In this lecture we play armchair detective and follow trail of clues to discover more about the London life of the “Queen of Crime”.  Although Dame Agatha Christie is closely associated with Torquay in Devon, the world’s best selling author left a trail of clues for us to follow all over London. Living in various London properties during her long (and eventful) life, she penned 16 out of 66 novels from one London address alone! It was at University College London that she further developed her knowledge of her preferred method of murder; poison!

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

TWO IMPORTANT CHANGES THIS MONTH

DATE: FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH and VENUE: BLACKHEATH HIGH JUNIOR SCHOOL, WEYMSS ROAD, BLACKHEATH SE3 0TG

The definitive lecture on Britain’s favourite artist, by the author and lecturer who knows him best. Jacky has written the authoritative monograph on Grayson’s work, a bestselling book now in its third edition and covering the artist’s life and work, his loves and artistic inspirations, from his earliest student projects of the 1980s to his very latest work.

Jacky Klein is an art historian, publisher, writer and broadcaster, specialising in modern and contemporary art. After studying at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she worked as a curator at a number of leading galleries: Tate, the Barbican, the Courtauld and the Hayward. In 2008, she moved sideways into the world of art publishing, first as Commissioning Editor at Thames & Hudson, then as Executive Editor at Tate Publishing and subsequently as Director of HENI Publishing, a small independent arts publisher. She is the author herself of a bestselling book on British artist Grayson Perry (Thames & Hudson, 3rd edition 2020) and co-author of a number of other titles including Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe (Ben Uri Gallery / Alfred Cohen Art Foundation, 2020), Body of Art (Phaidon, 2015) and What is Contemporary Art?  (Thames & Hudson, 2012), a children's guide to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which has been translated into 11 languages.  Jacky has presented and contributed to a range of television programmes for the BBC, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's arts review programme, 'Front Row'. She has appeared on Channel 5, the Travel Channel and Bloomberg TV, and has written and presented a number of online films and livestreams for Tate, Christie's and the Art Fund. She regularly delivers digital talks including Zoom lectures, ‘Instagram Live’ events and Crowdcast broadcasts which have reached live audiences of many thousands of people across the world. An experienced lecturer in museums, galleries and at literary festivals, she has taught at a number of arts institutions including University College London, Christie’s Education, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts. A public and passionate advocate for the arts, she was a Trustee of the UK Association for Art History from 2013-2023, and was most recently Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute on their Masters programme, 'Curating the Art Museum'. She is currently based between London and Tel Aviv.

PLEASE NOTE: the date of this lecture has been changed to Monday 1 June (first Monday of the month).

This talk combines the lives of the Astors, the Sackville-Wests and the Rothschilds and their family history with the story of the gardens they have all created, despite their very different backgrounds, here in the English countryside.

Caroline Rayman has lectured for many years to universities and art organisations in America and on cruise boats. She was an official guide at the British Museum and has published articles on samplers. Her lectures range from the role of the royal mistress in history to more scholarly lectures on Frederick the Great of Prussia.  The story of Caroline's lecture The Mysterious Disappearances of the Ghent Altarpiece was told in the film, The Bold Thief (2025).

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

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

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

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

Shauna Isaac has been active in World War II art restitution for several years and has worked with families and government organisations to recover Nazi looted art. She set up the Central Registry on Looted Cultural Property and served as a member of the Working Group for the Holocaust Era Assets Conference in Prague. Shauna studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art in the UK and Smith College in the USA. She is a regular lecturer at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Her publications include articles for The Art Newspaper, The Times Literary Supplement and Art Quarterly. She is a contributor to the book Insiders/Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British Visual Culture.

The past decade has seen the meteoric rise of this extraordinarily versatile British designer with his acclaimed Olympic cauldron, the iconic new London bus and designs for a spectacular new HQ building in King's Cross for Google. Over the last thirty years the Heatherwick Studio has used an intriguing combination of curiosity and experimentation to produce a vast range of solutions to design challenges around the world. This talk looks at the problems presented, and the wonderfully creative ways in which Heatherwick and his team have responded. 

Ian Swankie - a Londoner with a contagious enthusiasm for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is also a freelance London tour guide. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. He is an Accredited Lecturer of The Arts Society and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.

Almost everyone has played Monopoly at some time in their life.  It is one of the world’s most popular and enduring board games.  But, how well do you really know it? This talk starts with the original Landlord’s Game of 1903 and its evolution into the game as we know it today. Based on the classic 1936 London version we then take a photographic journey around the locations on that Monopoly board.  Expect some surprises as we explore the relationships between the various properties, look at the ones that don’t actually exist and uncover the story behind the game we all know so well - or do we?

Roger Mendham - a keen and accomplished photographer, Roger has gained Distinctions from the Royal Photographic Society and has recently completed 3 years as President of the Surrey Photographic Association.  His artistic taste is predominantly 20th century and he is particularly interested in the visual aspects of art.  He has studied the evolution of photography from its earliest days in the early 1800s to becoming a major art form in the late 20th and now 21st centuries.  An experienced public speaker, his talks are all richly illustrated with both his own and images from some of the leading photographers in history.

How did the remains of Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop from Myra, Turkey, reach Bari, Italy in 1087? And how did this rather obscure churchman become the patron saint of sailors, merchants, prisoners and children in the Byzantine Empire and Western Europe? This lecture explores the development of St Nicholas’ medieval cult through the artefacts associated with it: icons, wall paintings and illuminated manuscripts, and charts his eventual transformation into the well-loved Santa Claus.

 Sally Dormer - lecturer and tutor for the Early Medieval Year Course at V&A.  Dean of 'European Studies' for 2 US Universities. Freelance lecturer for The Art Fund. Study tours, cruises and tour groups. BA (History) University of Durham; PhD (Medieval Manuscript illumination) and MA (Medieval History of Art) Courtauld Institute.

The horrors of the First World War had a profound effect on the artists who fought in it, and they produced powerful images of the war and its aftermath. In the 1920s, many artists on the allied side returned to traditional subjects such as tranquil landscapes, while German artists produced powerful polemics against post-war deprivation, the treatment of war wounded and rising militarism. This lecture examines the art of both sides before, during and after the war which was expected ‘to be over by Christmas’. 

 Frank Woodgate - Lecturer and Guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, for the Art Fund, the National Trust, U3A and other organisations, including on Zoom.  Lectured for Dulwich Picture Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester and on cruises on behalf of Tate.  Previously script-writer for The Living Paintings Trust (art for the visually-impaired).

We look at the establishment of the British Museum and hear the stories behind some of the most important pieces. These are the finest objects highlighting the development of civilisations as made by the hand of man.

Anna Warrillow studied for her BA in History of Art & Italian at the University of Sussex and did her MA in Renaissance Decorative Arts & Design at the Royal College of Art.  She worked for 6 years as a curator in the Sculpture Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum as well as in smaller collections such as the Henry Moore Family Trust. 

As well as guiding she is an adjunct lecturer at Richmond The American International University in London where she teaches undergraduates The History of London. 

She graduated as a Blue Badge Guide early in 2013.  Since then she has been conducting bespoke private tours for discerning visitors to London. She established her own guiding company Canvas and Stone Tours in 2018 (www.canvasandstonetours.co.uk). Her background and passion is Art & History. 

Dalí “.....the difference between a madman and me is that I am not mad.” At one time the most well-known and popular artists of the twentieth century, Dalí was a self-publicist who filled gossip columns with accounts of his eccentricities for over 60 years. His paintings of the invisible world of the unconscious mind were considered shocking even among a group of extremists like the Surrealists, and after joining them he quickly became their most exotic and well-known member. His soft watches and huge animals with stick-insect legs are among the most memorable invented images of our time.

Val Woodgate 

Currently Lecturer and Guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, for the Art Fund, the National Trust, U3A, City of London libraries (Barbican and Guildhall), and other organisations. Lectures on Zoom for arts organisations. 

Formerly Tate Guide for 39 years; member of Teaching Team at Dulwich Picture Gallery, where as well as lectures she gave 50 Study Days; evening courses for DPG; lectures and courses at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; on P&O cruises representing the Tate; lectures at University of Cape Town; script-writer for The Living Paintings Trust.

LS Lowry found his defining subject matter – the industrial north-west – in 1916 when he missed his train into Manchester one day, and walked around his home town, Pendlebury, as workers were leaving the Acme Spinning Mill. With all the mill’s many floors of windows lit against the darkening sky, Lowry said he was in rapture, and painted such scenes again and again. He filled his paintings with slumped characters, weighed down by their lives under soulless skies. Those who dislike Lowry point to his simplistic depiction of the north-west; those who like him refer to the snobbery of his detractors.

Ray Warburton has had a life-long love of art. However, in his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. These studies led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. But all that changed in 2011, when Ray became a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Then from 2014 to 2017, he studied art history at the Open University, and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he gained an MA in the History of Art. And to cap it all, Ray became an Arts Society lecturer in 2017. Ray also knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of lectures as he is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

In the nineteenth century, photography struggled for recognition as an artistic medium on a par with painting and photography, but through its instantaneity, its potential for mass reproduction and its sheer versatility, it became the dominant visual medium of the early twentieth century. This lecture considers a range of great images produced since 1900, by photographers as diverse as Cartier-Bresson, Weegee, Robert Capa, Garry Winogrand and Edward Burtynsky. The photographs were taken for different purposes, sometimes using different processes, some in colour and others in black and white, but they have one thing in common: they show us the world in novel and unexpected ways. 

