Lectures
Water, Light and Shade, The Persian Paradise Garden
The formal ‘paradise gardens’ of Persia (Iran) are noted for their tranquility and the respite they offer from the summer heat of the region, combining architectural and arboreal shade with running water in a long tradition. Adopted by Arab traders and rulers, such garden designs became central to the planning of palaces, mosques and private houses across the Islamic world from Baghdad, Aleppo and Damascus to Granada, Cordoba and Seville in the west, and eastwards to Afghanistan and the Mughal empire in India, of which the Taj Mahal is an unusual but especially beautiful example.
After officer service in the Royal Navy Justin had a long career in business management. He became Chief Executive of a healthcare company and then Director of Studies for a Japanese executive college in Oxford and Washington DC. He was one of the earliest consultants in knowledge management and e-learning, advising the UK Government, until he retired from business in 2000. Justin then studied the History of Art and Architecture at Oxford, and later studied Islamic art at Oxford and classical culture with the university of Athens. While researching for a doctorate in naval history, Justin was invited to join the Bodleian Library as a senior academic manager, advising researchers and graduate students and editing manuscripts in the Bodleian's collections. He is a published historian. A qualified teacher, he is a tutor in the History of Art and Architecture and classical studies for independent colleges at Oxford and for private graduate students. He is a member of the AI & Arts Interest Group at the Alan Turing Institute, and is currently writing a university preparation course on the history of innovation and the impact of Artificial Intelligence on human creativity. A Fellow of two learned societies, and a member of the Walpole Society and the Arts Society Cheltenham, Justin is a frequent lecturer for The Arts Society with a wide range of talks and study days on art history, painting, sculpture and architecture across cultures from antiquity to the modern era.
Stella Lyons -Sorolla, Setting the Mediterranean Alight
In his lifetime, Sorolla was considered the most famous artist to come from Spain.
More Spanish than the Alhambra, more passionate than Flamenco, more sunny than a holiday in Marbella, he captured in his paintings all the exuberance of his native country.
So why don’t we know more about him?
This talk will explore the so-called Spanish ‘Master of Light’; from his paintings of sunlit beaches and gardens to scenes of fishermen and rural life, as well as portraits of the love of his life, his wife Clotilde.
‘Without sacrificing scholarship, Stella Lyons has a most engaging way of hooking an audience into sharing her passionate interest in art history, drawing three dimensional human stories and experiences from the two-dimensional canvas’ – Maev Kennedy, writer and Arts correspondent for The Guardian Stella Grace Lyons is a freelance Art History lecturer, speaker and writer accredited with The Arts Society. She has lectured across the UK, Ireland, Spain, Norway, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Malaysia and will soon embark on a lecturing tour in Australasia. Stella gained her BA in the History of Art with a 1st class in her dissertation from the University of Bristol (2007-2011), and her MA in History of Art from the University of Warwick. She spent a year studying Renaissance art in Italy at the British Institute of Florence, and three months studying Venetian art in Venice. In addition, she attended drawing classes at the prestigious Charles H. Cecil studios in Florence, a private atelier that follows a curriculum based on the leading ateliers of nineteenth century Paris. Stella runs her own Art History lectures both in person and online. She is a regular lecturer in the UK and Europe for The Arts Society, Tour companies, and the National Trust, amongst others. Stella is also a part-time lecturer for the University of South Wales. She has written about art for several publications and her article on Norwegian art was recently featured on the front cover of The Arts Society magazine. In addition to her lecturing work, Stella works as an artist’s model for the internationally renowned figurative artist, Harry Holland.
Kirsty Hartsiotis - The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds
THE NEW MEMBERS LUNCH WILL BE AFTER THIS LECTURE
The Cotswolds became one of the most vibrant rural centres of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by William Morris's retreat at Kelmscott Manor, several groups of designers and makers settled in the region, from Ernest Gimson and the Barnsley brothers, to C R Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft, and designers and artists drawn south from the Birmingham School of Art. They were followed by friends and admirers to create a region-wide craft community that lasts to this day.
