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.

Gavin Plumley

Gavin returns by popular demand. A writer and broadcaster, he appears on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and contributes to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes.

He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Recent appearances include Klimt and The Kiss in cinemas worldwide, and talks for the Hay and Cheltenham Literature Festivals, the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum and the V&A. His first book, A Home for All Seasons, is out now.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

Interior views were a popular subject in the Golden Age: shops, taverns, churches, schools, cottages. Best known are the domestic settings with men and women reading, writing letters, making music or ‘simply’ drinking, as in the works by Vermeer, Terborch, De Hooch, and others. The room often includes marble floors, rich carpets and gleaming chandeliers.

However, do these paintings really portray the actual appearance of Dutch middle-class interior in this period, with features that one could really find in homes of the period, or are they just an artistic illusion? 

Sophie Oosterwijk

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

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

Please note: TAST are not sharing any lectures via Zoom this season. This decision was taken after the 2025-26 flyers had gone to press - apologies if you had hoped to watch this lecture via Zoom. 

Grayson Perry is one of Britain's best known contemporary artists, and one of the most successful. Known primarily as a potter and visual artist he's also famous for his outlandish appearances dressed as his feminine alter ego, Claire. He is now a core part of the art establishment, a Knight of the Realm, Turner Prize winner, Royal Academician, popular broadcaster and colourful character.  His works are highly sought after.

Often controversial, he tackles difficult subjects in a poignant yet witty manner and holds a mirror up to modern society. This talk will examine Sir Grayson Perry’s work, his exciting and thought-provoking exhibitions, and the unique character inside the flamboyant frocks.

Ian Swankie 

A Londoner with a passion for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral, and gives tours around each venue. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and leads regular tours for various corporations and organisations. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. He is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive by 7pm to allow time to sign in. The AGM begins at 7.15pm, followed by the lecture at 7.30pm. 

"Post Impressionists" Cezanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh are instantly recognisable by their bold confident brushstrokes and colour. It is hard to imagine them ever needing guidance, but there was a time when all three had reached a crossroads struggling to find their way in art and indeed life. It would be Impressionist Camille Pissarro and other artists resident in the beautiful Oise valley northwest of Paris who welcomed them into their homes offering direction.

In this lecture, the resulting relationships and outcomes are explored – positive for two of our three, but tragic for van Gogh, who would prove so troubled that even the nurturing Oise could not heal him. 

Carole Petipher

Carole returns by popular demand. 

Carole is an experienced guide and lecturer on combined history and art tours in France with 20 years experience. Having lived and worked on a number of bespoke river vessels and converted barges there she has used them as a platform from which to research her lectures. She uses art in all its guises to explore the characters who shaped France and likes to delve behind the scenes to discover hidden truths.

She also acts as a guide for a privately owned ancestral home in her native Chilterns.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

Please note: TAST are not sharing any lectures via Zoom this season. This decision was taken after the 2025-26 flyers had gone to press - apologies if you had hoped to watch this lecture via Zoom. 

The world of opera is full of remarkable contributors, great game changers who leave the stage in a completely different place from the one they found. In the 19th century three such men - Verdi, Wagner and Puccini - revolutionised the art form in three very different ways.  From the romantic heart-breakers of La Traviata and Rigoletto via the mystery and magic of the The Ring Cycle to the breath-taking melodramatic tear jerkers of Tosca and La Bohème.

Enjoy their remarkable journeys and innovative, dynamic and thrilling theatricality which is part of so much of their work. This illustrated lecture highlights the great opera productions which have graced the worlds opera houses.

Jamie Hayes

After training at RADA Jamie graduated as a Stage Manager and subsequently worked for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Bristol Old Vic and the BBC. He became an Assistant Director with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Kent Opera and English National Opera and soon began directing productions of his own. He has directed many new opera productions in the UK whilst other new opera productions overseas include Reykjavik, Malta and Melbourne. Jamie was Associate Director on the original production of the hit musical Miss Saigon in the West End and on Broadway. He has directed productions in all the major UK conservatoires and was Director of Productions for British Youth Opera for over a decade, a company devoted to promoting the talents of our finest young opera singers in the UK. Jamie is a regular enrichment programme lecturer for various leading cruise ship companies. He is married to the mezzo-soprano Jean Rigby. 

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

Between the two World Wars (1919 - 1939), British women artists made significant contributions to the art world, often reflecting the social changes and challenges of the era. Their work spanned a variety of themes, including war, gender roles, and societal transformation.

Many women used their art  to challenge societal expectations. The contributions of British women artists between the wars were groundbreaking but often overlooked in mainstream art history. Efforts to restore their rightful place continue through exhibitions, research, and public collections that celebrate their achievements.

This period marked a transformative era for women in art, showcasing their resilience, creativity, and ability to adapt to changing societal landscapes while leaving a lasting impact on British cultural history. Women such as Dame Laura Knight or the great photographer Olive Edis, the unforgettable Evelyn Dunbar “land girls”, or the refined art of Doris and Anna Zinkeisen.

Maria Chester

Maria returns by popular demand. She studied Fine Arts and Art History and is now a Professor of Ancient Civilisations of the Americas. She has taught in several South American universities as well as private institutions. Maria also tutors annual courses on Art History for Berwick Educational Association, and lectures for Berwick Visual Arts on topics linked to art exhibitions at The Granary in Berwick. Maria has been invited to deliver talks for Fred Olsen cruises and for NADFAS Australia.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

Please note: TAST are not sharing any lectures via Zoom this season. This decision was taken after the 2025-26 flyers had gone to press - apologies if you had hoped to watch this lecture via Zoom. 

Antony Gormley’s career spans nearly 40 years, during which time he has made sculpture that explores the relationship of the human body to space, often using his own body as his starting point. His work has been shown throughout the world, in galleries including the Tate in London and the Hermitage in St Petersburg, but it is also often on open display as public art, such as Another Place at Crosby Beach near Liverpool. 

As well as works that he is well known for, like the iconic Angel of the North, we will look at some of his earlier and less well-known works to gain an overall view of the development of his work across his whole career.  

Rosalind Whyte

Rosalind 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, to independent art societies and on cruises.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

When Japan's borders were opened to the West in 1868 there was a huge surge of interest in all things Japanese in the West, particularly in Paris. Ukiyo-e prints were collected avidly by the leading Impressionist painters of the day who 'borrowed' wholesale from their asymmetric compositions, flowing lines, bright colours and subject matter.

This lecture explores how the Japanese aesthetic revolutionised Western art in the late 19th century, and how a new wave of artists today have brought a deeper understanding of the mokuhanga technique into Contemporary Art.

Carol Wilhide Justin 

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

Carol was commissioned by Crowood Press to write a book on Japanese woodcut, Japanese Woodcut - Traditional Techniques and Contemporary Practice, published in 2024.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

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 of material and inspiration. From the Renaissance through to the present day, fine art continues to provide opportunities to enhance brand imagery with admiration, humour, satire and irony.

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

Tony Rawlins

Tony returns by popular demand. He began 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, handling primarily Guinness advertising in Africa and the Caribbean.

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.   

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

Art Deco has the reputation of being the most glamorous and popular style of the 20th century, prevalent during the 1920s and 1930s. The lecture reviews the development of the style within the context of its social and economic environment, and looks at specific examples of objets d’arts including silver, jewellery, furniture, ceramics, clocks and architecture.  

The range of designers, craftsmen and artists covered include E-J Ruhlmann, René Lalique, Tamara de Lempicka, Jean Dupas, Georgia O’Keeffe, Eileen Gray, Romain de Tirtoff (Erté), René Vincent and English ceramicist, Clarice Cliff. In addition to some examples of domestic and civic Art Deco buildings in the UK, there are exanples of buildings in New York, Miami, Mumbai, and Napier, confirming Art Deco’s full global reach and appeal.   

Pamela Campbell-Johnston

Pamela has over 30 years of lecturing experience to undergraduates, adult groups, and to friends and patrons of the Royal Academy of Arts as part of the RA’s Adult Education Department. She has also conducted numerous guided tours, residential trips and focused gallery talks on individual works of art.

Now a freelance art consultant and lecturer specialising in British domestic architecture and modern British art, Pamela has a particular love for the 1920s and 1930s. She has an MA Hons Art History from St Andrew's University. 

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

A vivid portrait of enigmatic artist Eric Ravilious (1903-42) by the curator of the blockbuster 2015 exhibition Ravilious (Dulwich Picture Gallery), and author of Ravilious in Pictures (Mainstone Press 2009-12).

Eric Ravilious was only 39 when he died on active service as a war artist in 1942, yet he had already achieved amazing things. A brilliant wood engraver and designer, he is best known today for his haunting watercolours in which lighthouses, white horses, empty rooms and downland paths become marvels. Over the past decade James Russell has explored many of these paintings in depth, teasing out stories and characters hidden in the wings. This entertaining illustrated talk illuminates the life and work of a playful, enigmatic artist, with plentiful examples of his work in watercolour, wood engraving, lithography and ceramics. The paintings are a delight, the Ravilious story funny, sad and full of surprises. 

James Russell

Having studied History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, James enjoyed a lengthy stint selling contemporary paintings and sculpture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an experience that inspired him to begin writing and lecturing on 20th century art.

Of his dozen or so books, one was a Sunday Times book of the year, while his writing has been described by critics as 'insightful', 'informative' and 'enjoyably readable'. James has curated major exhibitions at Dulwich Picture Gallery and for museums around the country. He bases his lectures on wide-ranging original research into the subjects that fascinate him.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

This lecture explores the rich musical traditions of Venice. Claudio Monteverdi not only transformed the music at the Basilica of San Marco but also led the way in the creation of a new art form - opera. We shall look at and listen to works from the other musical geniuses who developed the musical life of San Marco, such as Gabrieli and Lotti, as well as tracing Monteverdi’s successors in the creation of Venetian opera, including Cavalli and Albinoni. We shall also examine and hear music from Antonio Vivaldi, the other towering figure of Venetian music, who created music both for the opera stage and the female musicians of the Ospidale della Pietà.

Patrick Craig

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.  In 2020, when his singing and conducting work disappeared overnight as a result of the Covid pandemic, Patrick poured all his experience into online presentations which have raised vital funds for the Help Musicians Charity.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

In Greek legend, Pandora was created with the express purpose of causing trouble to men which, by opening her box, she achieved. This lecture looks at the original sources for the story, draws parallels with both Eve in Genesis and Galatea in Ovid, before showing how ballets, operas and plays, from Coppelia to My Fair Lady and The Winter’s Tale to Educating Rita, have developed the theme of a creation that runs out of control.  

The lecture is preceded by TAST's AGM, 7.15-7.30pm.

Mary Sharp

Mary is an experienced broadcaster and teacher with particular expertise in literature and drama. She worked for many years for BBC Radio 4, producing some of its most popular programmes including Start the Week and Woman’s Hour, before joining the senior management team as a commissioning editor. Mary has subsequently worked as a teacher and director of sixth form at a leading girls’ grammar school. 

She now runs her own company 'Opening Up Literature' which offers literature courses for adults including studies of Shakespeare and creative writing. Her most popular course is 'Telling Tales' which explores how writers and artists have reinvented classical stories. She is also a professional bridge teacher and lecturer.  

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive by 7pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

Artists were never far behind the explorers who opened up the west of America in the 19th century. Sometimes they painted what they saw. Sometimes they painted what they wished they saw. Either way, painters like Alfred Miller, Frederick Church and Albert Bierstadt have left us a powerful, if romanticised, record of the country and people that the settlers found.

Now we can use their pictures to chart the history of the opening of America’s west - the arrival of the railroad, the confinement of native Americans into reservations, and the extermination of the buffalo. This is a story on a big scale, and it seems appropriate that among the pictures illustrating the lecture are some of the largest and most grandiloquent paintings of the era. After a period of deep neglect, they are now very much back in vogue.   

Toby Faber

Toby is an experienced lecturer and public speaker who has been accredited by The Arts Society since 2012. 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. He is also non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music, and a director of Liverpool University Press.

Toby has written three narrative histories: Stradivarius – Five Violins, One Cello and a Genius; Faberge’s Eggs; and Faber & Faber – The Untold Story, as well as a novel, Close to the Edge. Of these, only the obvious one is published by the family firm.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

The Castle of Mey was the only property the Queen Mother ever owned and she would spend every August there surrounded by members of her Household and staff, and a number of guests. Jeremy first stayed there in the late 1970s while serving as Her Majesty’s equerry and on many occasions thereafter as one of her guests. 

This presentation is based on personal experience and cannot be described as an academic study. It is a fascinating account of what it was like to stay at the Castle of Mey, not just for those lucky enough to be invited as guests but also for the royal hostess.  

Jeremy Mainwaring-Burton

On leaving Durham University with a degree in geology Jeremy joined the Army. He then spent five years in the Irish Guards, the last two and a half of which were on secondment to Clarence House as the Queen Mother’s equerry. Being a geologist, he couldn’t help but notice the magnificent gemstones in the Queen Mother’s jewellery, and if he admired a piece she would sometimes take it off and give it to him to have a closer look. This inspired him to study gemmology and on leaving the Army he qualified as a Fellow of the Gemmological Association.

In addition to working as an exploration geologist in South Africa and a gold miner in California, he spent several years as a jewellery and precious stone dealer in London’s Hatton Garden. When the Queen Mother died in 2002, Jeremy helped open the Castle of Mey to the public. What was supposed to be a six-week appointment turned into six years. As a result he spent more time at the Castle of Mey than its royal owner ever did, and developed it as one of northern Scotland’s most popular tourist attractions.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

The use of water, as a decorative and practical element in the garden, began in the Paradise Gardens of ancient Persia, where it was used to separate the Four Gardens of Paradise within the ground plan, as well as to cool and refresh visitors in the heat of the day. Since then, water has been used to enhance and define the character of gardens, often becoming more sophisticated as technology evolved.

