Chinese silk, an exquisite product that has mesmerised the World and on occasions exceeded the value of gold, has its origins in Neolithic times.  It became the Regulated Court Costume after the creation of Imperial Silk Workshops in the early Dynasties of China.  Our lecturer, David Rosier, will tell us about the development of the silk industry for Imperial costume and decorative textiles and the role of the Silk Road in bringing this coveted product to the Middle East and on to Europe.  

David Rosier was a Chartered Insurer by profession with extensive international experience as an author and lecturer in Medical Risk Assessment. He spent over 30 years living and working in East Asia.  While in Hong Kong he assembled a collection of predominately Qing Dynasty Imperial Costume and accessories, now displayed in the The Shanghai Museum.  David is an expert lecturer on Chinese Imperial Court Costume, plus all aspects of Imperial Court life, art and culture together with studies of China's greatest Emperors and Empresses.  

Throughout his career JMW Turner was fascinated by the emotive power of painting. He wanted his works to evoke strong, visceral feelings.  His engagement with an 18th  century aesthetic concept, The Sublime, opened up the possibility that landscape painting could be horrific, terrifying and powerful.  Our lecturer, Matthew Morgan, will tell us how The Sublime underpinned some of his most powerful works and how Turner began to move away from depictions of the recognisable world and use colour and form to make us feel.  

Matthew Morgan studied history at Cambridge University and followed that with a masters in history of art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught for more than eight years.  He served as Head of the London Learning Team at the Royal Collection and he ran Turner's House in Twickenham.  At the National Gallery, he has  devised and delivered a wide range of learning events and is dedicated to helping people connect with art.  

Self assured, affected and irreverent, the owner of a razor sharp wit, Whistler scandalised London society during the 1870's.  American by birth, he trained as an artist in Paris where his bohemian lifestyle made him one of the personalities of the city.  Our lecturer, Douglas Skeggs, will explore the paradox of this man whose flamboyant and eccentric ways made him both admired and detested in equal measure and yet created quiet, meditative paintings, in which more is suggested than actually seen.  

Douglas Skeggs read Fine Art at Magdalene College Cambridge and has been a lecturer on paintings since 1980.  He is presently a regular lecturer at The Study Centre, Christie's course 'The History of Art Studies' and other London courses.  He has written and presented various TV documentaries, notably the Omnibus programme on Whistler and the exhibition video on William Morris.  In addition he has exhibited his own paintings and published five novels.  

The British crown jewels, seen by many millions but worn by only one, are part of the regalia of coronation and were created in 1661 to replace earlier versions destroyed by Cromwell.  Our lecturer, Laurie Wickwire, will tell us about the many jewels adorning the crowns, sceptre, orb and other items of the regalia.  

Laurie Wickwire is a graduate of GIA London, IGI Antwerp and DeBeers Institute of Diamonds.  She is both a certified diamond grader and certified pearl grader. She also holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in International Business and Finance, and a Bachelor of Arts in French.  With over 35 years in the diamond industry she regularly presents diamond shows on national television channels, including jubilee specials, and has created the historical jewellery range for both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle gift shops.  

The great Venetian artist Canaletto spent ten years living in London producing wonderful landscapes of the city and its surroundings.  In this lecture, we explore his time in the capital and look at how his style changed during his long visit.  We look at some of the work he produced and explore how the views he captured have changed over the centuries.  

Nick Salmond is a lecturer in History and the Arts.  He qualified as a London Blue Badge Guide in 2019, winning the award as Guide of the Year.  Before guiding he joined the BBC where he worked for over 30 years in both television and radio where he helped cover diverse events in history ranging from the fall of the Berlin Wall, the terrible events of 9/11 to the late Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  

Turn of the century Vienna was a melting pot of new ideas in science and the arts.  Gustav Klimt led the Secession movement which broke free from nineteenth century academic art.  Klimt created highly decorative and sensual art that explored the power of sex in the age of Freud. Our lecturer, Colin Pink, will examine the ramifications of Klimt’s sexually charged images in the context of Viennese art and society.  

Colin Pink has a degree in Philosophy and Politics from the University of Southampton and a masters in the History of Art from Birkbeck, University of London.  He specialises in twentieth century and contemporary art in Europe and North America and lectures at Morley College London.  He has curated exhibitions of contemporary art and has also published four books of poetry.  

The Great Western is the least known of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s three ships; being overshadowed by the later careers of the Great Britain and the Great Eastern. However, the Great Western was the first great success, confounding the critics in becoming the fastest ship to steam continuously across the Atlantic, and began the era of luxury transatlantic liners.  Our lecturer, Helen Doe, describes the ship as the Concorde of its era; it carried the rich and famous, including stars of the London stage.  

