Human hearts, blood and children’s tears were all necessary to quench the hunger of the bloodthirsty gods of Mexico. If their needs were not satisfied the consequences for the nation would be catastrophic. Discover some of their ancient gods and learn about the religious rites designed to appease them.

Eileen Goulding

Eileen has an MA from the Department of Archaeology at the University of London, is a published author and an authority on the ancient cultures of the world. She specialises in the History and Culture of the ancient worlds of the Mediterranean, South America and Australasia and spends her time doing further research and giving lectures to the Arts Society, on cruise ships and to various local organisations. Her first book What Did the Poor Take with Them? is an academic treatise on Ancient Egyptian funerary goods, while her second book Understanding Ancient Egypt is a more accessible introduction to the subject.

The Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, are noted for extremes in terms of topography and light. Above the Arctic circle at midwinter you will experience the Polar Night, total darkness with no rising sun. During June and July, the sun lingers on the horizon without fully setting resulting in the Midnight Sun. Below the arctic circle line, the sun sets for a while, but its light can still be seen on the horizon. The night sky isn’t black, it’s blue or milky white. Scandinavian painters who embraced Naturalism and Impressionism, painting directly from nature out of doors, were keen to depict these phenomena. Painting at Skagen, an artist’s colony on the tip of Jutland, Denmark, Peder Krøyer captured the ‘Blue Hour’ when the blue of the sky and sea seem to merge. Norwegian painter Kitty Kielland headed for the artists’ colony at Fleskum Farm, where she broke with realism and painted a series of atmospheric, mystic ‘white night’ landscapes. Her nationalistic and emotional approach typifies the 1890s, when artists moved away from Impressionism to Symbolism with Edvard Munch being the most notable example of fin-de-siecle angst. Apart from Munch, many of the artists included in this lecture may be unfamiliar. However, interest in Nordic vision has been growing with exhibitions on Harold Solberg, Nikolai Astrup and Anna Ancher at the Dulwich Art Gallery. All three attempted to capture the essence of their homeland, Norway and Denmark, and capture the unique light of the North.

Scott Anderson

Trained as an archaeologist at Leicester University and was a professional archaeologist for ten years before his interests shifted to the world of art, antiques and auctioneering. In 1994 he joined the team at Southampton Solent University lecturing on the only BA(Hons) degree course of its kind to look at the commercial art world. Now, as a Senior Lecturer, he teaches courses on the history and theory of interior design and visual culture. He has lectured to many adult audiences for a variety of University Extra-mural departments and the WEA. For the last few years he has also worked as a consultant valuer for the BBC television programme Flog It.

Early in the 17th Century, a group of intellectuals, philosophers, musicians, writers, got together to discuss the re-creation of ancient Greek theatre. But what they actually came up with was something quite new and very different : Italian opera, closely followed by the sonata, the concerto and the oratorio. 

Gwyn Parry-Jones has a rich and varied background, having wide experience both as a performer and as a music educator. As a performer, he has played with many of the world’s great conductors and soloists, such as Barbirolli, Rattle, Rostropovich and Janet Baker. Gwyn has appeared in a solo or chamber music role in the UK and round the world, including at the Barbican, the Royal Festival Hall, Hong Kong Cultural Centre and Teatro Monumental, Madrid. He was a founder-member of the groups ZigZag and The Five Winds, and was an instrumental soloist on the award-winning CD of Arvo Pärt’s Passio, recorded in the presence of the composer.

After starting his career in education at Millfield School, Gwyn went on to teach in the universities of Salford, Manchester, Gothenberg (Sweden) and Oxford. Having completed ten years as Director of Music Activities at Reading University, he left academia to devote more time to his conducting and other musical pursuits. As conductor of the flourishing community choir at Fleet in Hampshire, he performs a wide range of choral music, and has conducted in Prague, Amsterdam, Paris and Ghent.

Gwyn has always taken a keen interest in the development of young musical talent, and is an experienced member of the mentoring team at Music for Youth, responsible for the National Festival of Music for Youth and the Schools Proms in the Albert Hall. In recognition of his work in this direction, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and recently became an Honorary Fellow of Reading University.

Gwyn is a composer and arranger too. Most of his numerous published works are for wind instruments or voices,several having been commissioned by educational organisations.

When it comes to Dutch Flower paintings the only real expert in the field (often literally) is the insect that lives off the stems and petals. As Harry Berger puts it “the caterpillar is connoisseur”. From Meat Stalls to Mince Pies, and Bubbles to Bread Rolls, this lecture will help you to discover the enormous symbolism that is conveyed by simple every day objects, that have been rendered with breath taking accuracy and convey really satisfying moral meaning. Examining works by Aertsen, Claesz, Steenwyck, de Heem, van Aelst and Mignon; we shall explore the corruption of abundance, the mutability and ephemerality of life and the inevitability of death.

Dan Evans

Dan is an educationalist with a passion for all things Italian. Dan is a Housemaster and Teacher at Cheltenham College, a full boarding and co-educational independent school established in 1841 and was formerly Head of History of Art at Wycombe Abbey School. 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 leads educational study trips for groups of friends to a range of destinations in Italy.

This lecture will examine the provocative and often beautiful work of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in the context of dissident art in China, Europe and South America, and examine some of his sources of inspiration, including the Russian Constructivist, Vladimir Tatlin, and the leading Dada artist, Marcel Duchamp.

Ai Weiwei collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron in designing the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics, but the following year was arrested and beaten by police, necessitating emergency brain surgery.

While his Sunflower Seeds installation was still on display in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2011, he was arrested again and detained in prison for 81 days, during which he was subjected to mental torture.  Part of the problem of course was the provocative nature of his work.  While producing beautiful objects such as Descending Light (2007 - above right), he was also involved in performances, often photographed, which criticised various elements of the Chinese state.

Between 1995 and 2022, he produced an extensive series of photographs and digital prints, each of which was called Study in Perspective, in which he made an offensive gesture in front of famous locations.  Those relating to the White House and the Eiffel Tower caused no problem in China of course, but that in Tiananmen Square (on the fifth anniversary of the notorious demonstration, when hundreds of people were killed) was clearly highly contentious.