From the fountains and rills of the grand Papal gardens of the Italian Renaissance to the rivers and lakes of the English Landscape Movement or a simple stone trough in a rustic cottage garden, water adds character, mystery and if desired, drama, to any outdoor space. This talk looks at some of the most inspirational uses of water in international gardens of all sizes, styles and contexts.

Anthony Rayworth

Dr Anthony Rayworth RCA is President and Founder of the International Decorative Art and Design Association. He holds a PhD from Staffordshire University, a Master of Design Degree from the Royal College of Art, London and has over 30 years of international experience in interior design and garden design education, exhibition curating and design, decorative arts management and design practice.

Anthony is a Freeman of the City of London, an Educator Member of the British Institute of Interior Design, a Member of the European Academy of Design. He has previously sat on the Education Committee Member of the Society of Garden Designers and the Education and Membership Committees of the British Institute of Interior Design. He is also an Accredited Lecturer for The Arts Society with extensive experience in lecturing and speaking to a broad range of audiences.

As an independent educator and education consultant, he has lectured and developed bespoke curricula for private organisations as well as design-related courses at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels for design schools and universities internationally. He holds an advisory role as Director of Design Studies at the National Design Academy in Nottingham, where he is responsible for academic content, industry liaison and curriculum development. These courses are validated by De Montfort University, Leicester and are currently being delivered online to students in over 100 countries.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm. 

The figure of Mary’s husband Joseph is familiar from Christmas cards, carols, cribs and nativity plays, yet in the Bible he never speaks a word. It took many centuries for the quiet carpenter to emerge from humble obscurity and for artists to make his image visible. This lecture explores the many legends and faces of Joseph through the ages, from wizened old man to powerful guardian. Discover the hidden depths in that simple bearded figure on your Christmas cards; but please remember that although this lecture may be particularly appropriate for December meetings, Joseph is for life, not just for Christmas.

Amina Wright

Amina Wright has three decades of experience as a curator of historic art collections and exhibitions. She has produced several major exhibitions on eighteenth-century British Art and Old Masters, and published and lectured widely in these areas. She has recently completed a brand new one-of-a-kind museum, the Auckland Project’s Faith Museum in County Durham. As senior curator at the Holburne Museum in Bath she was a leading member of the team that delivered the museum’s highly successful 2011 redevelopment. Amina has also worked for English Heritage and the National Trust and has an MA in Christianity & the Arts from King’s College London.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm.

The 1700s was a period when the people of England seemed to be especially gullible. They believed a woman could give birth to rabbits; a man could climb inside a two pint bottle and sing inside it; and a blond-haired European could write a book claiming that he was born in Taiwan. 

These hoaxes weren't just written about extensively in newspapers and journals, but also brilliantly and amusingly depicted by satirical artists such as William Hogarth and James Gillray. In this entertaining talk Ian demonstrates how 18th century hoaxes are memorable not only for their imaginative nature but also because of the differing motives of the tricksters. Included in the talk are some hoax-related magic tricks.

Ian Keable

Ian Keable gained a first class degree from Oxford University, qualified as an accountant, and then became a professional magician. He is a member of The Inner Magic Circle. In 2014 he published Charles Dickens Magician: Conjuring in Life, Letters & Literature.

He now divides his time between performing magic, giving talks and researching and writing. His latest book is The Century of Deception: The Birth of the Hoax in Eighteenth-Century England.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm.

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was the only American artist to exhibit with the French Impressionists in their independent exhibitions. When the artist Edgar Degas persuaded her to stop exhibiting work at the Paris Salon - the official art exhibitions in the capital - and to exhibit instead with his artistic colleagues, she stated that, ‘I accepted with joy… I hated conventional art.’

Cassatt went on to make outstanding contributions to four of the eight Impressionist exhibitions. Like her Impressionist colleagues, Cassatt represented modern life, but the subjects suitable for a ‘respectable’ woman such as Cassatt were limited. However, Cassatt’s treatment of the traditionally acceptable subjects for women artists is both unconventional and thought-provoking. Looking at paintings and prints, this lecture examines ways in which Cassatt - a professional woman artist in a male art world - produced idiosyncratic and significant avant-garde images of 19th century French society.

Joanne Rhymer

Since completing an MA at University College London (UCL) in the History of Art: Modernism and the Politics of Representation (1997), Jo has been employed in various roles at the National Gallery including Adult Learning Officer and the Head of Adult Learning Programmes. In a freelance capacity, she has worked in prestigious learning departments in London galleries and museums including Tate, the Hayward Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, as well as leading group excursions in the UK and abroad.

She is currently a Panel Tutor for the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge and teaches for the Wallace Collection and the V&A as well as a range of private institutions.  Her areas of specialism include 19th century and early 20th century French art, and her interests include the visual skills involved in sustained looking at paintings. 

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm.

The lecture traces Caravaggio’s life story from the town of Caravaggio to the cities of Milan, Rome, and Naples, and the islands of Malta and Sicily combined with Keith Bonser’s personal experiences of researching and travelling through Europe to see Caravaggio’s paintings in situ. Keith says “Caravaggio came into my life completely by chance; life has never been quite the same since”.

Keith Bonser

Keith was a teacher and senior manager in education for 38 years. Retirement in 2008 gave him the opportunity to pursue a specific interest that has its origins in 1995. Keith was inspired to pursue an interest in Caravaggio completely by chance, following a visit to Dublin in 1995.

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm.

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

Bertie Pearce

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

Venue: Trinity Church, High Street, Gosforth, Newcastle NE3 4AG

Time: Please arrive before 7.20pm to allow time to sign in. The lecture begins at 7.30pm.

The lecture tells the fascinating story of how, in 16th century Florence, a 26 year old Michelangelo took on the commission, against enormous odds, to carve a huge flawed and damaged hunk of marble to produce David, arguably the greatest sculpture of a male figure the world has ever seen. Tony describes Michelangelo’s early life, his time as an apprentice, and studying classical sculpture in the palace gardens of Florentine ruler Lorenzo de' Medici. Then how he obtained special permission from the Catholic Church to study cadavers thus developing his unique insight into anatomy, laying the groundwork for what would become Michelangelo's distinctive style: a muscular precision and reality combined with an almost lyrical beauty.

Tony Rawlins

Tony started 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. 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.

This lecture focuses on the Ming Dynasty, one of China's greatest dynasties. The period represents the re-establishment of Han Chinese identity, art and culture after a period of 'Barbarian' Mongol invasion and rule (Yuan Dynasty 1279-1368). The culture and artistic achievements of the dynasty will be defined by the sumptuous court costume and, in particular the emblems of rank and status. The origins and evolution of dragon and phoenix imagery, representing the emperor and empress, will be explored together with the other mythical creatures adopted by the court. Finally, the talk considers a unique group of textiles produced in the early 17th century for festivals celebrated by the court. Visual access is due to the generosity of the Chris Hall Trust which includes the world's finest collection of Ming costume.

The lecture is preceded by TAST's AGM, 7.15-7.30pm.

David Rosier

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

The ‘Art of the Highlands’ lecture travels in time through the turbulent history of this remote part of Britain, viewing its rugged scenery and meeting some of its legendary figures such as Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora MacDonald as depicted by contemporary Scottish Enlightenment artists Allan Ramsay and Henry Raeburn.

The museums of Scotland hold treasures once owned by famous Scots, such as the jewellery of Mary Queen of Scots and the targe (or shield) presented to Charles Edward Stuart before the Battle of Culloden. 

The history and beauty of the Highland landscapes have been captured by many artists, especially the Victorian Romanticists. Horatio McCulloch, a Scottish landscape master, was one such artist who depicted the wild loneliness of Glencoe, once populated but now deserted after the shameful massacre.

The ‘Art of the Highlands’ begins with the ancient art of Scotland’s earliest peoples, shows artefacts from the period of the Viking occupation, and then continues with paintings and treasures which capture the many conflicts and heroic legends from Scotland’s troubled relations with its nearest neighbour – England. It explains how art, literature and the patronage of royalty changed the image of Scotland from a wild, dangerous place into that of a country now popular with its many visitors from home and abroad.

Elaine Hansen

Elaine Hansen has a Master’s degree in Education and taught for twenty-seven years. She now splits her year between Italy and Scotland. After taking early retirement she was free to pursue her passion, Art History, which she studied at the universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde. She became a guide at Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow in 2009 and gives lectures to her fellow guides. In Italy Elaine researches her Italian lectures and in Glasgow attends seminars relating to her areas of expertise in Scottish Art.  

In 2018 she was made an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society and since then has been in demand for lectures delivered in the UK, in Europe and on cruises around both Italy and Scotland.

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

John Iddon

John is a lecturer and guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Previously he ran an MA course in Heritage Interpretation at St Mary's University College. He has lectured freelance to numerous art societies, for the National Trust and the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery in Venice, as well as on cruises. In 2012, he wrote the new guidebook to the newly opened Strawberry Hill.

At the start of the 20th century Expressionism represented a radical break from Impressionism. Influenced by the Fauve artists, two major groups of German Expressionist artists emerged, Die Brücke (1905) and Der Blaue Reiter (1911), with further groups in Berlin and the Rhineland. This was a revolutionary movement, international and experimental in outlook. Nature, still lifes, urban views and portraits were conveyed in bold colours and dynamic gestures, whether oils, watercolours or woodcuts. Although excluded from academies and state exhibitions, many independent German women artists produced outstanding work in the Expressionist tradition.

We examine why it was mainly Expressionist artists who were condemned by the Nazis as 'degenerate'. Thousands of works were confiscated from museums, and many put on show in the 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich, arguably one of the best exhibitions ever shown in Germany! 

The focus is on paintings and woodcuts by Kirchner, Marc, Nolde, Kandinsky, Münter, Beckmann and Kollwitz, and the ways in which these paved the way for Abstract Expressionism. 

Dr Susan Wood

Susan is a practising artist and art historian, and now volunteers for Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums. She has a lifelong interest in art. She has a PhD in German Literature, an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute, and an MA in Glass from the University of Sunderland. She spent almost twenty years lecturing in universities and speaking at international conferences. She has published widely in the field of German literature, culture and art, with a particular focus on the Romanies and other minority groups.

After retiring in 2007 she volunteered as a Guide at Tate Modern and Tate Britain, and volunteered in the Education Department of Dulwich Picture Gallery. In 2019 she moved to Gateshead to be near her grandchildren. Susan is an active member of Northern Print and has taken part in a number of their group exhibitions. She is passionate about art and wild places, and has spent seven months on different Artist Residencies in Iceland. She loves communicating her passion for art to others and interacting with her audiences. 

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.

Gavin Plumley

Gavin is returning to lecture to TAST by popular demand. He is a writer and broadcaster appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. Gavin lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Recent talks include the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum, the V&A, the Southbank Centre, the Tate and the Neue Galerie, New York. His first book, A Home for All Seasons, was published in 2022. 

Fifty years ago, many of us were captivated by the 1972 exhibition of Tutankhamun’s Treasures at the British Museum. 2022 was the centenary of the discovery of those treasures by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon, and 2023 will celebrate the anniversary of the opening of the tomb for the first time in 3,000 years. The darkness revealed vast riches from antiquity which amongst other influences, spear-headed the design iconography of the emerging Art Deco movement, lifting the depressed spirits of the inter-war years. 'Tut-mania' affected everything from jewellery and fashion, to architecture and design.

In life, Tutankhamun ruled for just a few years during a chaotic period of upheaval and was so unimportant that he did not even make it onto the famous list of Kings created less than a century later. Yet, in death, his 5,000 precious objects crammed into the smallest royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings, have become some of the world’s most iconic works of art.

Christopher Bradley

Christopher is returning to lecture to TAST by popular demand. He is an expert in the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa. As a professional tour guide and lecturer he has led groups throughout the Middle East and Asia.

He has written extensively on Arabia and is the author of The Discovery Guide to Yemen, Insight Guide to the Silk Road and Berlitz Guides to Libya; The Red Sea; Oman; Cairo; Abu Dhabi and Nile Cruising. As a photographer he has pictures represented by four photographic libraries. He has a broad range of lecturing experience, including to the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Institute of British Architects. As a film producer and cameraman he has made documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic TV and Channel 4.

Grace Darling’s daring rescue of steamship passengers off the Northumberland coast in 1838 brought her international fame. Discover more about her bravery and short life (she died aged 26) and the artistic contribution that has helped to keep her in the public eye. Grace became the ‘poster girl’ of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and was the first woman to be awarded their medal for gallantry. This talk coincides with the commemorations to mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of the RNLI in 2024.

James Taylor

James is a former curator of paintings, drawings and prints, and co-ordinator of various exhibitions and galleries, at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, also lecturer and ships' historian on board cruise ships. He studied at the Universities of St Andrews and Manchester and his PhD from the University of Sussex is on the voyager artist William Westall (1781-1850) who sailed with Commander Matthew Flinders aboard HMS 'Investigator' (1801-1803) the first ship to circumnavigate Australia.

Publications include Marine Painting (1995), Yachts on Canvas (1998), The Voyage of the Beagle: Darwin’s extraordinary adventure aboard FitzRoy’s famous survey ship (2008), Dazzle: Disguise and Disruption in War and Art (2016) and Picturing the Pacific: Sir Joseph Banks and the Shipboard Artists of Cook and Flinders (2018). 

This lecture looks at the development of British art in the 18th century, when home-grown artists found their own style, drawing on - but also free from - the overbearing influence of art from mainland Europe. The story is told through the art and lives of William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs and Joseph Wright of Derby and William Blake, among others.

