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The village of Compton in Surrey is the home of one of the most extraordinary artist
projects in Britain. Consisting of an artist’s house, art gallery, pottery and chapel it was
the vision of George Frederic Watts RA OM (1817-1904), one of the greatest artists of
the Victorian age, and his wife, the artist and ceramicist, Mary Seton Watts (née Fraser
Tytler, 1849-1938). Their move to Compton sparked by a visit to the nearby Monkshatch
in 1899 led to the development of an Arts & Crafts community that addressed art, craft
and society. The Artists’ Village: G F and Mary Watts in Compton tells the story of the
creation of their country home, the Watts Gallery, Watts Chapel and the Potters’ Arts
Guild.
Mark Bills MBE is a curator and art historian with over thirty years’ experience in the
museums and galleries. He has toured exhibitions internationally initiating the first
exhibitions of Thomas Gainsborough in Holland, Germany, and Russia and taken
Victorian art around the world. He has published widely on eighteenth and nineteenth
century British art, and was awarded an MBE in 2025 for his services to art. Mark, who is
from Yorkshire, initially studied fine art at the Slade School before undertaking
postgraduate research in art history at Manchester University. Mark was a curator at the
Russell-Cotes, Senior Curator of Paintings, Prints and Drawings at the Museum of
London and Curator at Watts Gallery, where he worked on the Hope capital project and
subsequent development in rescuing G F Watts’ Studio at Limnerslease. Following this
he spent 10 years as the Director of Gainsborough’s House, where he initiated and led a
major project to build a landmark new gallery for Gainsborough’s birthplace. He has a
particular interest in Victorian art and as well as publishing on Atkinson Grimshaw he
has just completed a monograph on another Yorkshire Victorian artist, William Powell
Frith RA, due to be published next year.

When Jane Austen declared that she wrote ‘only for fame’, she was, of course, being ironic: she published anonymously; there is no record on her gravestone that she was a writer; and her books fell out of print shortly after her death.  But now, Jane Austen is one of our best loved authors, with legions of adoring fans throughout the world.  Her novels have inspired countless stage and screen adaptations, and even provided solace to soldiers in the trenches.  She is the face of the £10 banknote, and she adorns tea towels and fridge magnets everywhere.  Jane Austen is now very famous indeed.    But how did it all happen?  This lecture will chart Jane Austen’s rise to fame; it will explore the making of a literary celebrity and examine Austen’s legacy, 250 years after her birth.

About the speaker

Following a career in teaching, Annalie Talent spent several years working on education programmes at museums and literary houses across the UK, including the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere; Wordsworth House in Cockermouth; Jane Austen’s House in Hampshire; and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. At Jane Austen’s House, Annalie won 2 Sandford Awards for Excellence in Heritage Education; she also worked with the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and Chawton House Library in promoting Austen’s work to young people.  Annalie’s lectures focus on aspects of Romantic and Victorian literature. She uses her knowledge and personal experience of literary houses - and their collections - to offer a unique perspective on writers and their works.

At the end of the 17th Century, Poland was the largest state in Europe, but within a hundred years it had been partitioned by it’s powerful neighbours and partly absorbed into the Russian empire.

The Poles reacted to Russia’s brutal suppression of their 1830 Uprising by developing a strong cultural identity in which artists played a key role.

Writer, Lecturer and translator, Rosamund Bartlett will show how Chopin and his revolutionary Polonaises and Mazurkas came to be seen as an indispensable symbol of the Polish nation, both during his lifetime and in the years before Poland regained its independence in 1918.

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From 1928 until his death in 1939, Harry Murphy created a prodigious amount of silverware for the corporate, civic, and private sectors, as well as some truly startling gold, silver and enamel jewellery inspired by nature, architecture, the Ballets Russes and the vibrancy of the jazz age.  His famous circular modernist coffee service, now in the V&A, won a gold medal at the Milan International Exhibition in 1933. His ‘Falcon Studio’ in London was where the highest standards of craftsmanship and design with a contemporary flavour, were developed.

Planting and painting, cultivating and creating: inspired and influenced by their dedication to painting ‘en plein air’ artists of the Impressionist movement had an especial  relationship with gardens and landscape, most famously expressed by Claude Monet (1840-1926) at Giverny. This talk explores that relationship drawing on the wide range of gardens created and depicted by artists including Gustave Caillebotte, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frederick Carl Frieseke, and Pierre Bonnard,  placing Giverny and Monet in a wider perspective.

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Raoul Dufy (1877 - 1953) was a key player in twentieth century avant garde art, design, literary and musical circles in Paris. As a widely travelled polymath, Dufy's charismatic personality, wit and curiosity about the world was infectious. His imagination and technical virtuosity - constantly innovating and experimenting with new materials and effects - across a range of media including painting, murals, book illustration, textiles and fashion, ceramics and theatre set design defy conventional art historical categorisation. Dufy moved with seeming effortlessness between small-scale book illustration to the gigantic 600 metre murals at the 1937 Paris exposition. Throughout his life, colour and light were his passion… “In my painting there is neither ground, nor background, nor sky: there are colours whose relationships create space and that is all”. These early experiments in colour field painting were ahead of their time and not fully understood by later critics and historians caught up in the obsession with post war abstract art. Dufy himself wittily observed that the fashion-conscious wearers of his fabrics would have fallen about laughing in front of his paintings! We will ask why Raoul Dufy is widely known in art circles in France, Japan and the USA but less well known in the UK today. 

The Cotswolds became one of the most vibrant rural centres of the Arts and Crafts MoThe Cotswolds became one of the most vibrant rural centres of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by William Morris's retreat at Kelmscott Manor, several groups of designers and makers settled in the region, from Ernest Gimson and the Barnsley brothers, to C R Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft, and designers and artists drawn south from the Birmingham School of Art. They were followed by friends and admirers to create a region-wide craft community that lasts to this day.vement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by William Morris's retreat at Kelmscott Manor, several groups of designers and makers settled in the region, from Ernest Gimson and the Barnsley brothers, to C R Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft, and designers and artists drawn south from the Birmingham School of Art. They were followed by friends and admirers to create a region-wide craft community that lasts to this day.

Kirsty Hartsiotis was the curator of the decorative and fine art at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham from 2008 to 2023. She is currently a curator at Swindon Museums, where she also worked prior to 2008.  At Cheltenham she looked after the Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection, which includes the important private press archive, the Emery Walker Library. She’s curated many exhibitions on the Arts and Crafts and Private Press Movements, including Ernest Gimson: Observation, Imagination & Making.  Passionate about sharing her deep love for and knowledge of the arts, she’s also a freelance researcher, currently researching Arts and Crafts war memorials and the work of Arts and Crafts designers in churches in the South West. She’s also been an oral storyteller for over 20 years, and has published a number of collections of stories. She's the Editor of the Journal of William Morris Studies, and was the newsletter editor for Society of Decorative Art Collections. She is a regular columnist for Cotswold Life, and writes for diverse other publications on art history and folklore.