Frank Woodgate
Frank is a lecturer and Guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, for the Art Fund, the National Trust, U3A and other organisations, including on Zoom. Lectured for Dulwich Picture Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester and on cruises on behalf of Tate. Previously script-writer for The Living Paintings Trust (art for the visually-impaired)

In the late nineteenth century the Côte d’Azur became the destination of choice for European royalty and aristocrats who wanted to avoid the cold northern winter. Artists such as Monet, Renoir and Signac also travelled south to experience the bright light and vibrant colours of the Mediterranean.

Sarah Burles

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University before doing a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years. Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia, as well as online. She is a Tour Director for an award winning travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. Sarah became an Arts Society accredited lecturer in 2021 and, since then, has given lectures and run study days for Arts Societies throughout the UK, as well as in Germany, Holland and New Zealand.

 She has just done a VLOG for the Arts Society’s "Artfully Said” series discussing collections with Irving Finkel which was released this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up0F23JztnI

Marc will talk about the Grand Tour which was an opportunity to discover the cultural wonders of Europe which influenced our notion of fashion, architecture and design. Curated with example from Marc's personal collection, he will also make an evaluation of some member's personal treasures. To be followed by a Celebration Lunch. Note this event is a special event and will require an extra charge.  Details to follow.

Marc Allum is a freelance art and antiques journalist, writer and broadcaster based in Wiltshire. He is shortly to begin his 27th year as a specialist on the BBC Antiques Roadshow and has appeared on numerous television and radio programmes. Marc regularly writes for mainstream magazines and is an author, antiques consultant and lecturer. He also runs a fine art valuation and consultancy service. Marc has his own unique style with interests ranging from pre-history to modern design and is a self-confessed collectaholic. He has a passion and reputation for divining the unusual through ‘a desire to connect with history through the interpretation and pursuit of objects and their origins’. Marc has lectured widely for many years to a number of different organisations in both the public and charity sector, including travel companies, The National Trust, The WI and many literary festivals including Cheltenham, Bath, Wells and Petworth. He has also lectured as far afield for the Arts Society in New Zealand, Spain, Germany, Malta and Penang. Marc is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Strauss, Mahler, Bruckner, Schoenberg – it reads like a list of the great and good in classical music – but the amazing thing is that every one of these musical geniuses lived and worked in Vienna. 

With slides showing Viennese art and architecture as well as audio excerpts by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Johann Strauss and Mahler, this talk brings Vienna in its heyday to life.

Emma Johnson

With 30 CDs to her name, Emma Johnson is one of the few clarinettists to have performed as a soloist all over the world.

She also enjoys giving talks about music - Woodwind Wizardry and The Poet John Milton were both broadcast by BBC radio and she has lectured about composers Gerald Finzi and Malcolm Arnold for the internet company Tonebase, as well as about Schubert and Brahms for Martin Randall Travel.

Johnson studied Music and English at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, where she was the first woman to be made an Honorary Fellow. She was honoured by the Queen with an M.B.E. in 1996.

Her charity, the Emma Johnson Music Foundation, gives workshops in primary schools to introduce children to instrumental music. 

Illusions both entertain and fascinate us!

This thought-provoking presentation is well illustrated with carefully chosen examples taken from both popular culture and the fine arts. The lecture is in two parts. The first half explores what illusions are, where they have come from and most importantly how and why they deceive us.
Some examples will simply entertain; others will either challenge or confuse us. In some instances, you will not believe what you are seeing. We begin with illusions that occur naturally in the environment.

In simple terms an illusion is a message to the brain that in common sense terms does not make sense. Consider for a moment another reflection illusion - the cat in the mirror - an example of a contrived illusion. If we can see the cat in the reflection, why is it not there in the actual scene? Quite baffling, or is it? Whenever we look at a picture, we bring to it what we already know or think we know. In this example there is a simple explanation to the riddle.
In the second part of the lecture we explore how illusions have been used ‘in art’ and ‘as art’.

Numerous artists have challenged and entertained us with their creations. The amazing images of MC Escher are well known to us but the creative paintings of many other artists are less familiar. For example, Borrell del Caso’s ‘Escaping Criticism’ (1874) shows a young boy escaping from the very painting in which he was created.
Other artists have intrigued us with hidden ‘pictures in pictures’ as demonstrated by this portrait of ‘Shakespeare’ by the Ukrainian artist Oleg Shupylak.
Lastly, we will turn our attention to the sculptures of Bruno Catalano, whose bronze surrealist sculptures are sometimes referred to as ‘not all there’. ‘Les Voyageurs’ is one of a series depicting the themes of exile and detachment. Examples of Catalano’s work can be seen in both Marseille and Venice, some of which are permanently under water!
In summary, engaging with visual illusions will encourage us to look more carefully and more critically at all the artwork we choose to engage with.

After World War I, artists and architects were in a state of flux, just like the world they inhabited. How could they create and what, indeed, would they produce in a Europe still reeling from the worst conflict ever known? Yet out of crisis came a truly stimulating period of artistic endeavour. Contemplating painters such as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix and Christian Schad, alongside the experiments of the Bauhaus, new film technologies and the sultry stylings of Marlene Dietrich, this talk looks at the culture of German-speaking Europe during the interwar years.  

Gavin Plumley

 A writer and broadcaster. Appears on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and contributes to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. Lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe. 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.

A group of painters in Australia (known as the Heidelberg School) embraced and celebrated the new Impressionist painting style emerging in mid-19th century France, developing their own view of a vibrant and forward-looking country.

The Heidelberg School was a late nineteenth century art movement named after the village of Heidelberg in Australia where a small group of artists would go to paint en plein air (painting outdoors and on the spot)Sometimes described as Australian impressionism, the Heidelberg School developed an informal, evocative and naturalistic style that evoked the colours and flora of the Australian landscape. One of the leading exponents of the Heidelberg School was Tom Roberts, an artist who had studied in Europe before returning to Australia in 1885, bringing with him the innovations in impressionism. Other artists associated with the Heidelberg School include Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin, Charles Conder and Arthur Loureiro. The group soon became synonymous with a national style of painting in Australia.

In this lecture we look at Oscar’s great literary successes, beginning with The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1890 followed by four smash hit plays in three years.  We focus especially on The Importance of Being Earnest, one of the funniest, most performed and most frequently quoted plays in the English speaking world.

