The lecture is about the hidden treasures of the Cities of Castile. Each of these cities has its own individual personality, and art treasures. Toledo has its Visigothic and Moorish background. Avila, active in the campaign for Christian re-conquest, has its fortified walls and was the birthplace of the 16th century reformer St Teresa. Salamanca has its university and great ‘plaza’. 

Biography of Gail Turner

Gail is a historian, art historian, and painter. She is passionate about Spain and Spanish topics. She has been a long-time lecturer for The Arts Society, and before Covid she taught on courses at the V&A, and for Art Pursuits, the National Gallery and the Art Fund. She has lectured on Cambridge University Summer Schools, the Courtauld Institute Summer Courses, Inscape, and for many arts organisations in Europe. In the past she led tours to Spain for The Arts Society and Martin Randall Travel. Gail lectured in the Prado and Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid in the 1980s, and was Deputy Curator of Keats Shelley Memorial House, Rome, before that. She was also once a Christie’s consultant in Illuminated Manuscripts. In 2015 Gail was awarded the Encomienda de Isabel la Católica (the equivalent of the CBE) by the King of Spain for promoting Spanish culture among British audiences. She is President of The Arts Society Colchester.

Photo of the Puente de San Martin, Toledo by Volodymyr Vlasenko, creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0

Timothy Schroder's family were prosperous bankers and passionate collectors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection they formed remains together and is exceptionally important. In addition to fine early domestic plate, primarily from England and Germany, it is mostly known for wonderfully virtuoso princely objects incorporating rare and exotic materials. This lecture came about through an exhibition at the Wallace Collection in 2007; it focuses in equal measure on the objects themselves as on the two generations of collectors who built the collection up over five or six decades between about 1880 and 1930. This lecture is particularly timely as the collection is due to be placed on long-term loan in a specially designed gallery in the Holburne Museum in Bath from the summer of 2025.

This lecture will be of particular interest to members intending to go on the TASMH visit to the Holburne Museum for a Tour of the Schroder Collection on 9th June 2026.

Biography of Timothy Schroder:

Historian of gold and silver. Curator of Decorative Arts, Los Angeles County Museum of Arts 1984-89. Director, Partridge Fine Arts 1991-7. Keeper, Gilbert Collection 1997-2000. Consultant Curator, V&A 2000-2010. Prime Warden, Goldsmiths’ Company,  2015-16 and 2019-20. Fellow, Society of Antiquaries 1994. DLitt (Oxford) 2013. Trustee, Wallace Collection  2013-2023. Trustee, City and Guilds Art School from 2020. Member, Westminster Abbey Fabric Commission  2018-2023. Publications include: English Domestic Silver (1988); Renaissance Silver from the Schroder Collection (2007); Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum (2009); ‘A Marvel to Behold’, Gold and Silver at the Court of Henry VIII (2020); and numerous articles.

Image: Silver-gilt and enamel salt cellar, Christoph Ritter, Nuremberg, 1550. Picture provided by Tim Schroder.

Simply the word "Faberge'" conjures up images of jewelled art linked to Russian Royalty.  This talk explores the relationship between a ruler and a jeweller - The rulers- Romanov Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II, and the jeweller- Carl Faberge'.  The Imperial Faberge' Eggs were delivered every Good Friday to the WInter Palace, for Russia's Tsars to give as Easter presents to their Tsarina's.  The talented House of Faberge' became the sought after jeweller to the "Glitterati" of the time.  Come explore the crafting of several Imperial Easter Eggs, and learn of the hunt for the missing Faberge' Eggs.

Biography of Laurie Wickwire:

With over 35 years in the diamond industry, diamond expert Laurie Wickwire represents the industry across all sectors: mining, sorting, grading and  brokering some of the world’s key rough stones.  A leader in the industry, Laurie is the On-Air Diamond Expert for the international television shopping channel QVC where her opinion is regularly sought by over a million viewers each week.  Whether presenting diamond shows on national channels the BBC, ITV and QVC, hosting diamond master classes, filming jubilee specials, or creating the historical jewellery range for both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle gift shops, Laurie’s love of the diamond industry is apparent.  A graduate of GIA London, IGI Antwerp, and DeBeers Institute of Diamonds, Laurie is both a certified diamond grader and certified pearl grader. Additionally, she holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in International Business & Finance, and a Bachelor of Arts in French.  Laurie’s industry knowledge has seen her interviewing celebrities at the Cannes Film Festival, publishing articles on Ocean Mining or the British Coronation, guest on numerous internationally streamed podcasts, enrichment lecturer on luxury cruise lines and creating bespoke commissions for the Royal Family. 

Image: Imperial Coronation Egg, Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This lecture introduces some of Japan’s most famous gardens and provides a context for understanding the principles of Japanese garden design as it has evolved through the ages. The Japanese love of nature and the changing seasons has manifested itself in the subject matter of paintings and in the intimate and grand-scale gardens surrounding aristocratic palaces and Buddhist temples as well as Zen-inspired dry landscape gardens with their strikingly symbolic content. Nature and artifice are intriguingly combined in such examples to capture the very essence of the landscape. Historical developments and religious and philosophical influences have informed the Japanese approach to the visual arts. This lecture will also draw upon wider examples to illustrate the distinctive qualities that the Japanese have brought to garden design, an approach that has been successfully adapted to modern domestic settings and to Japanese gardens abroad. 

Biography of Marie Conte-Helm:

Professor Marie Conte-Helm is a long-established Arts Society Lecturer with a BA in History of Art and an MA in Asian Art and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011 and has held senior academic posts at various UK universities. She has most recently served as Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, and as a member of the Board of Governors of the University for the Creative Arts. She is widely published and has lectured throughout the UK and abroad. She is also an experienced cruise speaker and a Resident Historian with Viking Ocean Cruises, lecturing on many aspects of Asian Art and East-West Encounters. She was awarded an OBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to UK-Japan educational and cultural relations and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette by the Government of Japan in 2019.

Image: Kyoto's Golden Pavilion, picture provided by Marie Conte-Helm.

From the early sixties, when he left the Royal College of Art more famous than his teachers, Hockney's paintings have shown a charm and humour that sets them apart from others of his generation. A naturally gifted draftsman, his love of ingenious visual devices has led him to experiment with a whole range of techniques, from stage design to coloured paper making. From the early abstract expressionist images, through his famous Californian scenes of swimming pools to the photo-montages of the mid eighties, this lecture follows the career of an artist whose wit and imagination has never faltered. 

Biography of Douglas Skeggs:

Douglas read Fine Art at Magdalene College Cambridge and has been a lecturer on paintings since 1980. In that time he has given over 8000 lectures to universities, colleges and art societies. He was the director of  The New Academy of Art Studies for three years and is presently a regular lecturer at The Study Center, Christie's course 'The History of Art Studies' and other London courses. Among his more improbable venues for lectures are the bar on the QE2, MI5 headquarters, the Captain's Room at Lloyds, and an aircraft hanger in a German NATO base. Overseas he has lectured in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain, and has taken numerous tours around Europe. He has written and presented various TV documentaries, notably the Omnibus programme on Whistler and the exhibition video on William Morris. Three one-man exhibitions of his paintings have been held in England and Switzerland. He has published five novels, which have been translated into 8 foreign languages, and his book on Monet, River of Light, has sold 30,000 copies in England, America and France.

Image: David Hockney Gallery, Cartwright Hall, Bradford by Paul Harrop, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mahler (1860–1911) is a composer famous for short songs and long symphonies. This talk introduces both these sides of his music, but also puts them in the context of a fascinating life of great passions, family tragedy, and monumental arguments with the musical establishment. It follows Mahler across Europe to the fin-de-siècle Vienna of his greatest fame, and on to America in his last years. It introduces some of the people closest to him: his family, including the siblings he took care of, his love affairs, and his marriage to “the most beautiful girl in Vienna”. Mahler had connections with Richard Strauss, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud, and many others who made this such a fascinating period of cultural history.

Biography of Robert Samuels:

Robert Samuels is a Senior Lecturer in Music at The Open University. He has written and taught on the music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Schoenberg, Weill, Shostakovich, Britten, Cage, Boulez and Birtwistle amongst others. His book Mahler’s Sixth Symphony: A study in musical semiotics was published by Cambridge University Press in 1995. He is currently writing a study of the symphony and the novel in the nineteenth century. Robert worked on the award-winning BBC4 TV series Symphony in 2012, has spoken on BBC Radio 3, has organised and spoken at study events for the Oxford Lieder Festival, and gives talks for The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Image: Caricature drawings satirising the conducting style of Gustav Mahler when he was director of the Vienna State Opera, 1897-1907. By Hans Schliessmann, public domain from Wikimedia Commons.

Price £44, which includes a meal to be served during the course of the evening.

Start time: 6pm at Colwall Village Hall

A welcome drink and the first part of the meal will be served before the lecture; coffee/tea and mince pies will follow afterwards.

The Christmas that we now celebrate is largely based on the one that the Victorians invented but there are many traditions that we take for granted that have their origins in much earlier times…Who invented mince pies, Christmas pudding and cake? Where did cross dressing, and slapstick from theatrical performances become part of the Christmas tradition? Who invented and designed the first Christmas card and what themes were popular in this artistic industry? All will be revealed in this light-hearted and informative talk.

Biography of Jane Tapley:

Currently Special Events Organiser, Theatre Royal Bath. Interviews visiting actors, writers, directors. Lectures regularly to theatre going societies, NT and history and fine arts groups. West Country Tourist Board Registered Blue Badge Guide and Lecturer. Author and researcher of theatre programme notes on Hamlet, Sheridan's The Rivals and Jane Austen's Emma. Theatrical landlady! Home Economist. Consultant to various TV productions of Jane Austen adaptations on food in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hosts and cooks period meals in her Regency house in Bath for the Jane Austen Festival and other literary groups.