The discovery of the grave of King Richard III in Leicester in 2012 raised many fascinating new questions. The severe scoliosis exhibited by the skeleton revealed that the twisted physique of Shakespeare’s ‘Black Legend’ was based in fact. But how could a diminutive person, suffering from a significant spinal condition, have become a skilled practitioner of the knightly fighting arts How could he have worn armour and fought in three major battles What would his armour have looked like In the case of a king whose royal legitimacy was questioned by many people, how were the visual trappings of knightly kingship used to solidify his claim

For the Tudors, visual art was one of the most powerful modes of communication. Many of the most significant political, social and religious upheavals were reflected in, and even shaped by, visual and material culture. Through portraits, textiles, luxury goods, furniture, and architecture, Tudor patrons sought to communicate their status and opinions, impressing and persuading viewers.

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His images of the landscape and of everyday objects attract passionate devotees. He was an artist who combined a love of landscape with a fascination for different types of transport - from trains, old cars and gypsy caravans to the aircraft and destroyers he depicted as an Official War Artist in his precise, dry watercolours.

Despite his short life (he was killed, aged 39, in 1942) he was a prolific painter, printmaker and designer, and his work reflects a deep delight in the world in which he lived. 

Ancient Peruvian burial grounds have yielded up dazzling goldwork, fine ceramic vessels, and some of the richest textiles in the world. Sumptuously woven garments, preserved for 2,000 years by the Paracas desert, display a profusion of embroidered designs. For the Incas, who ruled the Andes of South America after AD 1200, the textile arts took precedence over other media. Chosen women devoted their lives to weaving for the Sun and the Inca State. Today, nearly 500 years after the Spanish conquest, textiles remain central to Andean life.

Chloe is a freelance specialist in the art and culture of Latin America. She has lectured in the UK and abroad, has curated exhibitions, and has assisted on TV documentaries for BBC and Channel 4. Chloe is a Research Associate at the Royal Ontario Museum. In 2016 she was awarded the Ohtli medal by the Mexican government for her long-standing commitment to Mexican culture. Chloe’s publications include Mexican Textiles (British Museum Press, 1990), Arts and Crafts of Mexico (Thames & Hudson, 1990), Focus on Aztecs and Incas (Watts Books, 1995), The Incas - The Ancient World (Wayland, 1998), Textiles from Mexico (British Museum Press, 2002), and Mexico: Clothing and Culture (Royal Ontario Museum, 2015). She has also published articles in travel guides, newspapers and magazines. 

Caroline covers Danish Art history between 1800 and 1850. This was the so-called Golden Age. CW Eckerberg pioneered a new style of painting and with Kobke and Lundbye they created art which depicted the changing Danish society and also focused on landscape painting.

Dr Caroline Levisse is an art historian based in London. She was born in France where she studied art history before moving to Copenhagen. In Denmark, she focused on research work and completed a PhD on the relations between art and religion in contemporary Scandinavian art. 

The history of Britain is intricately woven with the history of textiles. Following World War II there was a desire for change, colour, and inspiration in the home. This energy and innovation was led by female textile designers destined to revolutionise design internationally for decades to come.

This lecture celebrates their vision, their influences and their determination that successfully brought modern and contemporary art into the home through their designs and thereby democratising modern art for the first time by making it literally a part of the furniture.

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In 1901- a cartoon appeared in the German satirical magazine, Simpilicissmus- it said there were two types of women painters- the ones who get married and the others…NEITHER  had any talent’

In her lecture,The Women Who Made Modernism’ Cindy Polemis looks at the careers of  four women-Kathe Kollwitz, Paula Modersohn Becker, Marianne  von Werefkin and Gabriele Munter- artists  who not only had talent,  but went on to become pioneers of the German avant-garde and crucial-yet in their time unacknowledged  shapers, of the German Expressionism.

An overview of the British Studio Pottery movement, exploring handmade pottery in Britain from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the present day, including the work of the Martin Brothers, Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, Alison Britton, and Grayson Perry.

Helen Ritchie is responsible for researching, interpreting and curating modern and contemporary Applied Arts at The Fitzwilliam Museum. Her research interests include contemporary crafts, European design post-1850, British Studio Pottery, Artist/Designer metalwork and jewellery and the intersection between applied and fine arts during the interwar period.  

The term ‘Ashcan School’ was used to describe the realism and contemporary subject matter of a New York based group of artists, exhibiting as ‘The Eight’ in 1908.  In fact, they were not a formal school or an ‘ism’, nor were their subjects confined to gritty realism, but they shared a fascination with zesty everyday life scenes, delighting in depicting the leisures and pleasures of the city’s working inhabitants, as well as their trades and toils.  Each had an individual style, and all rejected the stolid conservatism and rigid teaching practices of the National Academy of Design.  In this lecture we will explore the work of this extraordinary group of individual artists and friends who came together to exhibit paintings, share ideas, and create vivid and stunningly beautiful images of a New York city in transition at the beginning of the twentieth century. 

This lecture will explore the work of this extraordinary group of individual artists who created vivid and stunningly beautiful images of a New York city in transition at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Mary Alexander has thirty years’ experience as a lecturer. Her experience includes public lectures in museums, tutoring for the Open University, visiting lecturer at Christie’s Education in London, and museum curator at Platt Hall, the Gallery of Costume, Manchester. She has worked in Pentagram design consultancy in London and New York organising conferences and special events, and is now a freelance lecturer to various arts, heritage and antiquarian societies. She is the author of articles on design and visual awareness issues. Her background combines an unusual blend of academic and visual communications skills.

Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-96) remains the only British artist to have been ennobled.  For over 18 years he served as President of the Royal Academy and was buried amidst great ceremony in St Paul's Cathedral. 

This talk explores the life and career of this fascinating though enigmatic figure.  From his cosmopolitan upbringing to his remarkable debut at the Royal Academy and the construction of his extraordinary studio-house in Kensington (now a museum), Leighton re-invented the idea of what a great artist should be and worked to change the status of art and artists for the late-Victorian period.

The Impressionists were an innovative and radical group of artists whose took Paris by storm in the 1870s. Using new colours and techniques, they created paintings of modern life which shocked and horrified the art establishment. From the start the group included women artists but their contribution to Impressionism has often been overshadowed by their male contemporaries. Marie Bracquemond, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt all exhibited regularly at the Impressionist exhibitions alongside artists such as Monet, Renoir and Degas. In 1894 they were given the title “Les Trois Grandes Dames d’Impressionisme” by the art critic Gustave Geffroy.  This lecture will discuss the lives of each of these artists and their work, revealing their skill and originality as well as their willingness to take risks, despite the additional obstacles they faced as women.

Toning in shades of yellows, bronze and flaming reds, the chrysanthemum draws on its exotic ancestry to combine East and West in art and culture. From the complex philosophies of the ancestors to the glorious canvases of the Impressionists; via  Japonismé, operetta, the Chrysanthemum Throne, and two adventurous sisters from Essex.

Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher.  Twigs is fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape across culture and society. Her talks and books reflect that endless curiosity with themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender. Twigs is an accredited Arts Society speaker and lectures for the Cambridge University Botanic Garden and the Gardens Trust.  Her history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020 and she has is increasingly drawn to the intersection between art and gardens. 

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Princess Ksenia’s father, King Nikola, was nicknamed ‘The Father-in-Law of Europe’ having successfully married off his daughters to the royal houses of Italy, Bulgaria, Germany, Serbia and Russia. His eighth daughter – Ksenia - chose a different route, carving out a place for herself as secretary and valued advisor to her father, becoming the first woman in Montenegro to drive, and developing a particular talent for photography (though a contemporary also described her as ‘a courageous and skilled shot with a pistol’).