Simon Whitehouse

Simon Whitehouse is a (recovering) actor, lecturer and presenter, and Alexander Technique and voice teacher; he is also an award-winning London Blue Badge guide. He regularly guides for The Arts Society groups in addition to his lecture offerings. He has worked as a guide and lecturer in-house at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Opera House, the BBC and the National Gallery. 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 modules. Simon’s specialisms and passions are theatre, literature, fashion and art history. Among his talks for The Arts Society are (on Wilde): Wilde about Oscar: famous for being famous (and infamous); (on Wilde’s plays): A Haaaand-baaaag? The importance of being Oscar – and Earnest; and (on Wilde’s downfall): The Trials of Oscar Wilde. These talks can be combined as a Study Day. Other lectures include Artistic and Literary Chelsea, The world’s greatest paintings: 200 years of the National Gallery and Punch, Pineapples and Pygmalion: a short history of Covent Garden.

At midnight five men in high spirits take oars for Gravesend. Over the next five days they tour the Medway towns, as recorded by participant Ebeneezer Forest, whose manuscript was bound with watercolours added by fellow travellers, Samuel Scott and William Hogarth. The resulting sixteen-page account transports us to a corner of Kent in 1732 – a mock-epic ‘tour’ whose track we can follow today. Mud and water fights on the shore; uncomfortable lodgings; strange monuments and irreverent doings in a church-yard: after 300 years some sites (and behaviours) appear unchanged today. And just who were these men? 

Lars Tharp

Danish-born Ceramics Historian and Broadcaster. Interested in all aspects of Man's many Uses of Clay.  Regular contributor to the Antiques Roadshow (since 1986 - 2021 ongoing). Own Antiques TV and radio series plus writer/presenter on several BBC TV documentaries in China, Scandinavia and England.

Talks and lectures worldwide, on Clay and Culture.  Audiences range from educational institutions (i.e. universities, schools, etc) to other learned plus arts and heritage societies (including The Arts Society (accredited speaker), National Trust, The Royal Institution, The Harveyan Society, The Oriental Ceramic Society, The English Ceramics Circle), plus friends of various museums and galleries (e.g. the V&A, Ashmolean, Fitzwilliam) as well as, to festivals, conferences, social, corporate and business gatherings as well as private functions.

Engaged in the auction world since 1977, joining Sothebys, director  and auctioneer of the firm (until 1993);

Set up own consultancy (1993-present) advising individuals, institutions and companies on the purchase, care and disposal of all artworks - Ceramics and Oriental Works of Art a speciality.  

As a freelance broadcaster he works regularly with the BBC: from 1986 to 2018 on the Antiques Roadshow, plus dozens of TV and Radio programmes including his own series, Inside Antiques (BBC2), Hidden Treasures (chairman and writer, Radio 4), and on the Art of the Baroque (Radio 2), not to mention the occasional contribution to Woman's Hour  - on Scandinavian knitwear ; on Archive on Four with Men in Bow Ties.  In 2011 and 2013 he filmed two documentaries on the China Trade shown on the BBC and still syndicated throughout the world: Treasures of Chinese Porcelain and China in Six Easy Pieces. 

A look at some of opera's greatest rivalries, spats and tiffs, ranging from the throw-away remark to full in-public fighting. They certainly make for a spicy history. Which individual or voice category might be the worst example? Are they an intrinsic part of opera? Whose fault are they? We will hear and see examples of great singers from the past to the present.

Tim Mirfin

Tim Mirfin graduated in Law from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was also a choral scholar. He studied singing at the Royal Academy of Music as a postgraduate scholar, followed by the National Opera Studio. He was principal artist for Welsh National Opera.  He has a wide and varied concert repertoire, ranging from Baroque oratorios to modern day premiers. He made his recital debut at the Wigmore Hall in 2001.  He has sung operatic roles and solo concerts in all major European countries, Russia, Australia and the Middle East. He also gives masterclasses and teaches singing in and around Exeter, where he now lives.

The Cotswolds has drawn dreamers and practitioners to try to create utopias for well over a century. This talk explores some of the communities who took up the challenge of living well and creating craft in our local area, such as C R Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft in Chipping Campden, the Whiteway community near Stroud, Prinknash Abbey, and the Taena Community in the Forest of Dean, as well as more unexpected experiments, such as Rodmarton Manor, and Gloucestershire's part in national movements, such as women's suffrage. Craft and art were at the heart of these new communities, and Kirsty will explore the personalities, histories and art of a surprisingly radical area.

Kirsty Hartsiosis 

Raised in East Anglia, Kirsty has lived in the East, North and West of England, as well as in Italy and Greece. She is a storyteller, writer and speaker, and also a part-time museum curator.

Storytelling: She has a repertoire of stories from around the world and from the dawn of time to the present day. She specialises in telling English, Celtic and Greek stories, as well as stories drawn from history. She was the co-founder of Stroud Story Cabaret in 2011, which hosted storytellers and musicians such as Vergine Gulbenkian, Jane Flood and Matt Sage, ran the Stroud Story Circle and currently runs Fire Springs and Friends, a monthly email roundup of the best local storytelling and spoken word events. She's committed to using storytelling as a way to bring the past alive in museums and has told stories, and presented gallery talks and tours, in a diverse range of heritage venues. Please see here for a list of her shows.

Academic: She has a BA in History of Art from Warwick University, and Master’s degrees in Medieval Studies from York University and Museum Studies from the University of Leicester. She combines writing folk tale collections and other fiction with writing talks, reviews and articles on the decorative and typographic arts, and was the editor of the Society for Decorative Art Collections journal from 2009-2018. She has recently taken on the Editorship of the William Morris Society journal. She is also a regular columnist for Cotswold Life and the Gloucestershire Echo. 

Museums: She works part-time as a museum curator,  currently based at Swindon Museums. From 2008-2023 she curated the decorative and fine art collections at The Wilson, Cheltenham, including the Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection. She has worked in the heritage industry for 25 years – dealing with decorative art, fine art, cemeteries, transport, local history and archaeology. She cut her heritage teeth in museum education, working primarily with school groups and families, but has been a curator for more than 20 years. A large part of her work in museums is about drawing stories from the objects in her care, and inviting the public to develop their own interpretations. Major projects and exhibitions include: Ernest Gimson: Observation, Imagination and Making (2019), WOW Gallery (2018), Crafting Change (2016), the Open Archive (2014), redisplay of the Arts and Crafts Movement Gallery (2013) and Necessary Pots (2009). She can also be hired as a museum consultant for funding bids, Accreditation, research and exhibition curation.

