John Sneldon has been fascinated by musicals all his life and is a leading expert in British musical theatre (the subject of his PhD). His publications include Reviewing the Situation: The British Musical from Noël Coward to Lionel Bart (Bloomsbury), How to Enjoy Opera (Oberon/Bloomsbury), Andrew Lloyd Webber (Yale University Press) and chapters in many authoritative reference works. He is especially known for exploring musicals – British and American – in the light of not just the music and the stage, but society and culture to reveal what makes them so appealing, enduring and important. He is well known as a writer and speaker on all aspects of the lyric stage – musicals, opera, ballet – and has written many programme articles for leading companies in the UK and abroad. John has given talks for, among others, the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, the Garsington and Glyndebourne festivals and for BBC radio. For twenty years he worked for the Royal Opera House. He currently lectures at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The experience of musical theatre can be uplifting, diverting, provocative, disturbing and profound. We now have a century of its history and a stack of famous and brilliantly conceived shows that demonstrate the extraordinary range and versatility of this ultimate hybrid form of performance art. What are the ingredients of different types of successful musicals, and what are the underlying principles that allow speech, song, dance and story to co-exist in an onstage world that can feel so real, yet is defined by artifice?

Tony was educated at Highgate School, starting his career in advertising in 1965 as a mail boy in J.Walter Thompson. He graduated through the training system there to become an account director and subsequently worked in a number of agencies before setting up on his own in 1985. There he handled primarily Guinness advertising in Africa and the Caribbean, where he produced many commercials and print ads for them over a period of 15 years. He remains active as a consultant in the industry, but more recently has concentrated on more philanthropic projects - producing a film in the rural villages of Nigeria for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and completing a sanitation project in Haiti after it was devastated by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.   He has been a member of The Arts Society for many years and has been an accredited lecturer since 2017. He is married with 5 children, and is a keen guitarist, enthusiastic choral singer and optimistic tennis player.

This illustrated romp through the performative nature of science and showmanship is presented by renowned performer Dr Tony Lidington. When asked to define his job, Tony describes himself as a showman, as it is close to the role of shaman – a portal to other perceptions of reality… or illusion. This talk explores the ways in which popular culture and science have been fused and confused over the years: how the definitions of what is real, unreal, imaginary, fake or hallucinatory, are all woven together.

Described as one of the most experimental painters of his time, Thomas Gainsborough sought to bring joy and pleasure while seeking to equal the Old Masters. He cultivated a persona that presented him as spontaneous and uncalculated, however, his masterful technique with seemingly rapid hatching and bravura gestural brushwork and his constant inventiveness in the poses and gestures of his sitters speaks of an artist who thought deeply about his work. In this talk we will look at one of Gainsborough’s most admired paintings, Mr and Mrs Hallett, or the Morning Walk as it has become known, to explore the life and technique of this much loved painter. 

THIS LECTURE REPLACES THE ONE PREVIOUSLY ADVERTISED BY CAROLINE HOLMES WHO HAS HAS TO WITHDRAW BECAUSE OF ILLNESS.

Dr Christina Faraday FSA FRHistS is a historian of art and ideas, specialising in Tudor and Stuart Britain and the wider 16th and 17th-century world. She is a Research Fellow in History of Art at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, a Trustee of the Walpole Society for British art history, and a BBC New Generation Thinker, appearing regularly on BBC Radio 3 and in other popular media. She is an experienced lecturer, and teaches for the History of Art Department at the University of Cambridge, The Wallace Collection, the National Gallery, London, and for the Institute for Continuing Education, Cambridge, where she is Co-Director of the MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture. Her first book, Tudor Liveliness: Vivid Art in PostReformation England, was published in 2023 by the Paul Mellon Centre and Yale University Press. Her next book, The Story of Tudor Art, will be published in 2025. TIME MACHINES : CLOCKS IN ART Few people nowadays give more than a second thought to their clocks: practical, sometimes beautiful, devices that form the background noise of our daily lives. But from their introduction in the thirteenth century onwards, clocks have held a variety of philosophical and social meanings. This talk explores the visual and literary uses of the clock, the varied meanings it could hold throughout the ages: as an ominous symbol of oncoming death, but also as a metaphor for the soul, for capitalism, and for the good use of time.

Tony was educated at Highgate School, starting his career in advertising in 1965 as a mail boy in J.Walter Thompson. He graduated through the training system there to become an account director and subsequently worked in a number of agencies before setting up on his own in 1985. There he handled primarily Guinness advertising in Africa and the Caribbean, where he produced many commercials and print ads for them over a period of 15 years. He remains active as a consultant in the industry, but more recently has concentrated on more philanthropic projects - producing a film in the rural villages of Nigeria for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and completing a sanitation project in Haiti after it was devastated TASS Lecture Programme for 2026 2026 by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.   He has been a member of The Arts Society for many years and has been an accredited lecturer since 2017. ARTS HIDDEN SECRETS My latest lecture, Art’s Hidden Secrets is about the messages, codes and self-portraits found in famous works of art. For example: In Rembrandt’s Night Watch, what’s a little girl doing there, in a party dress with a dead chicken hanging from her waist? Given Michelangelo’s statue of David was originally to be placed high on the Cathedral roof, why did he carve his eyes heart-shaped, when it would be impossible to see them from the ground? Where can you find the hidden portraits of Velazquez, Vermeer, Raphael, Titian, Filippo Lippi and Botticelli?

BA (Hons) Latin and Ancient History, Exeter University, and then branched out into archaeology. Ex-BBC, lecturer for British Museum and York University, an award winning writer and author who specialises in relating the ancient world to our modern lives, in person, in the field, on line and in the media (most recently on BBC News Channel, Radio 4 Today programme and BBC World Service). Publications include Visiting the Past: A guide to finding and understanding Britain's Archaeology and Roman Britain. Forthcoming Latin Yesterday, Today and For Ever, and A Mediterranean Tour: Not just a Load of Old Stones. Teaches adult education courses in Latin, archaeology and ancient history and has publicly lectures widely and passionately, on cruises and tours and for museums such as the British Museum & Ashmolean, national press, universities, literary festivals, and diverse societies including Classical Associations, the U3A and the National Trust. OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES This talk is in itself a celebration of how the Ancient Greeks and Romans created our love of wine. How wine’s popularity spread, how wine production has and has not changed, what wine connoisseurs 2,000 years thought made a wine great! As an archaeologist who has excavated a Roman wine-producing warehouse, I promise that this lecture will refresh your palette

The Art of Celebrating Christmas

The celebration of Christmas brings together a broad range of traditions which are now regarded by many as integral to Christmas as a whole. Using a wide range of artworks and covering the output of many well-known and lesser known artists including Giotto, Caspar David Friedrich and Norman Rockwell this talk examines the elements of Christmas in their artistic setting. From the Christmas feast to Christmas Cards, holly and ivy, trees, crackers, gift giving and of course lots and lots of snow, this lecture is guaranteed to put you in the Christmas spirit. 