Barry Venning is an art historian whose interests and teaching range from the art of late medieval Europe to global contemporary art. He has published books, articles and exhibition catalogue essays on Turner, Constable and European landscape painting, but also has an ongoing research interest in postcolonial art and British visual satire. He works as a consultant and associate lecturer for the Open University. His media work includes two BBC TV documentaries, radio appearances for BBC local radio and abc Australia, and a DVD on Turner for the Tate. 

Welcomed at first with open arms and bringing luxury skills, the Huguenots’ fortunes fluctuated wildly.  I talk about their early 18th-century houses that still stand, how they were decorated and lived in; I discuss the fashionable patterned silk dresses – who designed and made them.  And how, finally the trade died out, with some weavers literally dying in poverty at their looms.  One of the weavers’ houses can still be visited today.  

Originally in academic art and design publishing, Sue Jackson is also a Fellow of the Huguenot Society, a Freeman of the City of London, a tutor at the City Literary Institute and a Blue Badge guide, conducting a variety of walks and visits. 

For a short moment in time, between Arts & Crafts and Modernity, elegant curvy lines and patterns inspired by nature dominated a new type of art which decorated buildings, interiors and decorative objects. We will look at some of the most aesthetically revolutionary names from this period: Horta, Gaudi, Tiffany, and many more!

Mariska Beekenkamp read Social Psychology at the University of Amsterdam and was tempted to do a PhD in Decision Making Behaviour. In the end she turned to her true love - the Arts.

​Whilst having her three children, she completed her BA and MA in Art History, majoring in The Dutch Baroque Arts from the 17th century at the Courtauld Institute of Arts. She started as a College Lecturer, but soon after started her own company - Art Historical London offering art historical lectures, museum visits, courses, tours, travel and events from Amsterdam, London and New York, and since 2020 online. 

A fully accredited PTLLS lecturer, she also teaches on the public program of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, for the New York Adventure Club in the States, and can provide live, online and recorded lectures for groups or individuals.

The Moulin Rouge immediately evokes the Belle Epoque - a period of French, and especially Parisian history around the turn of the 19th century which pulsated with artistic energy, technological and scientific innovations, risqué entertainment and boundless optimism; but there a dark side as well. 

Cindy Polemis explores the contradictions of the golden era of the Belle Epoque: from the towering height of the Eiffel Tower to the seedy glamour of Montmartre, from the curls and curves of Sarah Bernhardt's Art Deco costumes to Henri Guimard's Metro Designs - everything was open to creativity.

Cindy Polemis is an art historian, independent lecturer and art guide. She has a BA in Modern History from Oxford University and as a mature student she went back to university to study first for a BA and then for a Masters in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London University. Before that she spent many years as a radio producer and presenter for the BBC World Service working in news and current affairs. Since 2016 Cindy has worked as an official art guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has also been a trustee at the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum. Cindy has accumulated a wide range of art historical knowledge ranging from 18th European and British art to the contemporary international art scene. She has been an official guide for both Frieze Masters and Frieze Art Fairs in London. She is particularly keen to draw parallels with art and social history and her lectures are accessible and engaging, drawing out the stories of art and artists which are steeped in human emotions and experiences which we all share.

The American artist who has become synonymous with the isolation experienced by many in the covid era. We will look at Hopper's unique contribution to American art in the 20th century with his haunting images of loneliness in the midst of urban life.

Lydia Bauman  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 of Art, London, (19th-20th century art - Distinction for thesis on Matisse's Illustrations to Poetry). She has since divided her time between painting and exhibiting as well as lecturing widely to adult audiences. She has taught at London's National Gallery for more than 35 years, and intermittently at Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery as well as collections such as Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Hermitage and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the latter as a guest speaker for travel companies. Since the pandemic began in March 2020 Lydia had devised and delivered a programme of upwards of 180 online lectures to her own group Art For The Uninitiated.

London’s National Gallery is a marvellous place to see how artists have treated the Christmas story through the ages. The most beautiful images ever made are here. The earliest paintings date from before the Reformation when the richest imagery and fabulous stories of the saints were much admired. Following the Counter Reformation in the middle years of the 16th century, Catholic art was stripped of these colourful stories derived from the Golden Legend, which were regarded often as superstitious fabrications.

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

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

Russell Nash trained and worked as an actor, puppeteer and theatre maker for 15 years.  He also spent time as a journalist, jewellery business owner and writer. In 2015 he qualified a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide.  Around this time he rekindled his love of art and art history.  He now regularly guides the major art galleries and museums in London including the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tates Modern & Britain and the British Museum.  He has delivered lectures for institutes and museums, as well as numerous U3A groups and other societies.

In this talk we wind the clock back to the seventeenth century and enjoy an armchair tour of some of Wren’s magnificent structures including City Churches, the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich and, of course, his greatest masterpiece St Paul’s Cathedral. Wren was primarily a mathematician and astronomer and we’ll see how these disciplines are harnessed in his work. We will also look at the origins of the classical orders of architecture and discover how Wren’s love of this ancient system is everywhere to be seen in his legacy. 

Ian Swankie: A Londoner with a contagious enthusiasm for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is also a freelance London tour guide. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. He is an Accredited Lecturer for The Arts Society and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.

This is the story of the epic rivalry between the two giants of British art, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. As unlike in background and temperament as their paintings were in style, these two creative geniuses transformed the art of landscape. This lecture/study day sets them head-to-head and examines their differences, their similarities, their battles and their shared triumphs. But who will ultimately be crowned star painter? As well as giving an overview of Turner and Constable, the subject provides an enjoyable overview of the British art world during the nineteenth century.  

Nicola Moorby is an independent art historian and curator, specialising in British art of the nineteenth century. She studied at the University of York and Birkbeck College, London. Formerly at Tate Britain, she has curated a number of exhibitions including, most recently, Constable: The Dark Side at The Arc, Winchester in 2023. She has published widely,  including as co-editor and author of How to Paint Like Turner (Tate Publishing, 2010) and as a major contributor to the online catalogues of the Turner Bequest and the Camden Town Group. She is an experienced lecturer and regularly teaches short courses at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She has appeared as an expert on television and radio including ‘Great Paintings of the World with Andrew Marr’ (2020 and 2021) and ‘Art on the BBC’ (2022). Her forthcoming book about Turner and Constable for Yale University Press will be released in 2025.

We take it for granted, yet our capital's Tube railway system is the product of intense attention to detail. The world famous Tube map by Harry Beck has influenced the design of almost every other transit system on the planet.  And after seeing the architecture of the stations, the evolution of the famous ‘roundel’ logo, the effort put in to the signage and publicity, the ceramic tiles and the moquette (seat coverings)…you’ll never take a take a trip on the Underground for granted again.

Mark Ovenden is a broadcaster and author who specialises in the subjects of graphic design, cartography and architecture in public transport, with an emphasis on underground rapid transit.

The lecture explores the passion for the exotic and beautiful tulip flower which reached its height in Amsterdam in the 1630’s. Collectors, besotted by the exceptional beauty of this new and exotic flower, speculated in and paid ever higher prices for the rarest varieties, in expectation of the metamorphosis of bulb to a flower with petals of an unparalleled richness and intensity of colour. The variety ‘Semper Augustus’ was the most desirable, with its mysterious and spectacular ‘flamed’ petals. The coveted tulip featured as a motif on still-life flower paintings by Balthasar van der Ast and Ambrosius Bosschaert and on many different works of art from furniture to embroideries, furniture, ceramics and silver. During the seventeenth century, this rare and precious flower, beloved in art and a feature of botanical gardens, inspired the production of Delftware flower pyramids for the English court of William and Mary and examples can still be seen in the collections at Hampton Court Palace and Dyrham Park near Bath. 

RECOMMENDED READING

Anna Pavord, ‘The Tulip’, London 1999

Simon Schama, ‘The Embarrassment of Riches’, London 1987

Mike Dash, ‘Tulipomania’

Deborah Moggach, ‘Tulip Fever’        

ANNE HAWORTH  After taking a degree in Modern History at Durham University, Anne worked for 14 years as a European and Asian ceramics specialist in the main London offices of Christie's and Bonham's auctioneers. She became head of the 19th Century ceramics department at Christie’s and appraised many private collections in Britain and Europe. In 1995, she left England for a seven-year residency in Shanghai, China, where she researched Chinese ceramics, visited ancient kiln sites and gave lectures on porcelain and the China trade to the international community of diplomats and expatriate groups in Shanghai and Beijing. Anne returned to London in 2002, working on a short project cataloguing Chinese porcelain at Kensington Palace. She now lectures for the Arts Society, for the V&A and other main London museums, for Sotheby’s Institute and for private study groups. She worked for the Royal Collection for 14 years, guiding tours of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace and lecturing at the Queen’s Gallery. She is a London faculty member of Eckerd College in Florida, teaching a semester course on the history of British painting. .

A journey through the 60s in music and images, following the Beatles from the Hamburg Reeperbahn in 1960 to Abbey Road in 1969. The band was always fascinated by the visual arts - the ‘fifth Beatle’, Stuart Sutcliffe, was a much better painter than he was a bass player - and they also learned very early on that artists and designers could help promote their image and their music. Their rise to global fame was aided and recorded by an impressive roster of photographers, including Astrid Kirchherr, Bob Freeman, Robert Whitaker, Angus McBean and Linda McCartney. The innovative covers for releases such as Rubber Soul (Bob Freeman) Revolver (Klaus Voormann), the White Album (Richard Hamilton) and Sgt. Pepper (Peter Blake, Jann Haworth and others) turned album design into an art form in its own right.