Design: Kirsty is the main designer for the publishing company, Awen Publications.

Trees have always caught the human imagination and nowhere more powerfully than in Britain.  We descend from tree-worshippers, and that sense of the sacred has always remained to make trees and especially forests at once alarming and attractive.  This lecture investigates the manifestations of this literally deep-rooted fascination from Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden to our own day.  Along the way we shall pass through Gainsborough’s half-imaginary woodlands and Constable’s remembered groves, enjoy Samuel Palmer’s exultant celebrations of blossom and bough and the meticulously observed trees of the Pre-Raphaelites, encounter the fantastical forests of Tolkein and explore abstract creations of Ivon Hitchens, David Nash and Andy Goldsworthy.

Dr Justine Hopkins

Dr. Justine Hopkins is a writer and freelance lecturer in Art History, currently living in Bristol. She took a BA Hons degree at Bristol University, reading English and Drama, then changed direction and did an MA in Art History at the Courtauld Institute.  After eighteen months working as an archaeological illustrator, partly in Belize, she returned to Art History, gaining a PhD from Birkbeck College, London for her research into the relationship between science, religion and landscape painting from the French Revolution to Darwin’s Origin of Species. Since then she has worked freelance as an Art History lecturer and writer: for Bristol, London, Oxford and Cambridge Universities; Tate Britain and Tate Modern, the National and National Portrait Galleries; the Victoria and Albert Museum; Sotheby’s, Christies’ and assorted independent institutions. 

In 1882 Gertrude Jekyll wrote a short but seminal article in The Garden in which she urged the readers to “remember that in a garden we are painting a picture”.  As an accomplished watercolour artist, Miss Jekyll was familiar with the principles of using colours, but she felt that in gardens these principles “had been greatly neglected” and that all people wanted was the ”hard, garish vulgarity” of the title.  This talk looks at how to apply her principles in designing a border, but it also looks at the ways in which a border is different from a painting.  However, it goes further than this and looks at how contemporary work of the likes of Turner, Monet, Rothko and Jackson Pollack evolved in parallel with ideas about what a garden or border should look like.

Timothy Walker

He was born and brought up in South Buckinghamshire.  He read Botany at University College Oxford.  After graduation, he worked for two years as a trainee at the University of Oxford Botanic Garden. He then took a National Certificate in Horticulture at Askham Bryan College, York.  This was followed by a one-year traineeship at the Savill Garden, Windsor, and 15-months as a diploma student at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.  In 1995 he was awarded a Master of Horticulture by the Royal Horticultural Society of London.

From January 1986 to July 2014 he worked at the University of Oxford Botanic Garden & Harcourt Arboretum, firstly as General Foreman, then as Horti Praefectus (from 1988) and finally as Director (from 2002).  Between 1992 & 2000 the OBGHA won 4 gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show London.  In 2009 the Botanic Garden was one of seven Oxford collections to be awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for providing imaginative educational programmes for adults, students, children and the general public, thereby breathing new life into education for people of all ages and enriching their lives.

Since 1986 he has been giving lectures to gardening clubs, horticultural societies, Art Societies, WIs, and many other types of group.  He has given more than 2000 talks in Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, North America, and Australia to more than 150,000 people in audiences ranging from 20 to 350.

In 2010 he was elected as a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London.

From August 2014 he has been a lecturer in Plant Sciences at Somerville College, Oxford, and now holds similar positions at Pembroke College and Hertford College

Although upward of a hundred pleasure gardens are known to have thrived in 18th century London, it was Vauxhall, with its walks, triumphal arches, statues and reputation for scandal, that became the firm favourite with Londoners and visitors alike. For the price of a shilling, patrons could stroll through the groves accompanied by the voices of nature, or – if they wished – could dine to the popular melodies of the day, borne high on the evening air from the famous Orchestra.

Peter Medhurst

Peter Medhurst’s work as singer, pianist and lecturer-recitalist has taken him all over the world and travels in the last few years have included tours of New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, as well as mainland Europe.  Closer to home, he has presented events at the King’s Place, the Barbican, St John’s Smith Square, and the Royal Festival Hall on subjects that range from Beethoven String Quartets, Mozart Operas, Vermeer’s Music Lesson, The Twelve Days of Christmas, The Golden Age of Vienna, and 18th Century Venetian Art and Music.  He has also directed presentations at the Wallace Collection, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A, linking the visual arts with the world of 17th & 18th century music making.

He is a familiar face to audiences of music societies, regional theatres and British festivals, as well as to those of arts based organisations such as The Art Fund, The National Trust ,and the Arts Society (formally known as NADFAS).  Radio work has included Classic FM, Radio 3, and Radio 4.  His recordings number For Two to Play, Schubert Songs, Handel and His Satellites,  Tyme at the Virginalls, and On Christmas Night – a Programme of Christmas carols and seasonal songs.

Peter Medhurst was born of German and English parents, and did his musical training at the Royal College of Music in London where he studied singing with Redvers Llewellyn and Edgar Evans, organ with Richard Popplewell, and composition with Justin Connolly. A scholarship from the Austrian government gave him the opportunity to study with the accompanist Erik Werba at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.  He also studied the harpsichord with Ruth Dyson, who became his fellow performer in a professional partnership that lasted until her death nearly 20 years later.

The art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525/30-1569) is a byword for the depiction of genre subjects and landscapes. This lecture explores his work and its meanings, from his beginnings in the style of Hieronymus Bosch, to the development of a highly original art that offered an alternative to the Italianate art then in vogue.

Paula Nuttall

Paula Nuttall has been an accredited lecturer of The Arts Society since 1995. She gained her BA and PhD from the Courtauld Institute and is a specialist in Italian and north European renaissance art. She has published widely on artistic relations between Italy and the Netherlands in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, including the book From Flanders to Florence: the Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500. Paula has collaborated on exhibitions in Italy and America and in 2013 co-curated the exhibition Face to Face: Flanders, Florence and Renaissance Painting at the Huntington Art Collection, San Marino in California. In autumn 2017 she was the Scholar in Residence at the Dutch Institute for Art History in Florence.