Image: Michal Osmenda from Brussels, Belgium, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Shakespeare’s plays have had a chequered and lively history from the re-opening of theatres in 1660 until the present day. Throughout that history they have often been re-written to accommodate contemporary tastes. The plays were sometimes star vehicles for great actors or a means of creating spectacle onstage. In the 20th century Shakespeare’s plays returned to more authentic texts particularly at The Old Vic, although we are not without the odd controversial production today.

Biography of Malcolm Jones:

Malcolm has lectured on the Victoria & Albert Museum Short Course and Year Course Programmes since 2009, devising and developing a range of courses on Theatre History and Practice.  Malcolm was Workshop and Events manager at the V&A Theatre Museum in Covent Garden for 10 years where he was responsible for lectures, Study Days and workshops for adults and interviewed many leading British actors and directors including Kenneth Cranham, Zoe Wanamaker, Barry Cryer, June Whitfield and Don Black. He has lectured and led workshops in the past at many drama schools including RADA, The Actors Centre and Rose Bruford College. He has also lectured on theatre for groups visiting the UK from America.   He has chaired panels and post show talks for Ambassadors Theatre Group. While at the V&A Malcolm contributed as a speaker on theatre to many television and radio programmes. He also works with Age Exchange Community Arts since 2000 on many creative arts programmes with older people and intergenerational film and theatre projects.

Image: Sarah Siddons and John Phillip Kemble in Macbeth, painted by Thomas Beach in 1786. Public domain, provided by speaker.

...SIMON WILLIAMS?' is a question often asked. Others include: ‘Why are you so tall?’, ‘How do you learn your lines?’, ‘Is it real food you eat?’, ‘What’s it like doing bed scenes?', ‘Aren’t you all bisexuals?’ etc.. My favourite is ‘Are you still you?’ I hope I am. In this talk I’ll try to answer some of these profound questions; plus the difficulties of pretending to be other people for a living, and how to keep your feet on the ground in the world of make-believe. As John Updike says: "Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face." As a child I told my father, "When I grow up I want to be an actor." He shook his head and said, "You’ll have to choose, son. You can’t do both." But somehow I think I have. 

Biography of Simon Williams:

Theatre: Chariots of Fire (Hampstead/West End); Yes, Prime Minister (West End/UK tour); The Deep Blue Sea, The Constant Wife, The Winslow Boy (West End); Allelujah! (The Bridge); Versailles (Donmar); Posting Letters to the Moon (The Minerva & New York); The Power of Yes (National Theatre); Hay Fever (Chichester); The Old Country (Trafalgar Studios). Television includes: Upstairs Downstairs, Sherlock Holmes, The Bletchley Circle, Midsomer Murders, Spooks, Dinner Ladies, Dr Who, Merlin, and Poldark.  Film includes: Goodbye Christopher Robin, Viceroy’s House, Silent Hours, The Fever, The Opium War, The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu, The Prisoner of Zenda, No Longer Alone, The Odd Job, Jabberwocky. He is a writer and columnist and plays Justin Elliott in The Archers.

The picture is of the speaker, and was provided by the speaker.

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

Biography of Simon Whitehouse:

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.

Photo: Napoleon Sarony, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lecture to be preceded by AGM at 19.30

Now a romantic ruin, Odiham Castle was once the residence of Simon de Montfort and his wife Eleanor, sister of Henry III. This lecture draws upon written and archaeological evidence to reconstruct the castle and home life of the couple, which ends with de Montfort's death at the Battle of Evesham in 1265.

Biography:

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

Caravaggio, "the bad boy of the Baroque", remains one of the most compelling painters in art history. His works have an intensity that few other artists from his time could manage – they are dark, violent, and detailed to the point almost of photorealism. What was it about his background that led him to such originality? Working mainly for ecclesiastical patrons, Caravaggio’s art was shaped by religious ideas of the time such as the beliefs of the various Catholic orders like the Jesuits and Oratorians. But it was also influenced by the wider historical context.

Biography:

Secret symbols, Nazi-fighting, cultural love affairs, the ‘nude’, snowmen, and artistic espionage are among the diverse interests of art historian Matthew Wilson. Matthew studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and is an author, lecturer, and educator. As a freelance journalist he writes for numerous publications including BBC Culture, The Spectator, The Economist and Aesthetica Magazine. He has written two books on symbolism – ‘Symbols in Art’ (Thames & Hudson, 2020) and ‘The Hidden Language of Symbols’ (Thames & Hudson 2022) and his latest book is 'Art Unpacked' - a fully illustrated introduction to understanding art (Thames & Hudson 2023).

Calcutta was the second city of the British Empire and a hub of cultural and artistic production throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This lecture provides an overview of the arts (poetry, theatre, literature, song) and architecture of this extraordinary city, which was India’s capital until 1911. At the epicentre of the ‘Bengal renaissance’, Calcutta played a central role in shaping the arts and culture of modern India, as a huge variety of artists sought to interpret India’s classical heritage in new ways, and to combine this heritage with Western cultural forms.

Biography:

Dr John Stevens gained his PhD in History from UCL, before going on to teach British Imperial History, Indian History and Bengali Language at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London). His biography of the Indian guru Keshab Chandra Sen – Keshab: Bengal’s Forgotten Prophet - was published by Hurst and Oxford University Press in 2018. He is a regular visitor to India and Bangladesh and has lectured at numerous Indian universities. He also works as a consultant on Indian affairs and teaches the Bengali language to private students. He has appeared many times in the Indian media, and was a guest on BBC Radio Four’s In Our Time, discussing the poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore. 

*** Please note that the date of this lecture has changed from 19th February due to a clash of dates with a Colwall Players peformance at the Village Hall ***

The belief in ghosts, only half-discussed by people today, is as old as homo sapiens, if not older.  With the help of archaeology, ancient manuals and spells this talk will consider the very earliest evidence for the belief that the human spirit transcends death, and investigate ancient ideas and practices that have a curious echo in modern belief and activities.

Biography:

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

Patrick’s career with The Tallis Scholars and The Cardinall’s Musick has been dominated by the music of Tallis and Byrd. Cantiones Sacrae, the first ever volume of English printed music, contains some of their most glorious works. Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth it offers a glimpse into the turbulent political times that both composers lived through. Patrick received a beautiful new scholarly edition of this volume of 32 motets as his leaving present after completing 1000 concerts singing with the Tallis Scholars in 2016. He will explore the lives of the two men who created it and play many of its treasures.

Lecturer's Biography 

Patrick Craig is a Vicar Choral at St Paul’s Cathedral. For twenty years he combined this with an international career singing over a thousand concerts with the world-renowned early music consort The Tallis Scholars. He also sings with the award-winning group The Cardinall’s Musick. He founded and conducts this country’s leading all-female professional choir, Aurora Nova. He has conducted concerts for the BBC Proms, the Brighton, Lichfield and Aldeburgh Festivals, and with the City of London Sinfonia. As a Cambridge history graduate with a lifelong interest in the arts, he has gone on to lead choral workshops for amateur singers across the world, where he places music in its historical and cultural context. He regularly lectures for the St Paul’s Adult Education programme and for John Hall’s Venice Courses, which have allowed him to incorporate his interests in theology, art and poetry.  In 2020, when his singing and conducting work disappeared overnight as a result of the Covid pandemic, Patrick poured all his experience into online presentations which have raised vital funds for the Help Musicians Charity.

Price £40, which includes a meal to be served during the course of the evening.

Start time: 6pm at Colwall Village Hall

A welcome drink and the first part of the meal will be served before the lecture; coffee and a dessert will follow afterwards.

The lecture will be about the artist, illustrator and cartoonist E H Shepard (1879-1976)

E H Shepard loved Christmas, and this lecture describes, including his own words much of the magic and joy of successive festive seasons, from those of his own childhood to others throughout his long life. We see a range of artistic styles from full colour images to pen-and-ink personal Christmas cards, with cartoons, drawings and watercolours, some featuring the iconic images from the Wind in the Willows (the snow in the Wild Wood…) and Winnie-the-Pooh (Pooh and Piglet from The House at Pooh Corner). Many of the images have not been published for over fifty years.

Biography:
James Campbell (pictured here) has a BA in History and an MA in the History of Art and a particular interest in the work of the artist, illustrator and cartoonist E H Shepard (1879-1976). He has been lecturing for over twenty years, and has lectured across the UK and overseas to Literary Festivals, Art Societies, military museums, and to private clubs and community groups. He has been a Trustee of the E H Shepard Estate since 2010, as was involved in the ground-breaking Victoria and Albert Museum 2017 Exhibition marking the 90th birthday of Winnie-the-Pooh.  His books Shepard’s War and The Art of Winnie-the-Pooh were published in 2015 and 2017 respectively. His new joint biography of A A Milne and E H Shepard - The Men Who Created Winne-the-Pooh: The Lives of A A Milne and E H Shepard - commissioned for the centenary of the Winnie-the-Pooh books will be published in September 2024 by Michael O'Mara Books.  James Campbell actively supports Societies wishing to use his lectures to attract visitors and potential new members  - with increasing success!

As London's population doubled in the early C19th, so did the number of deaths and bodies requiring burial. Church graveyards were oversubscribed, leading to health issues, bodysnatching and scandals. One solution came in the development of garden cemeteries outside the city limits, which became places of landscaped beauty. This lecture reveals the legacy of such changes

In Greek legend, Pandora caused trouble to men whenever her box was opened. This lecture covers the original sources of the story and draws parallels with Eve in Genesis and Galatea in Ovid. It shows how ballets, operas and plays, from Coppelia to My Fair Lady and Educating Rita, have developed the theme of a creation that runs out of control.

The story of Banksy's rise from humble beginnings as a tagger on the streets of Bristol to one of the most recognisable names in the art world. The lecture examines the reasons behind his incredible rise, some of his famous stunts, his influence on the art market today, and his possible legacy.