Barry Venning is an art historian whose interests and teaching range from the art of late medieval Europe to global contemporary art. He has published books, articles and exhibition catalogue essays on Turner, Constable and European landscape painting, but also has an ongoing research interest in postcolonial art and British visual satire. He works as a consultant and associate lecturer for the Open University. His media work includes two BBC TV documentaries, radio appearances for BBC local radio and ABC Australia, and a DVD on Turner for the Tate.  

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 (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 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 studied at the Universities of St Andrews and Manchester, and is a former curator of paintings, drawings and prints, and co-ordinator of various exhibitions and galleries, at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.  Publications include illustrated histories of Marine Painting (1995) and yachting art Yachts on Canvas (1998), The Voyage of the Beagle: Darwin’s extraordinary adventure aboard FitzRoy’s famous survey ship (2008), Careless Talk Costs Lives: Fougasse and the Art of Public Information (2010) and Your Country Needs You: the Secret History of the Propaganda Poster (2013), 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).  Completed his PhD at the University of Sussex in 2015 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.

Originally intended to house an equestrian statue of William IV, the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square lay empty due to lack of funds for many years.  Eventually, it was decided to use it for what has been described as ‘the smallest but most prominent sculpture park in the world’.  The inaugural work, Ecce Homo, a poignant life-sized figure of Christ in white marble by Mark Wallinger, fittingly presided over the arrival of the new millennium and since then many contemporary artists have had their work displayed there.  From horses to hotels, bottles to cockerels, we follow the course of the Fourth Plinth Commission, up to (and beyond) David Shrigley, who gives it a big ‘thumbs up’. 

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

Picasso told his biographer, John Richardson, that his work was like a diary – “to understand it, you have to see how it mirrors my life.”

This lecture examines the way Picasso’s emotional life influenced what he painted and how he painted it. His response to each new love in his life can be seen in the different styles in which his many women were represented. When he fell out of love, that fact would be revealed first in his paintings.

We will concentrate on the seven most important women in his life, two of whom he married.

Valerie Woodgate is currently a lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, for the Art Fund, National Trust, U3A, City of London libraries (Barbican and Guildhall), and other organisations.  She lectures on Zoom for arts organisations. 

She was a Tate Guide for 39 years; member of Teaching Team at Dulwich Picture Gallery for ten years, where as well as lectures she gave 50 Study Days; ran evening courses for the Friends of the Dulwich Picture Gallery; lectures and courses at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; lectures on P&O cruises representing the Tate; lectures at University of Cape Town; script-writer for The Living Paintings Trust.

I

The remarkable untold story of Carry On actor Peter Butterworth, and his wife, Britain’s first female TV impressionist Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher.

Using classic film and TV clips, personal mementos, and rare photographs and letters from his family’s unseen collection, Tyler reveals the private story behind his parents’ public lives.

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

Tyler Butterworth grew up in a theatrical family and spent twenty five years as an actor working extensively in film, television, theatre and radio. He then worked as a development producer in television documentaries and was closely involved with NASA on a landmark commemorative tv series. Now, he works as a voice actor, recording audiobooks, documentaries and voiceovers, and he produces walking audio guides to cities across Europe for private clients on whatever subject he’s commissioned to do. They’re just like the audio guides you get in art galleries and museums but they’re out on the street. He lives in Sussex where he walks on the South Downs and the South Coast.

Oscar Wilde: writer, wit & the first modern celebrity.  

From his childhood in Ireland to his artistic circle in Chelsea & glittering West End first nights, to the criminal trial of the age, we chart Oscar's extraordinary journey & discuss his enduring appeal & legacy. 

Simon Whitehouse is a (recovering) actor, lecturer, presenter, Alexander Technique & voice teacher & award winning London Blue Badge Guide.  He regularly guides for Arts Society groups on their Visits Programmes in addition to his lecture offerings.  He has worked as a guide lecturer in house at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Opera House, the BBC & the National Gallery, guiding a wide variety of public & private tours.  He is on the faculty of Ithaca College and also lectures for the Blue Badge Guide training course on the performing arts & English literature modules.  Simon’s specialisms & passions are theatre, literature, fashion & art history, but whatever the subject, Simon will weave a wonderful story from it!

The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is not only the driest place on earth, filled with spectacular landscapes, but also houses two distinct kinds of prehistoric rock art: first, rock paintings and engravings, often very beautiful, and mostly depicting llamas; but second, the world's greatest collection of 'geoglyphs', huge drawings made on the landscape - both on the desert floor and (more commonly) on hill-and mountain-sides. They include the "giant of the Atacama", 100 m high, by far the biggest human depiction known from prehistory. The talk presents the best examples of the Atacama's art, and discusses what we know of the purposes of these enormous drawings.

Paul Bahn studied archaeology at the University of Cambridge, and completed Ph.D. thesis (1979) on the prehistory of the French Pyrenees.  He has held post‑doctoral fellowships, at Liverpool and London, plus a J. Paul Getty postdoctoral fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities.  Devotes time to writing, editing and translating books on archaeology, plus occasional journalism and as much travel as possible.  Main research interest is prehistoric art, especially rock art of the world, and most notably Paleolithic art, as well as Easter Island. Paul led the team which, at his instigation, searched for and discovered the first Ice Age cave art in Britain in 2003 and 2004.

Whilst a great deal is known to many about the Greeks, and the Romans and even the Egyptians, the great ancient civilisations of the New World (The Maya, the Aztecs and the Incas) are much less well known. My focus is on the Maya, arguably the greatest of the 3, who achieved remarkably high levels of civilisation in the inhospitable jungles of Central America. I will attempt to provide a geographic context, give some details about their timescale, and highlight their numerous achievements and their way of life.

Duncan Pring was educated at Oxford (BA, MA) and London (MA, Ph.D) universities. PhD thesis on “The Preclassic Ceramics of Northern Belize”.

Subsequent articles in academic journals, mainly on Mayan ceramics.

The Protoclassic in the Maya Lowlands published in 2000 by British Archaeological Reports.

Joint author in chapter 4 of Pre-Mamom Pottery Variations and the Preclassic Origins of the Lowland Maya. University Press of Colorado 2023

The temple of Dendur occupies the west wing of this museum which was specially built to house this new arrival, gifted by Egypt to the United States in 1967 during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.  Another wing displays the celebrated early Italian Renaissance collection of Robert Lehman, scion of the now demised investment bank, while its expressionist holdings are one of the best in the world. Jayne Wrightsman donated all her fabulous Louis XIV furniture and bequethed $80 million dollars for further acquisitions. Countless other grandees of old and new New York society gave their prized possessions and paintings and this talk examines how the Met, from its founding in 1870, was and remains the greatest and grandest museum in America. 

Andrew Hopkins was Assistant Director of the British School at Rome from 1998 to 2002 and since 2004, Professor at the University of L'Aquila.  Part of his PhD (Courtauld Institute 1995) was awarded the Essay Medal of 1996 by the Society of Architectural Historians (GB).  A Fellow at Harvard University's Villa I Tatti in Florence in 2003-2004, and in 2009 was the Paul Mellon Senior Visiting Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Amongst his many publications are, with Arnold Witte, Alois Riegl, The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome (2010), and the new article: ’Neither perfect Nor Ideal: Palladio’s Villa Rotonda’, in Architectural History (2022).

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

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

The National Gallery's collection begins with works from the early 13th century and finishes with masterpieces by the Impressionists and post-impressionists in the 19th century.

The stories behind the pictures are interesting, amusing, unexpected and sometimes surprising. Details such as a peeing child in a beautiful Canaletto, or a portrait of a female rhinoceros who toured London and set a fashion for having ones hair styled ' a la rhinoceros' - or why the working classes of Paris are happily bathing in the sewage of the city - and why it took 12 years for Renoir to finish a painting. My 10 favourite paintings are not always the best known in the gallery - and they change from time to time - but I love looking into these paintings, asking them questions and reading their stories.

Technical details such as the type of wood chosen for the panels and then the subsequent change to canvas in the late 1590s - or the fact that so few frames are original. No more than a handful of pictures in the NG are in the frames originally chosen for them. Restoration, cleaning and display all change how we view a painting and it is important to remember that none of these pictures were produced to hang on the walls of a London gallery. - they have all lived other, often surprising lives.

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 where 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. In this entertaining talk Ian focuses on 18th century hoaxes through the medium of satirical cartoons, delving into why they got away with it, the differing motives of the tricksters and demonstrates that when it comes to fake news and conspiracy theories there is nothing new.

Ian Keable has a degree from Oxford University, qualified as a Chartered Accountant and then became a professional magician. He now divides his time between performing magic, giving talks and researching and writing. His latest book, The Century of Deception: The Birth of the Hoax in Eighteenth-Century England, was published by Westbourne Press in 2021.