Paula was a lecturer at the British Institute of Florence, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2017. She is now Director of the V&A Late Medieval to Early Renaissance Year Course, the longest running of the V&A’s acclaimed Year Courses. As a member of the V&A’s Adult Learning team, she lectures and consults on a number of other courses within the Museum. Paula also lectures for the Art Fund, the London Art History Society and the National Gallery, and is an Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld.

A fully illustrated talk within excess of 60 images exploring the relationship between the making of an image and the way in which it is perceived by the viewer. Further discussion around the eye and the brain being an extraordinary double act made up of visual references and intellectual interpretation. 

Charlie Waite

Charlie Waite is now firmly established as one of the world’s leading landscape photographers. He was born in 1949 and worked as an actor in British theatre and television for the first ten years of his professional life. Throughout this period, he became fascinated by theatrical lighting and design. Gradually, the landscape and the way it can be revealed to us through light and shade stole him away from the acting profession.

His style is unique in that his photographs convey a spiritual quality of serenity and calm. He has established a worldwide reputation for his particular approach to his work. His photographs are held in private and corporate collections throughout the world.

Over the last thirty-five years, Charlie has lectured throughout the UK, Europe and the US. He has held numerous solo exhibitions all over the world, including in London, Tokyo, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, New York and California. Charlie has provided and continues to provide tuition to amateur, professional and aspiring photographers of all ages from the UK, Australia, Europe and the US which he hugely enjoys.

In 2016 he received an invitation by the Royal Academy of Arts to exhibit in their Summer Exhibition.

In 2014, Charlie was awarded a direct Fellowship by The Royal Photographic Society. The Millennium year saw him being awarded the prestigious Honorary Fellowship to the British Institute of Professional Photographers, and in early 2007 he was presented with Amateur Photographer’s Power of Photography award, which is given to a photographer whose work is deemed to effectively demonstrate the powerful and memorable images of which photography is capable.

Charlie is frequently seen on British television discussing the finer aspects of landscape photography. In September 2005, he completed filming for a six-part television series on landscape photography. He has worked with numerous distinguished authors including Adam Nicolson, Jan Morris, John Julius Norwich and A.N. Wilson. 

Charlie is the owner and founder of Light and Land, the UK’s leading photographic workshop and tour company. For over 29 years, Light & Land has been running photographic tours, courses and workshops that are dedicated to inspiring photographers and improving their photography, both in the UK and worldwide. This is achieved with the help of a select team of specialist photographic leaders, all at the very top in their field. 

In 2007, Charlie launched the UK Landscape Photographer of the Year, an annual international photography competition (now in its 16th year) to find the UK’s ‘Landscape Photographer of the Year’, which ties in perfectly with his desire to share his passion and appreciation of the beauty of our surroundings through photography.

Quote RSE Art 'Charlie Waite is a world-famous English landscape photographer celebrated for his painterly approach to photography. Using delicate light and shade techniques, Charlie’s work provides an uplifting and Romantic antidote to the sometimes cold realism and sombre concerns of contemporary art; his images enhance the inherent beauty, harmony and awe of nature'

Landscape painting had long been regarded as one of the lower genres of art – understood as merely topographical, it was seen to lack the drama, narrative, complexity and intellectual content of history painting. In the early 1800s however two young Romantic British artists challenged many of the ideas around what a landscape painting could be about. J.M.W Turner made his landscapes dramatic and lifted them to the level of history painting, while John Constable’s landscapes were idyllic with a strong focus on the observation of nature. One was successful, the other less-so, but both radically transformed the possibilities of landscape painting. 

Sarah Ciacci

Sarah Ciacci has an MA in History of Art (Late 19th century French Painting and 20th Century Art) from University College London. She has been a Blue Badge Guide for London since 2008, specialising in art, museums and galleries, so relevant tours and visits for talks can be arranged. Since 2008 she has trained Blue Badge Guides in the National Gallery and is an art lecturer for trainee guides in Tate Britain, Tate Modern and for a period the National Portrait Gallery. She is a gallery educator and Adjunct Faculty at Richmond University (since 2008) teaching the History of British Art, the History of Museums in London and the History of London, and runs regular courses and independent lectures on a variety of art historical periods.

...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. 

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. 

In an era when married women’s property automatically belonged to their husbands, could women still play a role as patrons of the arts? Female patronage has often been hidden within the historical record, but new research has shown that the patronage of these women has been considerably underestimated. From Queen Catherine of Braganza’s patronage of Catholic artists, to the Duchess of Marlborough’s politically-charged London mansion, we will look at some of the most important works of art and architecture commissioned by women in late Stuart England, and consider how they used art to carve out their position in society.   

Dr Amy Lim

Dr Amy Lim is an art historian and curator, specialising in British fine and decorative arts from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. She is curator of the Faringdon Collection at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, and of the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham. She is also an exhibition researcher at Tate, contributing to British Baroque: Power and Illusion (2020) and the forthcoming Women Artists in Britain. Amy has degrees in History and Literature & Arts from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. She runs an online art dealership, and has published articles and essays on a variety of art-related topics from gothic garden monuments to female patronage.

The date is June 18th 1816; the venue is the Villa Diodati beside Lake Geneva and the dramatic Jura mountain range. Byron’s guests are his secretary Dr Polidori and Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley. Outside, the rain is beating down and thunder and lightning flash across the lake from the mountains. Inside, each of the four tries to intensify the gothic atmosphere by telling a ghost story. Mary’s creation is ‘Frankenstein’ - which was to be the most enduring result of that stormy night. This talk explores the artistic origins of the Gothic revival and the fascination with vampires, monsters and other horrors which found their expression in those stories. We look at some of the weird, supernatural and fantastic subjects pictured by a range of artists including Fuseli, Blake, Wright of Derby and others, and at some depictions of Prometheus to explain Mary Shelley’s subtitle to Frankenstein: ‘The Modern Prometheus.’

Elizabeth Merry 

Elizabeth has over 25 years' experience lecturing on a range of subjects including classical art and architecture, aspects of the visual arts and the links between literature and art. Has lectured for the WEA, the Universities of Bristol and Southampton Departments of Continuing Education, Royal Society of Arts, Dillington House, Jane Austen Society, Thomas Hardy Society, Brussels Brontë Society, Finzi Society, the Art Fund, Dorset County Museum and literary, historical and philosophical societies nationwide. Has also lectured on study tours to Rome, Aachen, Cologne, Brittany and the Dordogne, as well as all over the UK.