This lecture shares the photographs she took during her years in what contemporary British traveller William Le Queux described as ‘the little city in the sky’, the brand-new Montenegrin capital of Cetinje, where the royal family had their palace before they were exiled to France in 1916. Despite her privileged life of garden parties and tennis, Ksenia’s photographic record also shows how she drove out to take beautiful photographs celebrating ordinary life in Montenegro among its schools, soldiers, fishermen, cooks, horses and villages.

This lively lecture draws on the author's research in the archives of Ksenia’s correspondence, and on collaboration with the staff at the National Museum of Montenegro. It gives a face and a human narrative to the history and culture of a part of the Balkans which is just beginning to be visited by British travellers.

Jazz is one of music’s most important genres: a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free-wheeling creativity, close-knit ensembles and imaginative improvisation. Drawing on his experience both as musicologist and gigging musician, Sandy can shed light on jazz from the inside. His talk covers the early years of jazz up to the Second World War, and touches on the disparate influences which lay behind the emergence of jazz. Musical illustrations range from the blues, ragtime and the very first jazz recordings through to classics by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and the dawn of the Swing Era.

Caroline Bendix is a library conservator who has worked on over 500 collections in the UK. Since 1992 she has been the National Trust's adviser on library conservation and is on the Archbishop of Canterbury's panel for Lambeth Palace Library conservation..

The National Trust's collection of 600,000 books in is 170 locations. conservation of the collection involves tracking down pests, creating conservation techniques that are discreet and stabilising teh collection.

This specialist work must now take into account online catalogues, with more demand for research access, and the use of books for visitor engagement.

Lectures start at 14.00

Aliki Braine studied at The Ruskin School of Art, The Slade School of Fine Art and at the Courtauld Institute.

She worked for the National Gallery for 20 years and now teaches for Christie's Education, the Wallace Collection, the Camberwell College of Art and the University of the Arts.

In this lecture she examines the loss of celebrated women artists from the mainstream narrative of art history such a Eva Gonzales and Sofonisba Anguissola.

Lectures start at 14.00

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Louise Schofield is an archaeologist who was Curator of Greek Bronze Age and Geometric Antiquities at the British Museum from 1987-2000. Her book, The Mycenaeans, was co-published by the Getty Museum and the British Museum in 2007. She now writes, lectures and runs international archaeological projects - previously in south-eastern Turkey, Greece and Albania and currently in Ethiopia. She has  been appointed Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the American University of Rome.

Lectures start at 14.00

Paul Bahn studied archaeology at the University Cambridge and completed a PhD in the prehistory of the French Pyrenees.

In this lecture he looks at the Stone Age culture of Easter Island. He will discuss the history of this culture, its principal features and its ruin and decline.

Lectures start at 14.00

Dr Sarah Pearson has lectured at Reading University and the University of East Anglia, and now works as a freelance lecturer and adult educator.

her lecture looks at William Thomas Beckford who inherited a fortune from his father in 1770 and was called "England's richest commoner". In 1796 he created a vast Gothic mansion ,Fonthill Abbey.

The story of Fonthill Abbey is one of drama, intrigue and ultimate collapse along with Beckford fortune.

Lectures start at 14.00

Susan Owens makes a welcome return to Diss Arts Society for a lecture on Aubrey Beardsley who created original and shocking images. His assured linear drawings were influenced by Japanese prints and ancient Greek vases and were considered by many to be grotesque, decadent and erotic. This lecture tells the story of Beardsley's short life and brilliant work.

Lectures start at 14.00

Aubrey Beardsley, cover of The Yellow Book, 1894 (Yale Center for British Art)

(N.B. earlier date. Join us for a glass of wine  and mince pies after the lecture) 

Christopher Garibaldi was the Director or the National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art and Senior Curator and Keeper of Art at the Norwich Castle Museum. He is currently a freelance researcher, and lecturer for the Arts Society.

In this lecture he looks at the extensive artistic output of Munnings from his early life as a commercial artist, through his powerful depictions of Canadian cavalry in the first world war to his mature work as the country's leading sporting artists. It also examines the tensions between figurative paintings and non representational art during the early 20th century.

Susan Kay Williams is Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Institute of Marketing. In 2015 she was made a fellow of the Society of Dyers and Colourists.

In this lecture she looks at 150 years of the Royal School of Needlework which was established for distressed gentlewomen, and its remarkable survival and reinvention.

Lectures begin at 14.00

Historical musician and instrument maker Sophie Matthews explores the links between the visual and the aural. Drawing on the works of great painters such as Brueghel, Hogarth and Bosch, Sophie presents a variety of images of historical woodwind instruments in their original social context. The symbolism of music in mediaeval and Renaissance arts is also explored, along with live performances of historical music upon authentic instruments.

Sophie began playing flute at the age of ten but is now more well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes and has become one of the foremost players of the instrument in the UK. She also plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife and recorder. She’s also one of a handful of British players of the

Lectures start at 2 p.m.

Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett Haines relocated their East Anglia School of Painting and Drawing to Benton End near Hadleigh in Suffolk. Not just a School but an eclectic artistic hub in a setting of Morris's horticultural genius. He lived at Benton End until his death enjoying national stature as an artist and plantsman whose legacy includes 90 new irises.

Benton End is now under the care of the Garden Museum in London.

Lectures start at 2 p.m.

Over her hunderd years, he legacy is fascinating, exciting, unbelievable and brought to life in this lecture. Riefenstahl used film techniques that were way ahead of her time producing iconic films that are stillviewed today. Howard is a retired graphic designer and an established T.A.S. lecturer since 2017

Lectures start at 2 pm

The contributions made by the artists of African, Caribbean or Asian origin to British art since the SS Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in 1948 may have set the agenda for British  art today. The art historian considers the work of Bowling, Souza, Shonibare and the Singh twins. His own interests and knowledge is extensive. Currently Associate Lecturer at Open University

Windrush National Monument by Basil Watson (2022) on Waterloo Station concourse.

Lectures start at 2 pm

Anna Warrillow will examine the emergence of female stained glass artists and their invaluable output for churches and domestic projects all over the UK. Familiar names such as Mary Lowndes and lesser known artists such as Isabel Gloag will be examined . This lecture will look not only at their contribution, but also their early links to the suffrage movement.

Anna has run her own tour company Canvas and Stone Tours since 2018.

Her background is in Art and History with an MA in Renaissance Decorative Arts and Design from the Royal College of Art.

She has worked at the V and A and the Henry Moore Foundation

Lectures start at 2 pm

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James started collecting Russian and Ukrainian Art in 1985 and has established himself up as one of the world's leading experts in his field.

In 2014 the focus changed to Ukrainian Modernism and since then he has had three exhibitions .

In this lecture he looks at the artists of the Soviet Avant Garde movement which only lasted for a brief period. Their work was stunted by the advent of Russian Realism in 1932. Their work disappeared until the 1970s.

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall the market was flooded with newly discovered works with no verifiable authenticity.

The scandal reached a crescendo in 2018 with and exhibition at the Ghent Museum of fine Art with 24 dubious works.

He will look at the mass faking of the Avant Garde with works universally rejected by museums, and the various methods to create authenticity.

His private Gallery is based in London and is a fluent Russian speaker.