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-54) and used a brush and oils to paint her own reality. She painted life exactly as she had experienced it.  Frida’s personal life was tumultuous. Horrifically injured in an accident as she was always dogged by physical pain and suffering. She married, divorced, and remarried the painter Diego Rivera. This explores Frida’s life through her most iconic paintings, paintings examined in this lecture are graphic and unflinching including murder, suicide, marital infidelity, miscarriage, revolution, living with a disability and death. Recognised as one of the greatest female artists of the 20th century, Frida is acknowledged as being the first female artist to express experiences about being a woman not been seen before in Western art. She is known for her originality, bold use of colour, passion, courage and as someone who created life and beauty in the face of great personal suffering and adversity.

Fiona Rose has been lecturing on subjects including William Morris and his circle, the Arts & Crafts Movement, Frida Kahlo and Frank Lloyd Wright. Fiona founded and runs a home interiors business. She is a member of The William Morris Society, and she is a volunteer Tour Guide with the Arts & Crafts gem The David Parr House.

A live demonstration of a variety of very old woodwind instruments and the History of these. So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

Sophie is a musician well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes. She plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife, crumhorm and recorder. She’s also one of a handful of British players of the baroque musette, an 18th century French bagpipe similar to the Northumbrian small pipes. Sophie also makes instruments and is self-taught on all her instruments.

For nearly 200 years, members of the elite travelled the great sites of Europe on ‘The Grand Tour’.  What ancient sites did they visit? We take a Tour of the distinctive civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean, Egypt, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Archaic and Classical Greece, Etruscans, Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and Romans.

Gillian Hovell studied for a BA (Hons) in Latin and Ancient History and then progressed into archaeology. Ex-BBC, lecturer for British Museum and York University, Teaches adult education courses in Latin, archaeology and ancient history and lectures widely.

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

Christopher de Hamel, FSA, is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He has doctorates from both Oxford and Cambridge. He was a director of Sotheby’s for 25 years, responsible for illuminated manuscripts, and then librarian of the Parker Library in Cambridge for 17 years. His very many books on medieval manuscripts include the best-selling Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, he is known as a lecturer across six continents.

The remarkable untold story of Carry On actor Peter Butterworth, and his wife, Britain’s first female television impressionist Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher. Using classic film and television 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, and This Is Your Life.

Tyler grew up in a theatrical family and spent twenty-five years as an actor in film, television, theatre and radio. He then worked as a development producer in television documentaries and now works as a voice actor, recording audiobooks, documentaries, and walking audio guides to cities across Europe.

Price £35, including dinner

This additional item in our calendar of lectures for the year will explain the stories behind the names and places on the oh-so-familiar Monopoly Board. How were the properties selected?  What’s the relationship between each coloured set – and which ones don’t actually exist?

Roger Mendham is a regular Arts Society Speaker and will provide us with an enjoyable and relaxing evening.  
We will be using Colwall Village Hall, where Anna Paisley will also be providing a meal to be served during the course of the evening.  This is included in the price of £35pp.

Start time: 6pm 

A welcome drink and the first part of the meal will be served before the lecture; coffee and a dessert will follow afterwards.

Between the wars something extraordinary happened to the British seaside: it became glamourous, exciting... modern. Enticed by eye-catching railway posters, holidaymakers grabbed their new cameras and slinky new bathing suits and headed for the coast. Meanwhile artists galore found inspiration on the beach. With eye-catching artworks, glorious posters and startling archive photos, this exuberant, colourful lecture explores a remarkable period in 20th century British culture. 

James Russell, who studied History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, enjoyed selling contemporary paintings and sculpture in Santa Fe. He began writing and lecturing on 20th century art. Of his dozen books, one was a Sunday Times book of the year. James has curated major exhibitions at Dulwich Picture Gallery and for museums around the country.

This lecture looks at western bookbinding, in the age of the printed book. As structure and decoration changed as the centuries passed, the individual binders’ fingers tell their own tale as the craft developed. Book bindings also provide an insight into the owner’s wealth, as books were bought unbound and bindings were generally chosen by the first owner until the 19th cent.

Caroline Bendix is the National Trust’s Advisor on Libraries Conservation. A library conservator, who has worked on over 500 collections in the UK and abroad, including St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, she has written three of the British Library’s guides on preservation and is on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s advisory panel for Lambeth Palace Library.

The Oxford Botanic Garden was founded at the start of the 17th century. Through the next 400 years successive head gardeners changed the features reflecting the art of gardening, and very occasionally the science of botany. The Oxford Botanic Garden now reflects garden design at the beginning of the 21st century.  The title of the talk refers to the fact that one of the motivations for garden design remains the desire to create paradise on Earth. 

From 1988 to 2014 Timothy Walker was Director of the University of Oxford Botanical Garden Botanic gardens often described as living museums, and Gardens are often thought of as a place where science and art meet on equal terms and my lectures often investigate this relationship. 

Please note that prior to this presentation, The Arts Society Malvern Hills will hold its AGM, starting at 7.30pm

A ‘cracking’ talk - it will fundamentally change your view of William Hogarth. Pots, crocks and chinaware tumble through Hogarth’s domestic dramas.  His detailed paintings and prints are wittily infiltrated with recognizable ceramics  - earthenwares, stonewares and ‘china’-  in an age drunk on luxury.  Potters across continents competed with each other, fuelled by the ‘china mania’ gripping the emerging middle classes.  And Hogarth catches them. And in an ironic twist: Hogarth’s own images are themselves translated onto clay. We never look at Hogarth in the same way again.

Painted between 1430 and 1432, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb was stolen thirteen times over the next seven centuries, and finally by Adolf Hitler for his planned museum in his home town of Linz.

From Holbein to the arrival of photography, the English have always kept a special place in their affections for the miniature.  No other country has supported such an unbroken succession of miniatures and flourishing development for so long.   More closely bound up with people’s lives than any other art form, these portraits provide, in Sir Roy Strong’s happy image, a ‘keyhole’ into the lives of Tudors, Stuarts, Georgians and Victorians.

Our lecturer aims to provide a tour through three centuries of wonderful portraiture and the changing ages they represent: a tapestry of English history seen through the eyes of its miniaturists.

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At the start of the 20th century Arthur Evans unearthed an entire civilisation on the island of Crete. Its impressive public buildings, advanced social and political institutions, centred on the vast complex which he dubbed the 'Palace of Minos', showed that European civilisation was as ancient and sophisticated as that of Egypt.

Illustrated with both slides and video, this talk will examine the culture of the Minoans, including their fabulous frescoes, painted pottery, architecture, social structures and writing, and conclude by assessing the theories relating to their demise – notably the cataclysmic Late Bronze Age volcanic eruption of Santorini. 

Following a colourful timeline (which every audience member receives) our speaker will take us on a complete journey through European architectural development.

The story begins in ancient Greece and subsequently develops through the Roman and Byzantine periods. Medieval Europe and then goes through Romanesque and Gothic styles, before the Renaissance revives classicism. But as industrialism takes hold, medieval styles are revived again;  our speaker will identify some of the principal influencers.

The Soviet Avant Garde movement contained some of the greatest names of its generation. Malevich, Chagall, Kandinsky, Exter, Popova, Rozanova, and Rodchenko blazed a trail through Art History for an all-too brief period. With their creativity stunted by the advent of Socialist Realism in 1932, their work disappeared – only to re-emerge in the early 1970s when Greek collector, George Costakis began to buy up swathes of paintings of the period. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a flood of newly-discovered works appeared on the Western and domestic markets of which the vast majority had neither verifiable provenance nor exhibition history, their authenticity supported only by documents from now discredited Russian and Western art historians and erroneous certificates of chemical expertise.

This scandal reached a crescendo in January 2018 with an exhibition of 24 dubious works of the period at the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts in Belgium. James Butterwick examines the background behind the mass faking of the Soviet Avant Garde, the history of these dubious paintings, universally rejected by museums and the art market, as well as the methods used to ‘create’ authenticity.

This lecture brings us to Holland of the C17th with its variety of art including still life, portraits, scenes of everyday, landscapes, religious works. But there is a twist - normally when we look at art we use our sense of sight but our speakers asks us to use our sense of smell. Smell is a fascinating phenomenon. It works on your memory and your emotions - Andy Warhol said smell really is a time machine transporting us to the.

So this talk is about smells and depictions of smells; whether life in 17th century Holland be captured in smell, what is the significance of smell and what does it mean to us. Can our sense of smell bring us closer to 17th century Holland and help to enhance our experience of looking at art?

Using illustrations from carvings, wall paintings, pottery, mosaics, sculpture, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts and 18th and 19th century art, Sarah traces the history of one of the world's most ancient and beloved musical instruments.  From thousands of years BC to its arrival in northern Europe, as well as the huge developments and improvements during the Renaissance and 19th centuries, our speaker will bring to life this fascinating instrument. Performing on her own reproduction and antique harps, Sarah will demonstrate the development and evolving sound and repertoire of the harp throughout its history.

Spanish Still Life painting is ‘more sacramental than gastronomic’. The lecture will cover a cabbage painted with astonishing accuracy, Goya’s painting of a pile of 6 silvery fish and others painted by Velazquez, Zurburán, and Meléndez; we will explore a variety of key themes.

Dan Evans is a Housemaster at Cheltenham College has been lecturing for the Arts Society since 2001 and has spent 9 years working as a senior lecturer, tutor and tour guide for Art History Abroad. He was voted the British winner of the World Guide of the Year Awards in 2008 and alongside his lectures and special interest days he also leads educational study trips to a range of destinations in Italy.

Agatha Christie is undoubtedly the world’s greatest crime writer, her books sell over four million copies worldwide every year and there is a continual demand for new adaptations to be made of her work. She led a sheltered and privileged life in her native Torquay, a place not dissimilar to the locations (and characters) she invented. She was brought up in the comfort of upper middle class society but also had mystery in her life. The lecture will reveal more about this remarkable author, the creator of Poirot and Miss Marple; it will surprise and enlighten you about how she developed her talent for writing, especially as she never attended a proper school.

Jane Tapley is a Special Events Organiser at the Theatre Royal Bath. She is a published author and researcher of theatre programme notes on Hamlet, Sheridan's The Rivals and Jane Austen's Emma. Being a theatrical landlady  is also on her varied CV. As a home economist she has acted as consultant on various TV productions of Jane Austen.

