The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

Rome is a city of many glories, from distant antiquity onwards, and amongst her remarkable churches, fountains and monuments are the spectacular works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. This complex, driven artist was the friend and confidant of Popes and princes, a child prodigy and a prolific, if understandably arrogant, genius. Find out about his architecture, sculpture, paintings, fountains – even plays – but also discover why such exuberance and magnificence became powerful weapons in a religious and political propaganda war.   

Biography:

Has combined teaching and lecturing with a career in art bookselling and has been a volunteer guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Now a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society, The National Gallery, The Art Fund, and local art societies.

This lecture will follow the AGM

Dutch art is quite different to anything else at that time. It dealt with the real lives of its people: at times ordered, at others bawdy or self important, and occasionally tragic. This lecture looks into why this is so. It shows how Holland achieved its independence through its bitter wars with Spain. How its new Protestant mentality would allow astonishing advances in science, as Rembrandt shows in his portrait of Dr Tulp; how its merchant wealth will be reflected in serene seascapes by Van de Velde and Van Goyen, its civic pride in the brilliant portraits of Frans Hals, and its insistence on moral order and well scrubbed households in the enigmatic poetry of Vermeer.

Biography:

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.

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

This lecture will look at the varied artworks of Banksy from A to Z. He first came to prominence on the Bristol graffiti scene in the 1990s. Since moving to London in 2000, he’s used a stencil-based approach to his street art. It’s quicker to execute, with less risk of being detected or apprehended. Some of his most memorable stencilled pieces have entered the nation’s consciousness They include rodents, chimpanzees, girls with balloons, flower-throwing freedom fighters, and housewives who fight back. He sometimes dabbles in ‘fine art’, but usually with the aim of mocking the art market. And he produces installations to bemuse and exhibitions to dazzle.

Biography:

Ray has had a life-long love of art. However, in his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. These studies led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. But all that changed in 2011, when Ray became a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Then from 2014 to 2017, he studied art history at the Open University, and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he gained an MA in the History of Art. And to cap it all, Ray became an Arts Society lecturer in 2017. Ray also knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of lectures as he is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

Join Margaret for a seasonal hour of Christmas bygones and entertainment as she brings to life the joy of music through the ages at this time of year. She will be delving into the history of the harp and it’s incredible pedal mechanism and exploring  some of the old Christmas Carols and their origins. Margaret will play a selection of festive favourites to get you in the mood for Christmas. 

Biography:

Margaret studied harp under the late Sidonie Goossens OBE and Sussex harpist Helen Arnold. She holds a Diploma in Music Performance on the harp and is also a Fellow of The Guild of Musicians and Singers. Now one of the busiest harpists in the Southeast, Margaret has played for Royalty, given concerts at National Trust properties, played at City Guildhall, Clarence House, The Garrick Club, The Savoy, Ritz, Dorchester and Hilton Langham Hotels in London, Glyndebourne Opera House, Covent Garden and for many weddings, private parties, group meetings, receptions, launches, corporate, civic and charity functions. Margaret is a very active member of the charity ‘Music in Hospitals and Care’ and gives bedside concerts for patients and mentally or physically disabled people in hospitals, hospices, and specialist care centres and nursing homes. With her very varied repertoire and often resplendent costumes, she has delighted numerous audiences throughout the UK.

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

For over a century, W. Heath Robinson, whom the novelist, Philip Pullman called ‘the immortal contraptioneer’, has been famous for drawing rickety, bizarrely complicated devices that carry out the simplest of tasks like potato peeling, wart removal or pancake making. He became so famous for them that in 1933, he was the obvious person to illustrate Norman Hunter’s Professor Branestawm books and, in 1943, Bletchley Park named one of their code-breaking machines after him.  Much later still, some of the contraptions in Wallace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers are based on a scale model of a gadget filled house that he made for the Ideal Home Show in 1934.

Biography:

Barry Venning is an art historian whose interests and teaching range from the art of late medieval Europe to global contemporary art. He has published books, articles and exhibition catalogue essays on Turner, Constable and European landscape painting, but also has an ongoing research interest in postcolonial art and British visual satire. He works as a consultant and associate lecturer for the Open University. His media work includes two BBC TV documentaries, radio appearances for BBC local radio and abc Australia, and a DVD on Turner for the Tate. 

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun was an eighteenth century artist, painting the aristocracy of France during the Revolution and in the shadow of the Guillotine. She created portraits for the nobility of Europe and even travelled to England. She also painted over twenty-five self-portraits throughout her life, and wrote her memoirs. I will focus on three aspects of Elisabeth’s life – Mother, Heroine and Artist – illustrating her story with her art and her own words. The search for Elisabeth will take us to France, Italy and England during the exhilarating and dangerous time of the French Revolution.

Biography:

Dr Alison Barker taught History and Art History at further and higher education for over twenty years and currently works at the University of Essex. She speaks widely to diverse groups on many historical and art historical topics, and has led guided tours at the British Museum and the National Gallery.  Alison wrote her PhD thesis on the depiction of Saint George in art and has published work on his image in both England and Italy.  She has presented Papers for the Renaissance Society of America in both Boston and Dublin.  Her book, The Dissemination of Saint George in Early Modern Art has been recently published by Routledge.

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

This lecture explores Kandinsky’s journey from figurative landscape painter to modernist master, as one of the first artists to develop a radically abstract language. It examines how, from his early landscapes inspired by the Bavarian countryside and folk imagery from Russian fairy tales and legends, Kandinsky’s style evolved after he moved to Germany and co-founded Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group. The lecture looks at how Kandinsky came to see painting as an alternative pathway to spiritual reality, increasingly stripping away descriptive detail by reducing recognisable elements.