Lectures start at 2 pm

This lecture will discuss the life of Jim Ede, his collecting, his vision for Kettles Yard and its enduring legacy.

Sarah is an art historian who worked in the Museum Service before working at he Fitzwilliam Museum for many years

Lectures start at 2 pm

It was thought in the 20's and 30's that he alone accounted for 25% of the world's art market, but where did he keep it, why did he die in debt?

Mark's special interest lies in Great American houses and their relationships with those in Europe, both socially and architecturally. A fascinating insight into an exclusive world.

Lectures start at 2 pm

Since the first publication in 1908, the book has been illustrated by more than ninety artists. Engagingly presented by John Ericson, a former lecturer at the University of Bath, this delightful tale will look and compare where possible, the same scene depicted by well known artists such as E H Shepard,Arther Rackham, Val Biro and many others

Lectures start at 2 pm

Joins us after the meeting for mince pies, a drink and social gathering

World beating designs from early days, through the inventive inter-war years, this lecture is rammed with well-known artists and great stories. Told by a speaker who has created posters for all the major brands and written commercials for TV and Radio

Lectures start at 2 pm

Artists were never far behind the explorers who opened up the west of America in the 19th
Century. Sometimes they painted what they saw. Sometimes they painted what they wished
they saw. Either way, painters like Alfred Miller, Frederick Church and Albert Bierstadt have
left us a powerful, if romanticised, record of the country and people that the settlers found.
Now we can use their pictures to chart the history of the opening of America’s west - the
arrival of the railroad, the confinement of native Americans into reservations, and the
extermination of the buffalo.
This is a story on a big scale and it seems appropriate that among the pictures illustrating the
lecture are some of the largest and most grandiloquent paintings of the era. After a period of
deep neglect, they are now very much back in vogue, but whatever one thinks of their artistic
merits, I hope audiences will agree with me that they are, above all, great fun.

This lecture tells the remarkable story of the fabled Ballets Russes company which Diaghilev established in Paris in 1909. Building on the achievements of Tchaikovsky and Petipa, Diaghilev and his associates brought about nothing less than a revolution in classical dance, which was dazzling to the eye and would have a lasting impact not only on all the arts.

The lecture will discuss how artists of the calibre of Bakst, Goncharova, Picasso and Matisse, worked with composers such as Stravinsky, Debussy and Ravel, choreographers such as Fokine and Balanchine, and dancers such as Pavlova, Karsavina and Nijinsky to create ballet stagings of genius.

The Polish Jewish artist Henri Hayden moved to Paris in 1907. We focus on an early major work  of his - La Rotonde  -  which depicts the Bohemian cafe of that name in Montparnasse , in 1913. The work is considered an international inspiration.

The cafe is renowned as having been a meeting spot for artists and writers during the interwar period. In a time of great poverty  the starving artists could sit in the café for hours with a ten-centime cup of coffee. If they did not have the money to pay for food  the artist’s work would be held as collateral and then graciously return the art when they were able to pay their bill. As result, La Rotonde became a showplace for all of the great impressionist painters. Creativity was clearly embraced and each time a new artist arrived they were welcomed, despite politics or religion. The list of individuals who congregated in Montparnasse has been a veritable who’s who since the cafe opened its doors. Among the famous are Picasso, Hemingway, Ray, ernst, Rousseau, Beckett, Matisse, Chagall, and Degas. One could say that this is where the art of meeting and interacting was born and refined.

Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck, Prasannajit de Silva is particularly interested in the relationship of art, architecture and design.

The Exhibition is now widely regarded as a grand statement of Victorian confidence and technological prowess – but was it?

Looking forward to the return of this popular acclaimed Lecturer. Leslie will trace the beginnings of abolition through the eyes of Dido, a black woman living at Kenwood House. She was  born into slavery and illegitimate; her mother, Maria Belle, was an enslaved African woman in the Caribbean. Her father was a British career naval officer who was stationed there. Her father was knighted and promoted to admiral. Admiral Lindsay took Belle with him when he returned to England in 1765, entrusting her upbringing to his uncle and his wife. The Murrays educated Belle, bringing her up as a free gentlewoman at Kenwood House. She was painted by Johann Zoffany (although Fake and Fortune contested this attribution)

– What made her different?

The work of Reynolds and Turner will be examined.

Wool, cotton and silk have each played a crucial role in the fortunes of Central Asia. Wool created the clothing and housing needed by the great nomadic cultures of Middle Asia. Silk was more valuable than gold and used as currency, creating a network of trading routes: early globalisation. Cotton was the cause of Russian and then Soviet  colonisation, and still causes controversy. The textiles of the Silk Road became symbols of wealth, religion and politics, changing the fortunes of this extraordinary world where Mohammed and Marx collided.

Chris Aslan was born in Turkey (hence the name Aslan) and spent his childhood there and in war-torn Beirut. He moved to Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries. Chris then spent three years in the Pamirs mountains of Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down. Next came two years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut forest and establishing a wood-carving workshop.

A community of artists  lived in and around village of Great Bardfield in north Essex from the 1930s to 1970s. At its heart during the 1930s were friends Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious with their artist wives Charlotte Epton and Tirzah Garwood, who lived for a time together at Brick House. The community held a number of exhibitions in their homes in the 1950s and the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden opened in 1987 to largely honour them

Lee Miller photographed innumerable women during her career, first as a fashion photographer and then as a journalist during the Second World War, documenting the social consequences of the conflict, particularly the impact of the war on women across Europe. She documented the magnificent work of the WRNS, ATS, the Land Girls, the WRVS and the nurses. She shows us the refugees in Europe, girls accused of collaboration and women forced into slave labour or prostitution and concentration camp victims. Their roles range from bravery to stupidity and from enforced involvement to volunteering. It is told against the background of Lee Miller’s own life story.

This Lecture Now Rescheduled to Zoom Only

Since the birth of the earliest human civilisations, dance has been an important part of ceremony, rituals, celebrations, a method of healing and a means of expression and entertainment.

Using stills and video clips Jennifer will take a look at dance as an art form from its earliest beginnings; through the birth and rapid development of ballet throughout Europe, the explosion of modern dance in the early 20th century (a time of unprecedented creative growth for dancers and choreographers) and with the growth of post-modernism from the 1960s, the expression of street dance, hip-hop, break dancing and rock dance.

MS JENNIFER TOYNBEE-HOLMES

Jennifer Toynbee-Holmes is an experienced guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern and lectures at various art societies and institutions. She has a special interest in British and European art of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th century. Having gained an MA in film and television practice, Jennifer had a long-standing career spanning twenty years as a television producer/director making documentaries and factual programmes for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. She was also a visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths College and Birkbeck, University of London and a senior lecturer at Southampton Solent University in the Faculty of Media, Arts and Society.

We  explore the unique decorative style developed by the Moors, which gives their architecture its beauty and exotic appeal –an appeal so strong that the Christians sometimes copied it, even as they slowly reconquered the territory from its Islamic rulers.

{The advertised speaker has had to withdraw for personal reasons, and Anthony Russel agreed to step in for fill this slot}

Edward Seago was an English artist known for both his watercolors and oil paintings of beachscapes and street scenes. Working in a late Impressionistic style,  Seago’s work is characterized by its carefully observed color modulation and grounded sense of realism. Born , in Norwich he briefly studied with the painter Sir Alfred Munnings, but was largely self-taught. He enjoyed a wide range of admirers from the British Royal family and the Aga Khan.