The lecture may be held live in Colwall Village Hall; otherwise it will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills; if so the following link will become available a couple of days before the lecture: just click Agatha Christie about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. Members will be informed of arrangements by a separate email.

Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century was a cultural powerhouse. The novelists (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky...) and composers (Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky...) are well known. The painters are not. But the period saw a new realist school of art, the “Itinerants”, which broke violently with the earlier academicism and, in the run up to the revolutionary twentieth century, ruthlessly depicted and criticised Tsarist Russia with all its flaws. Tony Brenton takes a tour through itinerant art and its interactions with the vast, repressed and unruly Russia that it both loved and detested.

Sir Tony Brenton served for over thirty years with the British Foreign Service. He was in Washington through the Iraq War, and was British Ambassador to Russia through a particularly tense time in UK/Russia relations. On retirement from the Foreign Service he settled in Cambridge, where he is a Fellow of Wolfson College and a Senior Fellow at the International Studies Department. His book Historically Inevitable? on the Russian revolution was published in June 2016.

The lecture will be held live in Colwall Village Hall at 7.30pm - the first time members have been able to meet face-to-face for two years.

The Wallace Collection, a national museum containing an outstanding array of paintings, furniture, porcelain, arms and armour, and other works of art, was brought together by five generations of one family between about 1780 and 1880. All the Founders were remarkable – and sometimes rather strange - men in their own right, but the greatest collectors were the 4th Marquess of Hertford and his illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace, who lived most of their lives in Paris. It is their French upbringing which largely explains the strong, but by no means overwhelming, French emphasis to much of the Collection. This lecture tells the fascinating story of the Wallace Collection’s formation, and also presents many of its finest treasures. 

Formerly Senior Curator of the Wallace Collection, Stephen Duffy had particular responsibility for exhibitions and nineteenth-century paintings. He has given countless tours of the Collection for visiting groups and many lectures on its art and other related subjects.

This lecture may be broadcast online via Zoom for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills using the following link: click Wallace Collection about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. Members will be informed of arrangements by a separate email.

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

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills; the following link will become available a couple of days before the lecture: just click Carpet Ride about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. Members will be informed of arrangements by a separate email.

The story of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain speaks of the important trade between East and West along both the overland and maritime Silk Roads. The cobalt blue mineral, or ‘Mohammedan Blue’, that provided the distinctive under-glaze colour of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain owed its origins to China’s early trade with Persia. During the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese imperial kilns at Jingdezhen perfected the production of blue-and-white wares and. Oriental export porcelain has its own rich history, enhanced by tales of shipwrecks and lost cargoes, that hints of the fascination for these products from the East. This lecture will trace the history of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain and the trade in export porcelain. It will also recount tales of salvaging operations that have resulted in the recovery of sunken treasures from the East. The ‘Nanking Cargo’ and the ‘Hoi An Hoard’ are but two examples of early shipwrecks in Eastern waters, the recovery of which have enhanced our understanding of blue-and-white porcelain and its wider commercial impact. 

Professor Marie Conte-Helm is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011; most recently she served as Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group. She was awarded an OBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette by the Government of Japan in 2019.

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. To join this Webinar please just click  https://theartssociety-org.zoom.us/j/93832561065 about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. 

This month's talk will explore the ancient and luxurious art of stone inlay from Ancient Rome & Renaissance Europe to 16th century Mughal India. Pietre Dure is used to create objects and décor of intense colour and drama.

The luxurious and colourful Ancient Roman art of opus sectile, was re-discovered and revived in the Italian Renaissance at the Uffizi workshops of the Duke of Florence where the manufacture of such objects was enthusiastically sponsored by Medici princes. In ancient times the technique was used to decorate floors and walls of public buildings, temples and luxurious villas. From Italy the art spread across Europe and in the Mughal period in India the technique was used to decorate palaces and furnishings and ultimately the Taj Mahal.

The technique of pietre dure (the Italian for hardstones) includes "paintings in stone" - representing subjects such as landscapes, townscapes, flowers, birds, and decorative motifs - these were then made into magnificent table tops, cabinets, and wall decorations for princely and royal collections.

David Evans trained initially as a carpenter, but subsequently worked for the Open University and the Museum of Welsh Life. He is Property Manager for the National Trust Petworth and was previously Curator at Lyme Park. He lectures extensively for the National Trust and the Victorian Society.

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. To join this Webinar please just click Pictures on Stone about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. 

What was it that made Napoleon and Josephine one of the most 'followed' couples in history?  The Chateau de Malmaison Estate, their private retreat, was made into a musée national in 1905, amassing a huge collection of their possessions.  Paintings, personal objects, complete room layouts, and some magnificent pieces of porcelain are just some of the things on display. 

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

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. To join this Webinar please just click  Chateau de Malmaison no more than 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. 

https://theartssociety-org.zoom.us/j/92189492112

This lecture is intended as an introduction for groups planning to visit this Ayrshire house, designed by Robert Adam and built 1754-9 for the Earl of Dumfries. Remarkably, its original furniture survives, mostly bought from Thomas Chippendale in London; it is the best collection of his furniture still in situ in the house for which it was supplied. The house passed to the Bute family and after 1993 was empty. In 2007 the house and contents were to be sold. At the last moment it was saved with the help of the Prince of Wales, and opened to the public in 2008. 

Caroline Knight

Architectural historian, trained at the Courtauld and specialising in 16th to 18th century English and Scottish architecture. Lecturer at the V&A on year courses and short courses, and lecturer for the Art Fund, and for the Royal Oak Foundation in the US. Researched and wrote a history of Kensington Palace. Contributed to a book on the Cecil family, and has written several articles on architectural and social history and the history of travel. Wrote London's Country Houses (2009). Contributed a chapter to a history of the Royal Academy (Yale, forthcoming).

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. To join this Webinar please just click  Dumfries House about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.

It is easy to take colour for granted in our man-made world. But before organic chemistry the most desirable pigments were often rare, exotic or poisonous.

Merchants supplied cochineal ‘grana’ from the holds of Spanish galleons, pungent golden nuggets from India and lapis rock carried by camel train from the mountains of Badakhshan.

Alchemists prepared deadly King’s Yellow, mysterious Vitriol of Venus and Moorish Gold concocted from basilisk powder and human blood.

Small wonder artists kept their paint recipes closely guarded in Books of Secrets.

This lecture tells the stories of alchemy and adventure behind some our most beautiful and colourful paintings.

Lynne Gibson

Now working as a freelance lecturer in the History of Art, Lynne originally trained as a fine artist and has taught painting, drawing and printmaking in higher and adult education. She lectured as an art historian for the universities of Sussex and Bristol where she introduced 'Understanding Art' to the Lifelong Learning programme and residential summer schools. Gives talks, lectures and guided tours to a wide range of organisations and institutions including ARCA colleges, the National Trust, National Gallery, art museums and art societies. She has worked as a professional artist specializing in oil painting and etching. Solo and group shows have included the RWA, British Museum and the Barbican.

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. To join this Webinar please just click Alchemy and Adventure about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.

Wine has been part of our global society for over 7,000 years, and the story tells of its origin and appearance in all societies across the Mediterranean and through Europe. There is rich evidence of the role wine has played in these societies and how it became an important component of faith, well-being and festivity. From the kwevris of Georgia in 5,000 B.C., the symposia in ancient Greece, the thermopolia of Pompeii, the hospices of Europe, to the dining tables of fine society wine has been ever present. Drawings, paintings, engravings, buildings, pottery and wine labels themselves all contribute to the story.

DAVID WRIGHT

David Wright has been a wine retailer, importer and distributor for 30 years. In that time, he has presented tastings and talks on wine to trade and private audiences alike. His talk, A Brief Story of Wine, titillates our taste buds by drawing on rich evidence, going back 7,000 years, in the form of paintings, decorated drinking vessels, buildings and literature that contribute to the story. 

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. To join this Webinar please just click  A Story of Wine about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.

In the depths of the Mexican jungle 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. 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, and exploring the wider theme of the modern artist-gardener.

James Russell

Having studied History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, James Russell enjoyed a lengthy stint selling contemporary paintings and sculpture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an experience that inspired him to begin writing and lecturing on 20th century art. Of his dozen or so books, one was a Sunday Times book of the year, while his writing has been described by critics as 'insightful', 'informative' and 'enjoyably readable'. The curator of two major exhibitions at Dulwich Picture Gallery, James has lectured across Britain and beyond. He prefers to lecture without notes, drawing on wide-ranging original research, and on in-depth knowledge of the subjects that fascinate him. 

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. To join this Webinar please just click A Garden Like no other about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.

The Alhambra of Granada, the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Alcazar of Seville are the three most impressive monuments to the architectural creativity of the Moors in Spain, but there are many other examples worthy of mention too.

The classical origins that influenced the Moorish style are less well-known, but fascinating to explore, as too is the unique interior 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. This lecture provides a comprehensive introduction to the peninsula’s Moorish architecture

Ian Cockburn

Art historian with a BA (Birkbeck College) in art history and an MA (Courtauld Institute of Art) in medieval Spanish art history. Specialist in the nearly 800 years of Moorish occupation and Christian reconquest of medieval Iberia.

I have been lecturing in Spain to customers of my travel business since 1984. This year I have also given a presentation on Islamic textiles from Al-Andalus to an expert audience of academics at Madrid University, plus two lectures at both the V&A and the London Art History Society, on textiles and ivories from Al-Andalus. Formerly, as a business manager, I had extensive experience over many years of giving presentations to large audiences.

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. To join this Webinar please just click HERE about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.

Suzanne Valadon 1865-1938

Born in poverty, Suzanne began modelling in Montmartre aged 15. She was a successful model and greatly in demand and we see her in a number of important works such as Toulouse-Lautrec’s ‘Hangover’ and Renoir’ Dance at Bougival’. She also posed for Degas who saw her talent as an artist, encouraged her to paint and bought her works. She quickly established a reputation for her striking and unusual nudes as well as her figure paintings and was exhibited by the leading Parisian dealers. There is a uncompromising modernity about her work which makes them appear very contemporary. She was the mother of Maurice Utrillo whose alcoholism caused her many problems.