I became a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide in 2005, receiving an award as the 'Best Guide in Gallery Exams'. One of my main areas of interest is Ancient Egypt. I’ve studied hieroglyphs and carry out volunteer work in the Egyptian department at the British Museum. I lead specialist tours at relevant sites across London and also deliver lectures on this subject. Highlights of my guiding career have included giving a talk on BBC Radio 4 about the execution site of Tyburn and writing a book on the British monarchy.

This lecture covers the turbulent life of Tutankhamen, his relationship with Ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses and the abrupt ending to his short reign. Over 3,000 years later, the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb made him the most famous pharaoh in Ancient Egyptian history.  Hear about the tomb robbers in the Valley of the Kings, the apparent “curse” and see works of art from his tomb, on display in Egypt today.

This familiar masterpiece, like many of Rembrandt’s paintings, has more than one story behind it.  Here we investigate the message mene mene tekel ufarsin, to discover what it means, where it comes from, and how Rembrandt was able to bring it to such vivid life in this great work. Can be combined with  Ancient Drawing on Tablets of Clay and Edward Ardizzone as a study day

Irving Finkel is a British philologist and Assyriologist. He is currently the Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum, where he specialises in cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia. Irving is the author of several academic articles and books on ancient Babylon. He also studies the history of board games, and is on the Editorial Board of Board Game Studies. Among his breakthrough works is the determination of the rules of the Royal Game of Ur. Irving founded the Great Diary Project, a project to preserve the diaries of ordinary people. In association with the Bishopsgate Institute, he has helped to archive over 2,000 personal diaries. In 2014, the V&A Museum of Childhood held an exhibition of the diaries of children written between 1813 and 1996. Irving has written a number of works of fiction for children, including The Princess Who Wouldn't Come Home and Swizzle de Brax and the Blungaphone.

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

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University before doing a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years.   Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia. She is also a Tour Director for a travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. During the coronavirus pandemic, Sarah moved her work online, offering art history courses to audiences all over the world. Sarah became an Arts Society accredited lecturer in 2021 and, since then, has given lectures and run study days for Arts Societies throughout the UK and in Europe. She is delighted to have been invited lecture for the Arts Society in New Zealand in 2024.

  Lights. Cameras, Action! - inside stories of the art and artifice of the early decades of Hollywood. This lecture covers the work of still photographers, costumiers, publicists, actors and actresses and the movie moguls who make it happen.

Geri Parlby's career spans across diverse fields.  She started as a news and investigative reporter via Mirror Group newspapers before becoming Head of Press for United International Pictures, handling major blockbuster publicity campaigns from Paramount, Universal, MGM & UA studios throughout the 1980s.  She then set up her own London based film and video PR agency which she ran for 8 years before retiring to start a family. 

Driven by her passion for art she studied for an MA in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute before gaining a theology PhD from the University of Roehampton. 

Geri's extensive knowledge and engaging speaking style led her to become an accredited NADFAS/Arts Society lecturer and she has been lecturing both across the UK and internationally for the past 17 years.

This lecture is one of two which are extra to our published programme.  Come and learn about the talented woman whose work continues to be admired and collected.

Covers surprising attempts to create some graphic unity, even in the 1860s and 70s, expansion of the Underground and the need to create some cohesion between the different operating companies, Leslie Green's architecture and the Arts & Crafts movement, Frank Pick, Edward Johnston's typeface, Charles Holden's architecture and the Streamline Moderne/Art Deco movement, the New Works Programme, post war austerity/design, Victoria Line, loss of Johnston & rescue by Kono, Jubilee Line Extension/architecture, creation of TfL, recent schemes and future works including the Elizabeth Line/Northern Line extension to Battersea etc.. 

Mark Ovenden is a broadcaster and author who's sold a quarter of a million books and appeared on many TV and radio programmes. 

He specialises in the subjects of industrial design and architecture - especially in the world of public transport. Since he became AS accredited in 2018 he's delivered scores of lectures to societies all over Britain and also in Europe: the most popular being his talk on the London Underground.

His first book (a New York Times "Bestseller") was a guide to the maps of Transit systems across the planet and it's been re-issued many times. His works have been translated by Penguin and others into half a dozen languages.
  
His titles include two books about the Paris Metro and others about: Railway Maps, the New York Subway; the London Underground; typeface design; Manchester's Metrolink; Airline Maps; Underground Cities and Cartography design.

He's worked at the BBC producing programmes for Radios 1's John Peel and Annie Nightingale, in commercial radio as a journalist and newsreader, and in television as a researcher and even for MTV as a music programmer. Mark recently fronted a TV his own documentary for BBC Four (on the subject of typefaces) and he presented another documentary for BBC Radio 4 on architecture. Other programmes and books are in the works.
 

He is also currently reading as a mature student online for a Masters in Railway Studies.

It is said in theatrical history that there was a Golden Age in British comedy, from the 1970s to the 1980s. This was in the branch of theatre known as Variety – it was a world of comedians and impressionists, of tv shows, and end-of-the-pier shows, of unusual acts and eccentric dances, of much loved people like Morecambe and Wise, and Bruce Forsyth.  In this unashamedly nostalgic lecture, and sharing my personal connection with this world, I will go back and explore the acts, the places and the people that made us laugh. And I will also ask, “What’s happened to comedy today?”

Tyler Butterworth grew up in a theatrical family and 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 tv series. Now, he produces walking audio guides to cities across Europe for private clients on whatever subject he’s commissioned to do. They’re just like the audio guides you get in art galleries and museums but they’re out on the street. He lives in Sussex where he walks on the South Downs and the South Coast.

David Worthington has been drawn to abstract sculpture since seeing a Barbara Hepworth in a school history book aged 10. He graduated from Oxford University in 1984 with a degree in Philosophy and Theology, then studied fine art in London, Barcelona and New York. A maker he also curates and writes about art. He was shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize in 2009. David is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Sculptors, and was Vice President in 2010-13. He has carried out public commissions in the UK, America and Japan. His work is in the museum the Creative Cities Collection Beijing China. He has had solo shows at the Lefevre Gallery, Sladers Yard, Horatio’s Garden, the William Bennington Gallery, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and in October 2017 at the Lightbox Gallery Museum, Woking. He took part in exhibitions at Colyer Bristow Gallery and Contemporary Sculpture at Fulmer 2018.

Rodin is one of the heroic figures of 19th century art history and was internationally celebrated during his lifetime. But after his death his reputation slipped and there were questions about his use of the female image. Now that is very much being reassessed and he is seen as having in one career taken sculpture on a revolutionary path equivalent to what the Realists, Impressionists and Post Impressionists did with many careers. This lecture surveys his work showing why he is one of the greatest sculptors ever, looking at his work in relationship to 19th century sculpture as well assessing his continuing relevance.

Alice White is a contemporary oil-painter, and a Tutor at the University of the Arts London and University College London. She has provided Guest Lectures at Kings College London, The Art Workers' Guild, the Courtauld Institute of Art. 

Her essay 'A Painter's Perspective' is published in Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe (Alfred Cohen Art Foundation and Ben Uri Gallery 2020). Her article ‘How to Look at Painting’ was printed in The Art Society Magazine (July 2020).  