Ian will examine Grayson Perry's work, his thought-provoking exhibitions and the unique artist that resides inside his "posh frocks"

Best known for his outlandish appearances dressed as his feminine alter ego, Claire, Grayson Perry is now a core part of the art establishment, a Turner Prize winner, Royal Academician, popular broadcaster and colourful character. He’s possibly one of the world’s best-known contemporary artists. His works of ceramics, textiles, tapestries and prints are highly sought after. Often controversial, he tackles difficult subjects in a poignant yet witty way and holds a mirror up to modern society

Recognised by the National Gallery of London as one of its greatest treasures, the painting dates from a time when no object was without meaning and symbolism. It is a puzzle that has fascinated the art world for years, but would have been well understood by the audience at the time.This lecture considers the tempestuous circumstances of its creation and the hidden messages within it.

Andrew looks at colour in art that elicits a feeling response as against the subject matter that invites thought. Black and White versus colour, in prints, glass, cubism, film and television

The art of melancholy treads a thin line between madness and contentment:

Whilst live lute music plays, the lecture explores how artists of painting and music respond to the melancholy side of human nature.

Adam is a art historian at luteist, and was curator at Warwick Castle

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

Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912, and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is one of the most important museums in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the 20th century. Pieces in her collection embrace Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.

Alexandra Epps’ background is in design having practised as a graphic designer running her own design consultancy for many years. She established Art in the City and her credits include Official Guide to the City of London, Guide and Lecturer at Tate Modern and Tate Britain and a Freeman of the City of London.
The Arts Society is a leading art education charity, which brings people together through a shared curiosity for the arts.

Sarah looks at portrait workshops and techniques used by painters, both old and new, and the use of modern materials in restoration.

Sarah Cove is a conservator/restorer specialising in Tudor and Jacobean portraits. She brings 35 years of experience to this lively talk. She was instrumental in the discovery of three 'lost Constables'

Tagore is the most important artistic figure   in the modern Indian era. The lecture introduces his life and work, focusing on his novels, poetry and paintings.

John Stevens publishes widely in the fields of British and Indian

Among the most important and valuable works of art from Africa, the antique bronzes from the West- African kingdom of Benin astounded critics when they were first seen in Europe in the late 1890s. The superb workmanship and outstanding aesthetic quality of Benin’s royal sculptures rivals the very best work of the Italian Renaissance. This lecture reveals the sophisticated production processes, the symbolism and the ritual uses of the bronzes, as well as investigating the response of European avant-garde artists of the early 20th century, such as Picasso and Matisse, who struggled to place them within their category of ‘the primitive’. One of the richest collections of the Benin bronzes is in the British Museum, but many examples are on show in museums across Britain and Europe. A welcome return of a favourite speaker.

Early Christians celebrated Christmas at the same time that the ancient Romans were feasting and partying as part of the pagan Saturnalia festival.  Many of the Pagan habits were therefore absorbed into our Christian traditions: present giving, holly, and even party-hats! All have their origins in this 2,000 year old party.

Gillian Hovel is a published historian and archaeologist, with extensive experience in lecturing and leading tours to the ancient world.

A beautifully illustrated talk covering the history of parks in the UK.

Paul is currently Head of Parks, Heritage and Culture for Watford Borough Council, and passionate about public parks. He has written 14 books about Bandstages and Parkitecture

Instructions to join this ZOOM lecture will be sent to members via. email

In case of problems contact info@artsocdiss.org.uk

The meeting between two kings was a display of wealth, skill and splendour; each trying to outdo the other in magnificence.

Joanna is a decorative artist who combines antique lace with painting and printing

Instructions to join this ZOOM lecture were sent to members via. email

In case of problems contact info@artsocdiss.org.uk

Taking a look at the life backstage at London's Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the tribulations and triumphs of working with the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet companies.   Simply putting on the performances is not enough - there has to be encouragement for the audience to spend quite large amounts of money to attend a performance.  We look at the way artistic inspirations, the people involved and the unique building all function together to create world-class opera and ballet in a unique environment.  

In 402AD Ravenna became the capital of the Western Roman Empire and continued to prosper under Ostrogoth and then Byzantine rule.  This past eminence left Ravenna with a legacy of richly decorated early Christian buildings, which has earned it UNESCO World Heritage site status. This lecture will explore some of these buildings and their magnificent mosaics: The octagonal church of San Vitale, home of the celebrated portrait panels of the emperor Justinian I and his wife, the notorious empress Theodora; the basilica church of S. Apollinare Nuovo decorated with spectacular processions of male and female saints, and with surprising evidence of its past life as the palace chapel of Ostrogoth King Theodoric; the basilica church of S. Apollinare in Classe featuring a magical starry sky apse mosaic; and the exquisite mosaic decoration of the cruciform oratory of imperial princess Galla Placidia.

Dr Helen Rufus-Ward is a published art historian and university lecturer with a BA, MA and an AHRC funded doctorate (DPhil) from the University of Sussex.  Helen lectured at the University of Sussex for eight years on all aspects of art history but with a specialism in early Christian and Byzantine art.

Helen has published elements of her doctoral research on 19th century responses to Byzantine ivories as well as her post doctoral research into collections of 19th century plaster casts of late Antique, Byzantine and medieval ivories. These are known as ‘fictile ivories’ and were manufactured to fill gaps in collections in order to illustrate the development of European sculpture.

Helen is a very experienced speaker with a relaxed and friendly style.  Since 2016 Helen has worked as an accredited speaker for the Arts Society (NADFAS) delivering popular illustrated powerpoint lectures.  Helen’s lectures open up a world of wonderful treasures.  From the romance and excitement of Late Roman buried treasure to the otherworldly magic of St Catherine’s Monastery, at the foot of Mount Sinai, and their breath-taking icon collection.  The aim of Helen’s lectures is always to inform whilst entertaining and amusing, at the same time revealing the diverse richness of material culture from the Late Roman and early Byzantine periods.  Splendid architecture, glittering mosaics, opulent silverware, exquisite ivory carvings, delicate enamels, gleaming glassware, and sacred relics.  

The history of this enduring and peculiarly British institution, from its origins in 16th century Italian commedia dell’arte through the influence of 19th century music hall, to the family shows that are still much loved today. 

On the way we examine the origins of some of the stories used in pantomime as well as such traditions as the (female) principal boy and the (male) pantomime dame. The talk is interspersed with personal anecdotes from the speaker’s years of working (and appearing) professionally in pantomime. See a short biography here

** Join us after the lecture for Christmas refreshments **

There’s more to the world of street art than Banksy. Hidden Canvases is a beginner’s guide to the biggest art movement since pop art.  From train writing in New York to interactive technology that brings murals to life, the concept of un-commissioned public art is a very different beast to that which it once was.  Hidden Canvases explores the key stages in street art’s growth examining the different elements and styles that comprise the scene with no rules.  From the international superstars to the local underground heroes you’re guaranteed to leave knowing your Invader from you Aryz and who knows you might even start looking at the world a little differently.

Marianne North was a Victorian plant hunter and prolific botanical painter.