By 323 BC Alexander the Great had conquered the Persian empire and launched a new era of Mediterranean history, known today as the Hellenistic Age. The world had changed, and soon two cities emerged as centres of extraordinary culture and learning. In Egypt, Alexander conceived a vision of a new city to take his name: Alexandria. It soon became the intellectual hub of the ancient world, which saw extraordinary discoveries in science and mathematics, philosophy, and medicine. Its library was the greatest of the ancient world; moreover, its lighthouse was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Meanwhile, in north-west Asia Minor, the Attalid kingdom developed a new capital city, Pergamon, as a cultural centre to rival Alexandria. It too had a remarkable library; today the archaeological site is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, while the famed Pergamon Altar has been reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin. This talk explains how these two cities changed the intellectual and artistic landscape, and examines their legacy. 

Following a degree in Classics from Oxford University, James Renshaw has taught Classics at secondary school level since 1998, and currently teach at Godolphin and Latymer in London; here he runs the school’s Ancient World Breakfast Club, which has an ethos similar to that of The Arts Society. Since 1998, James has published a number of textbooks related to the classical world, including In Search of the Greeks and In Search of the Romans. In addition to his school teaching, he has also lectured for the V&A Academy, most recently on their Classical World and its Afterlife and Classicism from the Ancients to the Renaissance courses. He is a keen traveller, and is lucky enough to have taken many photos of ancient sites, a number of which have been used in his books.

The 1960s is invariably referred to as the decade of change as indeed we shall see it was in many respects, but it was a decade of contradictions. Swinging London never reached Hartlepool and Mary Quant made more impact on Walton than Burnley. The most popular programmes on television were not The Wednesday Play and TW3 but Miss World and The Black and White Minstrel Show.  In the cinema we can see how the British film industry moved from its early stage of social realism (A Taste of Honey, A Kind of Loving) to vehicles for the new stars (Caine, Christie and Stamp) to the worldwide success of the James Bond franchise.   For many of us, it was the decade of our youth. What does it look like now from the vantage point of nearly sixty years on?

Colin Shindler has maintained an active interest in twentieth century American and British social and cultural history whilst pursuing a wide-ranging career as a writer and producer in television, radio and motion pictures, and as an author of books and journalism for forty years. His latest book Barbed Wire and Cucumber Sandwiches: The Controversial South Africa Cricket Tour of 1970 was published in May 2020 and was short listed for the MCC/Wisden Cricket Book of the Year. He is probably best known for his childhood memoir Manchester United Ruined My Life which was short listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. He wrote the screenplay for the feature film Buster starring Phil Collins & Julie Walters and was the producer of such television dramas as Lovejoy, Wish Me Luck and A Little Princess for which he won a Bafta award and Young Charlie Chaplin starring Twiggy which was nominated for a US Prime Time Emmy.  He was awarded his Ph.D by Cambridge University and lectured for the History Faculty there on film and history from 1998 to 2019. His radio play Leni Goes to Hollywood, about the the German film director Leni Riefenstahl, was broadcast on Radio 4 in August 2021.   

He has written novels, social histories and many books on sport and on film including Hollywood Goes To War: Films & American Society 1939-1952 and Hollywood in Crisis: Films & American Society 1929-1939. He is currently at work dramatising Hollywood Nazis, his non-fiction novel set in Hollywood during the making of the controversial Warner Brothers film Confessions of a Nazi Spy.   

This lecture will be presented on Zoom only: non-member guests are welcome for £8.  Please email ticaclark@hotmail.com for further details.

Founded by Charles Tiffany with a loan of just $1000, The firm of Tiffany & Company, New York grew from a small bric -a-brac shop to become purveyors of the finest luxury goods and the world's leading jewellers. The business evolved even further under Charles's immensely gifted son Louis, who not only completely redesigned the now lost interior of the White House but spent over thirty years developing the manufacture of the most exquisite glass.  From wonderful vases and lamps to the diamonds worn by Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" this is a fascinating tale of how art and luxury came together to create one of the the world's most iconic brands

Brian Healey was senior modern languages teacher in an independent grammar school for many years.  Since the 1980s he has enjoyed a parallel career as a professional artist and interior designer.  Since 2006 he has been appointed to a number of ocean and river cruise lines, either as a resident artist or a guest lecturer on art history, or a destination speaker for more than 40 countries.  Most recently he has been art-guiding through important towns and museums in France, Belgium, Holland and Spain.

A wide-ranging exploration of the music chosen by ballet choreographers through the years, proving that the right composition with the addition of the right moves and the right designs can create modern masterpieces and timeless classics.  We move from the grandness of Imperial Russia with the creation of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and other established and popular works through to the current modern repertoire of the Royal Ballet, exploring the challenges met by both composers and choreographers.  Fully illustrated with audio and performance video clips.

Nigel Bates was the Music Administrator of The Royal Ballet from 2012 to 2020 and has been a performer for more than forty years in and out of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

In the course of over 6000 performances, broadcasts and recordings he has worked with many of the leading figures in the classical music industry.  He commenced his musical career in the Regimental Band of the Scots Guards before joining the Orchestra of Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet and working as a freelance player with most of the London orchestras and ensembles. He was Section Principal Percussion of the ROH Orchestra from 1993-2009.

Nigel has been a regular contributor to the printed and online content of the Royal Opera House and was also a producer for the BBC's documentary series Maestro at the Opera and Pappano's Classical Voices.  He has given lectures and presentations for many years both in the UK and abroad, including nearly every arts society in our sister Australian network.

From romantic images of British architecture, to the windows of the new Coventry Cathedral, this lecture explores the work of John Piper – one of Britain’s most versatile 20th century artists.

An abstract painter in the 1930s, John Piper was also a writer, critic and typographer and his love of architecture – especially medieval churches and stained glass – made him a highly sensitive observer of his surroundings. During the Second World War he became one of the best known Official War Artists, creating powerful images of the destruction of Coventry Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament and of the city of Bath, as well as recording a wide range of buildings, from derelict Welsh cottages to the grandeur of Windsor Castle.

Piper’s friendships with figures from the worlds of literature, ballet and music led him in further creative directions. He worked on the Shell Guides to Britain with his close friend, John Betjeman and designed sets and costumes for the operas of Benjamin Britten. In his fifties he began to design stained glass, creating monumentally beautiful windows for the new Coventry Cathedral and the Metropolitan Cathedral in Liverpool, as well as tiny, jewel-like lunettes for country churches near his home in Buckinghamshire. Piper’s love of architecture and landscape informed all his work, and in this lecture we’ll explore the many ways in which his interests and enthusiasms led to prolific creativity.

Jo Walton read art history at Leicester University, then went on to do a post-graduate diploma in Oxford, specialising in the art and architecture of fifteenth century Italy. This was a wonderful opportunity to explore one of the most vibrant and exciting periods in history – and to do so surrounded by the marvellous collections of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum.

A job in a bookshop turned into a happy and successful twenty-year career in the book trade, eventually running a specialist art bookshop in London, and working with the auctioneers, Christies. She also thoroughly enjoyed teaching adult education classes in art history and, for twelve years, she was a volunteer guide for Tate Modern and Tate Britain.

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.

Jo Rhymer is a history of art lecturer. She has broad experience of working in museum and gallery learning departments and was previously Head of Adult Learning Programmes at the National Gallery. She leads tours in the UK and abroad, is an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society, and lectures for various organisations including the Victoria & Albert Museum and Wallace Collection; she is also on the Tutor Panel for the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge. Her particular interests include 19th-century/early 20th century French art, representations of women and women artists.

A symphony in blue - the artist, the couturier and Atlas the most fabulous mountaine of all Africke 

Pliny the Elder described the Atlas Mountains 1900 years before a French cabinetmaker’s son Jacques Majorelle arrived in Morocco.  His artistic output started with posters to entice French tourists. Extensive travel in the Atlas Mountains inspired glorious blue dominated canvases and a garden in Marrakech. His blue horticultural testament was saved by Yves St Laurent who tailored the garden with pattern and panache. A foundation for its survival and public entry was created by Yves St Laurent thus bleu majorelle is now prêt-a-porter.

Caroline Holmes An academic but not dry Garden Historian, a lecturer and speaker. Author of 12 books and a consultant designer who specialises in exploring and evoking historical, artistic and symbolic references through people, plants and places. Her most recent filmed work has been for Viking TV. Her work has taken her to every continent except Antarctica. Fuller details on www.horti-history.com

1950 BRITAIN through the eyes of Picture Post

This extraordinary and nostalgic talk is part of a series of lectures on Graphic Icons of the Twentieth Century by Howard Smith.

Picture Post, published by Hulton Press, was the first photojournalism magazine and in the 1940s was selling nearly 2 million copies a week. In 1950, under editor Tom Hopkinson, a team of photographer and journalist would be sent to cover a story in depth to produce intimate and detailed articles on life in Britain. The result in 1950 was to put over a very strong message of the need for regeneration and social reform. This lecture looks at that time of austerity with the divides and how the nation lived through art, film clips, adverts, photographs and ephemera.

The 1851 Great Exhibition was the last time Britain was proud to show itself off to the world and Herbert Morrison spurred on by the editor of the News Chronicle brought the Festival of Britain 1951 to the 27 acre bombsite at Waterloo and also the Pleasure Gardens at Battersea. The festival was to be the kick start Britain needed or was it the proclaimed "A wonderful cocktail for a Tonic for the Nation!"

Howard Smith was born in the Second World War and gained an MA from Trinity College Dublin before working initially in International and National advertising.  He set up his own Design and Print Company in Canterbury in the 1970s.  On retirement he realised that much of his work over nearly fifty years gave him an unique insight into Graphic Art as "art for a purpose" and as a result became an accreditied lecturer in 2017.