The establishment of the Royal Academy in 1768, led by Reynolds, also saw a prominence given to art in Britain that had hitherto not existed. Hogarth distanced himself from the Royal Academy as he regarded it as elitist. Gainsborough, Stubbs, Wright and Blake all had difficult relationships with it in general, and with Reynolds in particular. A backdrop to the story of 18th century art in Britain – which will be explored in the lecture - was the emergence of ideas and social systems throughout Europe built on rationality – that is, the Age of Reason. While Reynolds ‘ruled the roost’ in those days, the lecture will ask ‘whose paintings from that time have most resonance and allure today?’

Raymond Warburton

Ray is returning to lecture by popular demand. He has had a life-long love of art and since 2011 has been a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, where he leads public tours of all the permanent displays and also undertakes exhibition tours. In his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies, from where he was awarded a BSc and a MSc respectively. These degrees led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. They also gave Ray a grounding in evidence-based approaches, which he now uses to ensure his art lectures are well-researched and well-informed. From 2014 to 2017 he studied art history at the Open University and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he has an MA in the History of Art.

Ray is an experienced public speaker who, over many years, has given presentations and lectures on a range of health, art and other themes to diverse audiences in the UK and abroad, from San Diego to Hong Kong. In mid-2020 Ray began organising, hosting and giving many on-line art-based seminars for fellow Tate guides and other art lovers. He is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

The horrors of the coronavirus epidemic have, just as in previous centuries, been a source of inspiration to countless artists. In contrast to the altarpieces and the secular paintings of the plague and previous epidemics our pandemic has led to an outpouring of remarkable street art. This lecture looks at the fascinating similarities and differences in pandemic artistic output over the centuries. It also looks at how such art can provide great comfort and consolation.

Dr James Grant

As a retired country doctor with a lifetime of working in the NHS both in hospital and in rural practice, James is passionate about all aspects of medicine, its history and its relationship to art and artists. He feels very strongly that lectures should be stimulating, informative and entertaining. He feels very privileged to be able to share his interests with others, speaking to a variety of different groups, and now as a lecturer for The Arts Society.

Settled by the Romans, who first brought wine and gastronomy to this most luscious of French regions, Burgundy is packed with stupendous and moving architectural wonders dating from the 11th and 12th centuries – many of them now World Heritage Sites. Autun, Vezelay, Fontenay, Pontigny and Cluny were spiritual service stations for crusaders, pilgrims and monks, profoundly influencing Western European art in the middle ages. From the heavenly portals and sculpted capitals of the Côte-d'Or to the Maconnais, come on an armchair tour through this most gorgeous Romanesque terroir, and find out how those Benedictine abbeys and Cistercian monasteries in turn created some of the best wines in the world on their estates which we still enjoy today. Travel tips and tasting recommendations included! 

Caroline Shenton

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

When the Duke of Wellington witnessed Joseph Paxton at work at Chatsworth, he exclaimed “I’d have liked that man as one of my generals”. Paxton was one of the most inventive and influential figures of the 19th century, whose most famous masterwork, the Crystal Palace of 1851, is considered by significant contemporary architects like Sir Norman Foster to be ’the birth of modern architecture’. Born into a humble farming family, as gardener, engineer, designer, architect, publisher, railway investor and MP, Paxton was to leave his mark on Victorian Britain like few others. 

For more than 30 years he worked at Chatsworth, supported by his formidable wife Sarah, enhancing it with innovative buildings and garden designs in a close partnership with his patron the 6th Duke of Devonshire. His boundless energy and vision found its greatest expression in his radical design for the Great Exhibition, where the ‘industry of all nations', and a dazzled populace, gathered under his vast glass structure. This lecture celebrates the man and his achievements which have profoundly influenced architecture ever since.

Simon Seligman

Simon Seligman studied art and architectural history at Warwick University. For 19 years until 2010, he worked at Chatsworth in a variety of roles, latterly as Head of Communications. He has lectured about Chatsworth, the Devonshire Collection and associated topics throughout the UK and on several US tours. Alongside his lecturing, he is a Life Coach in private practice, and works part time for John Ruskin’s charity the Guild of St George.

Please note - this meeting includes the AGM and begins at 7.15pm.

The UK provides some of the biggest ceremonial events in the world and arguably the best in the world but why is that? How do the military prepare for major events such as State Opening of Parliament, State Visits, National Day of Remembrance, Royal Weddings or even a State Funeral?

Graham Jones

Dr Graham Jones started his professional life as a musician in the British Army and over a glittering career spanning nearly 40 years he retired as the Senior Director of Music, Household Division and Director of Music, Coldstream Guards a position unequalled throughout military music in Great Britain. During his illustrious career he has recorded over 40 albums and been responsible for the largest commissioning programme of wind band music in recent history, commissioning over 30 new works. He pioneered a music education programme with the University of Salford for military musicians resulting in a new Master of Music in performance degree. Graham was made a Member of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace for outstanding service to military music in 1993.

Having retired, at the start of 2012, from military service Graham is enjoying a second career as a guest conductor, adjudicator, guest speaker, lecturer, recording consultant and educator. He is also the Artist Director of London International Band Week, music consultant to Henley Music Festival, resident conductor of the British Imperial Orchestra, visiting conductor in residence at Troy University, Alabama, USA and guest lecturer on cruise ships. 

One of the world’s most popular athletic events commemorates Pheidippides’s epic run from the battlefield of Marathon to his native Athens. Apart from the amazing courage of Pheidippides, why remember a battle that took place over two and a half thousand years ago? Since the 19th century, historians have argued that it was a crucial event, one that had decided ‘the whole future of human civilisation’. As John Stuart Mill put it, ‘the Battle of Marathon, even as an event in English history, is more important than the Battle of Hastings’.

Rupert Willoughby re-creates the background and the battle itself in thrilling detail. He looks at the various ways in which ancient Athens has influenced our art and culture, and argues that Marathon was, indeed, the battle that saved ‘Western Civilisation’. Eye-opening, edge-of-your-seat stuff.

Rupert Willoughby

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.

While Joseph Wright of Derby painted fine portraits, and some very interesting ones of himself, he is best remembered as a painter of the new technologies and scientific discoveries that arose in, and transformed, Britain in the 18th century. His memorable works include A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, 1766, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768, The Alchemist in Search of the Philosopher's Stone, 1771, and his Blacksmith and Iron Forge paintings of the 1770s.

This lecture will describe his involvement in the industrial scene and the enlightenment, and how it affected his relationship with the Royal Academy. It will also explain how he achieved his dazzling effects of light and shade, and how the women, children and old men who populate these paintings might be interpreted. While he lived most of his life in Derby, the importance of his short stays in London, Liverpool, Italy and Bath will be explained. The lecture will be jargon-free with audience engagement, backed by high quality images. 

Raymond Warburton

Ray is returning to give a lecture to TAST by popular demand. 

He has had a life-long love of art. From 2014 to 2017, Ray studied art history at the Open University, and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he has an MA in the History of Art. Since 2011, he has been a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, where he leads public tours of all the permanent displays and also undertakes exhibition tours. In his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies, from where he was awarded a BSc and a MSc respectively. These degrees led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. They also gave Ray a grounding in evidence-based approaches, which he now uses to ensure his art lectures are well-researched and well-informed.

Ray is an experienced public speaker who, over many years, has given presentations and lectures on a range of health, art and other themes to diverse audiences in the UK, and abroad from San Diego to Hong Kong. In mid-2020, Ray began organising, hosting and presenting at many on-line art-based seminars for fellow Tate guides and other art lovers. Ray is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

This is the story of making a replica of the oldest known stringed instrument, the Gold Lyre of Ur, a Mesopotamian lyre dating from 2,500 BC.  A lyre is the precursor of the harp. The team has made a playable instrument, using authentic materials from the Middle East: cedar wood, mother-of-pearl, pink limestone and lapis lazuli. The crowning glory is the bull’s head on the front, which is covered in gold.  The lecture is illustrated with  photos of all the stages of the making, and then of musicians performing with it, with a sound clip so that you can hear what it is like. It took more than 3 years to complete, all with voluntary help. The story of the acquisition of the materials, and the construction, is quite dramatic, and the finished product is amazing.

Jennifer Sturdy

Jennifer became involved with the Gold Lyre of Ur Project in 2003, initially as a researcher and administrator, but as it progressed, she also gave talks about how the group had managed to build such a magnificent instrument, with the help of volunteers from around the world. She has spoken at academic conferences, universities, churches, schools, U3A and other similar meetings. Later when the instrument was completed she became a performer, dressing in Mesopotamian costume and reciting the poetry from Sumerian times, such as from the epic of Gilgamesh, accompanied by the lyre. The instrument is playable, but it is also a work of art, being covered in precious metals and semi-precious stones. Its name derives from the spectacular gold bull’s head which adorns the front of the lyre.

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. From the kwevris of Georgia in 5,000 B.C., the symposia in ancient Greece, the thermopolia of Pompeii, the hospices of Europe, to the dining tables of fine society wine has been ever present. Drawings, paintings, engravings, buildings, pottery and wine labels themselves all contribute to the story.

David Wright

David Wright has been a wine retailer, importer and distributor for 30 years. In that time, he has publicly presented tastings and talks on wine to trade and private audiences. A Brief History of Wine, a great subject, is full of rich evidence going back 7,000 years in the form of paintings, decorated drinking vessels, buildings and literature that contribute to the story.

Following in the footsteps of the world’s most famous dreamer and knight-errant, this lecture traces his parallel life in the visual arts, where he was variously ridiculed, pitied and revered. The journey will take in the sumptuous tapestry designs of French Academy director Charles Coypel, and their parodies of classical masterpieces.  It will examine how Don Quixote helped to fuel a new school of English painting in the work of Hogarth and his circle; and how he became a hero to Daumier and Doré in the Romantic era. The final episode will show Cervantes’ fantasist hero inspiring the imagery of Picasso‘s Guernica – and shaping the “Quixotic” character of the archetypal modern artist.

Richard Whincop

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

MacDonald Gill, younger brother of sculptor Eric Gill, was an architect, illustrator, graphic designer and lettering designer, best known for his eye-catching, sometimes humorous, pictorial map posters for London Underground and the Empire Marketing Board. He worked with many eminent architects including Sir Edwin Lutyens, creating beautiful painted map panels for buildings such as Lindisfarne Castle and magnificent murals for churches and Cunard liners. His most enduring legacy is the alphabet and regimental badges he designed for the Imperial War Graves Commission used on all British military headstones since the First World War.

This illustrated talk presents a colourful overview of this versatile artist's personal life and artistic achievements. MacDonald Gill's work can be found in many localities around Britain.

Caroline Walker

Caroline Walker became fascinated in the life and work of her great-uncle 'Max' in 2006. At that time she knew almost nothing about him and there was little information in the public domain. Her quest has uncovered not only a body of work remarkable for its quality, quantity and diversity but also personal documents, diaries and other memorabilia, enabling her to piece together a detailed picture of his life, now told in her book MacDonald Gill: Charting a Life.

Caroline has co-curated a series of exhibitions of Max's work including Out of the Shadows: MacDonald Gill at the University of Brighton (2011) and more recently Max Gill: Wonderground Man at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft (2018/19). She has written articles for a range of publications including The Arts Society magazine, Country Life and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. An accredited speaker for The Arts Society since 2016, Caroline has lectured for many other societies and institutions including the Art Workers' Guild, U3A and Christie's. 

The cartoonist, Carl Giles, once said that he loved his creation, Grandma Giles – that fearsome, black-clad, gambling, drinking battleaxe – because she allowed him to say things through his cartoons that he was too polite to say in person. She helped him to poke fun at authority in all its forms, from Hitler to traffic wardens and even his employers at the Daily Express, who didn’t trust him and had sub-editors scouring his cartoons for subversive background details.

His admirers included Prince Charles, Sir Malcolm Sargent and Tommy Cooper, and it was no surprise when he was voted Britain’s best-loved cartoonist in 2000. Few people realise, however, that this likeable and humane satirist was also a war correspondent who witnessed the horrors of Belsen, where he found that the camp commandant, Josef Kramer, was also a great fan of his work. Giles gave us a remarkable picture of a half-century of British life. He was also, as his editor John Gordon put it 'a spreader of happiness' and 'a genius…with the common touch'.

Barry Venning

Barry Venning is an historian of British art with a particular interest in the work of JMW Turner, on whom he has published widely, including the volume on Turner in Phaidon's Art & Ideas series, and several catalogue essays for exhibitions in the UK, Germany, Italy and Poland. He was the BBC's script consultant on Turner's Fighting Temeraire and has recently taken part (2013) in a BBC documentary called The Genius of Turner: Painting the Industrial Revolution. He has also published a study of John Constable's paintings. His interests and his teaching extend from medieval architecture to contemporary British art. He is currently Associate Lecturer with the Open University and lecturing on a freelance basis for The Arts Society, Christie's Education and other organisations.

Bandstands are a distinctive feature of public parks and seaside promenades all over Britain. But what do we actually know about them? Why did they appear in our earliest parks? When were they erected, and who made them? 

This lecture explores and provides answers to these questions, showing how the bandstand evolved from the buildings and ‘orchestras’ of the early Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century, and how they appeared in nearly every public park and seaside promenade of the time, and how its design was influenced by the great landscape designers, and importantly how a very small number of Scottish foundries cornered the market across the world, from Bradford to Brazil and Aberdeen to Australia. From parks, seaside resorts and civic spaces, bandstands have appeared and disappeared - but are once again re-appearing, being restored and enjoying a new lease of life. This lecture will appeal to those interested in architecture, design and social history. 