The Marchesa Luisa Casati 1881-1957

A fascinating and even outrageous figure, Luisa was born into a huge Italian fortune which she recklessly spent on herself and art during her lifetime, dying in penury in London in 1957. Painted brilliantly by Giovanni Boldini , Augustus John, Kees van Dongen and other leading artists as well as being photographed by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton, Luisa staged extravagant parties at her palace on the Grand Canal (now the Peggy Guggenheim Museum) and her mansion outside Paris. Extravagantly dressed and accompanied by two black panthers, she became a fashion icon and a legend in her time. More recently John Galliano based his 1998 Dior collection on Casati, as did Karl Lagerfeld in his 2009 Venice collection and Alexander McQueen in 2007. The Marchesa range designed by Georgina Chapman continues to remind us of this extraordinary woman.

Julian Halsby

Studied History of Art at Cambridge. Formerly Senior Lecturer and Head of Department at Croydon College of Art. Publications include Venice - the Artist's Vision (1990, 1995), The Art of Diana Armfield RA (1995), Dictionary of Scottish Painters (1990, 1998, 2001, 4th edition 2010), A Hand to Obey the Demon's Eye (2000), Scottish Watercolours 1740-1940 (1986, 1991), A Private View - David Wolfers and the New Grafton Gallery (2002). Interviews artists for the Artist Magazine and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and The Critics Circle. A practising artist, he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1994 and appointed Keeper in 2010.

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. 

To join this Webinar please just click Two women who Scandalised the Art World about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. Details of how to view this event will be supplied to members.

First formed by accident 5,000 years ago on an Iraqi beach, glass has gradually evolved into Mankind’s most important creation and its greatest tool in shaping the modern world, most significantly due a single object, the lens.

By its nature, glass is virtually invisible and out-of-sight means out-of-mind. As a result, most people are oblivious to its impact on our daily lives. From lenses, though architecture and transport to the fibre-optic cables that connect the world. And that’s not to mention the glasses that sit in our hands of an evening!

Lenses enable the poor-sighted to see and scientists to work. Without glass, our homes would be little more than lightless caves, there would be no screens, for cars & planes, televisions or phones. There would be no functional or artistic glassware.

This talk traces the history of glass from its earliest beginnings, demonstrating how its gradual evolution has benefitted us and our forebears. We’d be lost without glass, Mankind’s greatest discovery and tool.

As a scientist once said, ‘Glass is the answer. Now, what’s the question?’

Andy McConnell

Has dealt in antiques since adolescence, but served an apprenticeship in journalism. After working in music, film and television, he returned to writing in 2004 as the author of the acclaimed tome The Decanter, An Illustrated History of Glass From 1650. He followed this in 2006 with Miller's' 20th Century Glass. He writes regularly for journals as diverse as The Times and Glass Circle News and runs Britain's largest antique and vintage glass gallery in Rye, Sussex. He is best known as the distinctly humorous glass specialist on BBC's evergreen Antiques Roadshow and has recently completed his sixth series.

Click here to join this Webinar.

This lecture will be broadcast online for members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills. Details of how to view this event will be supplied to members.

There have been pictorial representations of The Magi from as early as at least the 6th century, such as depictions in Byzantine ivories with origins in places such as Constantinople.  Indeed, a vast array of artists, such as Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516), Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), Pieter Bruegel the Elder (active 1550/1; died 1569), Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), Masaccio (1401 - 1428/9?), and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) to name but a few, have been clearly fascinated by story and its possibilities when it comes to visual depictions.  However, these depictions over this vast period of time have been anything but consistent.  All the aforementioned artists will be mentioned in this lecture, as I seek to will unravel the myth and the iconography behind the proliferation of the story of the adoration of the magi from its Eastern and pagan roots to its current Christian interpretation.  To aid my examination of this story, and to trace the changes in iconography and depictions of the kings themselves, I will be illustrating it with a variety beautiful works of art, images made across many centuries that will illuminate this fascination as never before.  The lecture will begin by looking at the etymology behind the term ‘magi’ and how it has come down to us and what is now means in contemporary society. 

Leslie Primo

Holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. Was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and 2007, and gives lectures and guided tours, plus special talks, at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. Also lectures at the City Literary Institute, and has presented a series of talks at the National Maritime Museum and the Courtauld Institute.

Click here to join this Webinar.

The story of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain speaks of the important trade between East and West along both the overland and maritime Silk Roads. The cobalt blue mineral, or ‘Mohammedan Blue’, that provided the distinctive under-glaze colour of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain owed its origins to China’s early trade with Persia. During the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese imperial kilns at Jingdezhen perfected the production of blue-and-white wares and thus extended the scope of China’s trade with the West. Oriental export porcelain has its own rich history, enhanced by tales of shipwrecks and lost cargoes, that hints of the fascination for these products from the East, that came to be adapted for Western markets. This lecture will trace the history of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain and the trade in export porcelain. It will also recount tales of salvaging operations that have resulted in the recovery of sunken treasures from the East. The ‘Nanking Cargo’ and the ‘Hoi An Hoard’ are but two examples of early shipwrecks in Eastern waters, the recovery of which have enhanced our understanding of blue-and-white porcelain and its wider commercial impact. 

Professor Marie Conte-Helm

Has a BA in History of Art and an MA in Asian Art. She is currently Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, a Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, a Member of the Board of Governors for the University for the Creative Arts and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011 and previously held senior academic positions at various UK universities. She is widely published and has lectured throughout the UK and abroad. She is also an experienced cruise lecturer. Professor Conte-Helm was awarded an OBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to UK-Japan educational and cultural relations.

The talk will explore the ancient and luxurious art of stone inlay from Ancient Rome & Renaissance Europe to 16th century Mughal India. Pietre Dure is used to create objects and décor of intense colour and drama.

The luxurious and colourful Ancient Roman art of opus sectile, was re-discovered and revived in the Italian Renaissance at the Uffizi workshops of the Duke of Florence where the manufacture of such objects was enthusiastically sponsored by Medici princes. In ancient times the technique was used to decorate floors and walls of public buildings, temples and luxurious villas. From Italy the art spread across Europe and in the Mughal period in India the technique was used to decorate palaces and furnishings and ultimately the Taj Mahal.

The technique of pietre dure (the Italian for hardstones) includes "paintings in stone" - representing subjects such as landscapes, townscapes, flowers, birds, and decorative motifs - these were then made into magnificent table tops, cabinets, and wall decorations for princely and royal collections.

David Evans

Initially trained as carpenter and joiner. Worked for the OU and the Museum of Welsh Life. Property Manager for the National Trust Petworth; previously Curator at Lyme Park. Lectures extensively for the National Trust and the Victorian Society.

The opening of trade routes across Eurasia by land and sea enabled the movement of peoples, along with their cultures, arts, beliefs, technical skills and aesthetics. This was to have a profound influence on the arts of China, introducing new forms, designs, and materials, along with the craftsmen to pass on their skills.

This lecture will look at several examples of masterpieces of art from China in the first millennium AD to illustrate this influence and show how the arts of China were greatly enriched by its Silk Road links.

Dr Susan Whitfield

Is a writer, scholar, lecturer and traveler of the Silk Roads. During 25 years curating the collections of manuscripts from Dunhuang and other Silk Road sites at the British Library, she also helped found and then developed the International Dunhuang Project (IDP), now a thriving international collaboration working on the art and artefacts of the eastern Silk Road. She has lectured and written widely on the Silk Road. 

This lecture seeks to provide a balanced insight into the life and achievements of one of the most important women in Chinese Imperial history.

From relative obscurity as a low-ranking consort we explore the events that led to her confirmation as Dowager Empress Cixi in 1861 and her strategy to preserve, then revitalise, imperial rule after a series of humiliating military defeats by Western Colonial Powers plus several brutal ethnic uprisings.

We will trace the distinct cycles of Cixi’s power, as Emperors came and went, whilst the Dowager Empress moved periodically from a position of influence to full authority and then into times of enforced retirement.

Looking beyond Cixi’s desire to force China into the modern world we will gain an insight into her life within her beloved Summer Palace with a focus on her passion for painting, embroidery, fashion design and the extensive gardens. A location where Cixi forged some extraordinarily close relationships with leading western women. 

David Rosier

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

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.

London’s Tite Street was one of the most influential artistic quarters in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A staggering amount of talent thrived in just this one street in Chelsea, including James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Oscar Wilde, John Singer Sargent, Robert Brough, Glyn Philpot, Augustus John, Romaine Brooks and Gluck. Throughout its turbulent history it remained home to innumerable artists, writers, suffragettes, queers and madmen. Here Whistler was bankrupted, Oscar Wilde imprisoned and Frank Miles went mad. This lecture ties together the private and professional lives of its inhabitants to form a colourful tapestry of art and intrigue.

For over forty years, Winston Churchill was a keen amateur artist. He painted from 1915, right down to his retirement in the 1950s. His landscapes record almost every country which he visited as a distinguished statesman. In Britain he painted at Blenheim, where he was born, at Port Lympne and Trent Park, where he stayed, and at Chartwell, his final home. Abroad, he painted in France and Belgium, from the trenches of World War One, and after that, on the French Riviera. He also painted in Europe, at exotic locations like Morocco and Egypt, and in Canada and the United States. Churchill’s wit is legendary: there are even books about it, but I shall not announce his best lines in this summary of a lecture!    

Churchill discussed painting with Noel Coward, who was another keen amateur artist for over forty years. Indeed, Churchill persuaded Coward to stop using watercolour and convert to full oil painting. In Britain, Coward painted in or near his two Kentish homes: Goldenhurst, and his magnificent house overlooking the sea at St Margaret’s Bay. He painted in Italy, at Venice and Portofino, but also three other Mediterranean locations which have yet to be identified. Perhaps you will be able to identify them? The majority of his paintings are of Jamaica: he retired and had two homes there. Coward of course used wit and humour in many of his plays and musicals, as well as in his personal life.

