From 18th century royal pleasure gardens to the most bio-diverse place on earth today, Cindy Polemis digs into the history of Kew Gardens. We’ll look at Kew’s early role as a beacon of historical landscape aesthetic, its crucial part in the advancement of science, colonialism and trade, and how today it drives international  efforts to combat the effects of climate change and the threats of  extinction in the natural world. Kew scientists have even collaborated  with police forensic investigations: thwarting illegal timber trades, solving  gruesome murders and identifying poisons are just some of the ways they have helped combat crime.

French Can-Can has long been synonymous with the "Gay Paree" of the Moulin Rouge, immortalized by Parisian artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. While researching the history of can-can I was surprised to discover that this famous dance, supposedly the "national dance" of the French, in fact owed its origin to London as much as Paris. In this lecture I reveal how an unlikely Anglo-British, cross-Channel exchange of artists, impresarios and tourists led to the creation of can-can: a fusion of a revolutionary Parisian dance (the chahut) and London's rather more coy skirt-dancing.

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in America, explore 25 iconic works including Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic,’ Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother,’ Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks,’ of American art.

Whether drawing duchesses or portraying princes, John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was high society’s leading portraitist. Flaunting a consummate technique, his luxurious canvases mirrored his subjects’ wealth. Yet beneath the dazzling veneer of works such as Madame X, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw lurks a much rawer world by far. Sargent certainly scandalised Parisian society and the city’s Salon with his frank depictions of human sexuality, yet he was even more modern than they might have feared. This talk charts the artist’s life and his prolific output, showing that, like the era he came to represent, Sargent was always on the cusp of seismic change.

19th-century Orientalism began in 1798 when Napoleon invaded Egypt.His primary aim was to establish a power base in the eastern Mediterranean, but he also wanted to acquire knowledge of Egypt's geography history and culture, and to this end his expedition included a secondary army including artists, surveyors, cartographers, botanists,  antiquarians and botanists, whose collective mission was to build up a complete understanding of the country past and present.  The results of this research provoked a wave of 'Egyptomania' across Europe, while more immediately Napoleon's expedition intensified pre-existing rivalries between Britain and France in the acquisition of imperial power

From hotels, restaurants and tube stations to apartment blocks, offices, picture houses and lidos, the British public fell in love with Art Deco architecture of the 1920s and 1930s and embraced it whole-heartedly. 

After decades of closure, 2022 marks the unveiling of the restored and instantly recognisable Battersea Power Station which commenced its construction in 1929. 

William De Morgan was an intimate friend of William Morris and 'Ned' Burne-Jones. He began his career as a painter; he became a stained-glass maker, best-selling author and one of the most imaginative and amusing potters and tile-makers of the nineteenth century. His work now commands extremely high prices in the saleroom, as does that by his wife Evelyn, herself an accomplished artist. The lecture examines their fascinating and delightful artistic partnership.

https://www.matthewwilliamslectures.com/about

This talk informs people about my artist process and what was involved in making this public work of art.

JMW Turner and John Constable shared one thing in common: a love of the landscape. Apart from that, they were very different artists. For example, Turner applied his imagination and sense of colour to the landscapes he painted; Constable painted the landscapes he visited as faithfully as possible. Turner toured mainland Europe extensively and sketched sun-blessed scenes of Italy and the mountains and rivers of Germany; Constable never left Britain and produced works that came to define Suffolk, Salisbury, Hampstead Heath and Brighton. This lecture will demonstrate their different approaches to landscape painting by reference to a selection of their key artworks.

Fashion in a Time of War explores the role fashion played in London and Paris during the second World War.

In the 1880s, the fishing village of Newlyn in the far West of Cornwall became a mecca for rural realist painters, who documented the lives of the local community in their beautiful and moving paintings. This talk will outline the key characteristics of this famous art movement, introducing the ‘father of the Newlyn School’ Stanhope Forbes and his talented wife Elizabeth (nee Armstrong), along with a host of their fellow artists, including Frank Bramley, Walter Langley, Albert Chevallier Tayler and Henry Scott Tuke tales, as well as some of the real-life characters they depicted.

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.

Wallpaper is often regarded as the Cinderella of the Decorative Arts – the most ephemeral and least precious of the decorations produced for the home. Yet, the history of wallpaper is a long and fascinating subject that dates back to the 16th century and encompasses a huge range of beautiful patterns created both by anonymous hands and by some of the best-known designers of the 19th and 20th centuries. This lecture explores the history and development of this product from earliest times up to the present day.

This lecture takes the audience on a tour of the exotic art, decor and architecture of the world-famous Moscow Metro. It demonstrates how the initial Metro stations of the 1930’s and 1940’s were designed in a grand, palatial style, meeting Stalin’s objective for the Metro to be a showcase for Soviet culture and technology. In the latter years of World War II and its aftermath, new stations became dominated by the art and statuary of patriotism and heroism. The content of all Metro art in this era followed the “Socialist Realism” style mandated for all Russian fine art.

How could such an extraordinary and outlandish creation have been built in England? The answers lie partly in the 18th-century fashion for chinoiserie, partly in the travels of British artists to India and China, and partly in the extravert personality of the Prince Regent - later King George IV. As a royal residence the Pavilion enjoyed musical evenings, lavish banquets and high-tech kitchens. In 1850 it faced destruction, but was rescued by the townspeople of Brighton; in 1914-16 it was used as an Indian military hospital; in 1975 it survived an arson attack. Since then it has been restored to the magnificently exotic palace that we see today. 

This lecture looks at the main characteristics of the art of the Orthodox Church from the time when Constantinople was established as the capital of the Eastern Roman – and Christian – Empire in the 4th century AD until its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and beyond. It concentrates on the areas and countries which became part of what has been described as the Byzantine Commonwealth, including Ravenna, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, as well as Constantinople itself, the source and model for the Orthodox Church everywhere. But the main emphasis will be on the architecture of some selected churches, icons and frescoes, to explain the spiritual and religious messages and meanings that they convey.

The foods we eat at Christmas have a long, curious and visually spectacular history. This lecture narrates and illustrates that history from Medieval boar’s head and brawn, by way of highly decorated seventeenth century mince pies to the almost forgotten Twelfth Night Cake. Medieval illuminated manuscripts, paintings and prints from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, and illustrations from cookery books provide us with images of some of the lost glories of the British Christmas feast.

A look at the clothes, underclothes, shoes and accessories which would have been worn by some of the more colourful characters in the Palace’s 300-year history – as well as a look at the House of Dior’s continuing special relationship with Blenheim Palace. The part that arsenic, lead, mercury and mousetraps played in the trends of the day is considered and how, then as now, people went to the most extraordinary lengths to keep abreast of fashion. 

Glass is a marvellous material. Everything about it makes it an incomparable plastic medium in the hands of an ingenious artist, offering his imagination and talent almost limitless scope for discovery. [René Lalique] Glass: tough, fragile and unpredictable; colourful or colourless; capable of flowing like metal or being carved like stone. To be shaped it must be heated and reheated to extreme temperatures and as it cools it may shatter explosively without stringent precautions.