Kirsty Hartsiotis was the curator of the decorative and fine art at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham from 2008 to 2023. She is currently a curator at Swindon Museums, where she also worked prior to 2008. At Cheltenham she looked after the Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection, which includes the important private press archive, the Emery Walker Library. She’s curated many exhibitions on the Arts and Crafts and Private Press Movements, including Ernest Gimson: Observation, Imagination & Making. Passionate about sharing her deep love for and knowledge of the arts, she’s also a freelance researcher, currently researching Arts and Crafts war memorials and the work of Arts and Crafts designers in churches in the South West. She’s also been an oral storyteller for over 20 years, and has published a number of collections of stories. She's the Editor of the Journal of William Morris Studies, and was the newsletter editor for Society of Decorative Art Collections. She is a regular columnist for Cotswold Life, and writes for diverse other publications on art history and folklore.
Fiona Rose - Uncompromising Genius, The Life and Works of Frank Lloyd Wright.
The AGM will take place at 10.00am before this Lecture.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1857-1959) is recognized as one of the most important architects of all time. He was a genius who believed he was destined to redesign the world. Over the course of his long career, he designed over 800 buildings including revolutionary structures such as The Guggenheim Museum, Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax Building and Taliesin. However, Wright’s architectural achievements were often overshadowed by his turbulent private life. In his 92 years, he fathered 7 children, married three times, and suffered great personal tragedy. This illustrated lecture provides an overview of his work, colourful personal life and most iconic buildings.
Fiona Rose has been lecturing about topics she feels passionately about since 2010 including William Morris and his circle, the Arts & Crafts Movement, Frida Kahlo and Frank Lloyd Wright. She has a BA in Social Psychology and aims to include the human story behind the artistic endeavours of her subjects. After an early career in public health Fiona founded and runs a home interiors business featuring the work of the great C19th designers such as Morris, Dearle, Voysey and Mackintosh. Fiona is a member of the Museum Collections committee for The William Morris Society and a former Trustee serving as Chair of their Communications and Business Development committees. She is also a regular contributor to the Society’s Magazine and a book reviewer for the Journal of William Morris Studies. Fiona is a House Guide and specialist lecturer for the David Parr House in Cambridge.
Andy McConnell - Scandinavian Glass: From Orrefors to Ikea
The Nordic countries, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, played a minor role in the historic development of world glassmaking. So, it is an astonishing fact that the area, with some 20 million inhabitants, produced more Post-War glass designers of international consequence than the rest of the Western World combined, with a population many times greater. Inevitably, rivalis abounded within such large, disparate group of strong-minded, egocentric individuals. Sparks inevitably flew and ideas were transplanted when they met each other and witnessed the results of their work, both at their employers’ premises and at the regular prize-orientated international exhibitions of the period.
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.
Lucrezia Walker - Elizabeth Vignee Le Brun
One of the finest eighteenth-century French painters and among the most important women artists of all time. Celebrated for her expressive portraits of French royalty and aristocracy, and especially of her patron Marie Antoinette, Vigée Le Brun exemplified success and resourcefulness in an age when women were rarely allowed either. Because of her close association with the queen Vigée Le Brun was forced to flee France during the French Revolution. For twelve years she travelled throughout Europe, painting noble sitters in the courts of Naples, Russia, Austria, and Prussia.
Lucrezia Walker Is a regular lecturer at the National Gallery. She is adjunct professor of art history for the University of North Carolina's Study Abroad semesters in London. She was Lay Canon for the Visual Arts at St Paul's Cathedral 2010-2014.
Gavin Plumley - John Singer Sargent, The Private Radical
Whether drawing duchesses or portraying princes, John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was high society’s leading portraitist. Flaunting a consummate technique, his luxurious canvases mirrored his subjects’ wealth. Yet beneath the dazzling veneer of works such as Madame X, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw lurks a much rawer world by far. Sargent certainly scandalised Parisian society and the city’s Salon with his frank depictions of human sexuality, yet he was even more modern than they might have feared. This talk charts the artist’s life and his prolific output, showing that, like the era he came to represent, Sargent was always on the cusp of seismic change.
Gavin Plumley is a writer and broadcaster. He appears on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and contributes to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe. His recent appearances include Klimt and The Kiss in cinemas worldwide, and talks for the Hay and Cheltenham Literature Festivals, the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum and the V&A. His first book, A Home for All Seasons, is out now.