Nicholas Reed

An art historian and archaeologist. In the 1980s he became Founder- Chairman of the Friends of Shakespeare's Globe. In 2005 he was one of two Lecturer Representatives on the The Arts Society Advisory Council and also Vice-Chairman of Folkestone. He is the author of four books on theImpressionists in England, and one on the Frost Fairs on the Frozen Thames. His latest book My Father, the Man who Never Was features in his latest lecture.

The extraordinary story of a million selling boy’s magazine created by a vicar and an art student in 1950. How the studio worked and the graphic tricks artist Frank Hampson used to create reality.

Howard Smith

Born during the Second World War, Howard was educated in Scotland and gained an MA from Trinity College, Dublin. In the 1960s he worked for UK and International Advertising Agencies before starting his own marketing and print company in Canterbury. 

The reception starts at 6:45 pm followed by the lecture at 7:30 as usual.

Years of working as an artist within the Criminal Justice System in England and Germany have given Angela unique insights into the destructive and costly cycle of crime, prisons and re-offending. In this thought-provoking talk she offers a deeper understanding of the minds, lives and challenges of offenders. And, with extraordinary slides of art projects and prisoner’s art, she demonstrates how within the process of creating art of any discipline, there are vital opportunities for offenders to confront their crimes and develop the key life skills so essential in leading a positive and productive life.

Angela Findlay

A professional artist, writer and freelance lecturer with a long standing interest in the role the arts and the creative process can play in bringing about changes, on a personal level or within societies. Her long career of teaching art in prisons and Young Offender Institutions in Germany and England, followed by her role as the former Arts Coordinator of the Koestler Trust in London, gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation. She is currently advising the Ministry of Justice and presenting the case for the arts to be included in their new rehabilitation and education policies.

Thomas Heatherwick is a British designer.  He has won many awards and honours:  in 2004 he was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry;  he won a Gold Medal for his British Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010, and in the same year he was designer of the year in Japan.   Sir Terence Conran spotted his talent early on and has described Heatherwick as “the Leonardo da Vinci of our times”.   

Anthea Streeter

Studied the Fine and Decorative Arts in London and continued her studies at Harvard University. It was while at Harvard, where there was great enthusiasm for American design, that she became interested herself 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. Special interest in the architecture and design of 20th century.

When men were prepared to murder and be martyred for their religious faith and the Elizabethan security services were zealously gathering intelligence against a militant enemy a Golden Age of Theatre emerged in England. Assassinated at the age of 29 Christopher Marlowe was very much a man of his times.

Giles Ramsay

Is an independent theatre director and producer who specializes in creating new work with artists in developing countries. He is the Founding Director of the charity Developing Artists (www.developingartists.org), a Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University and Course Leader in Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  Giles has run theatre projects in Botswana, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Kosovo, Palestine, Mexico, Thailand and Zimbabwe and given numerous talks for institutions ranging from The Foundation for Mexican Literature in Mexico City to The Royal College of Physicians in London.

According to historian Barbara Tuchman, the invention of the ball ranks as highly as the invention of the wheel. Simon Inglis agrees, especially after spending years delving into cubbyholes at pavilions and museums, in workshops and factories, finding out how these apparently simple objects came into being and how their design and manufacture has evolved. He asks, why are marbles glass? Why did the discovery of gutta percha transform golf? Why were games such as lawn tennis and ping pong made possible only in the mid 19th century? Why did some billiard balls explode, and why are rugby balls such an odd shape? In 1853 the ingredients of one manufacturer's cricket balls were listed as cork, worsted, hemp, brown oats, suet, lard, alum, stale ale and dragon's blood. Can this really be true, or is it, perhaps, just a load of old balls?

Simon Inglis

Writer and historian Simon Inglis specialises in the architecture and heritage of sport and recreation. Since 2004 he has edited the Played in Britain series for English Heritage. Although sport and recreation might seem an unlikely subject for The Arts Society, non-sporty types need have no fear. Simon’s themes are architecture, design, heritage and popular culture. After a history degree at University College London, he freelanced for various publications, including the Guardian, Observer and Radio Times. He has curated exhibitions for the Building Centre and the British Council, been a regular contributor to radio and television, has travelled and lectured extensively, and written a number of books.

This lecture analyses Wren’s life and his career as a scientist, astronomer and architect. It features all his buildings in London, Oxford and Cambridge, before focusing on his City of London churches. In addition to photographs of most of Wren’s buildings, the lecture includes original research into the work of architects in Rome and Paris, which influenced Wren and provided much of his inspiration.

Tony Tucker

MA in Modern History from Oriel College, Oxford, Qualified City Guide and former Chairman of the City of London Guide Lecturers Association and Trustee of the Friends of the City Churches (FCC). Lectures to various City institutions, the FCC, U3A, and various historical associations.  Leads regular guided walks for the City of London Corporation, the Friends of the City Churches and numerous private groups.

Peter Le Rossignol

Has degrees in Decorative Arts & Historic Interiors and Fine Art Valuation; he also holds a DPhil in Art History. Has forty years' lecturing experience, including to the Art Fund in Jersey and Guernsey, the Ringwood Antiques Club Hampshire, the Jersey College for Adult Education, and various after-dinner engagements. Has given talks on local radio, and held antique road shows for various organisations. Interests include eighteenth century fine & decorative art, the Grand Tour, Oriental decorative arts, and silver and jewellery. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Porcelain, jade, jewels, architecture, gardens and a few surprises are featured in this fascinating talk, which encompasses the wonders and exoticism of the East that held the West enthralled for over two centuries. The Meridian line of the Forbidden City, the pure white marble path, double hip roofs and the importance of the number 9 are all discussed, together with Court ritual. The importance of the beautiful objects that surrounded the Emperors and some gifts that were given by “the Barbarian” westerner in exchange for trade agreements feature to excite the eye and hopefully stimulate a passion for these wonderful wares.

A freelance historic buildings' consultant, educated as an Architectural Historian at Manchester University and trained in building conservation at the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, York. After two years with SAVE Britain's Heritage, where he wrote Deserted Bastions, worked with the English Heritage Listing Division on the review of military buildings. In the mid 1990s was employed by the DTI in Bombay, India, setting up and running an innovative project to repair George Gilbert Scott's university buildings and training local architects and craftsmen in conservation techniques and philosophy. 

Please note that the Reception starts at 18:45 and is followed by the lecture at 19:30 as normal.

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

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

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

Please note that this lecture is preceeded by our AGM and so will not start until approximately 8:00 pm.

His career began with Natural Sciences at Cambridge and has been through investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Faber and Faber, where he remains on the board. He is also non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music and a director of Liverpool University Press and the Copyright Licensing Agency.

Since its foundation in 1925, Faber and Faber has built a reputation as one of London’s most important literary publishing houses. Part of that relates to the editorial team that Geoffrey Faber and his successors built around them - TS Eliot was famously an early recruit - but a large part is also due to the firm’s insistence on good design and illustration. This lecture traces the history of Faber and Faber through its illustrations, covers and designs. Early years brought innovations like the Ariel Poems – single poems, beautifully illustrated, sold in their own envelopes. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was an emphasis on typography, led by the firm’s art director Berthold Wolpe; his Albertus font is still used on City of London road signs. In the 1980s, the firm started its association with Pentagram, responsible for the ff logo. Along the way, it has employed some of our most celebrated artists as cover illustrators – from Rex Whistler and Barnett Freedman to Peter Blake and Damien Hirst. Slides will range from book covers, advertisements and photos of key individuals, to illustrations of the concepts behind the designs. The talk will also be peppered with personal insight and anecdote.

Michrelle Brown is a visiting Professor at UCL and Baylor University, and Senior Researcher at the University of Oslo. Formerly a Course Tutor in History of the Book (SAS), Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library, and lecturer at Birkbeck and Morley Colleges.

This illustrated lecture examines the different cultures present in these islands before the Norman conquest - Celtic, Pictish, Anglo-Saxon and Viking - and traces their interaction across the various artistic media, setting them within the historical context. Stunning metalwork, such as the Sutton Hoo and Staffordshire Hoard, the Ardagh Chalice and Tara brooch, magnificent manuscripts such as the books of Durrow and Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels and sculptures such as the Ruthwell Cross and the enigmatic Pictish carvings are amongst the masterpieces considered.

Fenella Bazin is a visiting Professor at UCL and Baylor University, and Senior Researcher at the University of Oslo. Formerly a Course Tutor in History of the Book (SAS), Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library, and lecturer at Birkbeck and Morley Colleges.

The dramatic landscapes of Artic Norway have attracted visitors since the 19th century when wars and revolutions made it impossible to enjoy the Grand Tour.

Christopher Rogers became interested in country house architecture whilst at Oxford and has lectured on the subject ever since. Regular 5 day summer school courses for Marlborough College Summer School. Lectures for the National Trust.

Best remembered today as a collector and connoisseur Soane was a leading architect at the beginning of the 19th century. He built a series of lovely ‘Greek Revival villas, such as Pitzhanger, but his fame rested on a series of great public works in London. He rebuilt the Bank of England, of which only the outer screen wall survives. His plans for Kensington included a Triumphal Arch and a series of grand new buildings at Whitehall. Some were built, but were destroyed within a decade in the fire which destroyed the Palace in 1834. Sadly, the only one of Soane’s great buildings to survive intact is the much loved Dulwich Picture Gallery. This lecture reviews his work and explores some of his lost masterpieces. 

Born in Poland and studied for her BA in Fine Art at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (John Christie Scholarship and the Hatton Award), and an MA in History of Art from Courtauld Institute, London, (19th-20th century art -

This lecture is a survey of British art as portrayed through the images of the times of Augustus Egg through to those of Francis Bacon.

Augustus Egg (1816-1863) – a Victorian genre painter of subjects from Shakespeare and Scott etc. Francis Bacon (1909 –1991)  - the ‘enfant terrible’ of post World War 2 painting.