Between the wars something extraordinary happened to the British seaside: it became glamourous, exciting... modern. Enticed by eye-catching railway posters, holidaymakers grabbed their new cameras and slinky new bathing suits, and headed for the coast. Meanwhile artists galore found inspiration on the beach, from Laura Knight in Lamorna and Eric Ravilious in Newhaven to Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore in North Norfolk.

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.

Few artists are as rooted in a place as Stanley Spencer and his beloved home village of Cookham. This Thames-side village was not only his birthplace, his home for most of his life, and even his nickname, but it dominated his imagination and was the inspiration and location for many of his greatest paintings. This lecture will look at Cookham’s place in Spencer’s art, and how it was central to his unique vision of English domestic and spiritual life.

Founded in 1824, the National Gallery in London's Trafalgar Square houses one of the world's finest collections of European paintings, including such favourites as Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Marriage, Sandro Botticelli's Venus and Mars, John Constable's Cornfield and Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

In contrast to its peers, however, this institution did not begin its life as a royal collection: the Gallery was founded by parliament and remains reliant on public funding. This lecture uses highlights from the NG's collection to show how our vision of the "ideal" art collection has evolved over time, along with ideas of the kinds of people the Gallery was supposed to serve.

One of the finest eighteenth-century French painters and among the most important women artists of all time. Celebrated for her expressive portraits of French royalty and aristocracy, and especially of her patron Marie Antoinette, Vigée Le Brun exemplified success and resourcefulness in an age when women were rarely allowed either. Because of her close association with the queen Vigée Le Brun was forced to flee France during the French Revolution.

For twelve years she travelled throughout Europe, painting noble sitters in the courts of Naples, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. She returned to France in 1802, under the reign of Napoleon where she continued to work with success in France, London and Switzerland. Her work and her life make her an extraordinary woman working in dramatically changing times

Like almost everyone else, I have felt deeply shocked but also helpless in the face of recent events in Ukraine. But as an art historian with a long-standing interest in the relationship between art and war, art and displacement, art and adversity, one thing I CAN do is to alert people to the huge contribution refugees from conflict zones around the world, past and present, make to the culture of the country that takes them in.

I’d like therefore to offer you a brand new lecture, entitled Island Sanctuary: Refugee Artists in Britain from the Huguenots to the Present Day, which will celebrate the achievements against the odds of artists as diverse as miniaturist Isaac Oliver in the sixteenth century, painters James Tissot in the nineteenth and David Bomberg and Lucian Freud in the twentieth - and many more as we move into the later twentieth century and beyond.

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

 In Medieval times, stained glass portrayed the bible stories visually to a population that was largely illiterate. Not surprisingly the Christmas story was a popular topic for the glass makers.

From the Fall, through the Old Testament prophecies to the Nativity and the Epiphany glassmakers used their technical skill and artistic imagination to provide wonderful images. Despite the depredations of the Reformation and the English Civil War, there remain some spectacular examples, especially at Canterbury and York, or nearer at home at Fairford.

The art of stained glass making was lost for several centuries, until the mid-19thcentury when the Christian Revival saw a demand  for all things medieval including stained glass. . An entire new industry of stained glass making emerged employing the imagination of the greatest artists of the time, including Edward Burne-Jones.  

In this lecture we will trace the history of stained glass in England as seen in the Christmas story.

THE LECTURER:
CHRISTOPHER ROGERS read geography at Oxford and taught at Marlborough and Downe House for twenty years. He has been an Arts Society lecturer until very recently. He gave courses at the Marlborough College Summer School from its inception and provides an annual lecture morning for the Marlborough Merchants House spring course. He has been chairman of TASKS and remains editor of the Newscast, and organiser of a series of day visits as well as much enjoyed holidays, the most recent being to Bologna. 

Morris took a lot of inspiration from the Cotswolds and the surrounding area. He was first introduced to the west as a schoolboy at Marlborough, escaping into the Downs whenever he could. He took his young family to Broadway, and while travelling, discovered the damage being done to local buildings in the name of restoration, and led to the founding of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Then, in the 1870s, he took on Kelmscott Manor near Lechlade, which became his 'Old House on the Thames'. This talk will explore Morris's relationship with the region, and how it inspired his poetry, design and his ideas of ideal living - and look at the friends who were inspired to follow him here.

The 14th century artist Cennino Cennini recommended using “the chicken bones that you will find under the dining table” for making charcoaled bone black to paint with. His treatise, The Artists’ handbook, gives us an understanding of some of the surprising materials which any artist had to master before he could begin to paint, such as the tail of a squirrel to make his paintbrushes. But many of these materials were difficult to use and have an effect on the finished look of paintings from the centuries before industrial processes changed the artist’s world. This lecture will explain the techniques and the reasons for some of the features of 15th and 16th century paintings which may seem odd to our modern eyes. I will bring examples of the materials mentioned in the talk to pass round and discuss with participants.

We have all heard about the great achievements of the Italian Renaissance, but there is little acknowledgement of the artistic events that took place in Britain over parallel period of time.  This lecture will bring that period back to life exploring the tumultuous creative outpourings of artists that are now all but lost to us, such as: Girolamo da Treviso (active circa 1497 – 1544), Lucas Horenbout (circa 1490 – 1544) and family, Levina Teerlinc (circa 1510 – 1576), Guillim Scrots (active 1537 – 1553), Hans Eworth (active 1540–1573), Gerlach Flick (active 1545 – 1558), the John de Critz the Elder (1550-1642),John Bettes the Elder (active c. 1531–1570), George Gower (c. 1540–1596), Robert Peake the Elder (circa 1551-1619), Nicholas Hilliard (1547–1619), William Larkin (c.1580–1619), Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627) and Marcus Gheeraerts II (1561 or 2–1636). Spanning a period from the late 15th century through to the early 17th century, this lecture will explore the successes, conflicts and tensions between indigenous and incoming artists in an effort to examine what relationship, if any, existed between the practises of the native artists and their foreign counterparts; could the native art be said to have a unique character of its own or was it derivative and thus led by the incoming art of the day. Just how distinctive was the art they produced, how did it fare when compared to the contemporaneous work of foreign artists, how direct was the competition and was there even some interaction resulting in shared artistic knowledge and thus heritage among these diverse communities of artists?  Take this journey with me to discover The Flowering of the British Renaissance.

As Venice declined, it produced ever fewer opportunities for high-grade lucrative employment and as a result, many of its native artists and musicians looked for work elsewhere. Some went south to Rome and Florence, some gravitated to Paris, Vienna, and even Madrid, but many – inspired by the constant procession of Englishmen on the Grand Tour – set their sights on the ever expanding English capital. Through digital images, film and live examples sung and played at the piano, Peter Medhurst explores the knockon effect of the Venetians’ stay in 18th century London and reveals how English culture took on a discernable Venetian quality that was to be detected in its art and music for many years to come.

