renown.

Dr Stephen Kershaw has a special interest in the world of ancient Greeks and Romans ever since being introduced to Homer's Iliad. He achieved a degree in Classics at Bristol University.  Stephen has travelled widely in the world of the Greeks and Romans, both physically and intellectually.

Stephen is also an honors graduate of the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, and is regarded as one of the finest jazz double bass players in the UK.

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

A graduate of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Nicholas trained for the Anglican Ministry at Ripon Hall Oxford.  Nicholas has a particular interest in the period of the English Reformation and the associated cultural, architectual and social changes it has produced.

This lecture takes us from the pre-Christian era, through the arrival of the Romans and onwards to the sixteenth century and the epoch changing Tudors  Simple indicators are given on how to identify churches with Roman and Saxon origins.  The great flowering of Romanesque and Gothic architecture that followed the invasion of the Normans in the eleventh century are explained with illustrated examples.  Then onwards into the high Middle Ages and the changes of the Reformation.

Chris was born in Turkey and spent his childhood in war-torn Beirut.  After  studying media and journalism at Leicester University he moved to Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan where he established a UNESCO workshop reviving 15 century embroideries and carpet design.  He has lived in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.  Not only does he now lecture but also leads tours to Central Asia.

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

One of the world's leading landscape photographers, Charlie Waite has lectured for 25 years throughout the UK, Europe and the US. He has held numerous one-man exhibitions in London, exhibited twice in Tokyo, and was awarded the prestigious honorary Fellowship of the British Institute of Professional Photographers, as well as a Direct Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society. In 2007, he launched LPOTY - UK Landscape Photographer of the Year. Amongst many publications, the most recent includes Landscape; the Story of 50 Photographs (2005), and Arc & Line (2011). He was invited by the Royal Academy to exhibit in 2015's summer exhibition.

A fully illustrated lecture given by one of the world's leading landscape photographers who has exhibited at the Royal Academy. With over 60 images exploring the relationship between the making of an image and the way in which it is perceived by the viewer.  The eye and the brain are an extraordinary double act made up of visual references and intellectual interpretation.

Barry Venning is an Art Historian .  He was a consultant for the BBC. His interests and teachings extend from medieval architecture to contemporary British Art, with a particluar interest in the work of JMW Turner.  He is currently Associate Lecturer with the Open University and works for Christie's Education, the Arts Society and other organisations.

We will be taken on a journey through the 60s in music and images, following the Beatles from the Hamburg Reeperbahn in 1960 to Abbey Road in 1969.  The band valued the visual arts and quickly learned the promotional potential of artists and designers.  Their rise to global fame was aided and recorded by an impressive group of photographers including Linda McCartney and Astrid Kirchherr.  Album design was turned into an art form.

Dr Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe has more than 40 years experience as a Lecturer.  She studied History of Art at Edinburgh University gaining an MA, and  has a PhD from the Warburg Institute. She taught at Sotherby's Institute of Art and trained as a painting conservator.

This Lecture will explain why 15th & 16th century paintings may seem odd to our modern eyes!

The 14th Century artist Cennino Cennini recommended using 'the chicken bones  that you find under the dining table' for making charcoaled bone black, to paint with.  His treatise, The Artists' handbook, describes some of the surprising materials artists had to master, such as.....'the tail of a squirrel'...to make paintbrushes.  These difficult materials influenced the appearance of paintings long before industrial processes changed the artist's world.

Sarah Dunant is a Novelist, Writer and Broadcaster.  She read history at Cambridge then worked as a cultural journalist in radio and television.  She has published numerous novels and lectured around the world.

In this sumptuously illustrated talk Sarah recounts her discoveries in Renaissance Italy..Venice, Florence, Rome,  penetrating hidden worlds inside the Renaissance, finding characters, everyday life and drama in palaces, brothels, convents (even the Vatican) and exploring the complexities of politics and religion along with emotion.

In June 1520 Henry V111th and Francis 1st met, in a field south of Calais, to ratify an Anglo-French Alliance and celebrate the betrothal of Henry's daughter Mary to the Dauphin. The two handsome 'Renaissance Princes' are in their 20s.  Each brings an entourage of 6,000 men.  3,217 horses are shipped across the 'narrow sea' to Calais.  Temporary palaces were built, a chapel (plus organ) gold, silver, velvet, sables, jewels, pearls and furniture were transported.   Each King wishing to display their splendour and the prowess of their men.

The logistics were unbelievable..........how was it all achieved?!

On the basis of sensational new evidence from archaeological fieldwork, Neil will contrast the legend of Lawrence of Arabia with the true story of what happened in the desert war of 1916-1918. Is the legend a myth? Was Lawrence, as some claim, a liar and a charlatan? Or does the legend reflect reality? Was he, in fact, a brilliant military commander and a sincere advocate of the Arab cause?