Agatha Christie is one of the most adapted writers of all time. These adaptations, however, have often been critiqued as nothing more than gentle exercises in period nostalgia. If this is the case, it raises the question of why have they attracted some of the most brilliant actors of all time. This talk goes on a trip through decades of Christie adaptation, exploring how the performances of John Gielgud, Maggie Smith, Albert Finney, Angela Lansbury, Charles Laughton, and Peter Ustinov (to name but a few) help to express the uniquely eccentric world of Christie’s work.

Benedict Morrison

Benedict Morrison is a lecturer in Literature and Film at the University of Exeter. He has recently published a book entitled Complicating Articulation in Art Cinema with Oxford University Press and is now producing works on post-war British comedy films, the response by the arts and humanities to Covid-19, and cultural narratives of extinction. He spent seven years studying at the University of Oxford, but finally traded the dreaming spires for the cultural bustle of London, where he lives with his partner. He loves nothing more than settling down in the darkness of a cinema to enjoy a great film.

This lecture is a feast for the eyes! It describes the oil painting materials and techniques of the portrait painters of the Tudor and Jacobean courts in 16th and early 17th century England. Tudor and Jacobean painting methods originate in medieval manuscript illumination, miniature painting, ecclesiastical decorations and Northern European oil painting traditions. Questions of attribution, before it became commonplace for artists to sign their works, the studio system of training young painters and the artists’ meticulous paint handling in imitation of lustrous fabrics, lace, furs and precious jewels, are described and illustrated with unique macro-photographs and technical images such as X-radiographs and Infra-Red reflectograms taken from Sarah’s own research and studio work as a painting conservator. Changes in materials over time, such as the fading and colour change of certain pigments, that have dramatically altered the way we now see some of these works are also revealed. There is significant focus on the Jacobean court painter William Larkin (active c.1609-19), whose elaborate full-length portraits are well-known to costume historians, on whose portraits Sarah Cove is the recognized expert. Larkin died in 1619, the year that Van Dyck first visited England. The point is not lost that Larkin’s extraordinary portraits are the last flowering of the ‘English Icons’ so beloved of the Tudor and early Stuart courts, before the arrival of the great virtuoso painter who changed British portraiture forever.

Sarah Cove 

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.

Starting with a look at the origins of opera as a form of courtly entertainment in Italy in the early years of the C17th, this overview takes in the opulent spectacles at the French court of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King”, and pokes its nose into opera houses across Europe in the Baroque era, including those in London, where Italian opera gained an unlikely foothold, and was memorably described by Dr Johnson as an “exotic and irrational entertainment”. Sandy examines the legacy of those two creative giants of the nineteen century, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, and takes us up towards our own time, where surtitles and HD cinema transmissions have made opera more widely accessible than ever before. Undeniably a major step forward – but has this come at a cost?

Sandy Burnett

Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. Combining engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise, he devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, is a highly sought after double bassist on the London jazz scene, and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season.

Marc has long been a collector of interesting and historical fakes and this talk centres on man’s age-old fascination with faking and forging. Citing some of the greatest exponents of the craft and illustrated with a plethora of challenging examples, you are certain to never look at art antiques in the same way again!

Marc Allum

Marc Allum is a freelance art and antiques journalist, writer and broadcaster based in Wiltshire. He is shortly to begin his 23rd year as a specialist on the BBC Antiques Roadshow and has appeared on numerous television and radio programmes. Marc regularly writes for mainstream magazines and is an author, antiques consultant and lecturer. He also runs a fine art valuation and consultancy service. Marc has his own unique style with interests ranging from pre-history to modern design and is a self-confessed collectaholic. He has a passion and reputation for divining the unusual through ‘a desire to connect with history through the interpretation and pursuit of objects and their origins’. Marc has lectured widely for many years to a number of different organisations in both the public and charity sector, including travel companies, The National Trust, The WI and many literary festivals including Cheltenham, Bath, Wells and Petworth. Marc is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries

Murder, poison, corruption and incest: all perfect ingredients for sensational popular culture. But in an age known for its brutality and church corruption were the Borgias really so bad?

This sumptuous illustrated lecture reveals the real story of the family that dominated the Papacy and Italian politics during the last decade of the 15th century: the wily charismatic, womaniser, Pope Alexander, his sociopathic son, Cesare, cardinal, general and the model for ‘The Prince’ by Machiavelli, himself a character in their story, and his adored daughter, Lucrezia who moves from ‘the greatest whore in Rome’ to a devout and treasured duchess of the city of Ferrara. Sometimes truth is more intoxicating than myth.

Sarah Dunant 

Novelist, broadcaster and critic. Sarah read history at Cambridge, then worked for many years as a cultural journalist in radio and television on such programmes as Kaleidoscope (BBC Radio 4), The Late Show (BBC 2), and Night Waves/Free thinking (BBC Radio 3). She has published thirteen novels, taught renaissance studies at Washington University, St Louis and lectured around the world at festivals and conferences. Her last five novels have been set within the Italian Renaissance. In the Name of the Family completes the story of the Borgia family and the remarkable period of Italian history in which they lived. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s A POINT OF VIEW and these talks, alongside her series on history for Radio 4, When Greeks Flew Kites are available on podcast or BBC sounds. 

Please note: Members are invited to Christmas Drinks and mince pies at the Guildhall immediately following the lecture.

Caravaggio was the ‘bad boy’ of the late Italian Renaissance and more-or-less defines the Baroque style that followed. Baroque paintings were characteristically dramatic and composed from contrasts of dark shadow and light, the interaction of the two revealing form through the use of a technique known as chiaroscuro.

His art, though technically brilliant, was generally too bold and shocking for the tastes of the time and he seems to have deliberately antagonised figures of authority by the subjects he chose to portray and also, famously, for basing a painting of the Virgin Mary upon a portrait of a favourite whore.

In his day, Caravaggio was more famous for being a tear-away, brawler and eventually a murderer, having dealt a deathblow to an opponent during one of his many sword fights. He had already been in prison a few times and had always been gotten out by rich patrons. For this killing, apparently over the disputed result of a tennis match, he received a death sentence and had to make a quick getaway…

Consequently, for much of his important career, Caravaggio was on the run, either from the law or powerful personal enemies. This meant that he travelled far and wide, spreading his influence and techniques as he went.