Alice’s solo show 'A New Wave' documented her year’s residency as Artist for Animals at ZSL London Zoo. Recent projects include 'The Art of Science' (Scott Polar Institute, University of Cambridge 2021). She regularly exhibits at the Mall Galleries in London.  

Awards include the Russell and Chapple Prize for an Outstanding work in Oils (Royal Society of Marine Artists 2017) and the Time Space Money Bursary (A-n The Artist Information Company/Arts Council England 2020). 

Loaded with symbolism, the colour blue creates meaning, provokes emotion and ignites memory on a personal, and a cultural level, throughout the world.

From the scared shade of Ultramarine, to the ancient roots of Indigo, to the startling alchemy of Prussian, blue has been used to venerate icons since the earliest human civilizations. Enjoy this rich history of colour via two powerful forces: Impressionism and Japanese Print. 

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

Simon is a (recovering) actor, lecturer, presenter, Alexander Technique and voice teacher and award winning London Blue Badge guide. He has worked as a guide lecturer in house at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Opera House, the BBC and the National Gallery guiding both public and private tours. He is on the faculty of Ithaca College and also lectures for the Blue Badge Guide training course on the performing arts and English literature. Simon’s specialisms and passions are theatre, literature, fashion and art history but whatever the subject, Simon will weave a wonderful story from it.

Christmas spectacles, slapstick, and beanstalks have been drawing crowds to Covent Garden since 1737. John Rich, the first manager of what is now the Royal Opera House, was a fine dancer, mime, and special effects man and he (and his successors) developed all the well known features of the  London Christmas season. Even now principal boys, fairies, and Harlequin are alive and well on  the ROH stage. This lecture pulls together the whole performing tradition and brings it up to date with the latest Christmas offerings at the Royal Opera House.

Sarah Lenton has spent her working life in the theatre: her principal employers are the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Garsington Opera. She writes programme articles, radio and play scripts, gives lectures on the operas and ballets in the rep. and broadcasts regularly for BBC Radios 3 and 4. She is also a cartoonist. All the talks listed come with audio and/or video clips. 

The image is of the magician, Drosselmeyer, painting a Christmas angel onstage.

Artistic innovation in the renaissance is usually associated with Italy, but equally momentous developments occurred in the Netherlands, as Paula Nuttall, an international authority on this topic, argues. The sophisticated oil technique of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, with its unrivalled potential for realistic depiction, was widely admired and imitated in Italy, as were Netherlandish approaches to landscape, and portraiture. This lecture charts the impact of early Netherlandish painting in Italy, from the activities of Italian merchants in Bruges, collectors such as the Medici in Florence and the travels of artists, to the responses of painters, including Piero della Francesca, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci

Director of V&A Medieval and Renaissance Year Course. Specialist in Renaissance art, both Italian and northern European, on which she has published widely, notably From Flanders to Florence: the Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500 (Yale, 2004). Has collaborated on major exhibitions including Jan van Eyck: an Optical Revolution (Ghent, 2020). Formerly lecturer at the Courtauld Institute and the British Institute of Florence.

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.

London-based freelance lecturer, writer and exhibition organizer. Has lectured for Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Open University, Sotheby's Institute of Art and the Courtauld Institute of Art. Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck College since 2005, and has led many tours. Publications include Understanding Modern

Art (1991), Chagall (1998/2001), The Private Life of a Masterpiece (2001),The Art and Life of Josef Herman (2009) and Art and the Second World War (2013). She is the initiator and Creative Director of the nationwide Insiders/Outsiders arts festival(see https:// insidersoutsidersfestival.org/), and contributing editor of the companion volume, Insiders/ Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their Contribution to British Visual Culture (2019).

The flower paintings of Cedric Morris (1889-1982) capturing plants around the Mediterranean, the Canaries and beyond reveal him as a consummate botanist. After a fire in 1940, Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines were forced to relocate their East Anglia School of Painting and Drawing to Benton End near Hadleigh, in Suffolk. Not just a School but a vibrant eclectic artistic hub in a setting of Morris’s horticultural genius. He lived at Benton End until his death, enjoying national stature as artist and plantsman whose legacy included over 90 new irises.

Has lectured in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Europe and Japan as well as for cruises crossing the Baltic, Caribbean, Mediterranean and Red Seas, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In 2017 she returned to The Arts Society in New Zealand. University of Cambridge ICE Academic Tutor and Course Director; lectures for the Royal Horticultural Society, museums and online for The Gardens Trust and organisations worldwide. Author of 12 books including Monet at Giverny, Water Lilies and Bory Latour-Marliac, the genius behind Monet’s water lilies; Impressionists in their Gardens; Follies of Europe: Architectural Extravaganzas; and in 2020 Where the wildness pleases – the English Garden celebrated. 2017 recipient of the Herb Society of America ‘Elizabeth Crisp Rea Award’. Consultant designer specialising in evoking historic, artistic and symbolic references.

Our new lecture for June will be Venice and the East.  Venice’s unique position brought the city into contact with the different powers of the Eastern Mediterranean including the Byzantine Empire, the Mamluks and the Ottomans. This lecture explores the ways in which these interactions left their mark on the artistic heritage of the city as can be seen in Venetian architecture, painting and the decorative arts.

Dr Antonia Gatward Cevizli is an independent art historian specialising in both Italian Renaissance art and Ottoman art. She gained her PhD from theUniversity 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 Sabancı 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.

The RSN’s royal connections began from the outset when Princess Helena became its President and in 1875 Queen Victoria became its Patron. This lecture tells the story of the RSN’s royal connections and especially focuses on the RSN’s role in all the British coronations of the 20th century, but first beginning with making the funeral pall for Queen Victoria herself in the tightest of timescales.Coming all the way up to date with the association with the Royal family today, including work for HM Queen Elizabeth 11 and about introducing our new Patron the (then) Duchess of Cornwall to stitch.

Chief Executive of the Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Institute of Marketing and in 2015 was made a Fellow of the Society of Dyers and Colourists in recognition of her work on the history of dyes. Susan has a longstanding interest in textiles, especially colour, and published her first book, The Story of Colour in Textiles (Bloomsbury) in 2013. She has extensive lecturing experience and has been invited to lecture in the USA, Canada, China, Japan and Taiwan as well as for the V&A and across the UK.

Investigating the process of creating, through the collaboration between A A Milne and E H Shepard, the iconic images for one of the leading worldwide children's all-time favourite books. This was the first time that author and illustrator worked together feeding off each other’s creative input and reaction to words and pictures – with never previously published drafts and drawings of Winnie-the-Pooh and friends in the Hundred Acre Wood.

James Campbell has an MA in the History of Art, and a particular interest in the work of the artist, illustrator and cartoonist E H Shepard (1879-1976). He has been lecturing for over twenty years, and has lectured across the UK and overseas to community groups, Literary Festivals, Art societies, military museums, and to private clubs and societies. His books Shepard’s War and The Art of Winnie-the-Pooh were published in 2015 and 2017 respectively. He is currently working on a joint biography of A A Milne and E H Shepard commissioned for the centenary of the Winnie-the-Pooh books.