In the early decades of the 19th century, the Forest of Fontainebleau, became the inspiration for key developments in the emergence of modern landscape painting. With improved accessibility, and close proximity to Paris (only about 35 miles away) the Forest appealed to tourists.

It also attracted those artists keen to escape the urban sprawl and find new motifs for painting. They came with their paintboxes, brushes and easels ready to explore and immerse themselves in nature, searching for new subjects to paint and innovative ways to depict the landscape. The enormous Forest provided them with a wealth of scenery – regions of dense woodlands boasting a plethora of tree species contrasted with dramatic rock formations and large boulders. Ancient oak trees, marshes and verdant glades presented painters with challenges and opportunities to experiment with composition and painting technique. It was here that painting en plein air (in the open air) took a hold - a practice that was to transform French landscape painting.

Looking at work by Rousseau, Millet and Diaz de la Peňa, we will discuss what was so revolutionary about the Barbizon painters and briefly explore how the Forest and villages like Barbizon became a springboard for the development of French Impressionism.

Jo Rhymer is a history of art lecturer. She has broad experience of working in museum and gallery learning departments and was previously Head of Adult Learning Programmes at the National Gallery. She leads tours in the UK and abroad, is an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society and lectures for various organisations including the Wallace Collection and the V&A Museum; she is also a Panel Tutor for the Institute of Continuing Education, University of Cambridge. Her interests include 19th century and early 20th century French art; she is particularly interested in the visual skills and benefits involved in sustained looking at paintings.

Shrines, stupas, cave temples, colonial grandeur and modernist architecture – a look at the history of this beautiful island through its intriguing art and culture. For much of Sri Lanka's past Buddhist and Hindu have lived alongside each other peaceably and much of its culture is evidence of this spirit of tolerance and generosity. This talk examines the fascinating story of Sri Lankan art and the original minds, talents and spirits that created this unique visual world.

Georgina Bexon is an art historian specialising in South Asian art who has lived and worked in the UK, USA and Singapore. Her practice includes lecturing, writing, consulting and collecting and she has developed a network of gallery and artist connections in Europe, the USA and India, which she visits regularly.  

Consultant Art Historian at the Oriental Club in London and an official tour guide at Tate Modern, Georgina is also a guest speaker on luxury cruise ships for whom she has developed a series of art talks relating to Asian and Pacific destinations. She has been a visiting lecturer at UK universities, presents talks at leading art institutions including Christie’s Education New York and the Museum of Modern Art, Moscow and speaks at international art conferences, most recently in New York, Paris, London and Lisbon.

Georgina holds a BA in Art History from Southampton University, an MA in Arts Management and Policy from City, University of London and an MA in Art History from SOAS, University of London. Georgina is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Asiatic Society.

This lecture provides a colourful introduction to the secret world of our 2000-mile canal network and looks at all aspects of their architectural and artistic vernacular - only the National Trust and the Church of England have more listed structures than our inland waterways.

The lecture describes unique buildings, heroic engineering and quirky landmarks; historic boats, interesting landscapes and little-known features. Many of our distinctive canal structures were influenced by form and function as well as the energy and imagination of the pioneering waterway engineers. Highlights include unique cottages and clever warehouses; sweeping aqueducts and eye-catching lock flights; deep tunnels and distinctive clock towers – plus one or two contemporary features such as the amazing Falkirk Wheel.

Roger Butler is a writer, photographer and lecturer with a particular interest in canal heritage. He studied geography at Durham University and took a post-graduate degree in landscape architecture at Manchester University. He has worked on some of the UK’s major canal restoration projects and has acted as a consultant to organisations such as Natural England and Waterways Ireland.

Roger is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society and a Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute. He currently writes for a number of magazines and regularly contributes to countryside, canal and heritage titles.

By the turn of the 20th century Russia had become a cauldron of radicalism, where Avant Garde artists like Malevich, El Lissitsky, Popova, Tatlin and Rodchenko worked with a remarkable sense of creative urgency, and an aspiration to affect unprecedented socio-political transformation. Their movements – Constructivism and Suprematism were harnessed to the war effort by Lenin, when new tools of propaganda were needed to inspire and encourage civilians and soldiers. The suprematist style of using a limited range of colours was to become a trademark of the Soviet posters, which so successfully convey the sense of romance, heroism and artistic optimism of the early revolutionary years.

20th century artists such as Brodsky, Petrov Vodkin, and , Kustodiev variously reflect the extraordinary changes taking place in Russia and the creation of its new order. Cult portraits of party leaders, heroic images of factory workers, female workers, excitement at scientific advances and a valiant sense of optimism regarding the future of Soviet Man are expressed in different and exciting ways and Socialist realism shown to be not as dull some may think.

Jane Angelini is a freelance lecturer for the Arts Society and other arts organisations. She runs her own art tours company, specialising in cultural visits. She speaks several foreign languages and has translated a number of works of 19th century Russian literature for Penguin Books and Oxford University Press. She has a BA in Russian Studies and an MA in Byzantine Studies.

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

Julia Musgrave got her first degree in Chemical Engineering and went on to become a Chartered Information Systems Engineer and IT project manager. In 2008 she decided that life was too short for just one career and decided to become an art historian.

She now has a Graduate Diploma in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an MLitt in ‘Art, Style and Design: Renaissance to Modernism, c.1450 – c.1930’ from the University of Glasgow. She is currently working towards her Ph.D. at the University of York where she is researching the involvement of Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group in the development of the Contemporary Art Society from 1910 to 1937.

She teaches Art History at the City Literary Institute (City Lit) and is Co-Director of The London Art Salon. She is also an accredited Arts Society lecturer.

Julia is a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) and UK Trustee for Masiphumelele Trust Ltd (Masicorp) an NGO that provides educational resources for the township of Masiphumelele in South Africa.

Despite the traumatic nature of their dislocation and the obstacles they often encountered on arrival in the UK, those who fled here from Nazi-dominated Europe in the 1930s and 1940s made a deep, pervasive and long-lasting contribution to British culture. Focussing on the visual arts, this lecture will examine the nature of this contribution, embracing not only familiar names such as Ernst Gombrich, Oskar Kokoschka, Piet Mondrian, Kurt Schwitters and John Heartfield, but also lesser-known figures such as Albert Reuss, Josef Herman and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky.

Illustration  Josef Herman: Refugees, c.1941. Copyright Josef Herman Estate, with kind permission, Ben Uri collection.

Monica Bohm-Duchen is a London-based freelance lecturer, writer and exhibition organizer. She has lectured for Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, Sotheby's Institute of Art and the Courtauld Institute of Art, and has been Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck College since 2005. Her many publications include Understanding Modern Art (1991), Chagall (1998/2001), The Private Life of a Masterpiece (2001), The Art and Life of Josef Herman (2009) and Art and the Second World War (2013). She is the initiator and Creative Director of the nationwide Insiders/Outsiders arts festival (see https://insidersoutsidersfestival.org/), and contributing editor of the companion volume, Insiders/Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their Contribution to British Visual Culture (Lund Humphries, 2019).

To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, born in December 1770, Sandy guides us through the life and work of this brilliant, cantankerous, visionary and astonishingly original composer, a man who tore up the rule book of classical music. Visual illustrations include a selection of contemporary portraits, while musical examples are drawn from his genre-busting piano sonatas, quartets and symphonies, and from the revolutionary opera Fidelio. We’re talking about much more than just a musician here – Beethoven was a true Romantic artist, or as he preferred to describe himself, a “poet in sound.”

Sandy Burnett 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 a highly sought after double bassist on the London jazz scene, was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season, and is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music.  

Photograph by Ben Ealovega 

In the second half of the nineteenth-century an extraordinary group of purpose-built studio-houses were constructed on the edge of London’s Holland Park.  At their centre was the house built by Frederic Leighton from the mid-1860s. With its vast studio and exotic Arab Hall it provided an inspiration to other artists who commissioned houses of their own.  Combining domestic accommodation with studio space and a venue in which to entertain, these houses provide fascinating insights into the wealth, status and taste of successful artists of the period.  The lecture explores the houses of the Holland Park Circle to determine why these artists invested so much in the creation of their homes and the uses they then put them to.

Daniel Robbins is Senior Curator, Museums with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and is responsible for two of London’s most significant house museums: Leighton House Museum and 18 Stafford Terrace.  Formerly with Glasgow Museums, he has organised many exhibitions and contributed to numerous catalogues and publications around nineteenth-century art, architecture and design, including the authorship of the companion guide to Leighton House Museum published in 2011.  He was responsible for leading the award-winning project to restore the historic interiors of the house completed between 2008 and 2010 and is now leading an £8 million refurbishment project, Hidden Gem to National Treasure, addressing the additions made to the building in the twentieth century.

The popular image of Japanese women is that of the Geisha, or professional entertainer, encapsulating the ideals of beauty, culture and intelligence packaged like a perfect porcelain doll for the amusement of men. These women formed a tiny percentage of the educated female class from the 18th to 20th centuries, belying the wide and varied roles that women have contributed to Japan’s complex social culture.

From early times women have been depicted as goddesses and empresses in myths and folklore, but their fortunes and status in society have risen and fallen with changing times and circumstances. Women of the Heian court in the 10th century had wealth and influence and were considered the equal of men in the literary arts of poetry, calligraphy and authorship. During the early mediaeval era women could have equal rights in land inheritance, and often men would marry into a woman’s family and take her family name.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries women played an active role in the industrialisation of the nation that propelled Japan from being an Asian backwater to a frontline nation vying with the west for economic trade and territory.