Music performed includes: Largo from Fourth Set of Suites – R Jones, Allegro from Piano Sonata in C – J Hook, Allegro from Voluntary in D minor – J Stanley, Sonata No 3 in A minor – B Galuppi, Generous and Gallant Nation – M Greene. 

This lecture tells Ukraine's story through the shared culture which binds its proud people together. We will explore the sacred art and architecture of Kyiv and its links to Byzantium, as well as the distinctive characters and ethnicities of Odesa and Lviv. Tracing Ukraine's complicated multi-ethnic history also means looking at its rich folk culture traditions. These range from native song and the secret codes embedded in ancient embroidery, which have exerted a surprising impact on modern painting and contemporary haute couture, to Cossack dancing and borshch. 

For all the things that have been written about the great Sun King, Louis XIV, he is best remembered for the creation of Versailles, the immense chateau he built on the site of his father’s old hunting lodge and which became the seat of French government, the setting for all grand court ceremonial and the envy of every other European monarch.

This lecture will be an introduction to the sumptuous state apartments, the vast gardens and pleasure pavilions, the spectacular entertainments which took place both inside and out, the collections of the King and the whole etiquette of life at one of the greatest courts of Europe.

The antiques market has changed dramatically and now pieces that were made during the 1970s can fetch many times more than a piece made in the 1770s. Why has the teak sideboard you threw out become so desirable? Who is this Eames guy? Drawing a blank with Timo Sarpaneva? Who’s buying what and what are they doing with it? This practical and inspirational lecture looks at furniture, ceramics, glass, lighting and metalware, identifies key designs and designers, and the examines the revolutionary design movements they began.

Firmly rooted in a 16th century Flemish tradition, the Dutch created an extensive new genre of Landscape Painting when Flemish Protestants fled North.

Their unique relationship with the land, one that differs from those of other European countries, is the source of the popularity of this genre. Dikes and drainage systems and extensive land-reclamation, makes the Dutch proudly proclaim: God created the world, but the Dutch created Holland!

Panoramic views (civic pride), woods and seascapes (as the foundation of trade and empire), dunes (used to protect Holland from the sea), and country roads, rivers, and canals (representing a program of land reclamation which saw the northern peninsular of the United Provinces grow by a third between 1590 and 1650) were represented, and each of these subjects developed continuously as separate categories.

Join Dutch art historian Mariska, as she introduces the development of this genre in the Dutch Golden Age.

The dramatic rescue of Wentworth Woodhouse, Britain’s largest country house captured newspaper headlines. This lecture looks at its extraordinary history and shows how the story of the house is inextricably linked with the colourful lives of the three great aristocratic families who lived there- the Wentworths, the Watsons and the Fitzwilliams.

In the 18th century rivalry between two branches of the family led each trying to outdo the other by building the larger house. By the 1750s Wentworth Woodhouse was 600 feet long, and the interiors enriched the house with fine paintings, sculptures and works of art. By the 19th century the Fitzwilliams were one of the richest landowners in Britain with vast estates and lucrative coalmines. However the coalmines were to lead to the near destruction of the house when in 1946 the park became a vast open cast mine, causing serious damage to the house foundations. The death of successive earls without issue led ultimately to the sale of the house and its contents, and its future in jeopardy.

The lecture will conclude showing how this situation was eventually resolved and touches on the future of this great house and estate.

The legendary St Petersburg jewellers were so much more than purveyors of Easter eggs for Russian Empresses. Our discussion of the House of Faberge’s English outlet illustrates the firm's wide reach, colourful clientele and varied production traced through objects on view at the V&A museum. 

Although the original Russian sales ledgers disappeared, those of the London branch, opened in 1903, document royal patronage and a ‘Who’s Who’ guide of Edwardian prosperity. American heiresses and other prominent visitors flocked to the London salerooms while the branch supplied periodic trunk shows to delight buyers on the Continent and as far as Siam and India. The role of the London business cannot be overstated and provides us, today, with insight into a society that was forever altered by the world events that followed.

This talk is on how magicians have appeared in art throughout the centuries, whether in paintings, satirical prints or cartoons. Early artists used the magician to symbolise the mysterious and the unknown, associating them with astrology and tarot cards. In the 16th century, Pieter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch produced two of the most famous and striking pictures of the conjurer performing the Cups and Balls trick.

The 18th and 19th century saw a proliferation in engravings and lithographs showing the magician both indoors and on the streets. Cartoonists and satirists delighted in linking politicians with skulduggery with images of them featuring the Three-Card Trick, vanishing illusions or pulling a Rabbit out of the Hat.

Dig into the graveyards of 19th century London. As London’s population doubled in its early decades, so did the numbers dying. Where to bury them? The deep attachment to burial in parish churchyards waned as layers of coffins raised ground levels high above the street while backlogs of the unburied became a rat’s delight. Churches acquired extra land.

The lecture covers recent excavations which reveal how this plan did not relieve the pressure for long, while families designed tombs to thwart the bodysnatching ‘Resurrection Men’. Scandal broke over a chapel with thousands of rotting bodies discovered in its crypt, just as the Magnificent Seven garden cemeteries were beginning to flower outside the city limits. They were – and still are - places of landscaped beauty, of tranquil reflection for the living as well as gardens holding spectacular monuments to the dead. The lecture ends with the legacy - the railway stations taking corteges to funerals in rural settings, an underappreciated Jewish burial ground, the municipal cemeteries and pocket parks of today.

MR CHARLIE FORMAN

As a London walking tour guide and lecturer, I highlight the social, architectural and artistic history of my home city. It is a city I am passionate about, not least because it has a historic core larger and richer than any other world city. A member of the City of Westminster Guide Lecturers Association, my talks focus on the forces that have shaped and changed this multi-faceted metropolis and the artistic and cultural heritage that this has given us. After many hundreds of walks and a four-decade long career in housing and regeneration I have absorbed a deep understanding and appreciation of the capital. I’ve had some fascinating vantage points like the seven years build-up to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games where I played a role in channelling potential long-term benefits into surrounding East London communities. My publications include Spitalfields: A battle for land.

Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy and fearless.

                                                                    Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen’s novels depict a genteel world of country houses in which everyone is expected to be on their best behaviour.   But what happens when this world of manners and morals breaks down?  During Jane Austen’s lifetime, women – and their fictional counterparts - were expected to be virtuous and biddable; what happens when, like Lydia Bennet, they are not?

This lecture explores how far Austen subverted her readers’ expectations and rebelled against what was expected of women in her day.  From the riotous and rebellious girls that populate her teenage writings to the more famous heroines of her mature works, this is an enlightening and surprising look at the life and work of a woman who once declared ‘If I am a wild beast, I cannot help it.’    