*THE IMAGE IS AN UNPUBLISHED PREPARATORY SKETCH:  copywright@The Shepard Trust

J.M.W. Turner was arguably the greatest practitioner in watercolour the world has ever seen and his achievements still represent the benchmark for artists working today. Yet he left frustratingly few written records of his processes and was notoriously reticent about his methods. One brave soul apparently once asked him the key to being a successful artist and it is recorded that he rather grumpily replied ‘The only secret I have is damned hard work’! This lecture examines Turner’s watercolour practice in detail, unlocking the mysteries behind his exceptional effects. In addition to showcasing the diversity and richness of his achievements in the medium, we will look at his experimental approach to techniques and some of his tools and materials.

An independent art historian specialising in British art of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She studied at the University of York and Birkbeck College, London. Formerly a curator at Tate Britain she has curated a number of exhibitions and has published widely on J.M.W. Turner, including contributions to the forthcoming online catalogue of the Turner Bequest. She is also co-editor and author of How to Paint Like Turner (Tate Publishing, 2010). In addition, she has published on Walter Richard Sickert and is co-author of Tate's catalogue of works by the Camden Town Group.

Every four years, the advent of the newest iteration of the Olympic games brings scrutiny and reflection on their ancient forebears. The ancient Olympics lasted for over 1000 years and were both very similar and very different to the modern games. They were held as religious games in honour of the great god Zeus at his sanctuary at Olympia in the Greek Peloponnese. The art and architecture of this sanctuary was emblematic of the ancient Olympic spirit - and represents some of the finest sculpted art to survive from ancient Greece. In this talk, we look at the artistic and literary evidence for the ancient games, learning about triumphs and heartaches, and stories of athletes, both weird and wonderful!

Following a degree in Classics from Oxford University, I have taught Classics at secondary school level since 1998, and currently teach at Godolphin and Latymer in London; here I run the school’s Ancient World Breakfast Club, which has an ethos similar to that of The Arts Society.

Since 1998, I have published a number of textbooks related to the classical world, including In Search of the Greeks and In Search of the Romans. In addition to my school teaching, I have also lectured for the V&A Academy, most recently on their Classical World and its Afterlife and Classicism from the Ancients to the Renaissance courses. I am a keen traveller, and am lucky enough to have taken many photos of ancient sites, a number of which have been used in my books.

Possibly the most admired historic English building outside London, Blenheim Palace is an uncompromising World Heritage monument to English military ambition and one family's self importance. The story of its construction is a fascinating catalogue of excess and outrage, while the result is both monstrous and utterly sublime. But it is in the effect that its perceived spirit has had on consecutive generations of Marlboroughs, that is most revealing. It is also of course, from within this 'cauldron' that a Churchill was born, recently voted the ‘The Greatest Briton of All Time’. This lecture explores these themes and the characters involved, marvelling at the genius of Vanbrugh and considering the real impact the palace has left on the nation.

As a cultural historian, writer and artist Anthony Russell has travelled much of the world. Lecturing originally to American university students on bespoke tours of Europe, he has lectured for the Arts Society since 2010. He spent six years as a consultant for Luke Hughes advising on the furniture needs of prestigious buildings throughout Britain, including museums, palaces, and cathedrals. At the British Museum, where for many years he ran outreach events and hosted visiting lecturers, he has been described as "Hugh Grant meets the Dalai Lama.” Committed to the 'search for civilisation' and as an advocate of nonviolence, he is the founder of The Chandos; supporting causes that promote understanding and cooperation, is on the committee for Uniting for Peace and a contributor to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democracy in Burma. He is author of the book ‘Evolving the Spirit - From Democracy to Peace' commended by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Laureate, as meaning a great deal to her. He was also Founder of the Brockley Festival of Ideas and a Founding Advocate of CIVIL-ISATION. He is currently undertaking research for a new book on civilisation; what it is, whether we have it & how you get it.

How did a German refugee from Hitler, an internee and a jobbing journalist, become the Grand Old Man of English art history? The answer lies in his extraordinary one-man survey of all the architecturally significant buildings in the country, county by county. This lecture explores what Pevsner said, rightly or wrongly, about the buildings in your society’s area – churches, houses, shops, town halls, tower blocks, factories, cinemas – and sets his pronouncements in the context of The Buildings of England as a whole. The series has both detractors and passionate defenders, but no imitators. Pevsner himself said, ‘There won’t be another madman so soon.’

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

Norwich was one of the most important sites of 16th and 17th century silver manufacture outside London. It had its own assay office between 1565 and 1702 and a thriving silver trade which flourished in the city and supplied much of the silver for the churches of Norwich and Norfolk, as well as providing secular objects for a domestic market. This lecture examines the development of the silver trade in Norwich and the reasons for the establishment of its assay office and examines the system of hallmarks, exploring the possible reasons for the assay office’s closure at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It also looks at the principal public collections of Norwich-made silver and assesses the ways in which they can be seen to manifest a strong sense of regional identity.

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

This is a narrative approach to the revival of 15th century carpets in Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan. Illuminations on vellum – containing the only surviving representations of textiles from this era – flourished, despite the Islamic prohibition on representative art – and are all we had left of Timurid Carpets until Chris Alexander’s workshop began to weave them to life again.  The lecture will examine the traditional role of carpet weaving and embroidery in the social lives of Central Asian women and how social and political influences led to the decline of textile production. How do the constraints of gender-inequality, corruption and the sourcing of natural dyes from neighbouring Afghanistan continue to challenge attempts at reviving the rich textile heritage of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand?

MacDonald 'Max' Gill, younger brother of the sculptor and typographer Eric Gill, was an architect, graphic designer and letterer, best known for his pictorial maps, especially those for the London Underground. He also created painted maps for Arts & Crafts houses including Lindisfarne Castle, magnificent murals for Cunard liners, and eye-catching publicity posters for organisations such as the Empire Marketing Board. An enduring legacy is his alphabet for the Imperial War Graves Commission used on all British military headstones since the First World War. This illustrated talk by Max Gill’s great-niece presents a colourful overview of this versatile artist's personal life and artistic achievements.NB. Max's work can be found in many localities around Britain. Caroline will include local connections wherever possible.

 I've always been aware of my close family ties to the sculptor and typographer Eric Gill, a fascinating but controversial character. In 2006, however, a family history project drew me into an exploration of the life and work of his younger brother. MacDonald 'Max' Gill was an architect, mural painter and graphic artist, famed for his humorous pictorial map posters for London Underground and the alphabet he designed for the British military headstone.

Although my main profession has been English teaching, I now spend much of my time researching the Gill brothers and championing the work of the lesser known of the pair. I've co-curated numerous exhibitions including Out of the Shadows: MacDonald Gill at the University of Brighton and Max Gill: Wonderground Man at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft. In 2016 I co-organised a series of events in the capital to celebrate the centenary of the author Eleanor Farjeon's delightful collection of verses entitled Nursery Rhymes of London Town and illustrated by Max Gill.