Sue Rollin - Petra and the Nabateans 'The Arabs before Islam
In the heart of the mountains of southern Transjordan lies Petra, splendid capital of the Nabateans, a people of Arab origin who created in their lovely sandstone valleys a city unique in the ancient world. This remote desert stronghold with its extraordinary coloured rocks and carved façades has caught the imagination of travellers since it was first rediscovered in 1812. This lecture tells the story of the enigmatic Nabateans and explores their fine city with its temples, shrines, tombs, palaces and villas.
Sue Rollin works as a tour guide and lecturer in India and the Middle East, and as a freelance interpreter for the European Union, United Nations and other international organisations. She was formerly staff interpreter at the European Commission, Brussels, and tutor and lecturer in Assyriology and Ancient History at the Universities of London and Cambridge. She has worked as an archaeologist. Publications: Blue Guide: Jordan and Istanbul: A Traveller's Guide.
Roger Askew - The Origins of our English Christmas
The origins of our English Christmas stretch far back into European history, combining the pagan traditions of the Roman and Scandinavian winter festivals. Only in the 4th century AD did the Christian Church start to celebrate the birth of Christ. Since then these different cultures have co-existed, changing as the social and political landscape changed. Music, art and folk customs associated with the season have all evolved, producing a rich tapestry of imagery and events that have appealed to every strata in our society.
Roger Askew was a chorister at Wells Cathedral School and a choral scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with an honours degree in English. He combined a teaching career with professional singing in London, and after obtaining a further degree in Music became Director of Music at Daniel Stewart’s and Melville College in Edinburgh. After retiring in 2003 he returned to the south of England. He is President Emeritus of The Stoke Poges Society.
The Twelve Days of Christmas - Peter Medhurst
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.
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.
Of Meissen Men: The Birth of European Porcelain - Lars Tharp
The amazing fairytale of how Meissen porcelain - Europe’s first manufactory of ‘true’ porcelain – was discovered; the men involved, the design precursors of its first creations, its inspired inventions and continued history right into the 20th century; its influence on later factories throughout the world, from the 18th century to the present. We meet Augustus the Strong and the slippery alchemist Johann Friedrich Boettger as he saved his neck by coming up with something better than gold….
Since his 1986 debut on the BBC Antiques Roadshow (and all series since), Lars Tharp has spoken widely, within and beyond the UK. With over 40 years of experience in ceramics and other areas, he aims to combine several compelling narratives with enthusiasm and humour.
He was born in Copenhagen, studied Archaeology at Cambridge and joined Sothebys where, as a director and auctioneer (1977-1993), he specialized in Chinese and European ceramics. Today his consultancy devises and curates exhibitions, advises on the acquisition, care and disposal of ceramics and other fields. He also speaks a lot: many of my most popular talks concern the vast universe of clay and ceramics as well as the world and works of William Hogarth.
Riveria Paradise: Art, Design and Pleasure in the 1920s - Mary Alexander
Since the C19 English high society had 'wintered over' on the Côte d'Azur, but always left by April. In the early 1920s, however, an intoxicating mix of artists, writers, musicians and international visitors, inspired by a mythological seascape of luminous colours, created a new summer season. Sun tans and sportswear soon became 'de rigueur' in the chic new coastal resorts, villas and hotels. This liberating playground of ideas across the visual design arts was stimulated by impresarios Serge Diaghilev and Paul Poiret. Traditional boundaries were torn down. Matisse, Picasso, Dufy, Cocteau, and Chanel merged the worlds of fashion, theatre and interiors. Cole Porter, Scott Fitzgerald, and the intriguing Gerald and Sara Murphy, introduced an American perspective and attracted an influential new set of discerning patrons and collectors. We will 'time travel' to meet them.
Mary Alexander trained as an art historian and graduated with a B.A. Hons. in History & History of Art (University College London) and later an M.A. (with Distinction) in History of Art (University College London).
She moved to Manchester to take up the post of Assistant Curator at Platt Hall, the Gallery of English Costume, a renowned collection of historic dress. Subsequently she lectured in art history at the University of Leeds, the Open University and Manchester University Extra Mural Department. From 1995 - 2008, she was a Visiting Lecturer at Christie’s Education in London.
Mary has also combined academic work with the world of design consultancy. In 1985 she joined Pentagram Design in London, a leading international design consultancy, and coordinated client presentations, publications, conferences and international special events, including the 1986 British Design event in Aspen Colorado. In 1988 she transferred to Pentagram’s New York office with the task of organising an international design conference held at Stanford University involving business, design and education leaders.