In the modern age from the 1920s onwards, women have become more self-determined, creating a new generation of independent, professional entrepreneurs as seen in the film and fashion industries, with designers like Rei Kawakubo and Hanae Mori defying the stereotype of Japanese women as in Madame Butterfly with their “anti-pretty” campaign for modern, comfortable, practical clothing.

Illustration: “Mrs T” Wada Seika 1934

Susanne Perrin B.A. (Hons.), M.A. is an independent researcher and historian specialising in Japanese History, Art & Culture, and founded Japan Interlink in 1995 to promote the understanding of Japan in the UK through educational and cultural events including Kimono exhibitions and demonstrations, lectures, tours to Japan and liaison with Japanese organisations.

Suzanne graduated with Degrees from Chelsea School of Art, London and Exeter College of Art. She gained a Certificate in Nihonga traditional Japanese painting at Nagoya University of Arts and gained level 3 in Japanese language.

Suzanne gives lectures and courses on a wide range of Japanese subjects to universities including the University of London institutes, museums including the British Museum and the V&A Museum, and The Arts Society in the UK, AADFAS in Australia, DARTS in South Africa, and the University of Cape Town Summer School.

Suzanne has published many articles on traditional and contemporary aspects of Japan, including Japanese architecture, gardens and lifestyle, ‘greening’ the environment forOdyssey magazine in SA and articles for various magazines.

Suzanne’s first book was published in 2016 titled Bridges: Anglo-Japanese Cultural Pioneers 1945-2015. She visits Japan on a regular basis to continue her researches, and is currently working on a second book on Japanese craftspeople in Kyoto.

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and Diego Rivera (1886-1957) have iconic status in Mexico. The Mexican Revolution of 1910 swept away the old régime and banished European influence in the arts. Kahlo and Rivera, in their different ways, helped to shape the cultural identity of twentieth-century Mexico. Together they made Mexico a magnet for the rest of the world.

The Mexican mural movement, born during the 1920s, was destined to produce some of the greatest public art of the last century. Diego Rivera’s panoramic images adorn the walls of public buildings, combining social criticism with a faith in human progress. Inspired by early Italian fresco painting, as well as by Aztec and Maya imagery, his intricate visual narratives incorporate allegory and symbolism.

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

In 2005 an estimated 340,000 visitors saw her retrospective at Tate Modern. Photographs of Frida were simultaneously exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery under the title Frida Kahlo: Portraits of an Icon’. In 2011, the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester hosted an exhibition of their work: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Masterpieces from the Gelman Collection. In 2018, the Victoria and Albert Museum showed paintings, photographs and clothing for the exhibition Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up’ The accompanying lecture series was organised by Chloë. She also contributed to the exhibition catalogue, which is still on sale.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were married in 1929. Their turbulent marriage and the turbulent times they lived through are the subject of the film Frida (USA, 2002). They are key figures in The Lacuna, a historical novel published in 2009 by Barbara Kingsolver and currently on the reading list of many UK Book Clubs.

Chloë Sayer (Author, Researcher, Lecturer)

Chloë Sayer is a freelance specialist in the art and culture of Latin America. She leads cultural tours to Mexico, and has lectured for galleries, museums and cultural institutions in Australia, Great Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Mexico. Her many books include MEXICAN TEXTILES (British Museum Press, 1990), THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF MEXICO (Thames & Hudson, 1990), and FIESTA: DAYS OF THE DEAD AND OTHER MEXICAN FESTIVALS (British Museum Press, 2009). She co-wrote OF GODS AND MEN: MEXICO AND THE MEXICAN INDIAN (BBC Publications, 1980) and TRADITIONAL MEXICAN ARCHITECTURE (Thames & Hudson, 1993).

She has made ethnographic collections and carried out fieldwork in Mexico and Belize for the British Museum. In 1991 she co-curated the exhibition THE SKELETON AT THE FEAST: THE MEXICAN DAY OF THE DEAD in London. She has curated several other exhibitions of Mexican folk art, and has also worked on a number of television documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4.

Between 1992 and 2000, Chloë Sayer was a visiting tutor at the University of the Arts in London (formerly Central Saint Martins). She has been a lecturer with The Arts Society since 2004, and lectures regularly at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In 2010 and 2012 she was the Gervers Research Fellow in Textiles and Costume History at the Royal Ontario Museum, where she is a Research Associate in the Department for World Cultures. In 2015 she curated the exhibition ¡Viva México! Clothing & Culture (May 2015 to May 2016) and wrote the accompanying book. In 2016 the Mexican Government awarded her the prestigious Ohtli medal, in recognition of her long-standing commitment to Mexican culture.

Come and get up to speed by exploring the key stages in street art’s growth. From international superstars like Banksy to local underground heroes find out about the different elements and styles that comprise the scene with no rules. Who knows you might even start looking at the world a little differently.

Mr Doug Gillen   Heavily involved in documenting the street art scene in London and abroad through his project Fifth Wall TV, and can offer a genuine insight into this world. Previously lectured for London Art and More, and when not filming he is an East End tour guide for Alternative London, specialising in culture and art.

Louise Schofield was Curator of Greek Bronze Age and Geometric Antiquities in the British Museum for 13 years. In this very personal take on her adventures working in the British Museum she will take you down to haunted basements, exorcisms and extraordinary objects in the British Museum that have curses attached to them.  For instance ‘The Unlucky Mummy’ fantastic piece on display in the Egyptian galleries – which has a reputation for causing very bad luck – including the sinking of the Titanic!

Can a single year adequately encapsulate an artistic environment in British art history?

This lecture, The Art of 1935, explores that year’s many aspects of decorative and fine art, demonstrating how these artistic forms reflected the period in a fitting and cohesive manner

Set against the backdrop of the 1935 Silver Jubilee Celebrations of King George V and Queen Mary, audiences are transported back to this fabulous time and learn about this pivotal year.  The fully illustrated talk examines the range of contemporaneous art forms; including the work of the celebrated British Portrait Photographer, Cecil Beaton; magazine, poster and Penguin paperback book design; architecture; Silver Jubilee memorabilia; commemorative stamps; locomotive design and fashion.  An exploration of the year 1935 would not be complete without a study of certain significant works by the Polish-born artist Tamara de Lempicka which have come to personify this age of Art Deco.  We also review Art Deco interiors on stylish cruise liners and film sets, as well as acknowledging the importance of The Lansdowne Club which opened its doors for the first time on 1 May 1935.  Sporting and motoring trivia are also revealed.

Pamela Campbell-Johnston (MA Hons Art History, St Andrew’s University)

Over 20 years lecturing experience to undergraduates, adult groups, and to Friends and Patrons of the Royal Academy of Arts as part of their Adult Education Department’s programme of events.

Conducted numerous guided tours and focused gallery talks on individual works of arts.  

Over 12 years’ experience at the Royal Academy.

Work experience also undertaken at Bonhams, Art Loss Register and National Trust.

Now a freelance art consultant and lecturer. 

Recently curated a collection for The Lansdowne Club.

Specialises in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art.

Artists love to reimagine the Queen of Egypt, for whose love's sake Mark Antony is supposed to have given up his chance to rule the Roman world. Showing pictures by Michelangelo, Tiepolo, Delacroix, Moreau, and many others, as well as stills from some fabulously extravagant films, Lucy Hughes-Hallett  discusses what these gorgeous images can tell us about racial politics and erotic fantasy over two millennia.

Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author of five books, including The Pike - Gabriel d'Annunzio, which won all three of the UK's most important prizes for non-fiction - The Costa Biography Award, the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize.  Cleopatra was the subject of her first book, published in 1990, and she is still adding to her collection of images of the Egyptian Queen.  

Russian Painting is still little known outside Russia, largely because it remained behind the Iron Curtain for most of the 20th century and the subject is only just beginning to gain interest, thanks to the opening up of Russia and hence its  marvelously rich art galleries (Tretyakov in Moscow, Russian Museum in St Petersburg) and an increasing number of international exhibitions. The lecture will concentrate on one branch of the many artistic genres which flourished in Russia from the mid 19th century onwards, namely Landscape Painting.

The second half of the 19th century was a time of artistic rebellion in Russia (and across Europe) and a time when Russian painting came into its own. Some painters turned to critical realism and historical genre painting mostly criticizing Russian society, whilst those who turned to landscape painted the uplifting, often simple scenery with notes of hope and poetry. They painted the essence of the Russian land in all its spiritual glory and they did so with technical mastery that puts them on a par with European contemporaries.The poetic, almost lyrical beauty in painting was new to Russian art, however it became the symbol of people’s soul that resonates within many Russians even today.  

We will look at the work of Aivazovsky, Russia’s most famous marine painter, Savrasov,  perhaps the first  Russian painter to use landscape to  capture “mood”  Shishkinknown as the “Russian Singer of the Forests”, Polenov, who captures the beauty of the Russian countryside  with especial charm,  Kuindzhi, possibly the best colourist of all and  Levitan, whose landscapes have a simplified, mystical beauty of the land and is regarded as Russia’s greatest landscape  painter.

Jane Angelini is a freelance lecturer for the Arts Society and other arts organisations.  She runs her own art tours company, specialising in cultural visits. 

