March 2026
Monday 9th March: The Overshadowed
Chantal considers some of the many reasons for a good artist’s obscurity, from the brevity of his life to the misfortune of his being born and working in the shadow of a larger reputation, such as Leonardo or Rembrandt. But above all it is an excuse to spend an hour viewing beautiful paintings and finding…
February 2026
Monday 9th February: Pioneering Women Photographers 1860-1920
From the earliest days of photography, women claimed this new art for their own. This lecture offers a new vision of the Victorians, seen through the lenses of pioneering women. It includes the intimate fantasies of Clementina, Lady Hawarden; the soft-focus story-telling made by Julia Margaret Cameron; and radical portraits captured by the Suffrage campaigner…
January 2026
Monday 12th January: Opening the doors – a brief history of country house visiting
Since at least the Middle Ages castles, monasteries and country houses have welcomed visitors. Gradually a pattern for such visits developed, with great houses open to the respectable gentry and upper middle classes, who were shown around by the housekeeper or steward. Later pressure led to the formation of the National Trust and the Historic Houses…
November 2025
Monday 10th November: Carried on galleons, borne by winds, porcelain, silk and the lustrous arts of Cathay
Coveted by princely collectors, precious artefacts from China adorned palaces across Europe. By the mid-18th Century, the popularity of these luxury arts from China inspired a passion for chinoiserie: the imaginative recreation of a fanciful vision of Cathay in porcelain, silver, furniture and architecture. This lecture shows these desirable luxury goods were traded from China…
October 2025
Monday 13th October: The Enigma of Edward Elgar
One of our greatest composers, Edward Elgar was an extraordinary man. Brought up in a provincial town, his father a piano tuner and the owner of a music shop, Elgar was completely self-taught as a musician, evidence of the strong determination behind his original and unique genius. His path to recognition was hard and bitter. …
September 2025
Monday 8th September: Matisse in Moscow, icons and the avant-garde.
In October 1911, Henri Matisse travelled to Russia to stay with his most important patron Sergei Shchukin. The wealthy Moscow businessman had commissioned two enormous canvases which now rank amongst the artist’s greatest works. This lecture relates what happened in Moscow and how Matisse fell in love with Russian icons, and how his riotous paintings revolutionised…
July 2025
Monday 14th July: Courage calls to courage everywhere, how have jewels played their part in politics and history?
Brooches, badges, chains and rings can all be used to send a message about your politics and beliefs. This lecture shows how wearing jewels such as medieval retainer’s badges, suffragette colour and, American flag pins can show how wearers show views openly and identify others who share their beliefs. Lecturer: Rachel Church Rachel Church developed…
June 2025
Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter – A National Treasure
Called a ‘national treasure’ by English Heritage, Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter is a dense network of streets that is still home to manufacture of 40% of the jewellery made in Britain. Much of the late Georgian and Victorian urban fabric remains today and the original mix of workshops, shops and houses has been given extra piquancy…
May 2025
The New Yorker Magazine and its Cartoonists
Since it was founded in 1925, the New Yorker magazine has set the gold standard for cartoon humour. Their roster of artists includes the wonderful, whimsical James Thurber, Charles Addams (of Addams Family fame) and the brilliant and quirky Roz Chas producing a century of comic genius. Lecturer: Barry Venning. Barry is an art…
April 2025
Two Snakes and a Pretty Frock
Fascinating lecture on Minoan Art in ancient Crete Lecturer Mike Clegg Image credit and usage: Wikipedia under Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike 4.0
March 2025
The Kennedy White House – the Art, Architecture and Gardens of Camelot
This talk is about the White House’s most celebrated twentieth century residents. The Kennedys, who inhabited the White House, were glamorous, sophisticated and celebrated. Of course, theywill never be forgotten given the tragic end to the Kennedy presidency, but this has tended to overshadow, somewhat, the astounding aesthetic and artistic changes made during their relatively…
February 2025
The Twentieth Century English Garden
The English garden of the early years of the C20th was almost as significant, in terms of worldwide influence, as the landscapes of William Kent and ‘Capability’ Brown. The gardens created, in particular by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, set a standard against which English gardens would be measured for the next 60 years.…
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