I've contributed articles to a range of publications such as Country Life, the TAS journal and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  I've given talks for organisations including the National Archives, the Art Workers' Guild, Christie's, Friends of Kettle's Yard and the National Trust and was thrilled in 2016 to become an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society. I run the MacDonald Gill website and am the author of MacDonald Gill: Charting a Life.

“Antiques. I don’t understand them and they’re beyond my budget. They’re not for me.” A persuasive introduction to buying antiques and integrating and using them in today’s homes. The state of the antiques market and the different meanings of the word value are considered, and we take a look at what current and future generations of collectors are buying, why they are buying it and how they are displaying it.

The Arts Society Southwold presents a lavishly illustrated talk by Tessa Boase based on her latest book.

Starting on Oxford Street's "golden mile", we'll set off on a cultural tour of the capital's big stores - from snooty Marshall & Snelgrove, to Pontings, "House of Value"; from Kennards' wart-removal service, to the live flamingos atop Derry & Toms; from Bodgers of Ilford, to Bon Marché of Brixton.....From shoppers to shop girls, publicity stunts to wow factor window dressing, a fascinating slice of social history, with wonderful period images.

Tessa will give this talk on TUESDAY 16TH MAY:

WENHASTON VILLAGE HALL, Narrow Way, Wenhaston IP19 9EP at 11am

Tickets (£5 or, unreserved on the door, £6) can be booked online at https://www.evenbrite.co.uk/e/574382773337 or by emailing sallygoodsell3@gmail.com or by calling 07752227248.  These can be paid for on the door.

THE SEAGULL THEATRE, Morton Road, Pakefield, Lowestoft NR33 0JH at 2pm Tickets (£5) available from the Box Office 01502 589726 

or online at www.the seagull.co.uk

Bathers at Asnières (1884, National Gallery, London) is one of the best-loved pictures in any British collection. It was painted by the Post-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat, then only twenty-four and brimming with ambition. It is an impressive, light-filled canvas showing Parisians at leisure by the river Seine. During the two years it took to complete, Seurat developed new colour theories and a novel technique - Pointillism - to capture the shimmering effects of sunlight on water, grass and in the air itself. This lecture looks at the painting in detail, explores Seurat's vision and ambition, his bold new ideas and contribution to the history of modern art.

BA(Hons) in Fine Art, Liverpool School of Art; MA in History of Art, Birkbeck College, London. Lecturer at the National Gallery since 2004. Has lectured on the history of European art and architecture at Somerset House, taught courses on art and architecture at London colleges (The City Literary Institute and Bishopsgate Institute) and is a regular gallery and museum guide for U3A. Steven is also a painter.

The Arts Society Southwold presents an illustrated talk by Barry Venning:  a journey through the 1960s in music and images, following the Beatles from the Hamburg Reeperbahn to Abbey Road in 1968.  The band was always fascinated by the visual arts - the fifth Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe was a prodigiously talented painter and they also learned very early on that artists and designers could help promote their image and their music.

Barry will give this talk at:

THE CUT, HALESWORTH, IP19 8BY at 11am.  Tickets (£5) available from The Cut Box Office 0300 303 3211 or online at www.thecut.org.uk or email boxoffice@thecut.org.uk or in person bookings Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 2pm.

BECCLES PUBLIC HALL AND THEATRE, Smallgate, Beccles NR34 9AD at 2.30pm.  Tickets (£5) available from the Box Office 01502 770060 (Monday to Saturday 10am to 3pm).

One of the most derided towns in England, renowned for its dullness, Basingstoke is distinguished only by its numerous roundabouts and absurd Modernist architecture. Rupert explains that the post-war planners, who inflicted such features as ‘the Great Wall of Basingstoke’ on the town, were politically-motivated and bent on destroying all traces of its past. He reveals the nobler Basingstoke that is buried beneath the concrete, and the few historic gems that have survived the holocaust. Hilariously told, it is a story that neatly illustrates the ugliest episode in England’s architectural history. As Betjeman wrote prophetically, “What goes for Basingstoke goes for most English towns”. 

Rupert Willoughby is an historian and Classicist, a poet, a father and a wild swimmer with a passion for castles, lakes and uncovering the layers of the past. A graduate with First Class Honours in History from the University of London (where he immersed himself in the ‘Byzantine’, or medieval Greek Empire), he is the author of the best-selling Life in Medieval England for Pitkin, and of a series of popular histories of places, including Chawton: Jane Austen’s Village, and the whimsical, yet scholarly Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture. Rupert also contributes regular obituaries to The Daily Telegraph. Accredited to the Arts Society since 2011, he is an experienced lecturer, who is known for his light, humorous touch, his love of narrative and his vivid evocations of the past. Rupert’s forefathers were Vikings and his foremothers were Tatars

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

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

As a Cambridge history graduate with a lifelong interest in the arts, he has gone on to lead choral workshops for amateur singers across the world, where he places music in its historical and cultural context. He regularly lectures for the St Paul’s Adult Education programme and for John Hall’s Venice Courses, which have allowed him to incorporate his interests in theology, art and poetry. 

Some of the best-known works by the world’s greatest artists are prints – think of Dürer, Rembrandt and Goya. And many of us own prints. But surprisingly little is generally known about the subject. Using examples by the greatest masters, this lecture demystifies the idea of the ‘original print’, and offers clear explanations of the processes involved in printmaking techniques such as engraving, etching, drypoint, wood-engraving, wood-cutting and lithography.

Dr Susan Owens is an art historian, writer and curator. She studied English literature at Oxford University and European art at the Courtauld Institute, then wrote a doctoral thesis on Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations to Oscar Wilde’s play Salome at University College London.

She was a curator at the Royal Collection before becoming Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Susan has curated many displays and exhibitions and written or co-authored books on natural history illustrations, watercolours, drawings and self-portraits. She is a regular contributor to publications including the Times Literary Supplement, Apollo, the Literary Review and The World of Interiors.

Now freelance, Susan lives in Suffolk. Her recent books include The Ghost: A Cultural History (2017) and Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art (2018). Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape (Thames & Hudson) came out in 2020; it was shortlisted for the Apollo Book of the Year Award and is a Times art book.

At the time of his death in 1896, Frederic Leighton was the most celebrated artist of his generation.  Recently ennobled, he had been the president of the Royal Academy since 1878 and was widely credited with enhancing the status of art and artists in late Victorian society to unprecedented heights.  This lecture explores Leighton’s life and work; from his continental upbringing to his dramatic debut at the Royal Academy, the construction of his remarkable studio-house in Kensington and his rise to international fame and recognition – including the story behind his most famous picture, Flaming June, and how it comes to be in the Ponce Museum, Puerto Rico.

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

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

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

Sorolla (1863-1923) was a highly successful artist of international renown in his lifetime, but outside Spain and the United States he is largely forgotten today. Some of his best work is on show in the house and studio he built for himself in Madrid – one of the city’s ‘hidden secrets’. While Sorolla admired the great Spanish traditions of Velázquez and Goya, his delightful paintings of women and children at the seaside, landscapes and the great series depicting the regions of Spain, are full of sunlight and optimism.