She speaks several foreign languages and has translated a number of works of 19th century Russian literature for Penguin Books and Oxford University Press.  She has a BA in Russian Studies and an MA in Byzantine Studies.

Located at the northernmost point of the Jutland peninsula in Denmark, Skagen is an attractive spot in the summer for its unusual light. From the 1870s to the beginning of the twentieth century this fishermen village was home to an artists’ colony. Some of its more famous members include Anna and Michael Ancher, Marie and Peder Severin Krøyer, as well as Laurits Tuxen. Reacting against styles enforced by the Academies and influenced instead by French modernism, they painted en plein airand represented scenes from ordinary life. Fishermen at work, social gathering and domestic scenes are common in their works. They are especially renowned for their depictions of the particular light of long summer evenings. In such sceneries their works often become more romantic and lyrical.  

Illustration: P.S. Krøyer, Summer Evening on Skagen’s Southern Beach, 1893, oil on canvas, 100 x 150 cm, Skagen Museum

Caroline Levisse holds a PhD in Art History from Paris University. Since 2014 she has been teaching for the WEA and other organisations. She mainly lectures on Western art from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Since researching Scandinavian art for her doctoral dissertation and living in Denmark, she has been enthusiastic about Nordic artists, and now offers a series of talks related to this subject matter.

Hidden away in dense subtropical forest, in the hills north of Mexico City, lies an enchanted valley in which strange ruins tower over waterfalls and pools. It seems like the remains of a lost civilisation, but the arches and stairways were built only in the last century by Edward James, a rich English eccentric and Surrealist, who sold his unrivalled art collection to fund the project. Ranging around the world and across the 20th century, this colourful lecture tells the story of Edward James and Las Pozas, introducing along the way an array of intriguing characters such as Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, and exploring the wider theme of the modern artist-gardener. 

Photograph: By kind permission of Bernardo Bolanos

James Russell  Having studied History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, James enjoyed a lengthy stint selling contemporary paintings in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This 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'. The curator of major exhibitions at Dulwich Picture Gallery, James bases his lectures on wide-ranging original research, and on in-depth knowledge of the subjects that fascinate him. He has lectured all over Britain – and beyond!

Old Peking was an Imperial city of walls and palaces, dominated by the Forbidden City, narrow lanes called hutongs and sacred rituals at the Temple of Heaven. Suzhou (once known as Soochow) is an ancient city of culture with canals, gardens - such as the picturesque Master of the Nets garden, pagodas and tea-houses. Shanghai is a city of the river, a vibrant architectural synthesis of East and West. Discover the history of three unique cities of China.

Photograph:  Moon Gate in the classical Master of the Nets Garden in Suzhou, China

After taking a degree in Modern History at Durham University, Anne Haworth worked for 14 years as a European and Asian ceramics specialist in the head offices of Christie's and Bonham's auctioneers, during which time she appraised many private collections in Britain and Europe. In 1995, she left England for a seven-year residency in Shanghai, China, researching ceramics and visiting ancient kiln sites. She gave lectures on porcelain to the international community of diplomats and expatriate groups in Shanghai and Beijing. Anne returned to London in 2002, working on a short project cataloguing Chinese porcelain at Kensington Palace. She now lectures for The Arts Society, for the V&A and other main London museums and for private study groups. She lectures at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace and spent 10 years guiding private groups around the State Rooms of the Palace. She gave gallery talks in the exhibition, ‘China the Three Emperors’ at the Royal Academy and now teaches a course on British painting to American students in London.

Hogarth is nowadays mostly remembered as a talented satirist, but there is much more to him than that.  He was extremely ambitious is other artistic fields, including portraiture, history painting, and art theory.  He was also a tireless self-promotor and entrepreneur, with a real and practical concern for the status of his profession.  This talk tracks his career from humble copper-plate engraver to successful painter, showing a wide variety of images which demonstrate his exceptional originality and inventiveness.  Above all, however, it is his unparallelled eye for absurdity and human weakness which not only tells us so much about his own times, but gives us food for thought about our own.

Linda Smith is a well-qualified art historian with a broad range of knowledge. She has a special interest in British art, and the art of the twentieth century. 

Linda offers illustrated talks, presentations and study days on a variety of art-historical topics, and has taken on various types of assignment at a wide range of venues, including public galleries, secondary schools, universities, cruise liners, and private arts societies in the UK and overseas. She is an accredited Arts Society lecturer, and an experienced gallery guide, especially at Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, where she regularly gives private tours and lectures. 

Linda will soon be appearing in a series of short films for London Art Studies (www.londonartstudies.com), an award-winning online learning platform for art lovers.  

Like its name, the Roaring Twenties was a loud and boisterous decade, marked by novelty, modernity and huge social, technological, and economic change. Following the dark days of the Great War, the decade spawned a generation of wealthy and privileged Bright Young Things. Determined to shock, they broke with convention and pursued lives of hedonism and promiscuity, fuelled by an endless round of champagne, cocaine, parties and jazz. 

Women wore fur coats and cloche hats, donned new boyish fashions and had short, cropped hair. Men drove fast cars, mixed cocktails and smoked American cigarettes. Society ate inrestaurants like The Trocadero, danced the Charleston in ballrooms like the Savoy, and drank in clubs like the Embassy and the Café de Paris.Valentino, Tallulah Bankhead, and Noel Coward emerged as major celebrities through the growing popularity of cinema and the stage. 

The Roaring Twenties was also a period of enormous vitality in art and design. Fashionable society was immortalised by portraitists like John Lavery and Cecil Beaton who brilliantly captured the glamour of the age. Leisure, pleasure and the excitement of jazz were portrayed in paintings by Burra and Roberts, while the speed of the city and travel were explored in work by McKnight Kauffer and Nevinson.  Furniture and decoration showed the influence of Cubism, Vorticism and other styles associated with the avant-garde, while events like the discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb ushered in an obsession with all things Egyptian and Oriental. This lecture aims to conjure up the energy and originality of the decade and to explore the lives of its leading figures and examples of its most innovative art and design.

Jo Banham is an independent curator and Director of the Victorian Society Summer School, who has worked in Museums and Galleries for over 25 years. She was Head of the Adult, Students and Creative Industries programmes in the Learning Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum from 2006 to 2016. Previously she was Head of Learning at the National Portrait Gallery, and before that Head of Public Programmes at Tate Britain. Her curatorial and research posts have included Curator at Leighton House, Kensington, Archivist at Arthur Sanderson & Sons, and Curator of historic wallpapers at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

She has edited and written several books on art and design – including William Morris & the Middle Ages (1986), Victorian Interior Design (2000), Encyclopaedia of Interior Design – 2 vols  (2002), Dictionary of Artists Models (2006). 

She lectures regularly on V&A courses and study days and contributes to conferences and research seminars on 19thcentury design. She has taught at BA and MA level for Birkbeck College and University College, the Open University, and Manchester Metropolitan University. She is a Trustee of the Association of Art Historians, and Leighton House Museum, and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

She recently co-curated an exhibition on William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement which opened in Madrid and Barcelona, Autumn 2017/Spring 2018, and is researching an exhibition on the Roaring Twenties to go on show in Compton Verney, Newcastle, and Brighton in 2020.

Raffles, whose name is synonymous with a luxury hotel rather than the greatest Buddhist temple in the world, Borobudur, was the enlightened colonial administrator of Java, Indonesia. In 1814 he discovered the 8thcentury temple, hidden under volcanic ash, acquired wondrous artefacts such as shadow puppets and textiles, now in the British Museum, and founded Singapore, the most important trading port in the East.  

This lecture tells the story of Raffles, a scholar and polymath, looks at the art objects he collected, reveals the mystical temple and its radiant carvings, and shows the cultural and architectural heritage of Singapore, inspired by his vision, and its revival today as innovative art galleries and museums.

Denise Heywood is an art historian, author, lecturer, photographer and journalist. Worked in Cambodia in the 1990s and has been a scholar of Southeast Asian art ever since. Her books include one on the Buddhist temples of Laos, Ancient Luang Prabang and Laos, also in French, and Cambodian Dance Celebration of the Gods, with a foreword by the daughter of King Sihanouk. Lectures for the Art Fund, the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) on their post graduate Asian Art Course and for Madingley Hall (University of Cambridge); also for organisations such as the British Museum, the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, Asia House, the National Trust, the Royal Geographical Society and has lectured worldwide for universities, museums, colleges, art institutions, literary societies and travel organisations. She writes for many art, literary and travel publications and has appeared on television and radio. She has led cultural tours to Southeast Asia and France for the Royal Academy, the Art Fund, Asia House and many more and lectures on cruise ships. A member of the Association of Southeast Asian Studies in the UK, Asia House and the Royal Geographical Society.

The lecture looks at the rich collection of furniture, paintings and porcelain at the Wallace Collection, London, and how they influenced the connoisseurship which led to the formation of the Frick Collection, New York.  There is a great reason why and how they connect.  This circle of collectors also included Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild of Waddesdon, JP Morgan, the Astors, Isabella Stewart Gardner and others of the American "Gilded Age".  

We see how a charismatic personality, who worked for Sir Richard and Lady Wallace, was then hired by American Industralist Henry Clay Frick (d. 1919), to help make a superb collection.  Then, due to an amitie amoureuse, left his fortune to the mother of Vita Sackville-West.  So, aspects of The Wallace and Frick inform Knole and even Sissinghurst.  How and why?