​She was an energetic, experienced and enthusiastic traveller who visited many continents and many countries in pursuit of interesting plants to paint. Between 1871 and 1885 Marianne North painted over 800 paintings while visiting 17 countries on 6 continents  in 14 years

All this was accomplished while travelling alone in Victorian dress. Explore the life and social context of Marianne's life, and why her paintings troubled Victorian society. We look into the creation of her gallery at Kew.

Why were foreign painters preferred by the aristocracy in London, to native-born English painters?

Why did foreigners come in the first place, and what was their impact on English art and art practice? ,

The lecture will look at the various formats and uses of art, tracing foreign artists from the Tudor period through to the Renaissance and Baroque, looking at their origins and how they came to work in England. It will examine the contributions of artists such as Holbein, Gerrit van Honthorst, Marcus Gheeraerts the younger, Lucas and Susanna Horenbout, Isaac Oliver, Paulus van Somer, van Dyck, Peter Lely, and Rubens. This lecture will look at how these artists influenced the British School of painting and assess their legacy.

Click for Biography for Leslie Primo

Short Bibliographic Reading List:
Campbell, Caroline, (Ed) Peter Lely: A Lyrical Vision, (The Courtauld
Gallery, 2012)
Finaldi, Gabriele (Ed), Orazio Gentileschi at the Court of Charles I,
(Museo de Bellas Atres de Bilbao, 1999)
Foister, Susan, Holbein in England, (Tate Publishing, 2006)
Hearn, Karen, Marcus Gheeraerts II Elizabethan Artist: In Focus (Tate
Publishing, 2002)
Hearn, Karen (Ed), Van Dyck & Britain, (Tate Publishing, 2009)

This engaging talk looks at the history of the chair and 'sitting solutions', charting the humble to high design, from antiquity to the 21st century. Never again will you take your seat for granted!

Marc is a freelance antiques expert, journalist and broadcaster who specialises in miscellaneous objects on the famous antiques programme. His engaging manner makes him a sort after speaker and the Society is delighted to be presenting this first in the autumn series of lectures at the Corn Hall.

***** Evening event open to public  7.30 pm  *********

Red House was the only home William Morris ever owned and helped design. When the house was completed in 1860, Morris’s friend Edward Burne-Jones described it as, “the beautifullest place on earth.” The challenge of furnishing his new home inspired Morris to found the decorating company Morris & Co. Often described as, ‘the cradle of the Arts & Crafts Movement’, Red House is one of the most important and influential buildings in the history of domestic architecture.

Co-designed in 1859 by the architect Philip Webb and William Morris, it was created to serve as a family home for the latter, with construction being completed in 1860. Purchasing a plot of land in what at the time was the village of Upton in Kent, he employed his friend Webb to help him design and construct the house, financing the project with money inherited from his wealthy family. Morris was deeply influenced by Medievalism and Medieval-inspired Neo-Gothicstyles are reflected throughout the building's design. It was constructed using Morris' ethos of craftsmanship and artisan skills and is an early example of  the Arts and Crafts movement. Among the firnds of Morris who visited, were  paintersEdward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti both of whom aided him in decorating the House; various Burne-Jones wall murals remain. While at Red House, Morris was involved in the formation of his design company,  and embarked on his earliest wallpaper designs.

The protestant Huguenots came to England as refugees from religious persecution in Europe.

The talk will be an introduction to the great impact the refugees had on English culture in the 1700s. As silk weavers, goldsmiths, ironworkers and horticulturists the Huguenots made an extraordinary contribution to English craftsmanship.

The Georgian Age of Elegance, illustrated through luxury goods such as dress, silverware, furniture and the social etiquette around the newly introduced product of tea, was to a large extent, fuelled by Huguenot craftsmen.

*** DON'T FORGET THE LECTURE WILL BE PRECEDED BY THE 2019 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING **

The Nazis stole thousands of artworks from Jewish families during World War 2 and the restitution of these pieces has been a slow process involving legal battles, complex searches and some stunning finds.

The art plundered by the Nazi regime was intended to be resold, given to senior officials or displayed in the Fuehrermuseum (Leader's Museum) that Adolf Hitler planned for his hometown of Linz but was never built.

Restitution programmes enabled the return of most of the looted works to their owners soon after the end of the war. But out of 650,000 stolen pieces, about 100,000 had not been returned by 2009, according to figures released at the Holocaust Era Assets Conference in the Czech Republic that year.

Historically and presently, plants serve an intimate role in human culture. They influence language, art and literature; performing arts and modem mass media; politics and world events. Plants serve as symbols in many celebrations and rituals such as holidays, weddings, and funerals.

Understanding the past and current roles plants have in human culture can provide insights into society's values and can ensure a continued relationship between plants and people. This paper is a commentary on the relationship between plants and human culture and a review of current research on this topic.

Historic buildings are often not what they seem, or how we confidently and wrongly believe they ought to look. Were old houses ever built with reused ships’ timbers? Are black and white ‘Tudor’ buildings mainly a 19th century fashion? Is the appearance of many familiar historic castles as much the product of the restorers? How many of the claimed ‘secret tunnels’ from the basement to the docks or church actually exist?

As well as examining some of the popular myths about old buildings the lecture will discuss the tricky philosophical issues of authenticity, and the point at which a genuine historic building is so renewed that it effectively becomes a replica. Drawing on examples from throughout the country the lecture will challenge some received wisdom, and offer some surprises.

Tamara de Lempicka was the lone traditional easel painter in the entirety of the Art Deco style. Her sources of inspiration ranged dramatically: she adored Italian Renaissance painting; she was characterized by critics as a sort of modern-day Ingres, although the comparisons were more often not intended to flatter; she absorbed the avant garde art of the era - particularly post-cubist abstraction but of a "softened" style.

Perhaps most influential was Lempicka's desire to capitalize on her social connections to create a niche for her portraiture, which most often featured well-to-do, cosmopolitan types. The Art Deco style, lavish in a less visually complex way than its predecessor, Art Nouveau, was probably the ideal vehicle for her trendy style.

Her work provided her with an outlet for unconventional self-expression: truly a product of her era, the libertine golden age between the two world wars, Lempicka, a bisexual, made bold, liberated female sexuality the linchpin of her art.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance, whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography.

He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, he epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal.

Many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of "Renaissance Man", and he is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived.

Each of Titian's reclining Venuses represent a nude "painting" within the painting as in Titian's Venus with an Organist (c.1550). The musician represents the artist metaphorically "painting" the nude by performing his music. In this version the dog is also self-referential. The pet is traditionally described as protecting his mistress from the viewer.

Three centuries later Manet based Olympia on another of Titian's nude Venuses, the Venus of Urbino. He must have known, though, that Titian's dog in the Berlin Venus resembled the artist because he added a cat on guard glaring out of the canvas for the same purpose. 

This is a special interest day (SID)

The venue is New Buckenham village hall, all day from 10:30.

Lunch will be provided.

Wren's rebuilding of St Paul’s lasted from 1675 through to 1710, an astonishing feat compared to the time taken to build most of the great Cathedrals. Throughout much of this period (1670-86) he was also designing the City Churches, over 50 in all.

Firstly, unlike St Paul’s, most of them were on cramped sites, hemmed in by other buildings, This means that Wren’s City Churches typically show their variety and decorative interest much more in the interiors and in the spires than in the exterior walls.