Peter appears in the UK and abroad as a musician and scholar, giving recitals and delivering illustrated lectures on music and the arts. He studied singing and early keyboard instruments at the Royal College of Music and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

The celebration of the period following Christmas can be traced back several millennia, and to at least two cultures – neither of them Christian. One of them is the southern Roman feast of Kalends on the 1st January, and the other, the northern Nordic festivals of Yuletide surrounding the celebrations of the Winter solstice. However, it was Pope Julius I who decided to subvert the gluttony, drunkenness and sun worship to Christian purpose, and by choosing the 25th December to celebrate the birth of Christ, he neatly bridged these cultures and paved the way for future Christmas festivities. And so it is that many of our modern Christmas customs and carols bear references to traditions that have nothing to do with the birth of Christ. Nonetheless, each year, Christ’s birthday on 25th December signifies the beginning of twelve festive days of celebrations and music making. In this lecture-recital Peter Medhurst explores the wealth of Christmas music, traditions and curious legends that are connected with them. Music performed includes:

• Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly,
• The Coventry Carol,
• The Twelve Days of Christmas,
• The Wassail Song,
• The Three Kings – Cornelius. 

Please note that this is additional to our regular programme and must be booked in advance.

Please click here for booking information.

Nicola Moorby was formerly a curator at Tate Britain she has curated a number of exhibitions and has published widely on J.M.W. Turner, including contributions to the forthcoming online catalogue of the Turner Bequest.

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

Rupert Willoughby contributes regular obituaries to The Times and The Daily Telegraph, writes privately-commissioned histories of houses, and is an experienced lecturer - and occasional broadcaster - on a broad range of topics, with a particular interest in architecture, interior decoration and costume.

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

Please note that the Reception starts at 18:45 and is followed by the lecture at 19:30 as normal.

Anthony Rayworth holds a Master of Design Degree from the Royal College of Art, London and has over 30 years of international experience in interior design education and decorative arts management.  He is a Freeman of the City of London, Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers,

A richly illustrated talk, tracing the development of the residential interior from the 17th to the 21st centuries and examining ways in which historical spaces may be reinterpreted to accommodate contemporary living. An inspirational selection of interiors within farmhouses, cottages, country estates and townhouses, as well as those located within buildings from our industrial heritage and other non-traditional contexts, are presented as stylish and successful examples of this approach to interior design.

Julia Korner is a specialist and lecturer in fine art conservation and the restoration of paintings, sculptures and frames. She is also a valuer, passionate collector, advisor and curator of paintings and works of art. Julia trained in art history, sculpture and graphic illustration in Cambridge, England. Then, for twenty years, she worked for Christie's as a paintings specialist, building extensive knowledge of Old Masters, and of British, European and American paintings from the 1700s onwards. She set up Christie's Maritime Department in 1987, followed by the Frame sales, the Aeronautical, Exploration and Travel and the Polar sales. Julia was elected Huntington Fellow of the Mariners' Museum, Newport New, Virginia, USA, in 1997. A seven year commitment saw her catalogue this collection and of its sister organisation, the South Street Seaport Museum, New York. Julia has worked independently in her own studio in West London for almost twenty years. Here, she and her small team give specialist conservation work personal and expert attention. Damaged paintings, polychrome statues, frames, over-mantles, traditional gold leaf and gesso frames all emerge restored and transformed under her expertise, knowledge and care. Julia acts as an advisor, valuer and exhibition curator for public and private collections, in the UK and abroad. She also gives illustrated talks and lectures. She is an elected member of The British Antique Dealers' Association, (and exhibits at the annual exhibition), The British Association of Paintings Conservator Restorers, The Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars, The International Institute for Conservation, The Fine Art Trade Guild, The Maritime Information Association, The Museums Association, and The Conservation Consortium.

A look at the history of frames, and how frames have developed in Europe, influenced often by the prevailing architectural style. It looks at how they are constructed and conserved; and how a frame can transform a painting and display it to its best advantage.  

Is an educationalist with a passion for all things Italian. Formerly Head of History of Art at Wycombe Abbey School,Dan is now Deputy Head of Sixth Form at Cheltenham College. He has been lecturing since 2001, and spent 9 years working as a senior lecturer, tutor and tour guide for Art History Abroad. He was voted the British winner of the World Guide of the Year Awards in 2008 and alongside his lectures and special interest days he also organises educational study trips for societies to a range of destinations in Italy.

This scandalous and sometimes vicious painter produced work with cinematic compositions and intensely visceral details. His downfall is the stuff of a film not yet made and despite dying prematurely his canvases influenced the generation that followed.

John Ericson Formerly a lecturer at the University of Bath where he was Director of Studies in the School of Education with responsibility for the professional development of teachers. He has worked extensively overseas as an educational consultant and this has given him the opportunity to give lectures and presentations at conferences all over the world. In 2008 and again in 2011 he undertook extensive lecture tours of Australia and he has been a popular speaker on the NADFAS circuit for a number of years. In his professional life he has developed a particular interest in presentation skills including the role of pictures in learning and the appropriate use of PowerPoint. This coupled with his ability to relate well to people of all ages and backgrounds makes him an impressive and confident public speaker.As well as the talks he has developed from his professional background, he offers presentations on an eclectic range of topics that are derived from his diverse interestsand enthusiasms such as, Pub Signs, Children’s Book Illustrations and the Shakers of North America. All his talks, are entertaining, highly informative, very well illustrated and presented with warmth and humour.

As adults we carry in our heads huge numbers of images from childhood, and some of those most deeply etched come from illustrations in books that we read as children. Images of ‘Tigger’ and ‘Toad’ or even ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ will probably remain with us for ever! In addition to a wide range of examples John will examine how illustrations contribute to the development of understanding and how the interaction of image and narrative creates such powerful memories. 

Dr Thomas completed an MA in Canada in Development Studies, and a PhD from Trinity College, Dublin in History and Political Science. His career as an academic and as a political and institutional analyst in the field of International Development enabled him to travel widely in Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He always sought to understand the arts and culture of the country or region he was living or working in since they illuminate the past and help to explain the present. Some of his lectures (Cobbett/Gillray and Hadrian) began with the history but have been developed for NADFAS by emphasising the culture and art/architecture/cartoons of the period. 

William Cobbett (1763-1835) was the greatest journalist of his age. He attacked political corruption and nepotism and was imprisoned for his attacks on the establishment. He wrote Rural Rides (still in print) and was the founder of Hansard. James Gillray (1756-1815) was the foremost political cartoonist of the early C19th and produced savage caricatures of leading politicians and royalty. He was paid by the Tory government to attack Cobbett in a series of cartoons. These will feature in the talk as will other cartoons on subjects (such as elections) which involved Cobbett. 

Dr Sally Hoban is an Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Birmingham and has lectured extensively on art, design and antiques throughout the UK. Sally has broadcast on BBC Two, BBC Four and BBC Radio 4 and her publications include Miller’s Collecting Modern Design. She has an Honours certificate in public speaking from The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and is a freelance arts journalist for local, national and international media. Sally has a PhD in the history of art and design from The University of Birmingham.

This lecture examines the materials, techniques and history of enamelling in the decorative arts from Ancient Egypt to the present day, including jewellery and metalwork. There is a particular focus on enamelling in the Arts and Crafts Movement and Art Nouveau. 

6.30pm MHDFAS Christmas Party

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

Charles John Huffam Dickens brought into the world a staggering array of wonderful characters with orphans. Staving children, misers, murderers and abusive school teachers among them. People such as Mr Mcawber, Fagin and Abel Magwitch remain in one’s literary psyche long after the books are put down. Largely self educated, Dickens possessed the genius to become the greatest writer of his age with 15 major novels and countless short stories and articles. In his lecture Bertie Pearce looks at the life and places of Dickens through his characters. The talk is interspersed with readings of this works. A truly Dickensian experience, click here for details and booking information. 

John Benjamin was with Phillips Auctioneers for 23 years, latterly as International Director of Jewellery. Since 1999 he has been an independent Jewellery Consultant. Lectures, writes and broadcasts (including BBC Antiques Roadshow). Admitted to the Goldsmiths' Company in 2000. Author of Starting to collect Antique Jewellery and co-author with Paul Atterbury The Jewellery and Silver of H.G. Murphy.

H G Murphy’s greatest misfortune was to die just before the start of the Second World War. The designs and inspirations of the pre-war era were simply seen as passé and totally out of keeping with the new spirit of modernism which quickly grew after the Festival of Britain in 1951. Harry Murphy served his apprenticeship under Henry Wilson, probably Britain’s greatest designer goldsmith of the Arts and Crafts era. Here he learnt a wide range of skills and techniques including enamelling, gem-setting and polishing, niello, engraving and hammering. From 1928 until his death in 1939 he worked from retail premises in Marylebone, London, known as the Falcon Studio where he designed and 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 Ballet Russes and the vibrancy of the Jazz Age. 

1960 BA (Hons) (Oxon) in Modern History. Historian and journalist specialising for many years in the Middle East; published extensively books and articles on the subject. More recent interest in the art history of the Islamic World; 1990-92 MA in Islamic Art, London University. Lectures on Islamic art including on special tours to the region. Her latest book, 'Lapis Lazuli: in pursuit of a celestial stone', was published in 2010.

The fundamental beauty and range of Islamic art, essentially decorative, from 8th century Syria to 15th century Egypt.

6.45 pm Reception followed by

7.30 pm The Art and Meaning of Maps

Jeremy was born in London in 1955 and graduated from Cambridge with a starred first. Undertook graduate work at Oxford and taught at Durham from 1980, eventually as professor, before moving to Exeter as professor in 1996. He has lectured around the world to popular and academic audiences, including the Decorative Arts Society in New York and the Bard, as well as the annual decorative arts conference at Newport, Rhode Island. He has also lectured in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain and on various cruise lines. Has appeared on both radio and television, most recently presenting a BBC2 programme on the Industrial Revolution. Other works include studies of maps, tourism and politics. Published over 100 books, including 'A Subject for Taste: Culture in Eighteenth-Century England' (2005) and 'Visions of the World: a History of Maps' (2003). His MBE was awarded for services to stamp design.