Hilary Williams: Formerly Print Room Superintendent at the British Museum, now Art History Education Officer.  Lectures for BM, London Borough of Bexley and Wallace Collection.  Liaison officer at British Museum with The Arts Society.  Founding Artistic Director of The Arts Society of North Kent Evening.  Guides Special Interest Private Tours of State Apartments Buckingham Palace.

Calcutta was second city of the British Empire and a hub of cultural and artistic production throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This lecture looks at the arts and architecture of this extraordinary city, which was India’s capital until 1911. Calcutta played a central role in shaping the culture of modern India, as its artists sought to interpret India’s classical heritage in new ways, and to combine this heritage with Western cultural forms. We will examine how Calcutta became the epicentre of the ‘Bengal renaissance’ and how the city’s artists viewed (and were affected by) British rule.

Dr John Stevens is a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and a member of academic staff at the SOAS South Asia Institute.  His PhD in History is from University College London. He teaches British Imperial history, Indian history and Bengali language, and is a regular visitor to India and Bangladesh. His biography of the Indian guru Keshab Chandra Sen was published in 2018. He appears regularly in the Indian media and was recently a guest on BBC Radio Four’s In Our Time.

The Bloomsbury Group were a set who Dorothy Parker once described as “living in squares and loving in triangles”. Perhaps the longest lasting of these unconventional relationships was that of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Painter and designer Vanessa Bell was the sister of the writer Virginia Woolf and wife of the critic Clive Bell. Vanessa was the warm heart of Bloomsbury whose love affair with bisexual Duncan Grant began with an affair and blossomed into a lifelong friendship and creative partnership. From the Omega workshops to the walls of Kings College this lecture looks at how art and friendship becomes art and design and asks – should we really draw such a line between the fine and decorative arts?

Julia Musgrave is a freelance accredited Art Society lecturer in the History of Art.  She has a degree in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute and an MLitt from The University of Glasgow, not to mention a first degree in Chemical Engineering.  Her research interests range from British Modernism to the Renaissance.  A lecturer in Art History at the City Literary Institute (City Lit), and Co-Director of The London Art Salon, she is also a PhD student at the University of York.

Trained in decorative as well as fine arts, Klimt sought to break free from the traditional distinctions between the two. His fascination with Egyptian and Byzantine art enabled him to produce sumptuous art incorporating gold leaf and mosaics in works which were frequently highly erotic and beautiful, and occasionally disturbing. He was particularly interested in the female form, showing women as alluring, but often dangerous, as the femme fatale. He was a founder member and first President of the Vienna Secession, a progressive exhibiting organisation set up to challenge the more conservative academic practice towards the end of the 19th century.

Frank Woodgate has been lecturer and Guide in Tate Britain and Tate Modern since 2000, and from 2008-2010 on P&O cruises on behalf of the Tate.  He has lectured to Arts Society audiences in the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Gibraltar, Australia and New Zealand.  He lectures and runs courses for Dulwich Picture Gallery, Pallant House (Chichester) and the Art Fund (UK and Guernsey).  

Houses made from wool that warm in the depths of winter, carpets that tell stories, woven bands that appease ancestors, embroideries that ward off evil, and kilims that store kitchenware, with everything ready to be packed and carried on yak, or camel at a moment’s notice; the little-known nomadic textile cultures of the Kyrgyz, Turkoman and Karakalpak are explored in this lecture.

Chris Alexander was born in Turkey and spent his childhood there and in war-torn Beirut. After studying Media and journalism at Leicester University, he moved to Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, creating income for women. After a year in the UK writing A Carpet Ride to Khiva, he moved to the Pamirs in Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down, spending three years there. Next came two years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut forest and establishing a wood-carving workshop. Chris has recently finished rowing and studying at Oxford and is now a curate at St. Barnabas, North Finchley. He returns to Central Asia whenever he can and conducts tours there.

The work of women photographers has often been unfairly neglected.  This lecture seeks to correct that by examining the contribution of three outstanding British practitioners:

Julia Margaret Cameron, a Victorian pioneer; Jane Bown, a brilliant portraitist; and Fay Godwin, who excelled in landscape photography.  We also explore the works of two highly influential Americans: Dorothea Lange, who produced brilliant documentary images, and Annie Leibovitz, who continues to both surprise and delight her audience.

Brian Stater has taught at University College London since 1997.  He is a member of the Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography and an exhibition of his own photographs has been staged at UCL. In an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the skills of some great photographers of the past, he works with a pre-War Leica camera.

In this lecture, we look at Constable’s Great Landscapes, also known fondly as the ‘six-footers’, which include some of his most famous and iconic paintings: The White Horse, The Haywain and Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows. The compositions derived from small pencil drawings and oil sketches made outdoors and for each Constable painted a full-size oil study. These ‘six-foot sketches’ were unique creations for the early 19th century and were unseen by all but his family and closest friends during his lifetime. Constable’s dynamic late works and artistic temperament are brought to life for us in a new and exciting manner, revealing a ‘Jackson Pollock of the 1830s’. You will never look at these ‘chocolate box’ pictures the same way again!

Sarah Cove has worked as a paintings conservator, technical art historian and lecturer since the mid-1980s. She founded the Constable Research Project in 1986 and is now the recognised authority on Constable’s painting materials and techniques. In 1988, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Yale Center for British Art in the USA. She has published widely, including essays and exhibition catalogues. She has lectured in the UK, USA and Europe and will tour New Zealand in 2018. She has appeared in a number of TV programmes including ‘Constable in Love’ with Andrew Graham-Dixon. On ’Fake or Fortune?’ Constable is the only painter to be featured twice and Sarah has been instrumental in the discovery of three new Constables!

The Nutcracker has delighted audiences at Christmas for many decades yet it was deemed a failure at its first performances and was very nearly lost to history.  We take a close look at how this much-loved ballet now takes its rightful place on stage and how the music of Tchaikovsky along with story-telling, dance, design, technology and more than a little onstage magic all come together to make a wonderful escape for young and old alike.  Fully illustrated with audio and performance video clips.

Nigel Bates has worked as a performer for nearly forty years in and out of London’s Royal Opera House, including seventeen years as Principal Percussion with the Orchestra.  In the course of over 6,000 performances, broadcasts and recordings he has worked with many of the leading figures in the classical music industry.  He was a producer for both the BBC's Maestro at the Opera and Pappano's Classical Voices television documentary series and in 2012 was appointed to the position of Music Administrator for The Royal Ballet. 

In 1515 King Henry VIII founded a new armourer's workshop. Kings of England had never had personal court armourers before, and in bringing Flemish and German craftsmen into his service Henry was following the most current courtly fashion.  High-quality armour had been made in England for at least 200 years previously, but Henry consciously rejected their work, as part of a new continentalism which defined his style of kingship.  For thirty years the master armourers at Greenwich made armour for the King's personal use, playing an essential role in casting him as a dominant player on the international stage of war and diplomacy.  The workshop continued to flourish after his death, enduring into the seventeenth century.

Tobias Capwell is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection and an internationally-acknowledged authority on Medieval and Renaissance weapons.  He is the author of numerous books on the subject of arms and armour and appears regularly on television, most recently on A Stitch in Time (BBC4).  In 2015 he had the unusual honour of serving as one of the two fully armoured horsemen escorting the remains of King Richard III, from the battlefield at Bosworth to their resting place in Leicester Cathedral.

Hadrian is the Roman emperor we all think we know. We know he built Hadrian’s Wall and imagine him as a man of peace, either travelling continuously through his empire or living a life of luxury in his villa at Tivoli outside Rome.

But in reality he was a person of huge contrasts – a shrewd politician and ruthless general, as capable of massacre as mercy, an obsessive in everything he did, from amateur architecture to love. Though married to his wife Sabina for nearly 40 years, Hadrian’s greatest love was a young man Antinous, whom Hadrian turned into a god after his suspicious death.  In this lecture we try to find out more about Hadrian, this incredible, mysterious man.

Dr Paul Roberts is the Sackler Keeper of Antiquities at the  Ashmolean Museum, and was previously Senior Roman Curator in the Department of Greece and Rome at the British Museum. He studied at the Universities of Cambridge, Sheffield and Oxford and lived in Italy for several years. He has excavated in Britain, Greece, Libya Turkey and in particular Italy, where in September 2018 he'll be excavating a Roman Villa . His research focuses on the  day-to-day lives of ordinary people in the Greek and Roman worlds.

He was the  curator of the major exhibition "Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum", at the British Museum.   He is currently working on a major exhibition for 2019 "Roman Feasts - from the Table to the Grave”.

Before her death in 2016, Zaha Hadid was one of the most distinguished architects in the world, and a talented designer.  She twice received the UK's most prestigious architectural award, the RIBA Stirling Prize, and in 2012 was made a Dame for services to architecture.  We will hear the story of this visionary architect, from her early abstract paintings to her first sharp-angled buildings and her later structures, extruded to the most extreme organic shapes in what she called a “seamless fluidity”.  We move around the world to look at her completed works, including her most famous building in the UK, the Aquatics Centre for the London Olympics in 2012, as well as unexecuted designs.

Anthea Streeter studied Fine and Decorative Arts in London and at Harvard University; it was at the latter that she developed her particular interest in 20th century architecture.  Since returning from America she has taught on courses in Oxford and London, lectured on the Country House course in Sussex, and for several private groups around the country.