Helen Doe gained an MA in History at Exeter University and then went on to do a PhD.  She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a trustee of the SS Great Britain.  She has published extensively on 19th century sail, women in the maritime world, Brunel and his ships and in a departure from her usual maritime themes, she  has written two best selling biographies of WW2 fighter aces.

When Napoleon invaded Europe, he had the best of Europe’s works of art sent back to Paris for his new Musée Napoleon.  But how did they get four life-size bronze horses of San Marco down from their place on the basilica in Venice, over the Alps and all the way to Paris ?  Our lecturer, Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe, will tell us about the astonishing history of the movement of art works.  

Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe gained an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh and a PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University.  She has taught at Sotheby's Institute of Art and as a freelance lecturer for a number of societies and institutions in London, including the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection   She also trained as a paintings conservator and brings an understanding of the making and the physical painting to her lectures and study sessions.

Caravaggio was considered to be either a baroque bad boy or a visionary of searing individuality who revolutionised the religious art of his time, providing powerful images for the Catholic Church's counter reformation.  Our lecturer, Ronnie Ireland, will show that he was both of these in different measures and times.  He will pick out the most significant works which chart Caravaggio's progress from lowly 'fruit specialist' to superstar - and then his troubled wanderings to escape from the consequences of his crimes.  As his later works show however, he felt retribution was closing in as he chronicled his mood in his final works.  

Ronnie Ireland is an artist now based in Hampshire but he was born in Glasgow and spent his formative years there.  He studied at the Glasgow School of Art and did his teacher training at Jordanhill College.  He later obtained a degree in humanities from the Open University.  His main interest is in the how and why of art.  Why did the artist make this; how did they make this and crucially, how do these two aspects interact ?

Alfred Hitchcock directed more than fifty films; his career beginning in the silent era and ending in the age of cable and satellite television.  He was an innovator with a distinctive individual style.  There have been many directors who have tried to emulate Hitchcock but none have surpassed him in the genre of suspense which he defined.  Our lecturer, Colin Shindler, will analyse his films in the context of his life and attempt to discover just why Hitchcock's films have endured so successfully for so long.

Colin Shindler studied history at Cambridge University where he went on to complete his PhD on Hollywood and the great depression.  Between 1975 and 1999 he pursued a wide-ranging career as a writer and producer in television, radio and film.  He won a BAFTA award for his production of A Little Princess and his production of Young Charlie Chaplin was nominated for a US Prime Time Emmy.  Subsequently he has lectured at Cambridge, adult education courses in Cumbria and on cruises.

Frank Hurley was the official photographer for Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to Antarctica. Their ship, the Endurance, was trapped and eventually crushed in the pack ice.  After camping for five months on the ice, Shackleton’s men rowed to Elephant Island from where Shackleton sailed to South Georgia for help. Over three months later he returned to rescue the crew.  Our lecturer, Mark Cottle, will show some of Frank's photographs which capture with great artistry new and amazing landscapes within which a remarkable human drama played out.

Mark Cottle was born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and  then at Birmingham University. His career has been spent in education and training at home and abroad.  He has lectured at Exeter College on Medieval and Tudor history, St Mark's and St John's University College, Plymouth, and at Bath University on Anglo Saxon and medieval England.  He currently runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.

What do we see in a portrait and what is the artist telling us ?  Our lecturer, Gabriel Chanan, will examine factors which, in different periods, distinguish flattery and psychological insight.  He will show us how artists like Holbein were able to satisfy powerful patrons yet render images which could be interpreted differently in later ages.  He will examine how the depiction of human personality changed as women artists added depth of feeling.  Then there are the special characteristics of self-portraiture and how deliberately enigmatic portraits can challenge the conventions of the genre.

Gabriel Chanan took up lecturing on art history in 2015, building on his lifelong interest in the arts during a career as a social researcher and policy analyst.  His study of the visual arts focuses mainly on realist painting, especially on points of transition between different periods and styles.  In 2015 his book, 'Shakespeare and Democracy', was published.  He also ran a small theatre company performing at arts centres and festivals until 2020.  He was awarded an MBE for services to community development in 2009.

Edouard Manet emerged in the early 1860s as the leader of a new group of artists determined to paint Paris and its inhabitants in a resolutely modern style.  Manet’s pictures, with their bold view of metropolitan life, shocked contemporary audiences and helped foster the idea of an artistic avant-garde.  The Impressionists presented the modern city in a softer, more sympathetic light.  Our lecturer, Steven Barrett, will tell us about the links between Paris and the birth of modern painting in the works of Manet, Monet, Renoir, Morisot and Degas.

Steven Barrett has a degree in Fine Art from Liverpool School of Art and an MA in History of Art from Birkbeck College, London.  He is not only a painter but has also lectured at the National Gallery since 2004.  He has lectured on the history of European art and architecture at Somerset House, taught courses on art and architecture at London colleges and is a regular gallery and museum guide for U3A.