 Matthew Wilson

Matthew Wilson studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and has taught the subject in secondary schools in the UK for over a decade. As a freelance writer he has also written for numerous publications, including the BBC, Aesthetica Magazine and Smarthistory – the world’s most-used art historical resource. His latest book, Symbols in Art (Thames & Hudson, Autumn 2020), was described by Christopher Lloyd, former keeper of the Queen's pictures, as “masterly … the perfect introduction to a subject that can only heighten the general appreciation of art.” He is currently working on a new title, also on the subject of iconography, due for publication in 2022.

Giles Ramsay is an independent theatre producer, director and lecturer who specializes in creating new work with artists in developing countries. He is the Founding Director of the charity Developing Artists, a former Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University and Course Leader in Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He is also an accredited Arts Society (formerly NADFAS) lecturer.

In 2021 Giles was appointed to the Readers’ Advisory Panel of The Independent Press Standards Organisation which regulates the majority of the UK’s newspapers and magazines.

Since 2004 Giles has worked with The Anglo-Mexican Foundation as a producer of MEXART which showcases the best theatre and dance from Mexico. In 2010 they co-produced the opera Montezuma at The King’s Theatre in Edinburgh as part of The Edinburgh International Festival and in 2011 Monsters and Prodigies opened at The Brighton Festival. In November 2012 they presented the jazz band Paté de Fuá at The Belfast Festival and Ronnie Scott’s Club in London.

He has previously produced international work at venues ranging from The Riverside Studios, The Theatre Museum, The British Museum, Artsdepot, Flowers East Gallery and The National Theatre in London as well as at The Pleasance Theatre, The Assembly Rooms and The King’s and Traverse Theatres in Edinburgh.

In August 2013 he presented a Mexican production of Working on a Special Day at Assembly in Edinburgh and in 2016/17 his charity, Developing Artists, produced Queen’s of Syria (Young Vic and UK tour) and And Here I Am (UK and Middle Eastern tour).

Giles was educated at the universities of Cambridge, London and Durham (where he was President of the Union). He also spent a year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts as part of his MA in drama. After leaving university Giles led The British National Debate Team on its annual tour of America and he has been the recipient of both a Chautauqua and a Page Scholarship from The English Speaking Union as well as winning The Soho Theatre’s Westminster Prize for new writing. Throughout the 1990s he was Director of Studies for Summer Schools in Drama at the University of Edinburgh.

Giles has run theatre projects in Botswana, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Kosovo, Palestine, Mexico, Thailand and Zimbabwe. He has also organised many development and travel programmes for theatres affiliated with the North American Theatre Communications Group and given numerous talks for institutions ranging from The Foundation for Mexican Literature in Mexico City to The Royal College of Physicians in London. He regularly lectures on the history and practice of theatre on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 as it sails from New York to the UK.

William Morris led a revolution against the products of the machine age. The first of our ‘passionate potters’, William de Morgan, was a friend of Morris who rediscovered the secrets of Near Eastern lustre glazes. In contrast, the eccentric and argumentative Martin Brothers created a range of elaborate salt glazed pots unparalleled in their imaginative breadth. Sir Edmund Elton, the ‘potter baronet’, made pots which combine startling glazes with exotic forms. And finally, Bernard Leach, the father of English studio pottery, not only married the arts of Japan and England but created a legacy that is still alive today. 

This lecture explores the lives of these truly passionate potters and celebrates their extraordinary and beautiful creations.

Julian Richards

Studied archaeology at Reading University and has since worked as a professional archaeologist, in commercial archaeology, for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent. Elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992 and is being awarded an honorary doctorate. Has been involved in teaching and outreach projects, lecturing widely in continuing education, to groups and societies and to special interest tour companies. A career in broadcasting involved researching and presenting Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4. Author of a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and landscape. Guest curator of Wish you were here, an exhibition of his own extensive collection of 'Stonehengiana' which is currently on display at the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre. Also curated an exhibition for the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in Vienna, in 2016. 

The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter in 1922 was arguably the greatest archaeological discovery of the twentieth century. The name of this boy-king conjures up wonderful imagery and mysterious tales of the pharaohs. In this lecture we shall explore this unusual tomb and its iconic treasures and examine the design and decoration of the most famous tomb in the Valley of the Kings. We'll discuss Carter’s discovery of the tomb, and explore what happened to the incredible wealth of funerary goods found inside and survey these fabulous treasures, from Tutankhamun’s golden shrines to his ornate board games. 

MS LUCIA GAHLIN

Egyptologist who works in museums and on excavations in Egypt, but mostly lectures. Honorary Research Associate at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology. Has taught Egyptology at several UK universities. Works at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London. Leads tours to Egypt. Former Director of Bloomsbury Summer School at UCL. Chairs the Friends of the Petrie Museum. Publications include Egypt: gods, myths, religion.

From before the Bronze Age, this extraordinary, contradictory liquid has caused wars and riots, brokered peace, and served as an aphrodisiac. Diverse paintings and Artefacts by history’s greatest artists and craftsman enhance the pleasure of wine, as you will see!

MR 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.

Ask the average citizen to name a famous American architect and you can bet that their answer will be Frank Lloyd Wright.   Wright gained such cultural primacy for good reason: he changed the way we build and live.   Designing 1,114 architectural works of all types — 532 of which were realized — he created some of the most innovative spaces in the United States.   With a career that spanned seven decades before his death in 1959, Wright’s visionary work cemented his place as the American Institute of Architects’ “greatest American architect of all time.” Innovator and traditionalist, Wright was one of the greatest architects of the 20th century. His houses, conceived as ‘total works of art’, included the design of all fixtures and fittings, including furniture, coloured glass windows and lights and are exquisitely made.

With a first degree in archaeology and a PhD in English, Anne Anderson was a senior lecturer in Art and Design History at Southampton Solent University for 14 years.   She taught on the Fine Arts Valuation degree programs.   During 2009-2010, Anne worked on Closer to Home, the reopening exhibition at Leighton House Museum, Kensington.   She has curated four national exhibitions, including Ancient Landscapes, Pastoral Visions: Samuel Palmer to the Ruralists (2008), The Truth About Faeries (2009-11), Under the Greenwood: Picturing the British Tree (2013) and Beyond the Brotherhood The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy (2019-20).   Her book on The Perseus Series was updated to accompany the Edward Burne-Jones exhibition (2018, Tate Britain).