The map of German-speaking lands in the fifteenth century presents a confusing mosaic of states defined by various bloodlines, interspersed with ecclesiastic holdings and territories compressed against imperial free cities. Crossing this potluck of regional identities artists and artisans, along with their goods, made their way to the cultural hubs of Paris and Prague. We will begin our exploration of German sculpture with the stylistic internationalism that sprang forth from this remarkable cultural mobility during the fifteenth century. We will examine monumental altarpieces combining carved and painted elements, as well as highly detailed portable sculpture intended for private devotion. Four key artists will provide case studies, culminating with the unparalleled refinement in the work of Tilman Riemenschneider

In 1951, up and down the country, the nation celebrated. It celebrated with events 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.

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.

Ceramics are part of everyday life, from the cups, saucers and plates that we eat and drink from to other, less obvious but equally useful vessels. But the flawless and uniform products of modern industry are just the final development of a process that started in Britain 6000 year ago.

In this talk Julian will examine Britain’s potted history, starting with an explanation of the properties of clay and, by extension, what makes a pot. The story then starts with the simple products of the early Neolithic, the first true settlers and consequently the first who could reasonably use fragile pots. Julian then charts changes in technology though time: the control over fire that comes with the first metalworking,  the introduction of the potter’s wheel and the kiln, the first pottery industries, glazes and the search for the secrets of porcelain. Questions of aesthetics are also asked: can we ‘read’ decoration?

But just as industry and inventiveness helps to create uniformity and perfection so, in the 19th century, we see the start of a rebellion, the desire for individuality expressed in the work of potters like William de Morgan. And here we can see the start of threads that link the products of those first anonymous Neolithic potters to their 21st century counterparts, still taking clay and fashioning objects of function and beauty.

This is an extraordinary story, with some beautiful pots and inspiring potters.

The decades around 1900 witnessed a fascinating variety of styles and produced some of the most elegant pieces of jewellery ever made.  Diamonds and pearls - the mainstay of European court jewellery - were arranged in garlands and ribbon bows of incredible delicacy.  At the same time this symmetry was challenged by the sinuous lines of Art Nouveau, and the ‘one colour theory’ long practised in European jewellery was undermined by a fascination with unusual gemstones and a more luxuriant sense of colour.

The lecture will explore the distinctive styles of great jewellers such as Cartier, Fabergé, Tiffany and Lalique, and examine also the contribution of Britain’s Arts and Crafts Movement with its celebration of traditional craftsmanship, unfaceted stones and hand-beaten metals.

The widespread developments in art and industry, in science and technology and social behaviour in the 18th century laid the foundations of the modern Britain that we know today. This was the age of the Enlightenment and of the Industrial Revolution, events that were to change and mould British life for the next two hundred years. This was also the age of Joseph Wright of Derby who painted the very spirit of the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment and whose paintings are still familiar to his many admirers to this day. This lavishly illustrated talk considers his exceptional paintings of both industrial scenes and the many associated characters, such as industrialist Sir Richard Arkwright and Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of naturalist Charles Darwin, who were his subjects and friends.

Food and Art Through the Ages is a whistle-stop tour of the history of food as artistic medium; starting with 16th century sugar sculpture and venturing all the way up to 3D dessert printing and beyond. Hosted by Food Historian Tasha Marks, this lecture is a treat for those with a sweet tooth, as Marks feels the subject of food and art through the ages is most exciting in the realms of the dessert. Topics covered include; the origins of dessert, the crossover between sugar and art, architecture and dessert (including Renaissance banqueting houses), sugar and spectacle, food as artistic medium, and the future of food. This exploration into the realms of dessert as spectacle includes an accompanying display to illustrate and enhance the historic subject

The 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 the 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.

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

Each artwork tells its own story. This lecture will look at several famous works of art that were looted by the Nazis and discuss their incredible journeys from their pre-wartime owners to their current locations. Examples of artworks that we will examine include Lucas Cranach’s Cupid Complaining to Venus and Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, which was once owned by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. Today’s lecture will discuss what makes these works so intriguing and why the thefts still resonate today.

Opera is an elaborate, even extravagant, art form. From its earliest times at the beginning of the 17th century, up to the present day, it has employed artists and architects to design sets and costumes, and has used the richest materials and effects, often by means of tromp-l’oeil and other forms of visual trickery. Simon Rees traces the arts associated with opera through surviving drawings, paintings, early theatres and their scenery, up to the present day, where such artists as John Piper, Sidney Nolan and David Hockney have thrived as theatre designers. Simon Rees draws on his own experience as Welsh National Opera’s Dramaturg from 1989-2012 in delivering this detailed and entertaining account

The light, climate and landscape in the northern high latitudes are different from those in the countries where Modernist architecture began, demanding a different approach to domestic and civic architecture. But architects from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark have made a significant impact on buildings around the globe over the last 100 years, bringing to their designs an uncluttered look in harmony with the natural world. Justin traces how the special character of Nordic light and the Finnish and Scandinavian addiction for the outdoors created a new look for 20th and 21st century buildings.

In June 1520 Henry VIII and Francis 1 meet to ratify an Anglo-French alliance and celebrate the betrothal of Henry’s daughter Mary to the Dauphin. The two handsome ‘Renaissance Princes’ are in their 20’s with similar reputations in military prowess, sport and patrons of the arts. Both have imperial ambitions and are eager to display themselves as magnificent nobleman and warrior kings. Each brings an entourage of 6,000 to a field south of Calais for 18 days of various events and entertainments staged to display the skill and splendour of each King and country.

The logistics of transporting, accommodating, ordering, feeding and watering, protecting and entertaining the English contingent for this spectacular event is staggering and the supply chain, often through the City of London Guilds, is equally fascinating.

3,217 horses shipped across the ‘Narrow Sea’ to Calais; a vast quantity of wood sourced from Flanders and floated along the coast; a huge temporary palace is built on stone foundations with brick and timber-framed walls reaching to 40 feet. Royal palaces were virtually emptied of their silver, gold, tapestries and furniture to decorate the temporary palace, other principal tents and a chapel (with an organ); gold and silver cloth, velvet and sables were imported to ‘dress and impress.

Wine has been part of our global society for over 7,000 years, and the story tells of its origin and appearance in all societies across the Mediterranean and through Europe. There is rich evidence of the role wine has played in these societies and how it became an important component of faith, well-being and festivity.

 It is thought a number of people wonder about the relationship between art and wine. To answer that the lecture shows slides (40 or so) that include kwevris of Georgia in 5,000 B.C, tomb drawings from ancient Egypt, wineware from Greece, extracts from Cato’s de Agri Cultura (possibly the oldest original Latin prose in existence), the thermopolia of Pompeii, a spectacular mediaeval building in France, paintings and cartoons and so on, all of which are relevant to how wine has become commonplace. Apart from how wine was originally made the lecture is not about the liquid itself very much. In truth the lecture scratches the surface and there is room for a part two perhaps!

Because of the Corona Virus outbreak this will be an online lecture only

The art of arms and armour is riddled with prejudice and misconceptions. During the Medieval and Renaissance periods, armour combined both leading elements of contemporary design, decoration, ingenuity and engineering that could effectively produce wearable steel sculpture. These metal plates not only protected the wearer during battle and tournament, but also became works of art to envelop the wearer in an embodiment of strength, elegance, power and style. Exquisite surviving pieces of decorated European arms and armour reflect the skill and importance this underrated art form during the age of steel knights.