Lawrence of Arabia’ is an early 19 century instance of celebrity culture. Neil will analyse the invention and re-invention of the legend from 1919 onwards through memoirs, films, paintings, biographies and documentaries.

The historical context for the legend was the Great Arab revolt of 1916-1918. The numerous well-preserved archaeological remains of the conflict, mainly along the line of the former Hijaz Railway, have been the subject of a ten year programme of field research by Neil and his close colleague Professor Nick Saunders. Neil will summarise the key findings. Some representative archaeological objects will be on display.

He will also offer a new narrative and analysis of the war based on archaeological evidence, leading to a new assessment both of Lawrence’s role and achievements and of the relationship between art and the creation of ‘celebrity.’

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

Colin Davies is an architect, a former editor of The Architects' Journal and a regular contributor to architectural magazines world-wide. He was until recently Professor of Architectural Theory at London Metropolitan University. He has made many TV and radio appearances, has written numerous books  including 'A New History of Modern Architecture' & 'Thinking about Architecture'.

This Lecture is Designed to help us form our own opinions......................

When, in a speech on 30th May 1984, the Prince of Wales described a proposed extension to the National Gallery as 'a monstrous carbuncle', he ignited a national debate about Modern Architecture.  The debate is still raging.  The Prince is now a little more guarded in his remarks, but his place has been taken by the philosopher Roger Scruton who is even more fiercly critical of 'Modernism'  Basic architectural concepts such as Classicism, Functionalism & Urbanism will be explained and their historical origins traced.   Modernity and tradition are linked.

Iran – or Persia – has a sophisticated cultural heritage frequently ignored in the headlines. The main part of the lecture illustrates the development of the spectacular architecture in the mosques and palaces of Iran, with an emphasis on their brilliant tilework and painting, through the Islamic period until the end of the 19th century. There are mentions of some of Persia’s classic gardens, and the art of book illustration is also included, with beautiful examples from the classic period of Persian miniature painting. The lecture mentions the geographical and political background, explains how the Shi’a form of Islam originated and became the ruling creed in the late 20th century Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini, and thus puts the contemporary situation in the context of the country’s fascinating and significant cultural history.

John Osborne graduated in classics at Cambridge University, lectures in Islamic Civilisation, leads study tours to Eastern Europe & the Middle East, & worked for the British Council in Iran & Turkey.

Dr Geri Parlby is a former journalist and film publicist.  She has a Masters in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute and a Theology doctorate from Roehampton University.  For the past 14 years she has lectured both in the UK and Internationally.

Lights, Camera, Action!........

This Lecture covers the works of costumiers, publicists, photographers, actors and actresses and the movie moguals who made it all happen............the 'inside' stories of the art and artifice of the early decades of Hollywood.  The Magic of the Silver Screen.

Famously, every morning of his adult life, Beethoven measured out exactly 60 coffee beans for his breakfast.  A man who is capable of such discipline over a cup of coffee, can surely apply that exactness elsewhere in his life; and in Beethoven’s case, it was applied to his compositions.  In fact, the detail found in his music is often so subtle, that most people don’t even know it’s there.  The lecture/study day explores Beethoven’s genius as a writer of music, at the same time setting his extraordinary story against the backdrop of 19th century warfare, revolution and dramatic social changes.  Beethoven will be 250 years old on 17 December 2020.

Peter Medhurst appears in the UK and abroad as a musician and scholar, giving recitals and delivering illustrated lectures on music and the arts. He studied singing and early keyboard instruments at the Royal College of Music and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

A recent survey, found that an average viewer looks at a painting in a museum for 2 seconds. Why are gallery goers spending so little time interacting with art? Paintings are often designed to be ‘read’, they contain hidden messages and symbols. These aren’t always obvious upon first glance; why are there oranges in Jan van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini Portrait’? Where did Hans Holbein hide his messages about mortality in ‘The Ambassadors’? This talk will help to arm viewers with the necessary skills to approach a painting in a gallery or museum, and examine it in detail, delving beneath the surface of the work.

Stella Grace Lyons gained her BA in the History of Art with a 1st class in her dissertation from the University of Bristol, and her MA in History of Art at the University of Warwick. She spent a year studying Renaissance art in Italy at the British Institute of Florence, and three months studying Venetian art in Venice. In addition, she attended drawing classes at the prestigious Charles H. Cecil studios in Florence. In 2017, Stella was selected by the Arts Society to lecture at the launch of ‘Drawing Room Discussions’ in association with ROSL ARTS, hosted by Guardian arts correspondent Maev Kennedy. Stella runs her own Art History courses and she is also a regular lecturer in the UK and Europe for the Arts Society, National Trust, Contemporary Arts Society Wales (CASW), Classical Education Forum, WEA, and several travel companies. Stella also works as an artist’s model for the internationally renowned figurative artist, Harry Holland.