Paul Rabbitts

Paul Rabbitts graduated at Sheffield with a BA Honours in Geography followed by a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh. He is a qualified landscape architect and celebrated park manager and has worked for several local authorities across the UK, currently Head of Parks, Heritage and Culture at Watford. He is a passionate advocate for public parks and in particular, the Victorian and Edwardian bandstand and is a prolific author on the subject.

His first of now 25 books was published in 2011 on the iconic bandstand and was followed rapidly by books on the Royal Parks, Great British Parks and ‘Parkitecture’, Grinling Gibbons and Sir Christopher Wren. The first full biography of Decimus Burton, gentleman architect, was published in December.  Paul is a UK leading expert on bandstands, he has been asked to assist in localised restoration projects nationwide and has been a regular and popular speaker on bandstands and public parks for many years.

Raphael is often referred to as one of the three giants of the High Renaissance in Italy, alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, yet his fame and position in the canon of art history may seem hard to explain. He made no discoveries like those of his celebrated rivals: although undoubtedly a draughtsman of exceptional talent he made no great progress in the fields of anatomy, science and construction nor did he share the wide-ranging talents which Leonardo and Michelangelo demonstrated in so many disciplines. Furthermore, his career was short-lived as he died tragically young, aged 37.

Yet in this relatively short space of time Raphael managed to move from humble initial commissions in and around his home town of Urbino to the coveted position of one of the leading artists at the court of the most important patron in Italy, Pope Julius II, for whom he created some of the most sublime and influential frescoes of the early 16th century. The lecture explores how Raphael achieved this extraordinary rise in status, tracing the development of early works and influences to the masterpieces created in Rome.

The National Gallery is hosting a major Raphael exhibition from 9 April to 31 July this year.

Siân Walters

Siân Walters is an art historian and the director of Art History in Focus. She has been a lecturer at the National Gallery for 20 years and taught their first online course, Stories of Art, in September 2020. She also lectures for The Wallace Collection, The Art Fund and many art societies and colleges throughout Europe, and taught at Surrey University for many years.

Her specialist areas include 15th and 16th century Italian Art, Spanish Art and Architecture, Dutch and Flemish painting and the relationship between Dance and Art (she is an honorary advisor to the Nonsuch Historical Dance Society). Siân studied at Cambridge University where she was awarded a choral exhibition and a 1st for her dissertation on the paintings of Arnold Schoenberg. She has lived in France and Italy where she worked for the eminent Haydn scholar HC Robbins Landon and for the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. She spends much of the year organising and leading specialist art tours abroad, including bespoke trips for The Arts Society.

In recent years Siân has been asked to represent the National Gallery at the international Hay Festival and was named a Highly Commended finalist in the World’s Best Guide Awards. In 2018 she was invited to be the guest lecturer on the inaugural BRAVO Cruise of Performing Arts alongside Katherine Jenkins, Julian Lloyd Webber and Ruthie Henshall. In 2020 Siân presented the first online courses for both The Wallace Collection and The National Gallery, and was one of the first accredited lecturers to provide online Zoom lectures.

In November 2020 she launched a series of live online tours and visits abroad entitled Cultural Travels from Home. These include visits by special arrangement to a number of major European art galleries allowing virtual access to their collections. 

Gustav Klimt and his colleagues broke away from the imperially endorsed art institutions in Vienna in 1897 and founded the Secession. That was the same year that Gustav Mahler arrived to take charge of the Opera House in the city. Comparing these two totemic fin de siècle talents, this lecture places Klimt and Mahler in context, asking what fundamentally links and, indeed, divides them.

Gavin Plumley

Gavin Plumley is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Recent talks include the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum, the V&A, the Southbank Centre, the Tate and the Neue Galerie, New York, as well as for history of art societies and The Art Fund. 

Nineteenth century Manchester, 'Cottonopolis’ as it became known, was the world’s first industrialized city and enjoyed unstoppable growth. With it came grand commercial and civic buildings on a scale and of a quality never witnessed in the city before.

This lecture examines the extraordinary variety of such buildings and shows how their architects and stonemasons brought directly into the streets of Manchester the golden age of Pericles, the architecture of Renaissance Italy and the gothic of the Grand Canal. It goes into a detailed study of the allegorical sculpture and decoration of many of these buildings, many of which have fascinating stories to tell and which were designed by eminent architects such as Charles Barry and Alfred Waterhouse even before they went on to make names for themselves in the capital itself.

Brian Healey

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

Les Parisiennes is a story about women’s lives during the dark years of Nazi occupation and beyond and includes British and American women caught in Paris as well as native born resisters who were eventually sent to camps, couturiers and jewellers, some of whom flourished in wartime, as well as actors, singers, night club dancers and housewives.

The lecture opens with a magnificent surrealist circus ball held by Elsie de Wolfe at the Villa Trianon, a Louis XV chateau in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles. Many of the guests there could not believe that war is imminent but, in a different part of Paris, thousands of refugees such as Miriam Sandzer are only too aware that they must escape as soon as they can, but how?

By 1940, following the swift defeat by Germany, Chanel moved into the Ritz with her German lover as wartime Paris became a city of women. The men were either prisoners of war in Germany, with de Gaulle and the Free French in London or in hiding. Several British women working as secret agents began living clandestinely in the city escorting downed Allied airmen from one safe house to another. Women were essential because they attracted less attention and many of those who joined Winston Churchill’s secret army of SOE (special operations executive), first had to get to Britain for training before being flown back in. Most, such as Violet Szabo and the Indian princess, Noor Inayat Khan, were caught and tortured. Few survived.

While these women were leading highly dangerous lives, actors were performing at the Comédie Française and the Wagnerian, Germaine Lubin, singing at the Opera House as the Germans wanted to create an illusion that everything was carrying on as normal. The wealthy heiress and keen horsewoman Beatrice de Camondo foolishly believed it was and since her family had already given so much to the state, including her magnificent home, she would be safe. Alongside the creativity of jewelers such as Cartier and Van Cleef, designers including Jeanne Lanvin and Maggie Rouff ware flourishing partly because they were making costumes for stage and screen as well as gowns and jewels for the wives of German officers. But at the same time the brilliant story teller Irène Nemirovsky, author of Suite Française, was sent to her death.

After the war, American and British diplomats, tourists and secretaries flooded in to Paris. There were cultural, diplomatic and economic initiatives - as well as affairs. In 1947 Paris celebrated Christian Dior’s New Look as well as a perfume, Miss Dior, named after his sister Catherine, a resister, who had only just survived a prison camp and never wanted to talk about her experiences.

The lecture ends with two Americans arriving in Paris for short stays with dramatic results; Julia Child, a former diplomat discovered French cuisine and wrote a ground breaking book about it while Jacqueline Bouvier stayed with a countess, a war widow in hard times who had survived a camp, and discovered the Parisian style for which she was forever renowned.

Anne Sebba

Biographer, historian and author of eleven books, Anne Sebba also lectures to a variety of audiences in the US and UK, including the English Speaking Union, Royal Overseas League, National Trust, British Library, Imperial War Museum and on several cruises. A former Reuters foreign correspondent, Anne is now a broadcaster who has presented documentaries for Radio 3 and Radio 4 and regularly appears on television talking about her books, mostly biographies including Jennie Churchill, William Bankes, Laura Ashley and Wallis Simpson. The latter, published as That Woman, was an international bestseller followed in 2016 by a history of Paris between 1939-49 through women's eyes entitled Les Parisiennes, How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s. Her latest book is Ethel Rosenberg A Cold War Tragedy (published 2021). Anne is a former chair of Britain's 10,000 strong Society of Authors and a Senior Research Fellow at The Institute of Historical Research.

Sandy Burnett’s close relationship with Bach’s music stretches back for decades; between 1997 and 2010 he directed a complete cycle of Bach’s sacred cantatas in West London. In this illustrated talk he explores how Bach brings the Christmas story alive in his Weihnachtsoratorium or Christmas Oratorio, written for Lutheran congregations in 1730s Leipzig.

An overview of Bach’s life and achievement precedes a close look at this magnificent work which draws on various forms ranging from recitative, arioso, aria, chorale, and instrumental sinfonia through to full-blown choruses which are infused with the joyous spirit of the dance.

Sandy Burnett

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

This really is a fascinating insight into the history of one of our greatest ever institutions - our Great British Public Park. We have all enjoyed them at some time in our lives but what do we really know about them? 

This talk illustrates their origins from the great Royal Parks to the Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century, to their Victorian heyday. It discusses what makes a great park, its ‘parkitecture’ with examples of lodges, lakes, bandstands, fountains, lidos, palm houses and their wonderful floral displays, to their great decline in the sixties, seventies and eighties. However, the subsequent revival has led to a major shift in interest in our parks and once again we are very much in love with them. 

Paul Rabbitts

Paul Rabbitts graduated at Sheffield with a BA Honours in Geography followed by a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh. He is a qualified landscape architect and celebrated park manager and has worked for several local authorities across the UK, currently Head of Parks, Heritage and Culture at Watford. He is a passionate advocate for public parks and in particular, the Victorian and Edwardian bandstand and is a prolific author on the subject. His first of now 25 books was published in 2011 on the iconic bandstand and was followed rapidly by books on the Royal Parks, Great British Parks and ‘Parkitecture’, Grinling Gibbons and Sir Christopher Wren. He has just completed the first full biography of Decimus Burton, Gentleman Architect, due in late 2021.  Now a UK leading expert on bandstands he has been asked to assist in localised restoration projects nationwide and has been a regular and popular speaker on bandstands and public parks for many years.

This lecture is about the practical business of putting opera on stage – high­tech special  effects, old fashioned theatrical know­how and getting the scenery off and on stage in time to music. (As one director put it, ‘It’s the quick scene changes that make me nervous. I sometimes pray for conductors to slow down but they never do!’).

The talk unpacks a couple of famous scenes to show how many unseen people are needed behind the scenes – flymen, fight arrangers, prop men, dressers, language coaches, animal handlers, extra conductors – to make sure that the two people in the spotlight give a world class performance. Every night is a miracle of co­ordination.

Sarah Lenton

Sarah Lenton has spent her working life in the theatre, principally at the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne and English National Opera. She writes programme articles and websites, gives lectures on the operas and ballets in the rep. and does live opera broadcasts and podcasts for BBC Radios 3 and 4. She has written and directed many shows, including more than 20 for the Royal Opera House Linbury Studio Theatre and for Glyndebourne Touring Opera. She is also a cartoonist.

Laura Knight was born into great poverty in Nottingham in 1877, in a one-parent family with three children. When the family was evicted from their terraced house, they had to live in one room in one of the rock caves underneath Nottingham Castle. Luckily, her mother found a way by which Laura was given free tuition in art at Nottingham Art School. After graduating from there, just before WW1, she went to stay in the fishing village of Staithes in Yorkshire, before moving to Newlyn in Cornwall. Both villages had an artistic community which appreciated her, and in Newlyn she became a distinguished member of the Newlyn School of artists, and a friend of Alfred Munnings. 

During the Second World War, she was based around Coventry and Malvern, and produced many dramatic paintings of the Air Force. After WW2, she was the only artist allowed into the Press Gallery, to paint the Nuremburg War Trials in Germany. In the 20th century, she was the only female artist to become both a Full Member of the Royal Academy, and the only one to be made a Dame. She clearly delighted in extravagant colour, so her subjects were wide-ranging, from the ballet to circuses, from gypsies to landscapes, including seascapes, and portraits of the famous.

Later this year there will be the largest ever exhibition of her work. Called Laura Knight, A Panoramic View, this will be at the Milton Keynes Gallery, Bucks, and will last from October 2021 till February 2022.

Nicholas Reed

Nicholas Reed is the author of several books on a wide range of subjects. Initially an archaeologist, his principal interest now is Art History, and he has spoken on a range of topics in this field, in particular on 20th century British artists.  He has been a lecturer for the Arts Society since 1991, and also lectures on cruise ships.

In the National Portrait Gallery, London, there are 347 different portraits of (royal) photographer, costume designer and serial socialite Cecil Beaton. By way of comparison, there are 819 of Queen Elizabeth II and just 47 of Princess Diana. Why should this be so? This illustrated lecture examines the many self-portraits of Cecil Beaton (in paint and print) and considers how contemporary friends and artists, not least Beaton himself, regarded and depicted his intriguing character. The talk considers how one of the twentieth century’s most creative talents curated his personal and professional character to project an image of confidence, and to conceal character flaws and doubts. One of the brightest of the Bright Young Things, it will become clear that the glossy, compelling image of Beaton's life does not match his anguished, lonely reality.

Dr Benjamin Wild is a cultural historian. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Contextual Studies (Fashion) at the Manchester Fashion Institute (Manchester Metropolitan University). His second book, A Life in Fashion: The Wardrobe of Cecil Beaton, was published in 2016 by Thames & Hudson. He has recently published Carnival to Catwalk: Global Reflections on Fancy Dress Costume with Bloomsbury.

The Nazis looted over 20% of Western Art during World War II and the effects of Nazi looting are still evident today. This lecture will cover the following topics: setting the scene in Germany, the Fuhrermuseum, Nazi art repositories, Post War restitution and the Monuments Men, contemporary restitution issues and current international recovery efforts. Shauna will also discuss several important cases involving Nazi loot. There are landmark international cases that will be explored in detail, including Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer and the stash of looted art found in Cornelius Gurlitt’s flat. 