Historian, art historian, and painter. Lecturer for The Arts Society since 1992, lectures regularly for the V&A High Renaissance and Baroque course, Art Pursuits, and the Art Fund. Has taught on Cambridge University International Summer Schools, the Courtauld Institute Summer Courses, Inscape, Gainsborough’s House and other arts organisations. She has led tours to Spain for The Arts Society and other tour companies. Lectured in the Prado and Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid 1983-5, was Deputy Curator of Keats Shelley Memorial House, Rome 1978-80, manager of the Courtauld Slide Scheme 1977, and a Christie’s consultant (Ill. MSS) 1976. Gail has recently given a course at the National Gallery, on Sorolla. In 2015 Gail was awarded the Encomienda de Isabel la Catolica (the equivalent of the CBE) by the King of Spain for promoting Spanish culture among British audiences, and was recently elected President of The Arts Society Colchester.

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

Hon. Research Fellow, Durham University. Founder of the Cumbrian Biographical Project. Past President of Cumbria DFAS. Author of biography of George Romney. Specialises in Lake District artists of all genres. Art history lecturer to undergraduate and adult classes at Universities. Catalogue of Paintings in Durham Castle (2002). In recent years has lectured on cruises in the Mediterranean and Baltic. He has edited two volumes of the illustrated letters of Percy Kelly (1919-1993). His volume in the national series on public sculpture is Public Sculpture of Lancashire and Cumbria and was published in 2017.

Should we accept that the very best photographs can be regarded as Fine Art? This question is at the heart of a lecture which argues that photography can equal, not to say exceed, more traditional disciplines in the key genres of portaiture, landscape and still life. Photography, moreover, has carved its own area of excellence in depicting the human condition. All these ideas are discussed with reference to the work of some of the acknowledged masters of photography, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Fay Godwin, Bill Brandt, Ansel Adams and Wolfgang Tillmans. 

Brian Stater is a Senior Teaching Fellow at University College London, where he has lectured since 1997. His principal academic interest lies in the appreciation of architecture, while a strong personal enthusiasm is for photography. He therefore explores both business and pleasure by offering lectures on each of these subjects.

He has written on architecture for a wide range of publications and an exhibition of his own photographs has been 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.

Brian is an engaging and amusing speaker who seeks to entertain as well as inform his audience.

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 lookd like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

Sophie is a musician well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes and has become one of the foremost players of the instrument in the UK. She also plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife, crumhorm and recorder. She’s also one of a handful of British players of the baroque musette, an 18th century French bagpipe similar to the Northumbrian smallpipes.

When not touring with GreenMatthews, Sophie also makes instruments (she made her own baroque oboe) and works with respected luthier Tony Millyard on his flutes. Sophie is self-taught on all of her instruments.

Armour was one of the great Renaissance art-forms. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries most of the richest noblemen in Europe were dedicated patrons of the armourer’s art, a kind of visual language which they used to project their identity and prestige. The armour-making process demanded both fantastic skill in the sculpting of iron and steel and mastery of decorative techniques such as acid-etching and mercury-gilding. This lecture serves as an introduction to the idea of armour as an expressive art-form, where the achievements of virtuoso armourers embodied splendour and richness while also carrying more complex messages about status, aristocratic associations, the social order and divine power.

Toby is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London and an internationally-acknowledged authority on Medieval and Renaissance weapons. He is the author of numerous books on the subject of arms and armour, including Masterpieces of European Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection (2011; Apollo Magazine Book of the Year 2012); The Noble Art of the Sword: Fashion and Fencing in Renaissance Europe 1520-1630, ex. cat. (2012); Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450 (2015; Military History Monthly Illustrated Book of the Year 2017); ans most recently Arms and Armour of the Medieval Joust (2018). Toby also appears regularly on television, most recently on A Stitch in Time (2018; BBC4); as presenter and armour advisor on Richard III: The New Evidence (2014; C4), and as the writer and presenter of Metalworks: The Knight's Tale (2012; BBC4). In 2015 Toby had the unusual honour of serving as one of the two fully armoured horsemen escorting the remains of King Richard III, from the battlefield at Bosworth to their final resting place in Leicester Cathedral.

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

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

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

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

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

Appreciate the astonishing range of signature buildings of faith communities settling in London. New arrivals leave their imprint on a city – nowhere more so than in London where Jews, Muslims, Roman Catholics, Hindus, Methodists, Sikhs, Buddhists and Orthodox Greeks have each added their own layer. Not least, they have all left a remarkable signature. Here are eight faith communities which can each point to a special place they built, not on first arrival, but when numbers and self-confidence had grown in the knowledge they had established themselves for the long term. Crucially, it was when they had the wealth and resources to commission great architecture. So we have a synagogue, a chapel, a gurdwara, a monastery, a couple of cathedrals, a temple and a mosque, permanent markers of the highest quality. Their differences stretch across cultures and 300 hundred years of persecutions and economic crises. But their similarities are also striking.

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 la

Perhaps it is the unique climate of the far North, the extremes of the Polar North and Midsummer sun, which has forged such a distinctive Scandinavian culture.  Although Norway is renowned for its beautiful fjords, many of its communities are isolated, cut off by both mountains and sea.  Norwegians have learnt to be resilient:  as Vikings, they travelled to Greenland and Iceland in search of new lands to colonise.  Despite this rich heritage, Norway did not gain independence from Sweden until 1905 explaining the nationalistic fervour of Edvard Grieg’s music (1844-1907).  Grieg also composed the incidental music for Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt.  Grieg’s romantic music transformed Ibsen’s dramatic poem into a fairytale but in his plays, A Doll’s House, Ghosts and Hedda Gabler, Ibsen examined the realities that lay behind the facade of respectable domesticity.  But no-one captured the angst of the era more effectively than Edvard Munch.  Imitated, copied and parodied, his iconic Scream is as famed as the Mona Lisa. 

From 1993-2007 Anne was a senior lecturer on the Fine Arts Valuation degree courses at Southampton Solent University. She is currently Hon. Associate Professor at Exeter University, a tutor for the V&A Learning Academy, and Ceramics Consultant for Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. Anne has published books on Art Deco teapots, the Pre-Raphaelites, Edward Burne-Jones, and Art Nouveau Architecture. She has held several prestigious fellowships, including fellow of the Huntington Library, CA. Anne has also curated several national exhibitions, the most recent Beyond the Brotherhood; the Pre-Raphaelite Legacy (2019-20). Her life as an international speaker has taken her all over the world, including Australia in 2000, 2006, 2009, 2018. Anne has also lectured on Swan Hellenic Minerva, the Spirit of Adventure, Fred Olsen’s Balmoral, and Hebridian Princess. During the summer Anne guides for Travel Editions UK tours. She is currently writing a book on Oscar Wilde.