As an experienced international speaker, Mary lectures regularly for The Arts Society throughout the UK, Europe and Australia and New Zealand. She also contributes articles to magazines, newspapers and professional journals. She was President of The Arts Society Glaven Valley, Norfolk from 2016- 2021.
Gemstones, Crystals and a Bushel of Pearls: Bejewelling this Sceptred Isle - Ann Haworth
The lecture title borrows William Shakespeare's stirring words from King Richard II and Horace Walpole's vivid description of a pearl-laden Queen Elizabeth I. Medieval and Tudor monarchs understood that the visual beauty and rarity of precious gem-stones, including luminous sapphires, rubies and spinels alongside lustrous pearls and clear rock crystal, expressed and enhanced their regal power and status. Resplendence and awe-inspiring magnificence transcend the passage of time in portraits of monarchs from King Richard II in the Wilton Diptych to Queen Elizabeth I in Nicholas Hilliard's painted miniatures. Hilliard himself trained as a goldsmith and the technical brilliance of other anonymous masters of this craft is still evidenced in surviving jewels such as Princess Blanche's dazzling crown, the Royal Gold Cup in the British Museum and Henry V's rock crystal sceptre linked to the City of London and the Battle of Agincourt. Tracing the sources of the stones in distant lands, the lecture follows a journey from the gem-stone mines of Asia, the pearl fisheries of the Persian Gulf, mountains with crystal mines and freshwater pearls from the rivers of Scotland, to the merchants of Venice and Bruges, Medieval markets in Avignon and Champagne and on to the goldsmiths of Paris and London.
Anne is a lecturer at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum and the Queen’s Gallery. She is a visiting lecturer for Regent's University, Sotheby's Institute and SOAS. Since 2008, she has been a member of the London faculty of Eckerd College, Florida, teaching Art History and is also an accredited Arts Society lecturer. For ten years she guided private evening tours of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. She lectures extensively for private groups, guides museum tours in London and has lectured on William Morris for the British Council and British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow.
After studying Modern History at Durham University, she trained and became a senior specialist in ceramics at the head offices in London of Bonhams (1981-1986) and Christie's (1987-1995). From 1995 to 2002, she was resident in Shanghai, China and gave lectures on the history of the China trade and European Chinoiserie to the international community of diplomats and expatriates in Shanghai and Beijing. On returning to London in 2002, she worked on a short project cataloguing Chinese ceramics at Kensington Palace and became Hon Membership Secretary and Treasurer of the French Porcelain Society.
Gardens of the Restoration - garden design and garden-themed embroidery 1660-1720 - Lucy Hughes-Hallett
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A CHANGE FROM THE ORIGINAL LECTURE
The last splendid flowering of the formal Italianate garden in this country.
The Royalist landowners returning from exile on Charles II’s Restoration in 1660 brought with them, from Holland or France, new tastes in garden design, and a longing to put down roots. John Evelyn was one of many employed to create little Edens for them.
We see paintings and plans of the new gardens created during the late Stuart period. The pictures, many of them by Dutch and Flemish artists who had travelled over with the restored King, are as lovely now as these magnificent gardens once were.
Lucy Hughes-Hallett's book on the 17th century Duke of Buckingham, The Scapegoat, will be published by Fourth Estate in October 2024. Her last non-fiction book, The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio was described in The Sunday Times as ‘the biography of the decade’. It won all three of the UK’s most prestigious prizes for non-fiction - the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Costa Biography Award. Her other non-fiction books include Cleopatra and Heroes.
She also writes fiction. Her novel, Peculiar Ground, is largely set in the 17th century, and narrated by a landscape designer loosely based on the diarist John Evelyn. It was described as 'almost Tolstoyan in its sly wit and descriptive brilliance' (The Guardian) and 'full of drama, vivid characters, wit, gorgeous writing and fascinating detail’. (New York Times). In her short story collection, Fabulous, she retells fables from classical mythology, relocating them to modern Britain.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Historical Association, she has written on books, theatre and the visual arts for publications including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The New Statesman and the TLS. She was Chair of the Judges for the 2021 International Booker Prize.