About Shauna Isaac

Shauna studied at the Courtauld Institute and Birkbeck College, London and regularly lectures at the Sotheby's Institute of Art. She is currently managing an art recovery company and served on the Looted Art Working Group for the Holocaust Era Assets Conference in Prague, where she was instrumental in drafting the Terezin Declaration on Nazi looting, which was ratified by 46 countries. Shauna has given talks to the Focus-Abengoa Foundation Symposium in Seville, the Courtauld Institute, the Documentation Centre of World War II Cultural Assets, Sotheby's and Microsoft. Her publications include articles for The Art Newspaper, Art & Law Magazine and Art Quarterly.

William Morris founded his Kelmscott Press in 1890 in order to save the fine art of hand printing in Britain. When in 1896 his last book, the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, was published, it was universally hailed as the greatest book of the age. It is a huge book, with illustrations by Burne Jones and decorations by Morris, and was printed at the press in Hammersmith over a four-year period. Fewer than 400 copies were produced.

In 2012 Dominic Riley was presented with a copy in a poor binding, with a view to creating a contemporary artistic binding for it. This lecture is the record of that process. He will give an overview of Morris and the Kelmscott Press, and then talk about his very demanding commission — from the early designs to the completion of the project four years later. This lecture is a step-by-step look at how fine bindings are made, as well as an insight into an extraordinary artistic journey. The completed binding has been donated to the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert museum, an institution very close to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.

Dominic Riley is a bookbinder, artist and teacher. He first learned bookbinding at 16 from Benedictine Monks at Douai Abbey in Berkshire and later at the London College of Printing. He has worked at the V&A, and for various binderies in London, New York and San Francisco, and spends part of the year teaching across the USA. He has his bindery in the Lake District, from where he travels across the UK teaching master classes and lecturing.

Dominic is Vice President of the Society of Bookbinders and was elected a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders in 2008. His binding work is mostly the restoration of antiquarian books and Design Bindings. He has won many prizes in the Designer Bookbinders competition, including both first prizes and the Mansfield Silver Medal in 2007. His bindings are in collections worldwide, including the British Library and the John Rylands Library in Manchester. In 2010 he bound a special copy of the winner of the Booker Prize which was presented to the author. In June 2013 he won first prize in the prestigious Sir Paul Getty International Bookbinding Competition. His winning binding was acquired by the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

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

Alexandra Epps

Alexandra is an Official Guide and Lecturer at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and the Guildhall Art Gallery. In addition, she is a Pallant House Gallery Lecturer and a Qualified Guide to the City of London, offering lectures and walks about many aspects of the arts for societies, corporations and private individuals. She is a Member of the City of London Guide Lecturers Association and is co-author of the book Lord Mayor's Portraits 1983-2014 (2015). Alexandra’s background is in design having practised as a graphic designer running her own design consultancy for many years.

While the names of the great Russian writers and composers are household names – Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev – the artists that worked alongside them remain relatively unknown; indeed, there is not a single Russian painting in the National Gallery. This study day will explore the neglected story of Russian art.

The story begins in the 10th century when Prince Vladimir of Kiev converted to Orthodox Christianity and brought the sacred art of icon painting from Byzantium to Holy Rus. Here it developed into a highly distinctive form of art, closely adapted to the temperament of the people and the resources of the land. For several hundred years the icon remained the dominant type of image in Russia, deeply couched in the rich and evocative atmosphere of the Orthodox Church.

It was not until the reign of Peter the Great at the beginning of the 18th century that Russia experienced anything resembling a ‘Renaissance’. Peter’s most powerful statement was to sever ties to tradition, which were enshrined in ancient Moscow, and to build a new city - St. Petersburg, a window on to the West. For over a hundred years, Russia shoe-horned itself on to the stage of European politics by adopting and adapting the cultural conventions of western Europe. These included the ‘novel’, the ‘symphony’ – and ‘oil painting on canvas’. But by the end of the 19th century, increasing numbers of Russians began to feel that their country had sold its soul to the West and there started a movement to define a distinctively Russian form of cultural life that matched the experience and aspirations of modern society. Many individuals looked to ancient traditions for precedents that would help them achieve this end. Among the many manifestations of change that occurred during these momentous years was Kazimir Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ (1915), painted on the eve of the Russian Revolution, and opening a new chapter in the history of Russian art.

Andrew Spira studied at the Courtauld Institute and Kings College, London. For several years, he worked at the Temple Gallery, London (specialists in Byzantine, Russian and Greek icons) and as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum where he worked on the British Galleries and for the Silver, Metalwork and Jewellery Department. Subsequently he was Programme Director at Christie’s Education for 14 years. Besides lecturing extensively on a wide range of subjects, he has taken numerous groups (including ADFAS and Arts Society groups) on cultural visits to Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Romania, Crete, Turkey, Tunisia and all over Europe. His book The Avant-Garde Icon, on the relationship between Russian icons and Russian Avant-Garde art, was published in 2008. His two books on the relationship between art and personal identity, from the Middle Ages to the present day, are in publication.

Many artists in the Pre-Raphaelites movement, not just the original 7 who  called themselves The Brotherhood (who split up and went their different ways quite quickly anyway) only managed to make a living and continue as practising artists because of the support and interest of Northern businessmen, many of whom had houses in London as well and ably assisted by John Ruskin’s promotion made the Pre-Raphaelites fashionable.  In this talk Marion shall talk about the people who hosted the artists, acted as their publicists, and introduced them to their patrons and got them commissions.  We shall see some pictures but this lecture is about the movement as a whole, rather than looking in great detail at particular artworks – you have been warned but we hope you find it interesting……there are some good bits of gossip and scandal too!”

Marion is a long-term member of The Arts Society Tyneside, though she says “ I joined many years ago when it was TYDFAS and have enjoyed many wonderful lectures on a huge variety of subjects.  I have volunteered in these difficult times (although I am not an accredited Arts Society lecturer) to give a lecture I wrote for the Art Fund and have given to the Friends of the Laing.  I am adopted Geordie having come to Newcastle for two years in 1970 with my husband and family, because of his career, and have been here happily ever since.  Before motherhood I worked for an American Mining Company travelling to many countries and always going underground wherever I went!   After a spell running a small technical publishing company  I came North and became a fulltime mother of four – as they grew up and my husband became ill I became the breadwinner and worked for the rest of my career in the Careers Service at Newcastle University – where I had taken a degree in English Language and Philosophy  while looking after the children.    It was fascinating and worthwhile, and I loved it.”

Sometimes called Britain’s greatest ‘Art Form’, Pantomime has been a popular form of entertainment for over 300 years. In the early 18th century the word was used to describe the performances at Drury Lane Theatre based on the Italian Commedia dell’arte. In the 18th century it was often seen as an opportunity for political satire but it is through the 19th century the fairy-tale story plots were established and the extrovert Music Hall entertainers created the traditions that we know as the Christmas pantomime today.

Malcolm has lectured on the Victoria & Albert Museum Short Course and Year Course Programmes since 2009, devising and developing a range of courses on Theatre History and Practice. He also lectures on theatre for Road Scholar and London Arts Discovery Tours for theatre groups visiting UK from America.   

Malcolm was Workshop and Events manager at the V&A Theatre Museum in Covent Garden for 10 years where he was responsible for lectures, Study Days and workshops for adults and interviewed many leading British actors and directors including Kenneth Cranham, Zoe Wanamaker, Barry Cryer, June Whitfield and Don Black. He has lectured and led workshops at many drama schools including RADA, The Actors Centre and Rose Bruford College. He has chaired panels and post show talks for Ambassadors Theatre Group. Malcolm has contributed as a speaker on theatre to many television and radio programmes. He has worked with Age Exchange Community Arts since 2000 on many creative arts programmes with older people and intergenerational film and theatre projects.

Homer trained originally as a newspaper illustrator, imbuing his style with a distinctive, graphic clarity designed to make an immediate impact. His approach to watercolour, distinguished by its glowing colours and faultless technique, combined with his interest in both natural and social subject matter, makes his work especially attractive; best known for his dramatic and moody seascapes, through his careful and moving studies of individuals such as farmworkers and teachers in his homelands of New England he also presents us with a fascinating and at times nostalgic portrait of the heart of America at a time of rapid expansion and change.

Brian Healey has lectured on a wide range of art topics since 2006 and became an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society in 2016. In his early life he was a teacher of modern languages with a keen interest in artistic matters. In his own words he says,

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

The recent excitement surrounding the discovery of Richard III (now, alas, forever to be known as the ‘king in the car park’) has rekindled the enthusiasm Clive had, as a history teacher, to find out what we have done with our other kings. You may think we have them all safely at Westminster or Windsor, but it isn’t so: we have been careless. Some are lost, some have been mauled about and at least five are abroad. So, this lecture is a sort of quest, a monarch-hunt which, since this is The Arts Society, will concentrate on: architecture (splendid), sculpture (astonishing), painting (jewel-like), with a little bit of history (odd, mostly) for excitement. Those of a nervous disposition will be relieved to hear that it’s not gruesome... well, not very.

This really is a fascinating insight into the history of one of our greatest ever institutions - our Great British Public Park. We have all enjoyed them at some time in our lives but what do we really know about them? What are their origins? This talk illustrates their origins from the great Royal Parks to the Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century, to their Victorian heyday. It discusses what makes a great park, it’s ‘parkitecture’ with examples of lodges, lakes, bandstands, fountains, lidos, palm houses and to their wonderful floral displays, to their great decline in the sixties, seventies and eighties. However, the subsequent revival has led to a major shift in interest in our parks and once again we are very much in love with them. This is a highly illustrative lecture accompanied by examples of parks from across the UK and their designs and architecture. 

William Morris founded his Kelmscott Press in 1890 in order to save the fine art of hand printing in Britain. When in 1896 his last book, the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, was published, it was universally hailed as the greatest book of the age. It is a huge book, with illustrations by Burne Jones and decorations by Morris, and was printed at the press in Hammersmith over a four year period. Fewer than 400 copies were produced. In 2012 Dominic was presented with a copy in a poor binding, with a view to creating a contemporary artistic binding for it. This lecture is the record of that process. He will give an overview of Morris and the Kelmscott Press, and then talk about his very demanding commission — from the early designs to the completion of the project four years later. This lecture is a step-by-step look at how fine bindings are made, as well as an insight into an extraordinary artistic journey. The completed binding has been donated to the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert museum, an institution very close to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.

The moving image has been a powerful source for imagination from the first moment a magic lantern flickered into life in the 17th century. In this lecture we will be looking at how the Motion Pictures industry first developed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. How it then went on to change the face of entertainment and inspire the imaginations of some of the greatest artists of the early 20th century. 

From the mountains of Jiangxi province in far-off China, down river, over lake and mountain, and finally across oceans, nearly all the Chinese ceramics on display in European museums, stately homes, palaces and personal collections are survivors of an epic journey and of monumental human labour - luxury created in the labour of millions. Each year in the 1600s and 1700s millions of pieces - services, vases and ornamental wares - were portered over the mountain border into Guangdong province, passing through the aptly named ‘Gate of Heroes’. Dominic take you on the same journey, the one you may have seen in my 2011 BBC film Treasures of Chinese Porcelain. And knowing the great human labour involved you will never again pass or look at a piece of Chinese porcelain without this journey coming to mind. 

One hundred years ago a group of American musicians docked in London, bringing with them for the very first time one of the twentieth century’s most important musical genres: jazz, a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free-wheeling creativity, close-knit ensemble work and improvisation.

Drawing on his practical experience both as musicologist and gigging musician, Sandy is able to shed light on jazz from the inside. His talk touches on the disparate influences which lay behind the emergence of jazz, and his musical illustrations range from the blues, ragtime and the very earliest jazz recordings through to classics by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and the dawn of the Swing Era.

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. 

Paula is the author of From Flanders to Florence: the Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500 (Yale, 2004). She not only lectures for The Arts Society but also for the Courtauld Institute, Christie's Education, the Art Fund and the National Gallery. Formerly a lecturer at the British Institute of Florence she is now Director of V&A Medieval & Renaissance Year course.

Drawing on her own deep involvement with the recent restoration of this remarkable 18th century country house, Charlotte will take you on a journey from the creation of Dumfries House in the 18th century to its recent renaissance under the visionary leadership of HRH The Prince Charles who saved the house for the nation in 2007. The project, whose origination is every bit as fascinating as its subsequent evolution and emergence as a model for heritage-led regeneration, has all the ingredients of a fairy tale, both traditional and modern. The lecture is fast paced, richly illustrated and ends in virtual fireworks.

Recently appointed Head of the Glasgow branch of Scottish Auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull, Charlotte retains strong links with Dumfries House in Ayrshire, the 18th century Adam designed stately home which was saved for the Nation by HRH The Prince Charles in 2007. As inaugural curator there, Charlotte has played a key role in the renaissance of this heritage treasure, transforming it from a virtually unknown secret to an established visitor experience, a vibrant Royal residence and a leading model of heritage-led regeneration. With a working record in the heritage and culture sectors, both in Scotland and in Germany, Charlotte is enthusiastic and knowledgeable and believes in the accessibility of art.

The beauty of Kenneth Grahame’s prose is widely acknowledged but the story is so full of wonderful imagery that it almost demands to be illustrated. First published in 1908 without illustration, the classic tale of Ratty, Mole, and the incorrigible Mr Toad has been in print ever since. What is less well known is that it has been illustrated by more than ninety artists – making it the most widely illustrated book in the English language.

However, ‘Willows’ is a far more interesting book than its popular and often young audience might appreciate. It deserves recognition as a novel in which adult readers will find not just humour and entertainment but wisdom and meaning. In this engaging presentation we will revisit the story as depicted by numerous well known illustrators such as E H Shepard, Arthur Rackham, Robert Ingpen, Val Biro and Inga Moore. Where appropriate we will compare the same scene in the book through the eyes of different artists, a study known as ‘comparative illustration'.