Because of the Corona Virus outbreak this will be an online lecture only

The livery companies of the City of London are best known today as charitable organisations. But in their early days their focus was on their trades, acting as a cross between modern trade unions and regulators. The companies were (and still are today) jealously mindful of their place within the order of precedence, from the Mercers’ Company at number one to the recently founded Art Scholars at number 110. Within this hierarchy the top dozen, known as ‘the Great XII’ have always had a special prestige. This lecture is told from the inside, as it were. Given by a former Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company (number five), it explores the mystery of the origins of this order of precedence.’

Because of the Corona Virus outbreak this will be an online lecture only

Our royal families have celebrated Christmas throughout their long history, from William the Conquerormaking sure of his claim to the English throne by being crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066.  Feasting on a spectacular scale characterised medieval Christmases – we read of extraordinary culinary delicacies served to Henry II, crane’s flesh, peacocks and herons.  Present-giving always marked the season, from the extravagant – the City of London presented Richard II with a camel and a pelican – to the witty – Mrs. Thatcher sent the Queen a pair of yellow washing-up gloves having seen Her Majesty doing the dishes without any.  This lecture explores these traditions and other delights, many of which we have adopted as a necessary part of our own celebrations.

Because of the Corona Virus outbreak this will be an online lecture only

[The history of garden design through the lens of the Oxford Botanic Garden].

The history of English garden design can be told in different ways, but rarely can it be told "through the lens" of one garden. The Oxford Botanic Garden was founded at the beginning of the 17th century and its design bears all the hallmarks of 17th century design. Through the next 400 years successive Horti Praefecti (head gardeners) changed the features reflecting the art of gardening, and very occasionally the science of botany. This talk looks at how the art of gardening has changed, or perhaps has not, in four centuries in Oxfordshire and how the Oxford Botanic Garden now reflects garden design at the beginning of the 21st century. The title of the talk refers to the fact that one of the motivations for garden design remains the desire to create paradise on Earth. The meaning of paradise may now be less rooted in the Biblical account of the rise and fall of man, but there is still a clear vision of what we would like the world to resemble.  

 Because of the Corona Virus outbreak this will be an online lecture only

The 'Hidden World' lecture looks at our wide range of canal architecture - much of which remains little-known, despite the fact that only the National Trust and the Church of England have more listed buildings than our inland waterways! An architectural historian once described Britain's canals as 'poor man's sculpture' and most waterways still retain their own distinctive vernacular. Many are home to unique buildings and features which are now more than 200 years old and examples include warehouses, cottages, bridges, aqueducts, tunnels, locks and quirky landmarks such as lighthouses and clock towers - even tiny mooring bollards were designed to add a touch of flair. Some buildings are almost follies, others display robust engineering - all were cleverly designed with form and function in mind. There are aqueducts with imposing classical proportions, cast iron bridges with fine gothic decoration, warehouses which rise like Egyptian pagodas, lock flights packed like dominoes and cottages which resemble fairy-tale castles. Industrial heritage features too with, canalside potteries in Stoke-on-Trent and the extraordinary Anderton Lift in Cheshire. The talk will include aspects from the Kennet and Avon Canal.

Because of the Corona Virus outbreak this will be an online lecture only and replaces the lecture originally planned for Februuary 2021.

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

Because of the Corona Virus outbreak this will be an online lecture only

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

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

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

Because of the Corona Virus outbreak this will be an online lecture only.

Unfortunately cancelled because of Coronavirus restrictions

Unfortunately cancelled because of Coronavirus restrictions

Unfortunately cancelled because of Coronavirus restrictions

Unfortunately cancelled because of Coronavirus restrictions

By 1918, the Flanders mediaeval city of Ypres was in ruins. Out of 10,000 buildings, only 2 remained more or less intact. The great Cloth Hall representing the ancient wealth of the city was a hollow shell reduced to half its height. St. Martin's Cathedral also had just its reduced walls and a shattered interior.
The lecturer will show old photographs from before the First World War, during it, the reconstruction, which took 40 years, and finally the fully restored city now. The lecturer’s wife has personal memorabilia from her family, and a couple of fascinating photographs, and he will tell why it all adds to a poignant and atmospheric but hopeful hour.

Caravaggio’s paintings inspired many artists during his lifetime and would go on to influence many more, from Orazio Gentileschi to Peter Paul Rubens, Gerard van Honthorst and Rembrandt. Each absorbed a different aspect of his work. His style spread across Europe and gave rise to the international movement known as ‘Caravaggism’. Yet for many, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is famed as much for his art as for his criminal record. Was it the violence of his times or his own violent spirit that inspired the dramatic lighting and intense naturalism of his work? This lecture follows the dramatic incidents of the artist’s life and looks at why and how his influence spread so far.

Everyone is aware about “1066 and all that” without necessarily knowing the exact facts about this momentous event. This lecture will present in details the historical, cultural and artistic aspects of that unique masterpiece, the Bayeux Tapestry, which provides posterity with such a startling testimonial of peoples’ lives in the late Viking age.

Big Ben is one of the most iconic buildings in the world – it identifies the UK and democracy in the Western world. But there is a lot more to this tower than the beautiful external gothic architecture; and Tim will prove this to you. Using stunning images, he will take you on a virtual tour of the interior, saving you the effort of climbing 334 spiral stairs. He will explain the historical background and discuss the friction between the often controversial personalities involved in the building and designing of the tower. Tim will then take you behind those magnificent clock faces; show and explain the workings of the enormous clock mechanism; before finally taking you into the belfry and presenting before you – Big Ben, the most famous bell in the world! After all that excitement Tim will ensure you safely descend the stairs ready for your well-earned cup of tea!

The Narma Palette and Meidum Geese from the Old Kingdom, the Senoswret III pectoral from the Middle Kingdom, and the bust of Nefertiti and Nebamun paintings from the New Kingdom give an indication of the wealth of Ancient Egyptian riches. They are a sample of the many discoveries that have been have been displayed and admired by millions of visitors to museums around the world. This lecture will look in depth at these five most interesting treasures, examine the techniques and materials used, who commissioned and owned them, their purpose and hidden meaning.

There are few more beautiful materials than silver. And there are few more useful. Silver is malleable, strong, antibacterial. You can cast it, cut it, hammer it, score and engrave it, turn it on a lathe, polish it and stain it. But this wonderful metal is also one of the most recyclable, transient and subject to the vagaries of taste. You can, after all, melt it down, turn it into coin, re-fashion it. Here, we take a fresh look at the story of this most sumptuous of materials, exploring the histories of its use, its making, its social value and its design. We celebrate its place in history and society. And, of course, celebrate its beauty, its design history and the brilliance of the silversmiths who have developed fine metalworking into a great art form

William Morris is rightly celebrated as a designer and craftsman, who as a young man decided to dedicate his life to art to counter the ugly industrial world he saw around him. He was also a deeply reflective man and held passionate views on the quality of life which should be available to all, expressed in his considerable output of poetry and political writings. This lecture draws together the work of the designer and artist, Morris’s own life experience with his views on ‘the art of life.