Looking at maps from their origin to the present, consider them as works of art and as functional tools. Assesses the particular challenges of mapping and of representation. Considers range of maps, both thematic and geographical. 
 

Madeline Goold holds a first degree in Law from the London School of Economics, a Fine Art degree and M.Phil in Art History from the Barber Institute, Birmingham University. A professional sculptor for the past twenty-two years, she continues stone carving, drawing and printmaking; working to commission, exhibiting and teaching. Exhibits annually in London as an elected member of the Society of Wildlife Artists, and runs own studio classes. After an acclaimed exhibition lecture as the Gerald Finzi Centenary artist, she has since spoken to many different audiences about the fine and decorative arts. A lifelong pianist, the purchase of an historic piano led to her first book, Mr Langshaws Square Piano, published in the UK and United States, and associated articles in academic journals.

Mr Langshaws Square Piano: How the first pianos initiated a cultural revolution. A number concealed in a piano made by John Broadwood in 1807 leads to a quest to discover who had first owned and played it. The story is set against the broader history: from their beginning pianos carried the voice and values of British culture to every part of the known world. We look at pianos humble and grand in museums and private collections and, through contemporary paintings, at the people who owned them. As pianos found their way from drawing-room to parlour, from schoolhouse to public house, Indian bungalow and Caribbean Great house, did they indeed bring about a cultural revolution?

Kevin Karney studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University. He has been a VSO teacher in Borneo, and worked across the world as a petroleum engineer; now a magistrate in Gwent. He has had a life-long interest in the history of timekeeping and cosmology, and in sundials in particular, as objects of art, craft and science. His specialist topic is the Equation of Time. He has lectured and published on various aspects of sundials in UK, USA and Australia.

The history of the sundial outstrips that of the clock by at least two thousand years. The lecture examines how time has been told down the ages from the perspective of both the sundial and its competitors. It compares what philosophers and poets thought about time. It looks at various aspects of the sundial as:
a) a teller of time;
b) a marker for religious observance;
c) a memento mori;
d) a vehicle for exquisite craftsmanship;
e) a sign of elegance, sophistication and civic pride.

The lecture is split into four time periods:
a) Ancient to Medieval times: this was the period of unequal hours (12 hours between sunrise & sunset). Sundials were used as event markers, especially to tell the time of prayers, but most people used the length of their shadows in order to tell the time;
b) The Islamic Flowering and the Renaissance: this was the period of equal or scientific hours. The Arabs introduced the means to tell time easily with hours of equal length. Clocks arrived but were hopelessly inaccurate. They were set using sundials;
c) Enlightenment to the Industrial Revolution. The need for precise timekeeping by navigators introduced the age of mean hours; Clocks became accurate, but were still usually set using sundials that were corrected to give "mean time";
d) Modern times. The age of atomic hours, when mechanical clocks and sundials had become things of interest rather than serious time keepers.

Denis Moriarty is a lecturer and Study Course director who spent most of his early working life as a BBC television producer. He was educated at Reading School, and after national service as an infantry officer in the Royal Berkshire regiment in Germany, read history at St John's College, Oxford.

He joined the BBC in 1959, and after a short period in radio and personnel, became a director and producer in television Music and Arts. His programmes included the series on ENGLISH TOWNS with Alec Clifton-Taylor, FACE THE MUSIC with Joseph Cooper and Joyce Grenfell, ONE HUNDRED GREAT PAINTINGS, EDWIN LUTYENS MASTER ARCHITECT, THE TRIUMPH OF THE WEST, and films on Egypt in the CHRONICLE and TIMEWATCH series.

He lectures widely for the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies, visiting many societies in the United Kingdom, on the continent, and in Australia; he also addresses meetings of the National Trust, English summer festivals, civic and literary societies.

He directs study courses at music festivals at home and abroad at Prague, Salzburg, Schwarzenberg (Austria) Vienna and Finland, and leads architectural and historical tours in England, to France, Italy, Portugal, Malta, the Azores, Sri-Lanka, north and south India, and east coast America. He has also worked in Egypt, Mexico and Latin America.

Denis Moriarty's prime interests are music, he sang for a number of years in the Philharmonia Chorus, and architecture; he has a special love of England and its churches and enjoys long walks in the countryside. He is a keen opera and theatre-goer, and at university performed in plays and revue with among among others, Dudley Moore.

Denis Moriarty is a former Mayor of Henley-on-Thames and was twice a parliamentary candidate in the two general elections of 1974.

Leipzig was heavily bombed in 1945 and rebuilt, sometimes not too happily, during the Communist era of the East German Republic. The city is famous for its early printing press of the 1480s, its book fairs and its university specialising in science, but above all Leipzig is renowned for its music and galaxy of composers and conductors. J.S.Bach (1685-1750) was cantor at the Thomaskirche and wrote for its celebrated choir much of his sublime music. Felix Mendelssohn (1809-45) was for 11 years conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. This lecture with illustrations and musical extract traces this.

Mrs. Thirza Vallois has lived in Paris for over fifty years. An agrégée (post-graduate) of the Sorbonne. Author of the three-volume series 'Around and About Paris' - a comprehensive, in-depth cultural companion to the city, 'Romantic Paris', the Paris Entry of the Encarta Encyclopaedia. She is also the author of 'Averyon, A Bridge to French Arcadia', taking readers to the heart of rural France. She has dedicated her recent writing to the First World War. She lectures throughout the world and contributes to the international press, television and radio, the BBC, PBS (USA), Discovery, CNN, the Cultural Channel (France), among others.

Paris, the city of '365 Sundays' (the world of entertainment in the 19th century): From cafés-concerts and cabarets to Vaudeville and the Opéra-Comique, from the penny theatres of the 'Boulevard du Crime' to the Grand Opera, for a hundred odd years Paris was the world's capital of entertainment, its people at once spectators of the make-believe show unfolding on the stage, and actors playing a part in the 'human comedy' of real-life Paris. The artists of the day - Daumier, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others - intent on taking the pulse of their contemporary society, recorded these places of entertainment to our pleasure, a pleasure I shall be happy to share with you.

Janusz Karczewski-Slowikowski is a freelance lecturer and researcher in English furniture history and also an antique dealer..
 

An alternative title for this lecture is 'Furniture of the Age of Elegance' because the term Georgian immediately conjures up images of elegant English Furniture. This lecture traces the development of elegance through style in relation to the design and construction of furniture during the 18th century. It commences with an appraisal of early 18th century walnut furniture and progresses through the Mahogany Rococo style of the 1740s to 1760s to the fancy-wood neo-classical styles of the last quarter of the century.

Yasha Beresiner qualified as a lawyer from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has lived in England since 1963. Has lectured extensively to antiques collector's clubs, the Rotary Club, Women's Institute, Masonic Societies and Red & Blue Badge Guide audiences. He is a qualified City of London guide and a past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards. As well as various magazine articles, other publications include The City of London Masonic Guide (2006), A Collector's Guide to Paper Money, and British County Maps.

Surprisingly playing cards date back to 1377. Decks from 1475 still survive. The English deck is of French origin and the Company of Makers of Playing Cards was founded in 1628 to protect English makers from French importations. Cards were used as a medium of communication, propaganda or education: the 1678 Titus Oates plot is illustrated on a 52 card deck published at the time and known as The Horrid Popish Plot. Francis Barlow illustrated the cards depicting Marlborough's Victories in 1707. Modern cards follow in these old traditions with some wonderful collectors decks of today

Dr. David Cross is a Hon. Research Fellow, Durham University. He is founder of the Cumbrian Biographical Project; Past President of Cumbria DFAS and the author of a biography of George Romney. He specialises in Lake District artists of all genres. Art history lecturer to undergraduate and adult classes at Universities. Catalogue of Paintings in Durham Castle (2002). In recent years he has lectured on cruises in the Mediterranean and Baltic. He has edited two volumes of the illustrated letters of Percy Kelly (1919-1993). His current research is an exploration of the public monuments and sculpture of Cumbria and Lancashire for a volume in the series for Liverpool University Press.
 

Though maritime painting is often seen as a particularly British genre, it was the 16th - 17th century Dutch school which influenced the development of the British school. In the 18th century, the work of Samuel Scott, Charles Brooking and Dominic Serres was prominent and then there was a great burst of activity through into the 19th century with the work of Nicholas Pocock, Thomas Luny, Robert Salmon and the great genius of J.M.W. Turner. This lecture provides a chronological sequence of work and examines portraits of individual ships, sea battles, harbour scenes and the gradual transition from sail power to steam.

Elizabeth Gowing is an experienced public speaker with regular speaking engagements at branches of the WI, the U3A, English Speaking Union, Rotary Clubs, and schools. The last few years have also brought speaking engagements at the Albanian Presidency at the invitation of the First Lady, in London at the Royal Anthropological Institute, at the London Book Fair and Orllan and Ilkley Literary Festivals, at RHS Wisley and the American Embassy, Prishtina, a lifeboat station and a jazz club. She has also appeared on the BBC World Service, Radio 4, Australian ABC Radio, and BBC Radio Oxford.
 

The silver thread; filigree jewellery - an ancient craft which spread across the former Ottoman Empire. Still practised by men and women who turn into dragons as they puff fire, sprinkle silver dust, and magic thick silver rods into fine wire and this into lacy jewellery, adornment and religious artefacts.
 

Having been Curator of Greek Bronze Age and Geometric Antiquities in the British Museum for thirteen years, Louise now works on international archaeological projects, principally in Ethiopia, Turkey and Albania. She lectures for a number of universities and institutions, including Florida State University and Christie's Education.
 

Whilst the water of the Euphrates rose 2 feet a day behind the Berecik Dam in Turkey, archaeologists at Zeugma raced to uncover wall paintings and mosaics finer than those found in Pompeii.