John was formerly a lecturer at the University of Bath where he was Director of Studies in the School of Education with responsibility for the professional development of teachers. He has worked extensively overseas as an educational consultant and this has given him the opportunity to give lectures and presentations at conferences all over the world. In 2008 and again in 2011 he undertook extensive lecture tours of Australia and he has been a popular speaker on The Arts Society's circuit for several years. His ability to relate well to people of all ages and backgrounds makes him an impressive and confident public speaker. 

Henri Matisse described the Chapel of the Rosary at Vence, on the Cote d’Azur, as his ‘masterpiece’, and many current leading art historians agree with him. However, during its construction from 1948-52 many of Matisse’s contemporaries were caught by surprise given Matisse’s lack of religious conviction and reputation as a painter of sexualized women and the good life. This lecture will explain what inspired him to design, decorate and fund the chapel, and who he collaborated with. Beautiful images of the stained-glass windows and ceramic murals from the chapel’s interior will be shown. Reactions to the chapel will be given including Pablo Picasso’s famous jibe that Matisse should have built a fruit and vegetable market instead. Comparisons will be made with Picasso’s Temple of Peace at Vallauris, which some say he created in a rebuke and response to Matisse’s Chapel. However, as usual between the two great artists, the story was more complicated than that. 

Ray studied art history at the Open University and the University of Buckingham. He is a Guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, who leads public tours of all the permanent displays and also undertakes exhibition tours. He is an experienced public speaker who has given presentations and lectures on a range of themes to diverse audiences over many years.

Frank Matcham (1854-1920) was the architect of many of Britain’s best-known theatres, including the Hackney Empire, Buxton Opera House, Belfast Grand Opera House, Bristol Hippodrome, The Gaiety Theatre in Douglas, Isle of Man, and the London Coliseum. Simon Rees has worked in many of these theatres and gives an insider’s view of Matcham’s architectural legacy. The lecture is illustrated by present-day and period photographs, postcards from the turn of the century, and Matcham’s own fascinatingly detailed architectural drawings. The lecture will include detailed references to the Theatre Royal Newcastle.

Simon studied at Colchester Royal Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, receiving a BA and an MA in English Literature. He taught in Italy and Japan, exploring the art and architecture of both countries. From 1989 to 2012 he was Dramaturg at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff, working with set, costume and props designers and giving lectures on their work in opera production. He is now a freelance writer and lecturer and lectures widely on opera, art history and literature. He has published several novels, including the award-winning The Devil's Looking-Glass, and in addition poems and opera librettos.

This beautiful part of England has attracted artists for almost three centuries. Apart from a wealth of landscape painting, numerous examples of high-quality portraits, marine paintings, animal portraits, abstract painting and sculpture (both figurative and non-figurative) have all arisen in the region. Some of the artists such as George Romney and Winifred Nicholson were locally born, while others either visited, like J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Gainsborough, or were new residents, such as Beatrix Potter or Kurt Schwitters. This wide-ranging lecture draws upon material in collections in the North West and worldwide.

David Cross is an Hon. Research Fellow, Durham University; founder of the Cumbrian Biographical Project; past President of Cumbria DFAS and the author of a biography of George Romney. David specialises in Lake District artists of all genres. He is an Art History lecturer to both undergraduate and adult classes at Universities. He produced a catalogue of the 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), and his current research is an exploration of the public monuments and sculpture of Cumbria and Lancashire for a volume in the series for Liverpool University Press.

Musical instruments are found throughout the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. Despite this, knowledge of their symbolic meaning, and how they sounded to their original participants, is often lost on modern audiences. The associations of music with love and intimacy, enlivened by the sound quality and tone of the instruments of the period, help unravel their meaning. From Jan Steen’s brothel scenes to the solemn interiors of Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch, this lecture charts the vast meaning and rich significance of music in Dutch art.

(As part of this lecture, there is an option for live music performance; faithfully reproduced solo lute music and/or accompanying the voice and other instruments.)

Adam Busiakiewicz is an Art Historian, lutenist and lecturer. After completing his Bachelor’s Degree in History at UCL in 2010 he held the position of Head of Historical Interpretation (curator) at Warwick Castle. He left the castle in 2013 after winning a full AHRC studentship to pursue a Master’s Degree in Fine and Decorative Art at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in Art History at Warwick University after winning a CADRE Postgraduate Scholarship in 2017.

Earlier in December 2014 he became the youngest Guide Lecturer at the Wallace Collection, where he regularly gives talks, tours and lectures to both public and professional audiences. He has also given lectures at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, and is organising a series of talks there on the lute in paintings in 2018.

Adam is currently planning a publication on the Grevilles of Warwick Castle, and has had articles published by the British Art Journal, The Sidney Journal and Hispanic Lyra. He was also the Editor of the Georgian Group's 80th Anniversary Exhibition catalogue entitled Splendour! Art in Living Craftsmanship (2017).

Attribution: Johannes Vermeer [Public domain]

Heavily  influenced  by  the preceding Paracas culture, the Nazca produced beautiful crafts and technologies such as ceramics, textiles, and geoglyphs. The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert. On this barren desert there are etched hundreds of straight lines, geometric  shapes  and  images  of  mammals, birds  and  plants. The hundreds of individual figures range in complexity from simple lines to stylized  hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks, orcas,  and  lizards. Although some of the figures can be worked out from the surrounding foothills the  full  designs  cannot  be  truly  appreciated  unless  viewed  from the sky.

There are more than 800 uncannily straight lines, some running for many kilometres. Whale bones still can be found in the sands of the Nazca desert. UNESCO declared the area a world heritage in 1994.

Maria Chester studied Fine Arts and Art History. She is a Professor on Pre-Columbian Art. She is multilingual and enjoys travelling. She taught in several South American universities as well as private institutions. She is a Senior Lecturer and she is also tutoring annual courses on Art History for BEA - Berwick Educational Association. She also works for Berwick Visual Arts delivering conferences linked to art exhibitions complemented with guided tours in Berwick upon Tweed, England. In May 2018, she was made a Visiting Research Fellow at CAUA Research Centre for International Elderly Education, Shanghai, China. She became an Accredited Lecturer of The Arts Society in October 2018. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina but travelled the world and is multilingual and she can lecture in Spanish (her mother tongue). Since 2003, Maria lives in the Scottish Borders, Scotland.

Joan Eardley, painter of the violent North Sea turbulence on the Aberdeenshire coast,  and iconic portraits of Glasgow street children,  died ‘tragically’ young.  Now, half a century on, her works are described as ‘masterpieces’.  What makes her story – and talent – so special? Joan Eardley was an exceptional and remarkable original artist who said things that could only be said in paint.

Amanda read Archaeology & Anthropology at Cambridge. From 1978 to 1988 she was the Curator at Museum of London specialising in the decorative arts from 1718 to the present day; exhibitions; lectures; booklets and broadcasts. Between 1988 to 1995 Amanda moved with her family to Japan, lecturing and writing on Oriental / Western cross-cultural and artistic influences. In 1995 she returned to the UK, where she is involved in fundraising for arts companies, writing, lecturing and guiding tours to Japan. Her most recent publications are on Japanese plant and garden influences in the West.

Picture: By Source Fair Use https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48564032

The Hanseatic League was established sometime in the early Middle Ages to promote trade and was based primarily around the Baltic with its centre in Lübeck.  Bearing in mind that national boundaries at this time were ill-defined, the gradual rise in influence of this organisation far exceeded the parameters of a mere trading organisation. This wide geographical presence of the League had political and military ramifications.  However, it was the artistic ideas it helped to disseminate throughout Europe, as far south as the Iberian Peninsula and as far north as Bergen, which will command our attention. An example of this would be the concept of Gothic architecture which was carried by dint of association from Northern France to Northern Europe, where its manifestation was different but still emulating the ideas of the country of its origin.

Nicholas Merchant’s career has mirrored his abiding interest in Antiques. He has worked for some of the major auction houses in London as well as running his own book business devoted to the decorative and fine arts.  His interest, in particular, is English 18th century furniture and country houses; he enjoys discussing objects, particularly in their historical context. 

He lectures extensively in the USA, South Africa, Europe and UK, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as principal cruise lines. 

He is the Art Fund’s West Yorkshire Representative and arranges specialist short breaks for collectors and a range of prestigious clients including  Arts Society members who enjoy visiting the treasures of the UK. 

Why were foreign painters preferred by the aristocracy in London to native-born English painters, why did foreigners come in the first place, what was their motivation, and what was the impact of foreigners in London on English art and art practise? The lecture looks at the various formats and uses of art, tracing foreign artists from the Tudor period through to the Renaissance and Baroque, looking at their origins and how they came to work in England. It will examine the contributions of artists such as Holbein, Gerrit van Honthorst, Marcus Gheeraerts the younger, Lucas and Susanna Horenbout, Isaac Oliver, Paulus van Somer, van Dyck, Peter Lely, and Rubens. This lecture looks at how these artists influenced the British School of painting and will assess their legacy.

Leslie Primo is returning to Tyneside by popular request. He holds an M.A.in Renaissance Studies from London University. He has been a lecturer in Art History at Reading University and has given guided tours at the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.

The transition from the 19th to the 20th century, saw the emergence of a new ethos in art and design and saw the arrival of the Arts and Crafts Garden. Here, architect met plantsman, and formality was tempered by a flowery extravaganza. This talk reveals the enduring qualities of a garden style crafted at a time often regarded as the ‘Golden Age of Gardening’. 

Marilyn is an experienced course leader in garden and landscape design and history, and freelance lecturer for a variety of organisations, universities and specialist groups, including the National Trust, the Royal Horticultural Society, WEA, U3A and ADFAS. She has run study days, courses and summer schools and conducted garden tours in the UK. As a qualified landscape architect and interior designer, she has been involved with art and design for over thirty years. Passionate about promoting garden history, she has published articles, and has broadcast for BBC television and radio, and the Discovery Channel. Marilyn is a member of the Garden Media Guild.

Since the earliest use of gold around 6500 years ago on the Bulgarian coast, it has been desired and shaped by generations of craftsmen. Their skills can now only be deciphered through the objects they made. They reveal not only unparalleled expertise and flair but also crucial insights for understanding the societies involved.

Dr Ben Roberts was the former Curator of Early Prehistory at the British Museum and now Lectures in European Prehistory at Durham University. He is a graduate of Sheffield and Cambridge Universities. He has published and lectured widely on Prehistoric Europe. He also researched and co-wrote the first 40 programmes on the BBC Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects.

No highway in the world is as laden with romance and adventure as the Silk Road (from 2nd century BC to the 10th century AD). It was the world’s largest trade link, linking China with the Mediterranean 8,000km (5,000 miles), crossing the most spectacular and inaccessible regions in Asia. Merchants travellers and monks crossed “burning” deserts and snow-capped mountains, while carrying trade goods; silk, jade, carpets, spices, glass and lapis lazuli, and other luxury goods. Oasis towns edged the Taklamankan desert and the foothills of mountains – here Buddhist monks created hundreds of stunning, colourful fresco/painted cave temples. This lecture looks at the recent archaeology of the Silk Route: the cave temples: Dunhuang, 

Hanne has lectured extensively to museums, art and historical societies, and the Art Fund. She has been a guide, lecturer and researcher on sixteen tours to China. Lecture tours have included Australia South Africa, and the USA. Hanne has lectured in Europe and on cruise liners in the Far East. She is an extra-mural lecturer at Leeds University and Harrogate College. She is a Council Member of Oriental Ceramics Society. Her published works include Chinese Ceramics at Lotherton Hall. 

To coincide with the three-month Great Exhibition of the North this summer, The Arts Society and its local groups are presenting a series of talks at the Tyneside Cinema in the heart of Newcastle.

Join us to hear to our expert lecturers share their specialist knowledge about the arts, design and culture.

Tickets cost £10.00 and include a drink (wine and soft drinks for the evening talks and tea, coffee and soft drinks for the morning ones.)

​For full details of the speaker and the talk and to purchase tickets follow the link:

 https://getnorth2018.com/inspired-by/arts-society-presents/

To coincide with the three-month Great Exhibition of the North this summer, The Arts Society and its local groups are presenting a series of talks at the Tyneside Cinema in the heart of Newcastle.

Join us to hear to our expert lecturers share their specialist knowledge about the arts, design and culture.

Tickets cost £10.00 and include a drink (wine and soft drinks for the evening talks and tea, coffee and soft drinks for the morning ones.)

​For full details of the speaker and the talk and to purchase tickets follow the link:

 https://getnorth2018.com/inspired-by/arts-society-presents/

To coincide with the three-month Great Exhibition of the North this summer, The Arts Society and its local groups are presenting a series of talks at the Tyneside Cinema in the heart of Newcastle.

Join us to hear to our expert lecturers share their specialist knowledge about the arts, design and culture.

Tickets cost £10.00 and include a drink (wine and soft drinks for the evening talks and tea, coffee and soft drinks for the morning ones.)

​For full details of the speaker and the talk and to purchase tickets follow the link:

 https://getnorth2018.com/inspired-by/arts-society-presents/

To coincide with the three-month Great Exhibition of the North this summer, The Arts Society and its local groups are presenting a series of talks at the Tyneside Cinema in the heart of Newcastle.

Join us to hear to our expert lecturers share their specialist knowledge about the arts, design and culture.

Tickets cost £10.00 and include a drink (wine and soft drinks for the evening talks and tea, coffee and soft drinks for the morning ones.)

​For full details of the speaker and the talk and to purchase tickets follow the link:

 https://getnorth2018.com/inspired-by/arts-society-presents/

To coincide with the three-month Great Exhibition of the North this summer, The Arts Society and its local groups are presenting a series of talks at the Tyneside Cinema in the heart of Newcastle.