For the March lecture the Arts Society SARUM is privileged to welcome one the UK’s most eminent musicologists. Dr Graham Griffiths will discuss and describe how the Mozart family resided in London during 1764-5 and how during this time the 8-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus, already a prolific composer, amazed the royal guests of George III and performed musical tricks in pubs; he was even the subject of medical research. All this is described with surprising images of 18th century Chelsea and of Mozart’s earliest musical handwriting. Furthermore, Dr Griffiths will illustrate his talk at the piano, offering a practical guide of How to Listen to Mozart’s youthful, and very witty musical miniatures. The presentation is brought to a poignant conclusion with the rarely-heard Polonaise melancolique composed by Mozart’s own child-prodigy son Franz Xavier. This lecture promises to be an amazing ‘ear opening’ experience and a rare opportunity to gain insights into the social and musical scene of Georgian London. 

Dr Graham Griffiths is a renowned Lecturer, conductor, pianist, composer and musicologist. Amongst his many honours he is Music Research Fellow (City, University of London). DPhil., Musicology (Christ Church, Oxford, 2008), PGCE (Cambridge), BMusHons (Edinburgh)

Aphra Behn (14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her into legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, Behn declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after.

She is remembered in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Her grave is not included in the Poets' Corner but lies in the East Cloister near the steps to the church.

Her best-known works are Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave, sometimes described as an early novel, and the play The Rover.

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, a former Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University and Course Leader in Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

As a director Giles has run theatre projects in Botswana, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Kosovo, Palestinian Territories, Mexico, Thailand and Zimbabwe. He has also produced international work in the UK at venues ranging from The Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and The British Museum in London.

 He regularly lectures on Cunard's Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth and has given numerous talks at institutions ranging from The Foundation for Mexican Literature in Mexico City to The Royal College of Physicians in London. Giles combines academic analysis with hands on experience to bring a unique insight to the world of the theatre.

Lucy Kemp-Welch, an overlooked British woman artist

For the first lecture of the New Year the Arts Society SARUM welcomes 20th century art specialist David Haycock. This fascinating presentation will feature the outstanding work of Lucy Elizabeth Kemp-Welch, a British artist and teacher who specialised in painting horses. Though increasingly overlooked after the Second World War, from the late 1890s to the mid 1920s she was one of the country's best-known female artists. In her prime as an animal painter, she held a position in this country comparable to that of Rosa Bonheur in France, and the only British woman artist of her generation who was more talked about was Lady Elizabeth Butler, painter of “The Roll Call.” Her reputation has since revived, she is best known today for her large paintings of wild and working horses in the New Forest and those in military service which she produced during the First World War, as well as for her illustrations to the 1915 edition of Anna Sewell's novel Black Beauty. An exhibition of her work will open at the Russell-Cotes Museum in Bournemouth in 2023 and an opportunity to view this showing will be part of a specially organised visit on 18th April 2023 by The Arts Society SARUM.

David Haycock is a freelance Art Historian, curator, writer and lecturer specialising in twentieth-century British art. David has worked for Dulwich Picture Gallery, Tate Britain, the National Gallery, the National Maritime Museum, Salisbury Museum (with his input into the Augustus John exhibition and more. His books include 'A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War,' 'British Surrealism' and 'Augustus John: Drawn from Life

The Magic of Pantomime by Ian Gledhill. Pantomime is an enduring and peculiarly British institution, yet its beginnings go back a very long way and are in fact anything but British!  We look at the history of panto from its origins in 16th century Italian commedia dell’arte through the influence of 19th century music hall, to the family shows that are still much loved today. On the way we examine the origins of some of the stories used in pantomime as well as such traditions as the (female) principal boy and the (male) pantomime dame. The talk is interspersed with personal anecdotes from the speaker’s years of working (and appearing) professionally in pantomime.

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.

Cirque Medrano – The legendary Paris Circus

The legendary Paris circus, operating from 1875 until 1963, was an integral part of Parisian cultural life. It attracted many writers, artists and poets who captured the magic and sparkle, and hardship of circus life. This lecture will use the masterworks from artists such as Renoir, Degas, Lautrec, Seurat, Picasso and Leger, amongst others, and will seek to bring to life the unique atmosphere and experience of this unique circus environment and will provide an intriguing insight into the history of a circus through the eyes of the painters of the Montmartre.

Our guide, Paul Chapman, is an acknowledged modern art authority, especially works of the 19th and 20th century. Pauls’ approach will provide an added dimension to just discussing techniques and locations and will seek to show how a painting can often reveal the bigger story and make us consider the tangled web of human existence, it may bring to light the politics, religion, economics and social conditions of the scene it depicts.  Each individual painting can reveal numerous narratives which allows us to connect to the work with greater clarity . Paul Chapman will attempt to demonstrate how the whole spectrum of human emotions is rooted in our visual language and reflects to us from the canvas. Painting speaks about who we are and what we do, it holds a mirror to the world, and we are all reflected in it.

Paul Chapman is an Art Historian and a National Gallery trained guide with many years of experience working in education and conducting lectures for a wide range of organisations including art associations and societies and Museums and Galleries in the UK and Europe.  Paul has a long-standing commitment, in conjunction with the National Gallery as a tour guide at the Longford Castle art collection and he is also a visiting tutor at Marlborough College and a tutor at MCSS. 

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

About Sophie Sophie began playing flute at the age of ten but is now more well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes and has become one of the foremost players of the instrument in the UK. She also plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife and recorder. She’s also one of a handful of British players of the baroque musette, an 18th century French bagpipe similar to the Northumbrian smallpipes. Sophie is also recognised as a superb interpreter of narrative song with a clear, pure and unaffected soprano voice. When not touring with modern-day balladeers GreenMatthews, Sophie also makes instruments (she made her own baroque oboe) and works with respected luthier Tony Millyard on his flutes. She’s previously worked with The Oxford Waits as well as the respected early music collective Piva. Sophie is self-taught on all of her instruments.