Biography:

BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. Experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. Lectures at Tate, to independent art societies and on cruises.

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

I busied myself to think of a story…one which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror...  Mary Shelley   In the late 18th century writers of fiction began to embrace the Gothic – or ‘the art of freezing the blood.’ Many of these authors were women. They wrote about dark abbeys and ruined monasteries; they reported supernatural goings-on and blood curdling screams. The early readers of gothic fiction lapped these stories up. Some readers – such as Mary Shelley and the Bronte sisters - were inspired to create their own gothic worlds, peopled with madwomen and monsters.

Biography:

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

Not all lectures are currently available via zoom - please get in touch for further details.

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

Few gallery-goers are aware that Rubens was not only the most influential artist of his period, but also a high-ranking diplomat and informal spy. During his glamorous and prestigious career, Rubens travelled throughout Europe and was esteemed by the mightiest kings and queens of the age. He was intelligent, good-looking and could speak several languages. His career as an artist was an excellent cover for international travel and private meetings. So, acting on behalf of the Governors of the Spanish Netherlands, Rubens had covert summits with Europe’s most significant power brokers like Marie de’Medici of France, King Philip IV of Spain, and King Charles I of England.

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).

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

Mary Gainsborough (known to her parents as Molly) and her slightly younger sister Margaret (‘the Captain’) were sketched and painted more often than most girls of their time and class. The images of the talented sisters and their affectionate father’s letters give an exceptional chronicle of two young women growing up in mid-Georgian England.  Through their father’s sensitive portraits of Mary, Margaret and their family (and a few of their pets), this lecture will follow their story from childhood in Suffolk, to the ‘tea-drinkings, dancings, husband-huntings’ of Bath and the difficulties of adult life, keeping up appearances in London.

Biography:

Amina Wright has three decades of experience as a curator of historic art collections and exhibitions. She has produced several major exhibitions on eighteenth-century British Art and Old Masters and published and lectured widely in these areas.  As Senior Curator at the Holburne Museum in Bath she was a leading member of the team that delivered the museum’s highly successful 2011 redevelopment. She has recently completed a brand new one-of-a-kind museum, the Auckland Project’s Faith Museum in County Durham.  Amina has also worked for English Heritage and the National Trust and has an MA in Christianity & the Arts from King’s College London. 

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

Lidos and libraries, concert halls and cottage estates: the inter-war era was a time of bold and urgent experiments in social engineering through architecture. 

Against a backdrop of the Great Depression, ‘moral uplift’ and ‘optimism’ became the buzzwords of the day. What if civic architecture could change the lives of the people? How could the puny ‘C3’ Brits be transformed into an A1 nation? What could we learn from our European neighbours (including, whisper it, the Germans)?

Biography:

Tessa Boase is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer and campaigner with a particular 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; 

Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds, 

and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams. 

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. 

The lecture will follow the AGM which starts at 10 am at the Abbey Theatre

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is arguably the most important Indian artistic figure of the modern era. A renowned poet, novelist, composer and painter, Tagore became a global sensation when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, the first non-European to do so. This lecture provides an introduction to Tagore’s remarkable life and work, including his novels, poetry, songs and paintings. It also explores the role Tagore’s art played in the story of India’s fight for independence. 

Biography:

Dr John Stevens is head of the London Bangla Academy, an online school that teaches the Bengali language to students across the world. He gained his PhD in History from UCL, before going on to teach British Imperial History, Indian History and Bengali Language at 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. 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. 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. 

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

A light-hearted look at seaside entertainment over the years, from Bathing Machines to End of the Pier Shows and “What the Butler Saw” machines. The British seaside began with the fashion for sea bathing in the 18th century, but expanded enormously in the 19th century with the arrival of the railways and the era of mass travel. We look at the specialist buildings which proliferated at the seaside in the 19th century, such as piers, towers and aquaria, that provided entertainment for the masses – not to mention that famous breed, the seaside landlady! 

Biography:

Ian Gledhill has had a very varied career, from designing underground railways as an engineer for London Transport, to appearing in pantomime with Julian Clary. In between he has worked in travel and tourism, music publishing, television, and especially the theatre, where he has been an actor, director, set designer, stage manager and opera translator. His main interests include architecture, history, transport and classical music, especially opera and operetta, and these are reflected in the wide ranging list of subjects for his lectures.

The lecture begins at 10.30.am at The Abbey Theatre, with doors open and refreshments available from 10:00am.

This lecture travels through the Christmas story from the Annunciation to the Flight into Egypt through the eyes of Italian artists. There will be some well-known favourites alongside other works that are less familiar enabling us to take a fresh look at the artist’s approach to the narrative. The chosen works also open up other subjects such as the Medici family’s devotion to the Magi, the making of the spectacular floor of Siena Cathedral, a stolen Caravaggio and a rather unconventional breastfeeding position!

Biography:

Dr Antonia Gatward Cevizli is an independent art historian specialising in both Italian Renaissance art and Ottoman art. She gained her PhD from the University of Warwick. Her publications focus on cultural and diplomatic exchange between the Italian city-states and the Ottomans. Antonia has lectured for a number of institutions including Sabancı University, Istanbul; Sotheby’s Institute of Art; the National Gallery; the V&A Academy and The Courtauld summer school. Her interests are wide-ranging and she also worked across the collections of both Tate Modern and Tate Britain as a professional guide. She has lived in Siena, Venice and Istanbul.