In our modern world it’s easy to take colour for granted. Yet before organic chemistry the most desirable pigments were often exotic or poisonous.

Merchants supplied pungent yellow ‘purree’ nuggets from India, cochineal ‘grana’ from the holds of Spanish galleons, lapis rock carried by camel train from the mountains of Badakhshan.

Alchemists prepared deadly ‘King’s Yellow’ and ‘ruby of arsenic’. ‘Moorish Gold’ was concocted, according to a 12th century monk, from basilisk powder ground with human blood!

Small wonder artists kept their paint recipes closely guarded in Books of Secrets.

This lecture tells the stories of alchemy and adventure behind some our most beautiful and colourful paintings.

St. Petersburg is surely one of the most beautiful and remarkable cities in the world. Founded over 300 years ago, the city is a testimony to Peter the Great’s astonishing attempt to raise Russia to the level of a European empire in the space of a generation. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the city was enriched with palaces, churches, museums, canals and bridges. This lecture will tell the story of the city, as reflected in its art and architecture, ranging from the earliest times, through the age of the great patrons and patronesses, to the Revolution and the Nazi siege of Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was known from 1924-1991).

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

In 1527 the Sack of Rome took place, a traumatic event which brought the Italian Renaissance to a crunching halt and caused a general exodus of patrons and artists into the relative safety of the surrounding countryside. Here they found themselves among forested volcanic hills watered by springs, in settings celebrated in antiquity by the Romans and Etruscans.

Soon these disparate forces made contact, and began the making of country estates along Virgilian lines, focused on the idea of the villa and its surrounding garden. The gardens themselves made geometric order out of the sloping woodland, terracing the ground into descending courtyards populated by statues, and channelling the natural watercourses into pools, fountains, cascades and refreshing water-jets. The rational pattern of the parterre formed a backdrop for flower and fruit gardens where cardinals and dukes could converse, appraise and receive.

Surprising numbers of these sites survive in good order today, in rich variety. Collectively they form a group of gardens which mark the change from mediaeval ideas to the unmistakable beginning of modern European garden history. The Villa Lante at Bagnaia, the Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola, the Sacro Bosco at Bomarzo and the Villa d’Este at Tivoli are among the illustrious gardens viewed and brought alive in this richly illustrated lecture.

The lute holds a special place in the history of art: painters of the Italian Renaissance depicted golden-haired angels plucking its delicate strings, evoking celestial harmony; in the sixteenth century, during the rise of humanism, the lute was a becoming pastime of educated courtiers, as depicted by the likes of Holbein and Titian; throughout the seventeenth century, the instrument continued to play a key role in emphasising the intimate, debauched and transient pleasures of interior scenes by Jan Steen and portraits by Frans Hals. This lecture looks at the lute, and other musical instruments, as devices to express various aspects of the human character throughout the ages.

As part of the illustrated lecture, various pieces of live music will be performed on the lute to bring to life the paintings and art discussed

The lecture will look at the host of artists who flocked to the picturesque harbour of Honfleur and its surroundings to capture, in Baudelaire’s words “this green and rose vastness which goes to my head like an intoxicating drink”.

It is about the birthplace of Impressionism and the lead influences on the young artists who were later to become the Impressionists. Such as  paintings from Turner, Boudin, Courbet, Jongkind, Daubigny, and then Monet, Bazille, Pissarro, Manet and Degas. Contains seascapes and the new fashionable seaside resorts of Trouville and Deauville.

The Worcester factory began in c.1750 with its first major sale taking place on 20 September 1752. The factory benefited from the knowledge of an early Bristol soft paste porcelain factory which had utilized Soapstone from the Lizard Point in Cornwall. Potters and decorators from Bristol also clearly moved up to Worcester to help with the establishment of this excellent 'everyday' porcelain factory as the decoration on some of the beautiful sauceboats is extremely similar to designs on English Delftware of the period being made at Bristol. From the early years Transfer Printing was used on the porcelain first in grey/black or mauve, with underglaze blue only featuring after 1770. Worcester shows the influence from both China and Japan in the decoration used, the blue and white tea bowls and saucers usually having a very good colour, and some nice examples of Kakiemon also appearing on breakfast sets. A small number of figures were made possibly as a result in 1769 of the arrival of workers from Chelsea, which was in decline at that stage. The work of the 1770's and 1780's is amongst the most beautiful produced at the factory, with some outstanding vases for the Mantelpiece as well as a wide range of pieces for the dining room. Thomas Flight had been for some years been a London Agent, when he bought Worcester in 1783 and Martin Barr (1793 a partner) was experimenting with what became the Bone China formula in the last decades of the 18th century.

William Billingsley, well known for his flower painting worked at Worcester between 1808 and 1811, and the Regency period favoured a strong orange in the ground colour, mixed with rich blue and gold for the popular Imari designs and the finest work featured Topographical Views. In 1788 Robert Chamberlain leaves the factory to start his own works with his son Humphrey, and by 1791 are producing some fine pieces, in the style of the period. The fashion for Old Chelsea designs is particularly seen at Worcester in the second quarter of the 19th century and in 1840 the two factories amalgamate. In the middle of the 19th century some fine tea services were created, under the partnership of Kerr and Binns and by 1862 the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company was established and some very 'modern' pieces appeared in the last quarter of the 19th century. Essentially the importance of the 18th century factory will take up the first half of the lecture; with the second half will follow the styles and changing ownership of the 19th century.

The audience is taken on a journey beginning in Outer Mongolia in the 5th century BC and follows the 11th century migrations from Central Asia, the cradle of weaving, into the Caucasus,   Anatolia, Persia and Afghanistan. They will be introduced to nomadic tribes of these countries and their woven rugs, carpets and dowry bags, with particular emphasis on those of the 19th century and earlier. These tribal weavings illustrate the skill of women who produced exquisite works of woven art using vegetable colours and age-old designs, including cosmetic and talismanic symbols, whilst living and travelling in primitive conditions and hostile landscapes.

The lecture explains how these rugs were made, the materials used and compressions between natural and natural and chemical dyes.

The lecture will also illustrate how tribal weaving began a swift decline under the demands of commercialism around 1900, with the use of mechanical designs and chemical colours. By the 1930s, it had virtually ceased to exist in its spontaneous form. The tribal weavings of the 19th century and earlier represent the pinnacle of achievement and wonderful free expression of the art of the weaver. Today, these weavings are highly desirable and collectable works of woven art.