Palmyra: Bride of the Desert - Paul Roberts
This Lecture will be preceded at 10am by the Annual General Meeting
In this talk we look at one of the most beautiful cities of the ancient world, the fabled city of Palmyra, in the Syrian desert. Palmyra arose on a trade route that brought silk, spices and other luxuries across the desert from the east. Her wealth and power are displayed in gorgeous monuments, while her people, wealthy, sophisticated and cosmopolitan, are preserved in their hauntingly beautiful funeral portraits.
Palmyra became so powerful during the Roman empire that its warrior queen Zenobia challenged Rome itself. We’ll see Palmyra’s meteoric rise and its dramatic fall, its rediscovery by English lords, its influence on art and architecture, and then its desecration by Isis. But we finish with the hope that beautiful Palmyra will rise again…
Dr Paul Roberts is Head of the Department of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford University.
Paul has been a lecturer with the Arts Society/NADFAS for over twenty years, has travelled extensively to societies across the UK, and has also lectured on numerous cruises in and around the Mediterranean. Like all of us, he enjoys the immediate contact of face to face meetings, but is happy to provide online lectures if desired.
He studied Classics at the University of Cambridge, and Classical Archaeology at the Universities of Sheffield and Oxford. He then lived in Italy for several years, teaching and researching. He has travelled throughout the former lands of the Roman Empire, from Britain to Syria, and has excavated in Britain, Greece, Libya, Turkey and in particular Italy, where he is currently working on a Roman Villa in the Molise region of the Central Apennines. His research focuses on the daily life of ordinary people in the Greek and Roman worlds, and he has written books and articles on Greek and Roman daily life, Pompeii and Herculaneum, Sicily, Roman Emperors, mummy portraits, and Greek and Roman ceramics and glass. He is now writing a guide to the monuments and Emperors of ancient Rome.
From 1994 to 2015 he was Senior Roman Curator in the Greek and Roman Department at the British Museum, where he curated the exhibition Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum (2013). Arriving in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2015, he co-curated Storms, War and Shipwrecks: Sicily and the Sea (2016) telling the history of Sicily through shipwreck finds. Most recently (2019/20) at the Ashmolean he curated Last Supper in Pompeii, a tribute to the Roman love affair with food and wine.
London's Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams - Tessa Boase
This lecture will be followed by the New Members Lunch.
London’s sumptuous Victorian and Edwardian department stores changed the capital – and changed its women. Shoppers of every rank were lavishly wooed, seduced and often undone by the temptations laid out before them in these new ‘cathedrals of desire’.
Starting on Oxford Street’s ‘golden mile’, we’ll set off on a cultural tour of the capital’s big stores – from snooty Marshall & Snelgrove, to Pontings, ‘House of Value’; from Kennards’ wart-removal service, to the live flamingos atop Derry & Toms; from Bodgers of Ilford, to Bon Marché of Brixton.
How did it feel to enter a great store in 1850 – and in 1950? What was it like to serve? From shoppers to shop girls, publicity stunts to wow factor window dressing, a fascinating slice of social history, with wonderful period images.
Tessa Boase is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer and campaigner with an interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women from the 19th and early 20th-centuries – revealing how they drove industry, propped up society and influenced politics.
She’s the author of three books of social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (2014); Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds (first published as Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather in 2018), and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams (2022).
Since uncovering the feminist origins of the RSPB, Tessa has been campaigning for public recognition of its female founders with plaques, portraits and a statue.
Happy and Glorious, A Thousand Years of Coronations -The evolution of the Coronation Ceremony from Saxon Times to the Present - Barbara Askew
The crowning of the sovereign is an ancient ceremony rich in religious significance, historical associations and pageantry. This lecture looks at the evolution of the coronation ceremony from Saxon times to the present day, examines the stages of the coronation from the Proclamation to the Homage and explains the significance of the various items of Coronation Regalia. Finally, the lecture gives an account of fascinating incidents, ill omens and memorable mishaps that have occurred at coronations and ends with a discussion of how the coronation of King Charles III differed from that of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
Barbara Askew has been a Historian and London Blue Badge Guide since 1988. She is a Lecturer, Examiner and Course Director on Blue Badge Guide Training Courses and an acknowledged expert on Royalty and Windsor Castle. The only Blue Badge Guide accredited to guide the Albert Memorial.
