Days of special interest
Study Days
Art of Art Deco - Pamela Campbell-Johnston
Further details of this day together with a booking form will be available nearer the date
Art Deco has the reputation of being the most glamorous and popular style of the 20th century which was prevalent during the 1920s and 1930s. We will review the development of the style within the context of its social and economic environment and look at specific examples of objets d’arts, including silver, jewellery, furniture, ceramics, clocks and architecture.
The range of designers, craftsmen and artists that we will contemplate will include, but not limited to, E-J Ruhlmann, René Lalique, Tamara de Lempicka, Jean Dupas, Georgia O’Keeffe, Eileen Gray, Romain de Tirtoff (Erté), René Vincent and English ceramicist, Clarice Cliff.In addition to some examples of domestic and civic Art Deco buildings in the UK, we will also touch on certain architectural buildings in New York, Miami, Mumbai, and Napier, thus confirming Art Deco’s full global reach and appeal.
This talk on the overview of the Art Deco movement can stand alone as a single lecture or make for an introductory lecture to an Art Deco-themed Study Day, combining The Art of Art Deco, The Art of 1935, Marion Dorn, Tamara Lempicka and our love affair with British Art Deco Architecture.
Members attending the Special Interest Day will also be able to handle original Art Deco artefacts on the day.
Pamela has an MA Hons Art History from St Andrew's University.
She has over 30 years of lecturing experience to undergraduates, adult groups, and to Friends and Patrons of the Royal Academy of Arts as part of the RA’s Adult Education Department.
She has also conducted numerous guided tours, residential trips and focused gallery talks on individual works of art. She specialises in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art - with a particular love for the 1920s and 1930s. She has had permanent career at Royal Academy of Arts for 12 years.
She has also undertaken work experience at Bonhams, Art Loss Register and National Trust.
She is now a freelance art consultant and lecturer. She recently curated a collection for the Lansdowne Club.
Post Impressionism- The Paintings of Cezanne, Gauguin and van Gogh - Alice Foster
Further details of this day together with a booking form will be available nearer the date
Please note this is on WEDNESDAY 21st February not Thursday as in the paper programme.
Cezanne, van Gogh and Gauguin are so often described as “impressionists” but in terms of technique and style they have little in common with that famous movement. The irony is that all three were dead by the time ‘Post Impressionism’ was coined and it was the attempt of an English critic, Roger Fry, to bring their work to Britain in 1910 that gave them this definition. Fry saw in the work of all three men a new pictorial language that made no attempt to copy the natural world, but to create an equivalent for it. They were not a cohesive movement, but in their different ways provided a platform for the next generation of artists to develop a pictorial language suitable for the complexities of the twentieth century.
Alice has lectured for Oxford University Department of Continuing Education since 1998. She lectures regularly at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Her busy freelance career includes organising History of Art study days with colleagues, and regular weekly classes in Oxfordshire and Worcestershire. In 2004 Alice joined The Arts Society and has lectured in Britain and in Europe. Since 2003 Alice has been a tutor on study holidays. In 2010 she was elected President of Banbury Fine Arts Society.
The Paintings and Conservation Roadshow. Sarah Cove.
This new study day links together three existing lectures, The Conservation and Restoration of Paintings, A Day in the Life of a Picture Restorer, and A Tale of a Million Brushstrokes: The Conservation of English Portraits. The study day has two morning lectures with a hands on session in the afternoon. We discuss the nature of oil paintings materials from the Middle Ages to the present day and common problems associated with the ageing and deterioration of, and damage to, easel paintings. These can be on canvas, panel, board or paper in a range of mediums: oil, acrylic, egg tempera or mixed media. Problems can involve natural deterioration and neglect, accidental damage, vandalism and even war – the most surprising event being a large hole caused by a Turkish cannon ball going through a picture in the 18th century. Modern museum standard approaches to conservation and restoration are illustrated with detailed slides ranging from early Italian religious paintings in egg tempera, via rapid oil sketches on paper by John Constable, to 20th century British portraits and modern abstract works, many from little known collections, taken during conservation treatments. Hints and advice on the proper care of paintings in homes is given in liberal doses throughout! Advice on packing and transport is given in advance so the attendees can bring on their own pictures for an ‘Antiques Roadshow’ style assessment with recommendations for conservation.
Sarah Cove is an accredited paintings conservator-restorer, technical art historian and lecturer with more than 35 years’ experience working on paintings for the heritage and private sectors. She is based in London and Falmouth and is a specialist in British portraits, 19th-20th century British landscapes and oil sketches on paper and board. In 1986 she founded the Constable Research Project and she is now the leading authority on Constable’s materials and techniques. She has appeared in several TV programmes for the BBC notably Constable in Love with Andrew Graham-Dixon and twice on Fake or Fortune? where she was instrumental in the discovery of 3 ‘lost’ Constables. Other research interests include Tudor and Jacobean Portraiture, the 19th century Newlyn and St Ives schools and early-to-mid 20th century British painting generally. She has been a lecturer for The Arts Society since 2003 and is an experienced international speaker having lectured independently at major public and gallery venues across the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand. Her presentations are lively and enthusiastic as she speaks without notes with an inimitable passion that comes from presenting her own work and research with wonderful images.