This is an extra lecture

This will be an opportunity to explore an extraordinary exhibition, which will be transferring in June 2018 from Yale to the Norwich Castle Museum, featuring the famous painting by an unknown Dutch artist of the precious objects belonging to the Paston family, together with many of the objects actually appearing in the painting itself and items loaned from British and American collections

An oft forgotten and mysterious period in English History and architecture, but the legacy lingers and is with us visibly and linguistically to this day. An exploration into the great upheavals in society and community as reflected in architecture and cultural change that disrupted and formed two great English cultures.

Throughout history, mankind has been absorbed with understanding the concept of Time and we have used the ‘tick-tock’ of nature (whether the cycles of sun, stars, moon, or the vibrations of the atom) to develop devices to tell WHEN things should happen. All kinds of other things (whether the flowing of water, the burning of wax or the falling of sand) have been used to tell HOW LONG things should take. A third class of things (bells, guns, or alarm clocks) has alerted us to the NOW – to get something done. As civilization has progressed, the social context of who needed to tell the time - whether civic leaders, the church, merchants or individuals - has varied dramatically. Equally, there has been a continuing drive towards greater accuracy, driven by the needs of navigators, commerce and scientists. But a significant feature of time-telling has been our perception of the transience of our own lives. This appears to have resulted in two things. Firstly, time-telling devices have always been produced with exceptional intricacy, craftsmanship and beauty. Secondly, while poets understand time, philosophers and scientists have struggled.

The lecture looks at all the various time-telling devices and charts, in four chapters, how their use has risen and fallen as history, fashion and technology have progressed

Kevin Karney, son of an Anglican clergyman, was brought up in Northumberland and educated at Rugby School and Trinity College Cambridge. He holds a Masters degree in Natural Sciences.

Since retirement, he has involved himself in charity work and as a Magistrate in Gwent - sitting on both the Adult and Family Benches. He is a long-term NADFAS member and was - for 6 years - Treasurer of the Monmouthshire branch.

With a great-grandfather and uncle who were both notable gnomonists (those interested in Sundials), he has had a lifelong interest in the subject of time-keeping - from both a technical and historical perspective. His specific technical expertise relates to the Equation-of-Time, which - discovered by the Greeks - is the variation between Mean Time and Solar Time. His other great interest is the history of antique cosmology and how Greek cosmological ideas were used extensively in Christian art.

He is a member of both the British Sundial Society (an affiliate of the Royal Astronomical Society) and the North American Sundial Society.

For about two hundred years until the middle of the eighteenth century, workshops in the small Northern Italian town of Cremona produced the violins and other string instruments which remain the most desirable in the world.

 This lecture traces the story of that golden age, beginning with Andrea Amati in the 1560s and following it through the generations to the death of Antonio Stradivari in 1737. It will talk about the shape of the violin, the principles behind it, the methods used in its construction and the innovations made by successive makers before Stradivari brought the form to perfection. It will address the question of why techniques have been lost and whether they can ever be recovered. And it will introduce some of Cremona’s celebrated customers: not just the most famous violinists of their era, but also Galileo Galilei and royal patrons like Catherine de Medici, Queen of France.

 Illustrated with diagrams, with pictures of Cremona, people and violins, and with some recorded music.

Toby has written two works of narrative history, Stradivarius and Fabergé's Eggs, published by Macmillan in the UK and Random House in the US, and given lectures associated with these two subjects at venues including The Victoria and Albert Museum, Bath Theatre, The Library of Congress and the Huntington Library, as well as a number of literary festivals. His career began with Natural Sciences at Cambridge and has been through investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Faber and Faber, where he remains on the board. Is also non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music, a trustee of Yale University Press (UK) and a director of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society.

After 40 years in the art market, as an auctioneer, dealer as well as a member of the Antiques Roadshow team for 22 years, Clive discusses how this dynamic industry has developed over the years.  Why have collecting tastes changed so dramatically?  How does the market work and who are the players today?  The effects of the Internet, legislation, pressure groups, antiques fairs, television programmes and changing tastes are all discussed.  The value of your antiques is ever moving, and getting it right is harder than ever.

Clive Stewart-Lockhart studied on the Sotherby’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, and has been a specialist on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow for over 20 years. Has also lectured on cruise ships as well as for many other groups

Note Lecture date changed

James Wyatt succeeded Robert Adam as the most celebrated neo-classical architect of the late 18th century; his fame being made with the spectacular Oxford Street Pantheon. He was a prolific architect working in both the classical and flamboyant gothic style.  Much admired by King George III, Wyatt  was appointed Surveyor General of the Office of Works in 1796. He is also associated with controversial restoration work at three English  cathedrals, notably Salisbury. His nemesis was Fonthill Abbey, the most extravagant house he ever built; the tower of which collapsed in 1825.  This lecture looks at the rise and fall of this prolific architect.   Was he a genius, or with this wisdom of hindsight, was he a charlatan? The jury is still out!

Christopher Rogers read Geography at Oxford. Formerly head of Geography at Downe House School, Newbury. Whilst at Oxford he became interested in country house architecture and has lectured on the subject ever since. He holds regular 5 day Summer School courses at Marlborough College Summer School and also lectures for the National Trust.

Note Lecture Change of Date

Recent turmoil in much of the Near East and North Africa means that many of the most impressive sites in the Roman Empire can no longer be visited. Sam Moorhead was privileged to have been able to work and travel in parts of the Eastern Mediterranean which are now too dangerous to explore – in fact, he was in Syria in March 2011when the civil war began. This lecture will provide an outline of Roman activity in the region, focussing on cities which have been largely destroyed (for example Hatra in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria), sites which have been heavily looted (Apanaca and Dura Europus in Syria), and places which are now too dangerous to visit (Leptis Magna and Cyrene in Libya). Some of finest architecture, sculpture and mosaics from the Roman world will be presented, highlighting both the richness of eastern Roman culture and the lives of the people who lived in these exotic places. (Fees for the lecture go directly to the British Museum).

Sam Moorhead is the National Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman coins in the Portable Antiquities and Treasure Section at the British Museum. Before joining the British Museum in 1997 as Staff Lecturer for Archaeology, he taught Classics and Archaeology; he is an Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. He has excavated widely in the Mediterranean and Britain, concentrating on the Roman and early mediaeval periods. Serving on numerous councils, he has been Chairman of the Palestine Exploration Fund and Honorary Secretary of the Roman Society. He has lectured to numerous organisations in Britain, including learned, literary, historical and archaeological societies, and has been a Guest Lecturer on many cruises. Recently, he has written The Roman Empire and The Frome Hoard, and co-written AD 410 – The Year that Shook Rome, The Romans who shaped Britain , 31 BC, Antony, Cleopatra and the Fall of Egypt and A History of Roman Coinage in Britain. He is currently rewriting the standard reference for the coinages of the emperors Carausius and Allectus and is involved in a fieldwork project in Devon

The Nativity must be one of the most popular subjects of all with artists, north and south of the Alps, from the 13th to the 20th centuries. 

Sometimes the scene takes place at night, sometimes during the day. The lecture will explore the many variations of the scene and the possible meanings, depending upon whether midwives or Joseph are present, either awake or asleep, and analyse the various postures and gestures of the Virgin as she adores the Christ Child.