The Paintings of Murillo: A reflection of life in 17th Century Seville - Sian Walters
This lecture focuses on Andalucia’s most famous and popular painter, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, whose home town was Seville. Born in 1617, Murillo decided to remain here for almost all of his working life, and his paintings are not only a valuable testament to the religious climate of the city following the CounterReformation, but also important documents which tell us a great deal about society and everyday life at the time. The lecture describes some of the charming images of street orphans and flower girls which one so often associates with the artist, explaining the reasons behind their creation. It also examines some of the beautiful large-scale religious works and analyses their iconography. The lecture compares Murillo’s work to that of his two great contemporaries, Zurbaran and Velázquez, and demonstrates how his work took a radically different turn. It concludes with an examination of a lesser known work whose theme is a mystery, and attempts to piece the clues together in order to find a solution to its meaning.
Siân Walters is an art historian and the director of Art History in Focus. She has been a lecturer at the National Gallery for over 20 years and taught their first online course, Stories of Art, in September 2020. She also lectures for The Wallace Collection, The Art Fund and many art societies and colleges throughout Europe, and taught at Surrey University for many years.
Her specialist areas include 15th and 16th century Italian Art, Spanish Art and Architecture, Dutch and Flemish painting and the relationship between Dance and Art (she is an honorary advisor to the Nonsuch Historical Dance Society). Siân studied at Cambridge University where she was awarded a choral exhibition and a 1st for her dissertation on the paintings of Arnold Schoenberg. She has lived in France and Italy where she worked for the eminent Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon and for the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. She spends much of the year organising and leading specialist art tours abroad, including bespoke trips for The Arts Society.
In recent years Siân has been asked to represent the National Gallery at the international Hay Festival and was named a Highly Commended finalist in the World’s Best Guide Awards. In 2018 she was invited to be the guest lecturer on the inaugural BRAVO Cruise of Performing Arts alongside Katherine Jenkins, Julian Lloyd Webber and Ruthie Henshall. In 2020 Siân presented the first online courses for both The Wallace Collection and The National Gallery, and was one of the first accredited lecturers to provide online Zoom lectures.In November she launched a series of live, online tours and visits abroad entitled Cultural Travels from Home. These include visits by special arrangement to a number of major European art galleries allowing virtual access to their collections. These are being offered to Arts Society groups as part of their online tours/events programme, please get in touch for more details.
In 2020 she launched a series of live, online tours and visits abroad entitled Cultural Travels from Home. These include visits by special arrangement to a number of major European art galleries, allowing virtual access to their collections. Siân organised the world’s first livestream tours of the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, the Medici Palace in Florence, the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi and the Castello Sforzesco in Milan and many more. These are being offered to Arts Society groups as part of their online tours/events programme, please get in touch for more details.
The Wind in the Willows revisited through it's Illustrators
John Ericson
The beauty of Kenneth Grahame’s prose is widely acknowledged but the story is so full of wonderful imagery that it almost demands to be illustrated. First published in 1908 without illustration, the classic tale of Ratty, Mole, and the incorrigible Mr Toad has been in print ever since. What is less well known is that it has been illustrated by more than ninety artists – making it the most widely illustrated book in the English language.
The Genius of Antonio Stradivari
In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. The images, charting the course of a year, changed the way we view the world through art.
Bruegel: The Seasons and the World
Gavin Plumley
In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. The images, charting the course of a year, changed the way we view the world through art. Landscape had previously been a decorative backdrop to dramas both sacred and profane. But in Bruegel's hands the landscape and our interaction with it became the focus. Looking at paintings such as The Return of the Herd, Hunters in the Snow and The Gloomy Day, this lecture explores how Bruegel pioneered a whole new way of thinking about the environment and our individual places within a shifting cosmos.
Gavin Plumley is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. His recent talks include the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum, the V&A, the Southbank Centre, the Tate and the Neue Galerie, New York, as well as for history of art societies and The Art Fund.
Frida Kahlo: A Life in Art
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-54) was queen of the selfies long before Kim Kardashian but instead of using Instagram Frida used a brush and oils to paint her own reality. Often associated with the Surrealist movement, Frida denied this insisting she painted life exactly as she had experienced it. Frida’s personal life was tumultuous. Horrifically injured in an accident as a teenager she was dogged by physical pain and suffering for the rest of her life. She married, divorced, and remarried the painter Diego Rivera her artistic and political soulmate though an unfaithful husband.