Published in 36 languages, turned into a major feature film, the Girl with the Pearl Earring translates into words the intimate, intense quality of one of Vermeer’s best-loved and most hypnotic paintings. Meticulously researched, Chevalier’s book evokes people and places, crafts, class and submerged tensions with, at its heart, Jan Vermeer, his home and family, patrons and preoccupations. This talk compares the writer’s world with the reality of the age but focuses on a consideration of the short but extraordinary life of Vermeer, and the light, colour and mood of his paintings. It is not necessary to have read the book before the session, though students who have done so may find that it contributes to their enjoyment.

Nicole studied Art History at the Universities of Sussex, York and Paris. She was Senior Lecturer at Queen's University until 2009, working primarily with adults, managing and teaching on both the Part-Time degree and Extra-Mural programmes and conducting annual, international study tours. She also established the Department of Art History, the first in the north of Ireland. Nicole now lives in central London and is a freelance lecturer, working for organisations including National Museums, the National Trust, Queen's University and private cultural bodies. She is a guide lecturer for tours and will shortly embark on her second lecture tour of New Zealand for The Arts Society and ADFAS in Australia. Her publications focus on adult education and the arts.

Occupying a pair of early Georgian townhouses nestled in historic Greenwich, the story of how The Fan Museum came to fruition is interwoven with the fascinating biography of its founder, whose personal collection forms the basis of the Museum’s holdings. Discover some of the key objects within the Museum’s collection of 5,000+ fans dating from the tenth century to the present day.

As an accomplished watercolour artist, Gertrude 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. It also looks at how contemporary work of artists such as Turner, Monet, Rothko, Jackson Pollack, and Hockney evolved in parallel with ideas about what a garden or border should look like.

This lecture covers easel painting methods and the materials that artists have used for the last 700 or so years, from the Middle Ages to the present day. A wide range of pictures will be shown, from Tudor portraits to 19th century landscapes, taken from both public and private collections.

This talk provides an overview of the Church of England's magnificent 42 cathedrals, jewels in the crown of England's built heritage, some recognised as World Heritage Sites. Beautifully illustrated by Country Life photographer, Paul Barker, in addition to looking at their history and stories, evolving architecture and treasures, the talk considers the role of cathedrals over the centuries and specifically their role today.

William Morris is renowned as wanting to make art and beauty available to everyone, not just the very rich.  He also wanted to overthrow Victorian capitalism and create a more equal society without masters and servants or rich and poor.  Yet much of the work produced by his decorating firm was too expensive for anyone but the wealthy to afford.  And without their patronage he would not have been able to maintain his own artistic lifestyle or to support his many socialist causes.  This lecture examines the contradictions inherent in Morris's life and ideas, and the tensions between his two roles as revolutionary socialist and highly successful business-man and entrepreneur.

This lecture replaces the previously advertised talk on Ruskin by David Cross.

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 you are transported directly to the heart of 18th century Venice. Against the luxurious backdrop of 18th century Venice, and with live musical performances, this lecture explores the amazing world of Vivaldi’s music - music that is as intrinsically Venetian as the canvasses of Canaletto.

London Underground (or TfL as it is now known) has employed leading artists since the 1930s to install permanent and meaningful artworks in its stations to enhance the experience of travellers.  Taking a virtual journey through this network, this lecture reviews the artworks that passengers can experience as well as discussing the artists who were selected to create then and their inspiration.

The lecture will last one and a half hours and is a taster for a day school that will be delivered in Spring 2022 which will focus on the Art of the Paris metro (morning( and the Moscow metro (afternoon).  This lecture is free to paid up members of The Arts Society, Southwold.  Visitors are welcome at a cost of £5 per device.

Mike Grundy's expertise centres on the architecture, art and history of London and other major capital cities.  He has a CHE in History of Art and Architecture from Birbeck College, London and is a highly experienced lecturer.

We love standing in a museum gazing at a painting by Titian or Caravaggio, but we rarely question where it was before it came to be in that museum, or who in earlier times stood in front of it and gazed, nor by what practical means it got there. This lecture will delve into the astonishing history of the movement of art works.

Cleopatra, the woman for whose love’s sake Antony is imagined having given up the chance to rule the Roman world, has been inspiring painters, poets and (more recently) film-makers for over two millennia. Their gorgeously voluptuous depictions of her offer insights into changing concepts of beauty, and into the racial and sexual assumptions underlying them. This lecture will show how Cleopatra became a screen onto which artists have projected their wildly differing fantasies about exotic danger and erotic bliss.

This lecture tells the fascinating story of how painting and architecture went their separate ways, exploring the complex reasons behind their dramatic divorce.  Embracing the likes of Michelangelo, Watteau, Whistler and Matisse, this broad-ranging survey culminates with the Bauhaus and its legacy in the USA – and ends by asking whether the partnership between art and architecture might be revived in the 21st Century.

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

This lecture explores a single year in which many aspects of decorative and fine art are set against the backdrop of the 1935 Silver Jubilee Celebrations of King George V and Queen Mary. Contemporaneous art forms are examined, including the work of the photographer Cecil Beaton; magazine, poster and Penguin paperback book design; architecture; Silver Jubilee memorabilia; commemorative stamps; locomotive design and fashion as well as works of the age of Art Deco.

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE HELD ONLINE USING ZOOM. If you are interested please email tassouthwold@gmail.com for details.

The return of Charles II led to the re-opening of theatres after the 18-year closure of public playhouses under the Commonwealth Government. The new theatres saw the first actress on the stage replacing the cross-dressing males. Great actors and lively audiences in Restoration Theatre brought the morals of the court onto the stage in its comedies of city life and an era of great playwriting was unleashed.

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE HELD ONLINE USING ZOOM. If you are interested please email tassouthwold@gmail.com for details.

This lecture introduces the Guggenheim foundation, how it came about and the very particular circumstances that led to the commission of the Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry in Bilbao. The collection of paintings, sculptures and installations contained within the museum are shown, covering the permanent collection as well as providing up-to-date information on current and future exhibitions. Projects for a new Guggenheim are also discussed.

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE HELD ONLINE USING ZOOM. If you are interested please email tassouthwold@gmail.com for details.

Sadly this lecture has had to be cancelled because of the Coronavirus outbreak.

Sadly this lecture has had to be cancelled because of the Coronavirus outbreak.

Sadly this lecture has had to be cancelled because of the Coronavirus outbreak.

Sadly this lecture has had to be cancelled because of the Coronavirus outbreak.

This lecture discusses aspects of the brilliant Islamic visual culture that was produced from the results of Umayyad rule in Cordoba and the subsequent history of Muslim culture in Spain, and examines Hispano-Islamic ceramics, ivories and other artistic forms. Muslim art and architecture during the Reconquista including the building of the Alhambra in Granada is also considered. 

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

The lute holds a special place in the history of art: from the golden-haired angels of the Italian Renaissance through depiction by artists such as Holbein and Titian to the pleasures of interior scenes by Jan Steen and portraits by Frans Hals in the 17th century. The lute and other musical instruments are explored as devices to express various aspects of the human character throughout the ages.

Where did mixer taps and fitted kitchens come from? Angle-poise lamps and strip lighting? The answer is the Bauhaus. This is the story of Germany’s most famous design school founded in 1919. The Bauhaus was bitterly attacked in its day and ultimately forced to close – many of its teachers and students either fled abroad or were exiled. The result is that the Bauhaus has had a worldwide impact on art, architecture and design trends ever since.