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

London boasts an extraordinary range of architecture and this talk reveals the evolution of the capital through its great buildings. We start with a brief look at the development of architecture in the capital and then focus on the modern.

Whether we like it or not, by 2020 more than 200 buildings in London will be over 20 storeys high including dozens twice this height. This talk looks at the best of these buildings including the cutting edge designs of the latest towers such as The Shard, The Walkie-Talkie, and The Cheesegrater. We discover their extraordinary architectural and engineering challenges but also examine the controversies and difficult social decisions needed to manage this dramatically changing skyline.

Ian Swankie is a Londoner with a passion for art and architecture. He is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral, and gives regular tours at each venue. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and a member of both the City of London and Westminster Guide Lecturer Associations. Clients include NADFAS and WEA groups, Transport for London, the National Trust and London Open House. In 2012 he established a weekly independent art lecture group in Richmond and gives talks on a variety of subjects.

‘William Cobbett (1763-1835) was the greatest journalist of his age. He attacked political corruption and nepotism and was imprisoned for his outspokenness. He wrote Rural Rides (still in print) and was the founder of Hansard. James Gillray (1756-1815) was the foremost political cartoonist of the early C19th and produced savage caricatures of leading politicians and royalty. He was paid by the Tory government to attack Cobbett in a series of cartoons. These will feature in the talk as will cartoons on subjects (such as elections) which involved Cobbett’. 

Dr Thomas completed an MA in Canada in Development Studies, and a PhD from Trinity College, Dublin in History and Political Science. His career as an academic and as a political and institutional analyst in the field of International Development enabled him to travel widely in Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He always sought to understand the arts and culture of the country or region he was living or working in since they illuminate the past and help to explain the present. Some of his lectures (Cobbett/Gillray and Hadrian) began with the history but have been developed for NADFAS by emphasising the culture and art/architecture/cartoons of the period.

The lecture starts with a history of nursery rhyme books from their humble beginnings in the 18th century to the classic productions of Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway in 1870s and 80s. Then comes a historical examination of the rhymes themselves (many are much older than the books), concluding with a discussion of the fanciful theories developed about origins by Victorian antiquarians. Sad to say, there is actually little evidence that 'Ring a Ring a Roses' has to do with catching the plague!

With digital slides and high quality recorded music.

Jeremy Barlow is a performer and writer on music. Two recent books include 'The Enraged Musician: Hogarth's Musical Imagery' (Ashgate) and 'The Cat and the Fiddle: Images of Musical Humour from the Middle Ages to Modern Times' (Bodleian Library). He contributed more than 150 entries to the 'Oxford Companion to Shakespeare'. His many CDs include the complete 'Beggar's Opera' (Hyperion), which received an Edison award

The lecture focuses on fine and rare caskets and cabinets made during the 17th Century to contain precious objects such as jewellery, cameos, documents, money, miniature paintings and objets de vertu. Each cabinet was unique, made by skilled artisans using different techniques but they are all characterised by decorative veneers in costly materials: ebony, silver, ivory, Baltic amber, tortoiseshell, exotic Oriental lacquer, semi-precious stones, marquetry inlay in rare woods and stump-work embroidery. Fine cabinets were imported from India, China and Japan but the main centres of European cabinet making were Augsburg, Antwerp, Spain and Paris.

The lecture will also consider the painted and gilded marriage chests, the cassone of the Renaissance period and the evolution of the 17th century cabinet into the 18th Century commode or chest of drawers.   

Many cabinets have hidden compartments and double doors which delight and surprise the eye when opened to reveal their rich interiors

Anne Haworth lecturer at the V&A. Guide for private tours of the State Rooms and The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace. Lecturer in British Painting for American students resident in London. In autumn 2002, catalogued collection of Chinese porcelain at Kensington Palace. From 2002 2005, a committee member of the French Porcelain Society. From 1995 2002, was resident in Shanghai, China, visited ancient kiln sites and lectured to expatriate groups. From 1981 1995, trained and became a senior ceramics specialist at Christie's and Bonhams head offices

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

Rosalind Whyte has a BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. She is an experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich and lectures at Tate, Dulwich Picture Gallery, to independent art societies and on cruises. Leads art appreciation holidays.

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 Venice.

The reasons for this are many – Vivaldi’s passion for colour, display and spectacle in his music; the unusual way in which Venice solved its problems with the poor and homeless; Vivaldi’s health problems and his eccentricities as a man and a priest.

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 intrinsically Venetian as the canvasses of Canaletto.

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

The lecture will include live music sung and played.

The Glasgow Boys revolutionised painting in Scotland by bringing it into the mainstream of European art.

‘The Boys’ were young Scottish artists who looked to France for their inspiration – ‘the auld alliance’ – and many of them studied in Paris. One group met up in Grez-sur-Loing where they painted together using the ‘square brush technique’ influenced by Jules Bastien Lepage. Other members of the group came togther through old friendships – Paterson and MacGregor had known each other at school, while Guthrie and Walton were old friends.

They soon established a vigorous style of oil painting using large square brushes and thick paint with bold colours. Watercolour also played a major part with works by Walton, Lavery, Henry and Crawhall. Maybe the finest watercolourist of all was Arthur Melville. Japanese prints were an important influence and Henry and Hornel actually visited Japan to paint its landscape and people.

The work of the Glasgow Boys is surprisingly fresh and modern and is very popular today – as witnessed by the success of the recent exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Julian Halsby read history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge before joining the staff at Croydon College of Art where he became a senior lecturer and head of department. In addition, he lectured at other colleges and institutions, dealt in late 19th century British painting and has written books on history of art and numerous articles. He is a practising artist; a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and in 2011 was elected Keeper of the RBA. He is also a member of the International Association of Art Critics and The Critics Circle.

This is the dramatic story of the Society which transformed the moribund St Ives artists colony into the run-away success whereby over seventy works a year were being hung in the Royal Academy and regular nationwide shows were attracting up to 75 000 visitors By the end of the 1930's many artists of repute living and working in Cornwall had joined  the society. In its heyday it boasted no less than fourteen Royal Academicians. After WW2 the Society included both Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth.   Despite an acrimonious split in 1949, the Society continued successfully until 'representational' art went out of fashion.  This lecture will feature many of the works which toured Great Britain in the 'Creating a Splash' exhibtion of  2003/4.

David Tovey is a law graduate from Oxford, returning again in 1996 to study History of Art.  He specializes in Cornish Art and has curated a wide range of exhibtions on Cornish art for many of the established galleries.

Honiton Lace is one of Britain's finest handmade laces, with a history stretching back to the 17th century. The lace was made by both men and women in a group of East Devon villages surrounding the market town of Honiton.  This lecture is an exploration of an illustrious but dying craft industry.the lecturer, Kate Strasdin is a practising lace maker herself and will finish the lecture with a demonstration of the art itself.