Join us to hear to our expert lecturers share their specialist knowledge about the arts, design and culture.

Tickets cost £10.00 and include a drink (wine and soft drinks for the evening talks and tea, coffee and soft drinks for the morning ones.)

​For full details of the speaker and the talk and to purchase tickets follow the link:

 https://getnorth2018.com/inspired-by/arts-society-presents/

To coincide with the three-month Great Exhibition of the North this summer, The Arts Society and its local groups are presenting a series of talks at the Tyneside Cinema in the heart of Newcastle.

Join us to hear to our expert lecturers share their specialist knowledge about the arts, design and culture.

Tickets cost £10.00 and include a drink (wine and soft drinks for the evening talks and tea, coffee and soft drinks for the morning ones.)

​For full details of the speaker and the talk and to purchase tickets follow the link:

 https://getnorth2018.com/inspired-by/arts-society-presents/

To coincide with the three-month Great Exhibition of the North this summer, The Arts Society and its local groups are presenting a series of talks at the Tyneside Cinema in the heart of Newcastle.

Join us to hear to our expert lecturers share their specialist knowledge about the arts, design and culture.

Tickets cost £10.00 and include a drink (wine and soft drinks for the evening talks and tea, coffee and soft drinks for the morning ones.)

​For full details of the speaker and the talk and to purchase tickets follow the link:

 https://getnorth2018.com/inspired-by/arts-society-presents/

“…in which it is the very trickery that pleases me. But show me how the trick is done, and I have lost my interest therein.”

Seneca (3BC-65AD)

 From the beginning of time the fascination with magic and the impossible has been widespread. Egypt was the cradle of magic. Sorcerer Priests used scientific principles to create illusions for the edification of worship and to hold power over the people. Where there was power there was magic. Then there is the age-old skill of sleight of hand, which proves that ‘the hand is quicker than the eye’. Magicians were known as ‘Jongleurs’ lest they be sentenced to death for ‘witchcraft and conjuration’ under the edicts of Henry V111. With the emergence of the Music Hall, Magic gained a new respectability and audiences flocked in there thousands to watch the extraordinary feats of The Great Illusionists. This gave birth to legendary tricks such as pulling a rabbit from a hat and sawing a lady in half. And if magicians guarded their secrets with their lives, how was the Magic Circle formed ? – Home to 10,000 secrets.

Even Today in our super technical age of ipods and broadband, the wonder and surprise of magic are as popular as ever, not forgetting the Harry Potter craze. Wonder Workers and the Art of Illusion is a whistle stop tour of the history of mystery from 3000bc to the 21st century and be careful! – you might be amazed and bewitched.

Bertie has a BA (Hons) in Drama from Manchester University, and a Diploma Internationale from the École Internationale du Théatre, Jacques Lecoq. A member of the Inner Magic Circle, with Gold Star. Past experience includes lecturing to cruise ship audiences, the Women’s Institute, theatre clubs and the Sussex Magic Circle, as well as NADFAS. In addition, has toured the world with a magic cabaret show and a one man show entitled All Aboard. 

What do we mean by jewellery? What does it mean to different societies across time and across the world? This lecture takes a number of themes in order to expand the concept of jewellery and examine the different reasons why people wear it. Everyone decorates the body, but there are different notions of how to do so and which parts to decorate. In many societies jewellery serves as vital protection against evil spirits. It can be a powerful vehicle of communication, indicating the wearer’s preoccupations, their religion or ethnic group. It can be a keepsake of a loved one, or a memorial to the dead. And it can also be a work of art in its own right harnessing all the .skills of the goldsmith, gem-setter, or enameller. Based on the collections of the British Museum, where the speaker has worked for 40 years, this new thought-provoking lecture reveals how jewellery has been worn and used, and takes you from ancient burial ornaments by anonymous masters to the big names of the modern world.

Since 1974 Judy has been curator at the British Museum, specialising in jewellery, and in 19th-20th century decorative arts. She is author of Cartier 1900-1939 (BM 1997); organiser of the Cartier exhibition at the British Museum; co-author of the Catalogue of the Hull Grundy Gift of Jewellery (BM 1984), contributor to the Catalogue of Micromosaics in the Gilbert Collection (2000). Her latest book, Jewellery in the Age of Victoria, co-authored with Charlotte Gere, was published in 2010 and won the 2011 William Berger Prize for British Art History. She is a Freeman of the Goldsmiths' Company and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries

Ethiopia stands astride the Rift Valley. It has 20 peaks over 4,000 metres, some of which drain into Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. The Queen of Sheba (c.1000 BC) ruled here and reputedly her liaison with King Solomon founded the dynasty of the Lion of Judah. We visit Axum (claimed as the repository of the Ark of the Covenant of Moses) with its huge steles. Ethiopia has one of the earliest continuous Christian communities (established c.340 AD). Lalibela (13th century) has its astonishing rock-hewn churches. Consideration of Islamic Harar (16th century) and Gonder (17th century) with its great castles brings us to Addis Ababa (19th century), the place of the Coronation of the Emperor Haile Selassie in 1930. Edward Gibbon wrote “Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the Aethiopians slept near a 1000 years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten”. Ethiopia now amply repays examination.

Alan read Modern History at Merton College, Oxford and was elected a Bodley Fellow of the College in 2001. During 40 years' service with P&O, his work took him around the world 42 times (twice by sea). He has been an extra-mural lecturer on the History of Architecture for the Universities of London and Surrey from 1963 to the present. He has lectured for the Arts Society since 1997. He is the author of 10 books on architectural and antiquarian subjects. In addition he is Chairman of Godalming Museum and Churchwarden of Godalming Church.

"Let then the Beautiful and the True be our watchword"

This lecture celebrates Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852). His work was uneven. Too much of it lacks the WOW factor. Yet his impact on the landscape, townscape, and churchscape of nineteenth-century Britain was without parallel. Some of this is attributable to his buildings, more is attributable to his writings, and much of it comes from his personality. He was in fact a genius.

Clyde, a Cambridge graduate, cruise lecturer, Professor Emeritus in History University of Sheffield, is a straight-up-and-down historian returning to some first and last loves - buildings, their creators and their settings.

Jan van Eyck is today renowned for the depth and luminosity of his paintings whether of the Virgin and Child, or the wealthy merchant Giovanni Arnolfini and the numerous men and women he met while working in the court of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. His ability to capture the gleam of the Virgin's crown or the reflective light of the Flemish landscape was largely due to his revolutionary techniques in his use of oil. However, he was not only a court artist but also a valued ambassador, sent by the Duke on numerous diplomatic errands. This lecture will study the paintings of van Eyck and of the people he painted both as works of art and as a reflection of the times in which he lived.

Shirley is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a part-time lecturer for the University of East Anglia and for the Department of Continuing Education of the University of Cambridge. She is a specialist on Italian and Northern Renaissance Art History. She has run study days and certificate courses as well as residential weekend courses and she also lectures to the Art Fund and individual clubs and societies. She is particularly keen to set the art and architecture of the period in the context of the society for which it was produced.

In 2016 the National Gallery celebrated the meteoric career and widespread influence of Michelangelo di Caravaggio ( 1571-1610) by showing a small number of his paintings in the context of the many artists from Italy, France and Netherlands who during his lifetime and for three decades beyond it were inspired by his revolutionary naturalism and distinctively dramatic lighting effects. This talk examines his influence while focusing Caravaggio's own turbulent life story and explaining the ways in which his paintings - often deemed shocking in his own day, altered the course of Art History in the 17th century. Lydia will demonstrate how artists as diverse as Gentileschi, Valentin, and Honthorst were drawn to his strikingly original paintings, each absorbing a different aspect of his work, helping to propagate his style across Europe and giving rise to the international movement known as ‘Caravaggism’.

Lydia was born in Poland and studied for her BA in Fine Art at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (John Christie Scholarship and the Hatton Award), and an MA in History of Art from Courtauld Institute, London, (19th-20th century art - Distinction for thesis on Matisse's Illustrations to Poetry). She has lectured to diverse adult audiences, notably in London's National Gallery and MFA Boston USA. Her book on Great Themes in Art is being considered for publication by Merrell Books for worldwide distribution.

The Christmas Tree presents us with over five centuries of art and meaning. Vital to the imagery of both the pagan world and Christianity, its significance emerges in Norse yuletide, ancient Rome and with the early-medieval saints, before its diverse strands were drawn together to symbolize the modern Christmas. In this lecture Claire explores the importance of the fir tree wrapped in legend, from the Icelandic sagas to St Boniface, from the Mystery Plays to Martin Luther. In art, the forest fir has made the transition from Viking rock carvings to German Romanticism and Scandinavian naturalism, on its way to finding its place as an icon of our modern festival. Decorated and shimmering with light, it has b rought Christmas from outside the home into the heart of the family.

Dr Claire Walsh has worked at the Victoria & Albert Museum and lectured at the University of Warwick and now lectures for the Open University, She has also lectured at the Courtauld Institute of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Costume Society and the Museum of London.

In the 1880s and 1890s Europe and America saw the rise of artistic colonies, such as the Newlyn School, practicing a form of painting known as “naturalism”. Another such colony, the Glasgow Boys and their paintings became the toast of Europe. The Glasgow Girls were their contemporaries and they influenced the development of the Glasgow Style and achieved international recognition, contributing to the development of the modern movement. The Scottish Colourists had direct contact with French Post-Impressionism, particularly Matisse and the Fauves. As a result their paintings are considered some of the most progressive in British art of the early 20th century. This talk will cover the lives, the times and the work of these artists.

Harry has been a tutor for the Open University on The History of Modern Art, Art and the Environment and Design, Processes and Products. He has also worked as a tutor and an examiner for the OU. He is a practising artist who has had work shortlisted for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He has also led art appreciation holidays across Europe.

The temples, iconography, sculptures, textiles, dance performances, literature, landscapes and people of Burma are infused with the spirit of Buddhism. This gentle philosophy, preaching peace and serenity, has inspired some of the greatest art and architecture in the world, nowhere more so than in Burma, now known as Myanmar. This lecture shows the artistic glories of temples throughout the country, their spires, statues, carvings, murals and rituals. It illustrates the religious symbolism of exquisite textiles and compelling dance ceremonies, showing how Buddhism inspired heroes such as Aung San Suu Kyi, one of the world’s most significant advocates of peace.

Author, lecturer, photographer and journalist Denise has worked in Cambodia and lived in France and America. She lectures for the Art Fund, the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London); Madingley Hall (University of Cambridge) and for a very wide range of other organisations. She is an author and writes for a number of art, literary and travel publications. She has led cultural tours to S.E. Asia and France for the Royal Academy, the Art Fund, Asia House and many more. She is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Studies in the UK, Asia House and the Royal Geographical Society.

John Atkinson Grimshaw was one of the very few genuinely self-taught, working class artists to emerge during the most productive period of British art during the reign of Queen Victoria. Inspired by the success of the Pre-Raphaelites he developed his own meticulous rendering of landscapes and in particular moonlight views. However, his range is much wider than is generally known and his life in Leeds, Scarborough and London charts the relationship between an artist and his public.

For the last 20 years Tim has been a freelance cultural/art historian specialising in 17th and 19th century art and society. He now lectures for the universities of Cambridge, Nottingham and Hull; the WEA, the Art Fund and The Arts Society, and presents residential study courses in Britain and Europe. He has recently completed a month long lecture tour of Western Australia.

The monastery at Jarrow, where Bede was a monk, had stained glass – the earliest known in Britain. Tracing the development of the art from the 7th to the 21st centuries, ‘Painting with Light’ offers an introduction to the techniques of making stained glass and goes on to look at styles and subjects.

Technical improvements, like the introduction of yellow stain and of flashed glass, led to new ways of designing windows in the Middle Ages leading to the decline of true stained glass making when enamel colours could be painted on clear glass.

After earlier attempts at a revival in the 18th century, notably by William Peckitt of York, the 19th century saw a real renewal of the art, and the talk introduces some of the main manufacturers and designers of glass in that era, including Clayton and Bell, Charles Eamer Kempe and Morris & Co.

In the 20th century artists like Douglas Strachan, Harry Clarke, Evie Hone and John Piper produced high-quality, imaginative stained glass. This talk looks at their work and that of some of their latest successors.

David Winpenny studied English at Birmingham University. He works as a freelance lecturer and lectures on many subjects, including architecture, stained glass, follies and landscape gardening. He has lectured on-board ship for P&O Cruises, Voyages of Discovery, Fred Olsen Lines and Saga.

He is also a writer and public relations consultant and is the author of newspaper and magazine articles, guidebooks and books of walks.

The Lindisfarne Gospels, made on Holy Island around 715, is one of the great cultural and artistic landmarks of the North East and of Europe. It reflects the age in which it was made - one of transition and transformation, in which the world of Late Antiquity became that ofthe Middle Ages. This illustrated lecture will explore how the book was made and how the artistic ingredients - Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern - converge in a statement of new identity and belief.

Professor Michelle P. Brown is Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. She is also Visiting Professor, University College London and at Baylor University, Texas. She was formerly the Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and a Lay Canon of St Paul's Cathedral, London. She has lectured, published and broadcast widely.

This lecture gives an overview of contemporary public sculpture in Britain and looks at what makes a successful public sculpture commission. For centuries sculpture has adorned public spaces in our towns and cities, but today’s public sculpture looks very different and often attracts controversy.

Mary will include some of the most memorable examples including Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North in Gateshead; the Fourth Plinth project in Trafalgar Square; the proposed White Horse at Ebbsfleet; Anish Kapoor’s Orbit Tower at the Olympic Park and much more besides.

Mary Yule studied at Birkbeck College and the Courtauld Institute. She has a MA in Twentieth Century British Art.