This lecture will examine how the peculiar geniuses of these two very different men. Gilbert and Sullivan came together under the guiding hand of impresario, Richard D’Oyly Carte and created one of the most individual and enduring forms of theatrical entertainment. The lecture is fully illustrated with musical examples!

The moving image has always been a powerful source for imagination. This lecture looks at how the Motion Pictures’ industry developed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century and how it went on to change the face of entertainment – and inspire the imaginations of some of the greatest artists of that period.

Victoria and Albert, both born in 1819,  were enthusiastic patrons of the arts throughout their marriage and viewed these roles as being part of the public duties of monarchy. Buckingham Palace was known as “the headquarters of taste”. This talk also challenges the image of Victoria as a melancholy widow and reveals her as a passionate and open-minded young woman.

The last few years have seen the meteoric rise of this extraordinarily versatile young designer with his acclaimed Olympic cauldron and iconic new London bus. This talk looks at the range of work created by his studio and the problems these projects presented and the wonderfully creative ways in which Heatherwick and his team have responded.

The “Gilded Age” refers to the vast fortunes of financiers and entrepreneurs in the America of the 1890 – a term originally coined by Mark Twain. Who were the movers and shakers of artistic patronage in this fascinating period? This lecture explores the identities of an international elite of artists and designers, working for titled patrons or for the conspicuous consumption requirements of “new money”.

This lecture looks at the life and work of the Danish silversmith, Georg Jensen (1866-1935) and other designers who worked for him. The lecture will look at the enduring appeal of his work to collectors and why he is considered one of the most influential designers of the 20th century.

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE PRECEDED BY THE AGM AT 1.45PM.

Manet’s picture is one of the most treasured possessions of the Courtauld Collection. We are invited to engage with a young barmaid in a fashionable Parisian establishment. Is this a straightforward representation or is Manet playing with accepted conventions to undermine the coherence of the image and its content? This lecture explores the many different facets of this iconic picture and guarantees that you will never look at it in the same way again.

Guernica is one of the most famous paintings in the world. The lecture looks at the circumstances around the painting’s creation and is examined alongside other art and photography created during the war, including images by Dali, Joan Miro and photographer, Robert Capa.

As a young reporter working for the Lahore Gazette, Kipling took a journey through Rajasthan in the 1880’s during which he produced some magical descriptions of the buildings that he saw. In his company, we are invited to explore its architectural splendours and gain insights into the rich cultural history of the “Land of Kings.”

This is the story of women’s lives during the dark years of Nazi occupation and beyond including British and American women caught in Paris as well as native-born resisters. The lecture begins with a magnificent circus ball held by Elsie de Wolfe at the Villa Trianon and ends with Christian Dior’s new look

What was it like to attend a performance in the Globe Theatre in the early 17th century? This illustrated talk describes the experience of play-going for ordinary Londoners. Why did thousands of people enjoy the plays as presented on stage? What was it about the drama that attracted almost every level of London society from the Court to the illiterate whore? To appreciate the genius of Shakespeare it is essential we understand how the plays worked on the stage of their time. Only with the opening of the New Globe Theatre, has it been possible to enjoy almost the whole experience of theatre-going as it might have been enjoyed by an Elizabethan.

Vienna was the capital of a vast empire and an exciting artistic laboratory. It produced painters such as Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka, architects like Wagner, Loos and Hoffman, the psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, the composers Gustav Mahler and the philosopher Wittgenstein. This talk asks how and why the City of Dreams became a cultural hotbed around 1900.

Antonella da Messina travelled to the mainland and up to Venice but spent most of his professional life in Messina producing work of exquisite beauty. He was able to learn new techniques and adapt them to his own style, it has been said he could catch the moment of the mind and produce paintings of the faces of real people.

Much of North Africa was Orthodox Christian until the 9th century then there were 1000 years of competition between Islam and Christianity. Some fine architecture was created in this period from the rock churches of Lalibella to the vast mud mosques in West Africa. Also some equally splendid recent buildings will be discussed, as will the voodoo shrines of Nigeria.

DR RICHARD THOMAS

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 The Arts Society by emphasising the culture and art, architecture and cartoons of the period. 

Road and rail, sea and air, travel has provided many architectural treasures from the thatched petrol station of Blashford Hampshire to the futuristic Los Angeles airport. Some gems such as bus, railway and tube stations as well as posters together with leading artists and architects in the sphere of travel such as John Hassall, Fougasse and Richard Rogers will be examined. 

DR SARAH PEARSON

Holds a First Class BA in Art History from Reading University, an MA in World Art Studies from the University of East Anglia and a PhD in Architectural History, also from Reading. Lectured for 10 years at Reading and at the University of East Anglia, and now works as a freelance lecturer and adult education provider. Has published articles and a book chapter on the architect Francesco di Giorgio and currently researching the development of the Riddlesworth estate with a view to future publication.

The Wallace collection was made by five generations of one family between 1780 and 1880. All the founders were remarkable and sometimes rather strange men but the greatest collectors were the 4th Marquess of Hertford and his illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace. This lecture tells the story of the collection’s formation and presents some of its finest treasures. 

MR STEPHEN DUFFY

Educated at New College, Oxford, and formerly Senior Curator of the Wallace Collection where he had particular responsibility for exhibitions and nineteenth-century paintings. He has given countless tours of the Collection for visiting groups and many lectures on its art and other related subjects. His latest publication, The Discovery of Paris, is a book on early nineteenth-century watercolour views of Paris by major British artists.

Igor Stravinsky, the Ballet Russes, and the astonishing 1913 premiere of the Rite of Spring The story of one of the greatest creative collaborations: Serge Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes whose team of dancers, choreographers, costume and set designers transformed a night at the theatre and the circumstances behind its most notorious stage work. Sandy looks at the build up to the premiere of the Rite of Spring, plays excerpts from the score and explores the divided opinions of that first night audience so dramatically, nothing could top the riot at the Rite in 1913… 

MR SANDY BURNETT

After studying music at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of music presenters on BBC Radio 3. He enjoys a varied career that embraces broadcasting, conducting, playing double bass and communicating his passion for music. His radio series for Ireland’s RTÉ Lyric FM, Great Moments in Classical Music, recently won silver in the Specialist Music category of the PPI Radio Awards. He regularly leads cultural lecture holidays, and is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music. More information is at www.sandyburnett.com.

Single artist museums offer many opportunities to explore an artist in depth. Mark Bills is the director of Gainsborough’s House and formerly curator of the G.F.Watts purpose built gallery in Surrey. He will discuss some of the major projects he has been involved with.

This story has a plot worthy of Agatha Christie. The cast includes Walter Gropius and other refugees from the Bauhaus, writers Nicholas Monsarrat, Agatha Christie herself and other intellectuals and civil servants. The setting is The Lawn Road flats, a startling Modernist block, offering a radical new housing concept. But was there a darker side to this lively bohemian environment?