The churches are generally on the sites of burnt down pre-Fire churches, and this means that sometimes the shapes are unusual, with walls often not being quite at right angles so that existing foundations could be reused, Wren was building Protestant churches, where a large central space better suited the wish for the whole congregation to be able to see the preacher and the altar.

Antonio Vivaldi was born in 1678 in Venice and lived there most of his life. He was baptized in the church of San Giovanni in Bragoria where there is a plaque next to the font.

Ten years later he began to study theology in the church of San Geminianus, the jewel of the Renaissance destroyed by Napoleon, and in 1703 he was ordained a priest in the church of San Giovanni in Oleo (also destroyed in the 1800s.)

He later worked as a theatre manager in the famous Sant'Angelo Theatre where he wrote his most famous works. The theatre, overlooking the Grand Canal, was destroyed in 1804 and replaced by a hotel.

Around 1730s he left Venice, never to return, and died a poor and forgotten man in Vienna and was buried in a mass grave with no tombstone.

To mark the centenary of women first getting the vote, this lecture will explore the story of the suffragettes through portrayals in art and their own artistic productions; also looking at how contemporary artists choose to portray female politicians in our own time and the controversies surrounding these depictions.

The house was designed by Philip Webb, from preliminary sketches drawn on the back of a map while Morris, Webb and Charles Faulkner were on a boat trip in 1858. Webb and Faulkner were to be Morris’s lifelong friends, as was Edward Burne-Jones whom Morris met at Oxford. It was on a visit to the cathedrals of northern France together in 1855 that they determined to devote their lives to art.

Red House became a centre for Morris’s circle, with friends coming for weeks at a time. They were often pressed into painting the walls and ceilings. Morris wanted the house to look like a jewel box, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote that it was ‘more of a poem than a house‘.

Morris’s inability to find furniture and household goods to his taste fuelled his determination to have nothing in the house ‘which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful

The house was designed by Philip Webb, from preliminary sketches drawn on the back of a map while Morris, Webb and Charles Faulkner were on a boat trip in 1858. Webb and Faulkner were to be Morris’s lifelong friends, as was Edward Burne-Jones whom Morris met at Oxford. It was on a visit to the cathedrals of northern France together in 1855 that they determined to devote their lives to art.

Red House became a centre for Morris’s circle, with friends coming for weeks at a time. They were often pressed into painting the walls and ceilings. Morris wanted the house to look like a jewel box, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote that it was ‘more of a poem than a house‘.

Morris’s inability to find furniture and household goods to his taste fuelled his determination to have nothing in the house ‘which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful

The house was designed by Philip Webb, from preliminary sketches drawn on the back of a map while Morris, Webb and Charles Faulkner were on a boat trip in 1858. Webb and Faulkner were to be Morris’s lifelong friends, as was Edward Burne-Jones whom Morris met at Oxford. It was on a visit to the cathedrals of northern France together in 1855 that they determined to devote their lives to art.

Red House became a centre for Morris’s circle, with friends coming for weeks at a time. They were often pressed into painting the walls and ceilings. Morris wanted the house to look like a jewel box, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote that it was ‘more of a poem than a house‘.

Morris’s inability to find furniture and household goods to his taste fuelled his determination to have nothing in the house ‘which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful

The house was designed by Philip Webb, from preliminary sketches drawn on the back of a map while Morris, Webb and Charles Faulkner were on a boat trip in 1858. Webb and Faulkner were to be Morris’s lifelong friends, as was Edward Burne-Jones whom Morris met at Oxford. It was on a visit to the cathedrals of northern France together in 1855 that they determined to devote their lives to art.

Red House became a centre for Morris’s circle, with friends coming for weeks at a time. They were often pressed into painting the walls and ceilings. Morris wanted the house to look like a jewel box, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote that it was ‘more of a poem than a house‘.

Morris’s inability to find furniture and household goods to his taste fuelled his determination to have nothing in the house ‘which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful

Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) is generally regarded as the greatest British female artist of the C20.  Evelyn Dunbar (1906-1960) is far less known, but is coming into her own, following the exhibition at Pallant House Gallery in the winter of 2015-16.  Laura Knight’s subjects were wide ranging - ballet to circus, portraits of gypsies and the aristocracy, as well as the Nuremburg Trials. Evelyn Dunbar was the only official female war artist, specialising in views of the Women’s Land Army - milking or baling hay. Who was the greater?

After working as an artist within the Criminal Justice Service in England and in Germany, which provides the background for this lecture, Angela will offer us an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the minds, lives and challenges of offenders, and how opportunities provided through art can enable these people to confront their crimes and develop the key life skills so essential in leading a positive and productive life.

As trauma grips the Middle East today, we go back 100 years to the last year of peace in the region before the outbreak of World War I. Lord Kitchener realised the importance of completing the Palestine Exploration Fund’s mapping of the Holy Land; the Negeb Desert had not been covered in the C19, and two young archaeologists, Leonard Woolley and T.E. Lawrence were part of the Royal Engineers cartographic team sent to the Wilderness of Zin in southern Palestine.

The C19 saw the biggest changes to how colour was created, than has ever been known. This lecture explores the achievements of the “natural dyers” by the middle of the century and what happened after the discovery of synthetic colours and how colour (and its uses) were changed forever.

Road and rail, sea and air, the infrastructure of travel has provided many architectural treasures from the thatched petrol station to the futuristic styling of Los Angeles airport. This lecture examines the art and architecture of travelling, often overlooked gems of bus and railway stations, travel posters, tube stations, as well as leading artists and architects in the sphere of travel.

George Cruikshank is best known for his brilliant drawings for Charles Dickens Oliver Twist, but this does disservice to his prodigious skills and work output. He moved effortlessly from biting satirical prints in the Georgian era to engravings for Victorian books and journals, considered to be the greatest illustrator of the C19.

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

This is a Special Interest Day (SID) lecture.

Full details under Special Interest on the menu bar above.

Carl Larsson 1853-1919, Sweden’s best known artist, and his wife Karin, blended traditional, native design with the then unfashionable C18 Gustavian style and the newly emerging Arts & Crafts influences. Today it enjoys a new lease of life in the IKEA age.

Artists have always used jokes to make serious statements about themselves, the world and the nature of art. This lecture looks at jokes through the ages, from medieval monks to Banksy. “Artists” jokes tell you a lot once you know.

The opera-lovers Ida and Louise Cook were destined never to marry after World War One, but using their familiarity with Austria were able to undertake dangerous undercover missions in the 1930s to rescue Jewish musicians and others from the Nazis.

This talk will explore opera in the 1920s and 1930s, the cliches, music, celebrities and the signed photographs coveted by fans. It will also show how opera transformed the lives of not just these two sisters, but of at least 29 families they saved.

In 2010 the government posthumously made them British heroes of the Holocaust.

The presentation will be an introduction to the different materials used for jewelry and ornamentation, their uses and origins, with a mention of the current trade bans and, importantly, how to identify some fakes.

In the two decades before the Great War, a group of chirdren were born who arguably became the greatest generation of actors the UK has ever seen.

Using paintings by artists such as Sickert and photographic images from the cameras of Beaton and Snowden, amongst others, we will trace their careers and their influences on the major actors of today: Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen and Simon Russell Beale.

Julia Margaret Cameron, a society hostess, took up photography at the age of 48, working in an old coal shed and a hen house at her house on the Isle of Wight, and was attended by Lord Tennyson, Anthony Trollope and Lewis Carroll, who became her subjects. The house is now a museum with exhibitions of her work.