Mary, an Art historian specialising in 20th Century British Art, is former Director of Grants at The Art Fund and has lectured for the Art Fund, Kingston University, the National Gallery, the Wallace Collection, NADFAS and at the Museums Association.

Mary was selected from more than 26,600 applicants to appear on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square to highlight the work of The Art Fund in saving works of art for the nation, particularly those in the collection of Norwich Castle Museum.

Mary is also on the Arts Advisory Panel at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Between 1720 and 1850 one of Britain's most successful exports was the Georgian House. It was elegant and versatile, particularly suitable for hot climates and a wide variety of building materials. British or local architects might provide plans but a carpenter or bricklayer equipped with a pattern book could produce a satisfactory product. In this lecture we travel from England across the Irish Sea and then cross the Atlantic to the American Colonies. We continue to the far side of the world, looking at Georgian buildings in Australia and New Zealand before heading for home with a brief stop in Cape Town.

Roger has been a NADFAS lecturer since 1999. He also lectures for the University of Liverpool and Adult Residential Courses. He says “My lectures are about buildings, but also about people – builders, craftsmen and most of all about the people who lived in them. How they used and loved them.”

Roger Mitchell is returning by popular demand

In the 19th Century, French Impressionists struggled to make a living and strived to gain recognition, a far cry from the universal popularity they have today. A tiny section of the Seine to the west of Paris, which represented the perfect antidote to the claustrophobia of Mid-19th Century Paris, has been termed the ‘Cradle of Impressionism’. It was here in five neighbouring riverside villages that artists who would later become known as the Impressionists came to live and explore new motifs. Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Morisot will be discovered in this lively lecture.

These artists are nowadays world renowned and we are used to their works fetching huge sums of money at Auction. Yet when they were starting out it was quite a different matter! Their escapades and attempts to gain recognition are quite a story.

Carole Petipher is a guide/lecturer in France who has spent the last 15 years on a boat exploring the early haunts of the Impressionists along the Seine. Her lively lecture on the 13th February will take us to a tiny section of the river to the west of Paris which has been termed the Cradle of Impressionism.

Antonio Vivaldi the last of the great Venetian writers – is arguably 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 18 century 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 the homeless; Vivaldi’s health problems and his eccentricities as a man and a priest.

Against the luxurious backdrop of 18 th 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.

Peter Medhurst’s work as singer, pianist and lecturer-recitalist has taken him all over the world, He has also directed presentations at the Wallace Collection, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A, linking the visual arts with the world of 17th & 18th century music making.

He  makes regular appearances on  radio and is a familiar face to audiences of music societies, regional theatres and British festivals as well as to those of arts based organisations such as The Art Fund, The National Trust and NADFAS.

He is director of The Classical Music Company an organisation that promotes special musical events, creates films about the arts, produces recordings and organises specialist music tours to unusual locations both at home and abroad.

Peter Medhurst is returning by popular demand

From the wax seal to the microchip, man has exploited the skill of the artist and artisan in his attempt to manufacture an unforgeable document. Taking you through three centuries of passport design, this lecture explains the overt and uncovers the covert to illustrate the defenses built into the passport and the tricks the forger uses to defeat them. You will never see your passport in the same light again! Martin will use illustrations from his collection of historic passports showing how passport design has evolved in part to confound the forger.

Martin has lectured to various groups, including NADFAS, U3A, National Trust, Gresham College and business groups sincw 2008. He previously worked for HM Immigration Service, and has broadcast on local and national television and radio.

This lecture marks the 300 year anniversary of the birth of ‘Capability’ Brown. Working with the most essential elements of water, contour and trees, he created landscapes of such breathtaking natural beauty that the poet Whitehead commented wryly that only Brown and Dame Nature could distinguish between his work and hers. This talk will consider his life and work and examine his aims and methods and consider the accolades and charges laid at the feet of ‘England’s greatest gardener.’

Twigs Way is a professional garden historian, author, freelance lecturer and researcher.

She undertakes consultancy and research for Conservation and Management Plans for historic designed landscapes, lectures on garden history and gives talks to private groups, including NADFAS.

This lecture is part of the celebration for our 25th Year as a Decorative and Fine Arts Society, our (Silver Anniversary). In his illustrated talk Ian will look at the production of silver in Newcastle over the centuries and the distinctive features which often enable identification without reference to marks. He will also examine the evolution of Newcastle Hallmarks and the lives of some of the makers.

Ian Pickford entered the antiques silver trade on leaving school. Six years later, he became lecturer for the University of London and the University of Surrey, for NADFAS (National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies) and for the National Trust. Further to his very popular appearances on BBC's "The Antiques Roadshow" his writings include the now standard reference book on Silver Flatware, and he is the Editor of Jackson's Silver and Gold Marks.

English cabinet making reached a near-unrivalled degree of excellence by the mid 18th Century largely thanks to the influence of new styles and methods of construction and decoration from the Netherlands, France and Belgium. By the mid 17th century, Antwerp had replaced Augsburg as the international centre for the creation of fantastic cabinets. Initially decorated with small oil paintings influenced by the baroque styles of Rubens, Antwerp cabinets were later veneered with tortoiseshell to widen their fashionable appeal and stimulated the development of fantastic standards of marquetry and other forms of decoration resulting in the Golden Age of European Cabinet Making.

Janusz has been a NADFAS member since 1982. He is an antique dealer and freelance lecturer in English furniture history. He has lectured for over 30 years throughout Britain, Europe and Australia, giving particular consideration to the aesthetic, craft and socio- economic aspects of fine furniture.

Bertie Pearce brings the lecture programme to a spirited finale with his lecture on the historical origins of the Punch and Judy Show. Mr Pearce has a BA in Drama from Manchester University and a Diploma Internationale from Ecole du Theatre, Jacques Lecoq. He is a member of the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star and has lectured on cruise ships, to the WI, theatre clubs and the Sussex Magic Circle. He has toured the world with his magic cabaret show and one-man show entitled ‘All Aboard’.

Since the Renaissance animals have been used as symbols to explain meanings. In this lecture, Jane Watt will explore how, from the 18th century onwards, animals were considered important enough to be the subjects of painting, and were used to tell dramatic stories and evoke emotional response. The lecture will include examples of a wide range of paintings, including those of Holbein, Van Dyck, Hogarth, Gainsborough, Stubbs, and Landseer. Jane Watt has a degree in the History of Painting and Architecture and has spent a year in Holland studying Dutch painting. A Blue Badge Guide for London and South East, she has worked for the National Trust in East Anglia and London and for the Royal Collection.

David Rosier’s focus in this lecture will be on highly decorative clothing of high-ranking ladies, jewellery and accessories, as well as the clothing of wealthy officials and merchants. He will be exploring design themes from dragon imagery to the use of images from nature and discuss lotus-bud (bound-feet) shoes. A special feature of the evening will be the display of relevant textiles from David Rosier’s extensive collection of 700 textiles and accessories, gathered during 25 years living and working in Asia. He is a past committee member of the Hong Kong Textile Society and a frequent speaker on ‘Imperial Insignia and Badges of Rank’.

Dr Robert McManners is a retired GP and practising artist. As well as being a lecturer  for NADFAS he also lectures to the Friends of Bowes the Art Fund New York and the U3A.

Peter Webb will bring Montmartre, an area infamous in 1890s for artists, singers and dancers, back to life for his listeners in this lecture. His lecture features art works, including posters which revolutionised advertising, and contemporary photos, as well as original recordings of Toulouse-Lautrec’s friends, Yvette Guilbert and Aristide Bruant. More recordings by Chevalier, Josephine Baker, Edith Piaf and Offenbach help to re-create the period. Dr. Webb lectures at art galleries and universities all over UK and abroad. He holds degrees from Cambridge and a PhD from East Anglia, as well as a Diploma from the Courtauld Institute. He is the author of many publications and a broadcaster for the BBC.

‘You’ll never look at ancient sites in the same way again…’ Gillian Hovell, an award-winning writer specialising in relating the ancient world to modern lives, will reveal the personal details that thrill archaeologists and encourage listeners to walk in the footsteps of the ancients. Her lecture promises a virtual tour of ancient sites of great civilisations, showing how to identify whose art and architecture are whose and why they were created. Gillian Hovel teaches adult education classes in Latin, ancient history and archaeology and lectures widely, as well as broadcasting for the BBC.

The materials and techniques of Constable’s exhibited oil paintings of the 1820s -30s

Sarah Cove is the foremost authority on Constable’s materials and techniques and easel painting conservator, with a BA (Hons) History of Art degree from the Courtauld Institute.

She has held internships at the V&A and National Portrait Gallery, as well as being a Visiting Fellow at Yale. She is a highly regarded lecturer and teacher in her specialist field.

Peter Warwick is an author, historian and recognised authority on Lord Nelson, as well as a specialist in naval history. He plays a leading role in organising public events commemorating naval campaigns and victories. He is Chair of the official bicentenary commemorations of Waterloo. He is a frequent Lecturer at the Maritime Museum, the Navy Museum and Royal Institution

Janet Brennan purchased the ruined Barholm Castle on a whim and painstakingly restored it. Her lecture will explore what was involved in the restoration and how it led to further research into dozens of castle restorations. This formed the basis of her doctoral thesis on the subject, as well as a book. She is a member of the Council of the Scottish Castles Association.

Jasleen Kandhari, who is a specialist in the artistic heritage of Asia and Canada, will focus in this lecture on jewellery, arms and paintings from the court of Akbar the Great. Jasleen Kandhari has extensive lecturing experience at the British Museum, British Library, V&A and SOAS. She is also a Tutor for Oxford University and the Ashmolean Museum, and a former curator of Asian Art at Columbia University.

“Johannes Vermeer epitomises the strengths of the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century, yet remains an elusive character. A Catholic, based in Protestant Delft, his pictures transfix us all with their homely tranquillity, but how do they offer us a window on to a wider, changing world?”

Hilary Williams lectured to us in 2011 on Wren’s City Churches and was considered outstanding. Formerly Print Room Superintendent at the British Museum, now Art History Education Officer. Lectures for the British Museum and Wallace Collection and guides special interest private tours of State Apartments Buckingham Palace.

Using her own restored Regency pedal harp and the music of some forgotten English C19th harp composers, she explains how the development of the double action pedal mechanism in 1810 led to an explosion of its popularity. Illustrated by many beautiful paintings of Regency ladies and their harps, she shows how fashionable and elegant it was considered. This led her to discover the lost instrument the Harp-Lute which was invented for harpists to use on the ‘Grand Tour’, and she performs authentically on two of her restored instruments.

S Deere-Jones performs, writes and lectures in the UK and abroad as a musician and scholar, having been a graduate and prize-winner from the Royal Academy of Music. She has appeared on radio & TV in the UK & America, and has lectured for the National Trust, English Heritage, U3A, schools and colleges and on board the QE2.

Bestiaries are the most famous medieval illuminated manuscripts about the animals of the world. As well as domestic and farm animals, Bestiaries include exotic creatures such as lions, elephants, unicorns, yales and bonnacons. Most Bestiary manuscripts were made in Britain in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The lecture, which is profusely illustrated, looks at the utterly engaging accounts of strange animals and their habits, wonderfully illustrated. It then considers the purpose of Bestiaries, why they were made, and who used them and how. Perhaps unexpectedly, they were originally theological books, explaining the characteristics of animals as conscious messages from God, to be studied and interpreted by humans. In practice, Bestiaries became famous picture books for the delight and education of noble patrons, and as source books for medieval artists and craftsmen. (Picture courtesy of British Library)

Christopher de Hamel is the Donnelley Fellow Librarian of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was responsible for all catalogues and sales of illuminated manuscripts at Sotheby’s for 25 years until 2000. He has doctorates from Oxford and Cambridge and has written many books translated into numerous languages. He is one of the best-known experts on mediaeval manuscripts in the world and has given public lectures on six continents.

This lecture will attempt to revive the reputation and celebrate a great artist who, although born in Switzerland, went on to become a great British Neo-Classical artist, with a reputation equal to her male contemporaries in an age that rarely recognised women in this field. The lecture will look at her training and early paintings and also the influence of the great Renaissance Masters and Dutch painting on her work. Her controversial private life will also be examined, her arrival in England and subsequent success, and what happened to Kauffman after she left England.

LP holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. He gives lectures and guided tours at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. He also lectures at the City Literary Institute and has presented a series of talks at the National Maritime Museum and the Courtauld Institute.

NM’s particular interest is C18th English furniture and country houses. Lectures extensively in USA , South Africa, Europe & UK, including the V&A. He has worked for some of the major auction houses in London and is the Arts Fund representative for West Yorkshire.

TC is an art historian, critic and lecturer specialising in Russian art and European modernism. She has studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art and Newcastle University, and lectures widely to audiences across the UK including the V&A and Tate Britain. She has taught adult History of Art courses and has worked both at Christie’s and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

CB is an expert in the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa, and has led tour groups throughout the Middle East and Asia. He has written extensively on Arabia and has a broad range of lecturing experience, including the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Institute of British Architects. He is also a film producer and cameraman, making documentaries for BBC, Channel 4 & National Geographic TV.

AS studied Fine & Decorative Arts in London and continued her studies at Harvard University, specialising in architecture and design of the 20th century. (She lectured to us in 2012 on Frank Lloyd Wright)

SR was International Jewellery Specialist at Phillips’ Auctioneers, and is one of the jewellery specialists on the Antiques Roadshow. She lectures to various societies and has a gallery in Harrogate running exhibitions and is an independent jewellery advisor and auction consultant.

JH has lived for 30 years in France and has led many art study tours. She has published nine books on painting, and recently books on artists’ mothers and lovers.