Attendees are invited to bring in paintings from home for an ‘Antiques Roadshow’ style condition assessment with recommendations for treatment in the afternoon session. This is always fascinating as usually a wide range of pictures and frames are brought in and we will see many of the points illustrated in the lectures in our own paintings! We need easel paintings of any date or School, in oil, acrylic, mixed media on canvas, panel or board. They must specifically not be watercolours, prints, miniatures, engravings, etc., as this is not Sarah’s area of expertise. Sarah can examine 10-12 paintings on average so if you would like to bring one in please contact Anne Bradford (bradfordchurchfarm@gmail.com, 07971 219413) for proper wrapping instructions as we do not want to risk anything getting damaged in transit!
PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE BOOKING FORM
The first session will start at 10.30 am prompt with the final session ending at around 3.30 pm. The cost will be £40 to include morning coffee/tea, hot lunch and second cup of coffee/tea. You may bring your own alcohol but there will be a corkage charge of £2.50 a bottle paid to the Westwoods Centre.
THERE ARE LIMITED PLACES FOR THIS DAY OF SPECIAL INTEREST SO PLEASE BOOK EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT!
Please complete the booking form online if possible. Otherwise post it or email all the details requested on the form to Anne Bradford.
Please note no refunds will be issued but in the event of a member being unable to attend and if there is no waiting list, he/she may find a replacement who does not need to be a member of the Society. Please inform me if you are transferring your place to someone else so a new booking form can be completed.
We have a maximum of 50 places so please apply as soon as possible as places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. We will open up booking to other societies from end of September.
If you would like to bring a painting please contact Anne Bradford with as many details of the painting as possible.
Anne Bradford, Cheveley House, Manor Farm, Shipton Oliffe, Cheltenham GL54 4HY
Tel: 01242 821172 Mob: 07971 219413 bradfordchurchfarm@gmail.com
From Mohammed to Marx: The Changing Face of Art & Textiles of Central Asia
This special interest day comprises 3 lectures;
Cotton Pickers and Cosmonauts
Banned – Savitsky and the Desert Hoard
A Carpet Ride to Khiva
Further details and a booking form will be sent out and put on the website nearer the date.
Chris Aslan was born in Turkey (hence the name Aslan) and spent his childhood there and in war-torn Beirut. After school, Chris spent two years at sea before studying Media and journalism at Leicester University. He then moved to Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, and becoming the largest non-government employer in town. He was kicked out as part of an anti-Western purge, and took a year in Cambridge to write A Carpet Ride to Khiva. Chris then spent three years in the Pamirs mountains of Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down. Next came two years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut forest and establishing a wood-carving workshop. Since then, Chris has studied and rowed at Oxford, and is now based in Cambridge and focussed on writing fiction, including Alabaster, Manacle and Mosaic, and The Broken Hexapus. He is currently working on a new book on the Silk Road that marries travel and textiles, and lectures for The Art Society. He also leads tours to Central Asia, returning whenever he can having left a large chunk of his heart out there.
The Knight in Art
Dr Tobias Capwell
In one day we venture back across time and space to explore the visual, literary, and material culture surrounding one of the core icons of European civilisation - the medieval knight. The armoured horseman is one of the most fundamental images in western art, and yet most art historians and enthusiasts tend to know little about him.
The Two Faces of Russia: Moscow and St Petersburg
We are delighted to welcome Rosamund Bartlett to our Day of Special Interest. She is a writer, lecturer and translator whose work as a cultural historian ranges across the arts. She completed her doctorate at Oxford and is the author of several books, including biographies of Chekhov and Tolstoy, and a study of Wagner's influence in Russia.
The Grand Tour: Travel & Collecting in the 18th Century
We are delighted to welcome Caroline Knight to our Day of Special Interest. She is an architectural historian and trained at the Courtauld, specialising in 16th to 18th century English and Scottish architecture. She is a lecturer at the V&A on year courses and short courses, and a lecturer for the Art Fund, and for the Royal Oak Foundation in the US.
The British Empire and Imperial India
We are delighted to welcome John Stevens to our Day of Special Interest. He is a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and a member of academic staff at the SOAS South Asia Institute. His PhD in History is from University College London. He teaches British Imperial history, Indian history and Bengali language, and is a regular visitor to India and Bangladesh. He publishes widely in the fields of British and Indian history.