This presentation sets her talents in the context of the portraits and lives of her subjects and her own life, and seeks to evaluate her important contribution to and place in the history of photography in her time.

Why do we wear jewellery? What lies behind it and what did it mean to the people who wore it? This thought-provoking lecture reveals how jewellery has been worn and used across time and place.

Everyone decorates the body, but there are different notions of how to do so and which parts to decorate. It may be as vital protection from evil spirits to a powerful vehicle of communication, indicating the wearer's pre-occupations, their religious or ethnic groups, perhaps a keepsake of a loved one or memorial to the dead.

It can be a work of art in its own right, harnessing all the skills of the goldsmith, gem setter or enameller.

“Antiques, I don't understand them and they're beyond my budget. They're not for me.”

A persuasive introduction to buying antiques and integrating and using them in today's homes.

The state of the antique market and the different meanings of the word value are considered and we take a look at what current and future generations of collectors are buying, why they are buying it and how they are displaying it.

Even in ancient Rome people made complaints about the mid-winter Saturnalia, remarkably like the ones we hear today about commercialised Christmas.

Wonderful and gloriously awful Christmas imagery, from Giotto's painting of the first Christmas crib to Dickens meets Coca-Cola, which sometimes seem to have turned Christmas into Kitschmas.

David has visited us once before - June 2006 - and gave us Fine Art Forgery: Craftmanship or Conjuring Trick?

On October 16th 1834, a huge ball of fire exploded through the roof of the Houses of Parliament, creating a blaze that could be seen by the King and Queen at Windsor, and stagecoaches on top of the South Downs.

Based on the book of the same name, this talk will take the audience through the hour by hour story with contemporary depictions by Turner, William Heath and others.

In 2003 a project was set up to catalogue the UK's national collection of oil paintings. It involved visiting over 3,000 collection locations across the UK and photographing 212,000 paintings. this lecture offers an inside view of this ambitious and unique project. Paintings are freely available to view on the Art UK website. (www.artuk.org)

Click the 'Special Interest' button above to see the details of this full day of presentations.

This day must be booked in advance; only a limited number of tickets is available.

Lancelot Brown rose to become the most famous landscape designer in England, working on over 200 sites such as Stowe, Blenheim, Bowood, Luton Hoo and Croome Court. His style gently echoed the Italian artists of the previous century. The talk will consider the life and work of Brown and examine the accolades and charges laid at his feet: genius or vandal, artist or copyist?

Dr Twigs Way presented Lost Gardens on Channel 4 and has appeared on Gardeners' World.

Looking at this versatile and talented Norwich-born British artist (1910 - 1974) who took inspiration from John Sell Cotman, John Constable and Alfred Munnings to extend East Anglian art, working in oil and watercolour to produce works including landscapes and seascapes.  After working as a camouflage officer in World War II he was invited to paint scenes from the Italian campaign and in 1953 he was appointed an official Coronation artist.

Dr Capwell, curator of the Wallace Collections arms and armoury, will mark the six hundreth anniversary of Agincourt including a feature on a local figure who fought upon St. Crispin's day.

Film and Lecture on Frida Kahlo at The Cut - 
8 New Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk IP19 8BY 

19/06/2015 Friday

2.15 - Lecture by Chloë Sayer - 'Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: The Golden Age of Mexican Painting'

3.15 to 3.45 - Interval 3.45 - Showing of the film 'Frida' - Cert 15 - 123 minutes.

This event is a second showing of the popular lecture and film shown last year. 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’. Chloë Sayer is a freelance specialist and outstanding lecturer on Latin-American art and culture. She has published articles about Frida Kahlo and other Mexican artists in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Art & Design Magazine etc

Tickets: £9.50

Bookings direct at:  boxoffice@newcut.org

or phone 0843 673 2123 (Tues – Sat 11am – 2pm)

Introducing us to the architectural writings and opinions of John Betjeman, a man who made the unpopular fashionable and who was a pioneer in the subject of the sociological impact of buildings.

John Vigar was personally encouraged early in his career by John Betjeman and is a Trustee of a national charity of which Betjeman was a founder.

To mark our 25th year we are staging a very special Jubilee lecture in Diss Corn Hall on 9th. June 2015.

We have secured LARS THARP to present:

"the Importance of living up to ... one's teapot"

A well known ceramics expert and familiar television broadcaster, Lars should prove very popular and appropriate for our special celebrations.

Please look out for details of ticket availability in the pre-announcements at lectures and in your members' post.

...or download announcement of this and other Jubilee events from documents on "about us" page

In an age of discovery where science and industry went hand-in-hand, the Lunar Society was a unique group, synonymous with investigation and discovery.

Joseph Wright of Derby is featured together with Joshua Reynolds, James Watt, Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood and others.

Ben Street, who was to talk to us on Jackson Pollock, is not now available for our March Lecture.  Your programmes secretary, Catherine Ward, usually thinks 24 months ahead and this short notice change caused a deal of quick thinking.

However, we are very pleased to announce that we have secured LINDA SMITH, a renowned expert  art historian, to provide a March lecture that still has at its core the post-modernism.  Linda Smith has a particular knowledge of British art and the art of the 20th Century. Her MA is from Birkbeck, specialised in Postmodernism and she is an  experienced Lecturer/Gallery Guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern, where she has worked for the past 11 years.

From the Sublime to the Political

World War Two caused huge upheavals in all parts of the world, and in all parts of society, including art. Many avant-garde artists had been forced to flee Europe and some very significant pioneers of modern ideas found themselves in the United States. As a result of this, and the shattering effects of the war in Europe, the global centre of gravity for modern art soon shifted to New York. Linda will be looking at the emergence of American Abstract Expressionism as the dominant style of the period and the role it came to play in the Cold War. 

The art thief is no aristocrat or suave and sophisticated gentleman. Stealing fine art and antiques afford criminals a high value commodity, often poorly protected, and difficult to identify.

Utilising fascinating actual case studies, the lecture examines the trail and repatriation of stolen art.

Eadfrith is thought to have made the Gospels single-handedly in c.700. But why were these Gospels made. A sacred text and a thing of beauty, it was made for distinctly political reasons closely connected to the fall-out from the Synod of Whitby and the struggle for survival by the community at Lindisfarne.

This lecture considers the extraordinary artistic ability of Eadfrith and also discusses why the Lindisfarne Gospels were made. Imogen's presentation will include a discussion of the gloss added by Aldred (‘most miserable and unworthy priest’) nearly 300 years later and, of course, shows many illustrations from this remarkable book.

The type of combination we enjoy - A leading expert with a local subject slant.

East Anglia has a heritage of flint buildings that goes back at least to the Roman occupation. In many ways an absurd material with which to build; if we did not have so many flint buildings that have stood for hundreds of years we would be told that they cannot be built using flint. This comprehensive presentation will include examples of how flint has been used in buildings in East Anglia and specifically around Diss

This is the new date for the lecture originally scheduled for April but moved as the Hall at Royden will not be available.

Giuseppe Garibaldi was a leadingfigure in the drive to unify Italy duringthe 19th century. He was an heroic figure who attracted fanatical devotion. This fascination prompted a fashion for everything from Staffordshire figurines to biscuits and blouses.