Aware of the inegalitarian nature of concert life during the late nineteenth century, Henry Wood set about making music available to the man in the street by founding the Promenade Concerts at Queen's Hall in 1895 with the impresario Robert Newman.  Using rare film clips, recorded sound examples and other performance artefacts, this lecture will examine the life and times of Sir Henry J. Wood and the impact that he continues to have on musical life today.

Raymond Holden studied at Sydney, Cologne and London and is a writer, conductor, broadcaster and lecturer.  He has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Emilia Romagna and the New Symphony Orchestra of London.  He is currently Emeritus Professor of Music at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

In 1842 Sir Richard Owen coined the name 'Dinosaur' to cover a diverse group of ancient reptiles.  A few years later in the 1850s palaeontologists, using the latest knowledge of the time, created models to show how these extinct animals might have looked.  These models still exist hidden away in a south London park.  Our lecturer, Aaron Hunter, will show photos of these models and tell us what today's scientists would have done.  However, even with all our technological advances we can't be sure !

Aaron Hunter is a professional scientist and researcher at the University of Cambridge.  He is an expert on fossils and prehistoric life from the first animals to appear on our planet to the evolution of early humans and has published research on the origin of marine animals.  After degrees in Geology and Palaeobiology he gained a PhD from the University of London and went on to pursue an academic career working first as a research fellow in France, Germany and Japan and then as a Senior Lecturer in Malaysia and Western Australia.

Between 1870 and 1914, at the height of America’s Gilded Age, no less than 454 heiresses exchanged their crisp new American dollars for musty, old European titles.  Aside from the new lease of life those dollars now afforded the previously cash-strapped aristocrats, they were primarily put to use restoring their crumbling ancestral piles – many of which today we count among our best-loved national treasures.  Mark will tell us about some of the more prominent of those stately homes and their fairy-dollar godmothers.

Mark Meredith is a writer, the founder of HouseHistree.com, and lectures regularly at societies, festivals and clubs in both Europe and the United States.  After leaving Stowe School, Mark worked for twenty years as a plumber in London.  However, his real passion has always been for history, particularly the history behind houses through the characters that conjoin to create them.  His special interest lies with the great American houses and their relationships with those in Europe, both socially and architecturally.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was the favourite of King James I and subsequently chief minister to King Charles I.  He was a handsome man, surrounding himself with beautiful things and he was a discerning patron. In his great house on the Strand he put together a collection of art works as fine as King Charles’.  At the age of 35 Buckingham was murdered and his collection was scattered.  Lucy will tell us how contemporary inventories have allowed us to reconstruct it and she will show us some examples of paintings from his collection.

Biographer, critic and journalist Lucy Hughes-Hallett was educated at Bedford College, University of London.  She worked as a features writer for Vogue magazine and later became the Evening Standard’s television critic.  She has written a number of fiction and non-fiction books winning prizes for the latter.  She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Historical Association and was Chair of the Judges for the 2021 International Booker Prize.

Jacky will tell us how the socialite and muse Peggy Guggenheim became one of the greatest collectors in the history of modern art.  Guggenheim was friends with the leading cultural figures of the day and married, among others, the artist Max Ernst.  Jacky will address the questions of why it was that Guggenheim started collecting contemporary art in the 1930s?  What impact did her subsequent galleries in London and New York have on artists and the wider art world? How did a New York heiress play such a pivotal role in the making of mid-century Modernism?

Jacky Klein is an art historian, publisher, writer and broadcaster, specialising in modern and contemporary art.  After studying at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she worked as a curator at a number of leading galleries: Tate, the Barbican, the Courtauld and the Hayward.  In 2008, she moved into the world of art publishing, first as Commissioning Editor at Thames & Hudson, then as Executive Editor at Tate Publishing and subsequently as Director of HENI Publishing, a small independent arts publisher.

“The Planets” by Gustav Holst is one of the most popular and most recorded works in English music.  Yet, apart from the tunes for the hymn “I Vow to Thee, My Country” and the carol “In the Bleak Midwinter”, most of Holst’s other music is neglected, unjustly so.  Holst was an unconventional man who led something of a double life.  He was a vegetarian and spent most of his working life as Director of Music in a girls’ school.  Roger will examine Holst’s life, the creation of “The Planets” and will explore a number of his other works.

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 often referred to as a story teller with a brush!  Many of his paintings tell us whimsical stories that invariably make us smile.  John will ask where the boundary is between illustration and art; was Rockwell a great American artist or a mere illustrator?  In America his work enjoys broad popular appeal, where Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations he created for ‘The Saturday Evening Post.’  Today his work sells for many millions of dollars.

John Ericson was formerly a lecturer at the University of Bath where he was director of studies in the school of education with responsibility for the professional development of teachers.  He has worked extensively overseas as an educational consultant and this has given him the opportunity to give lectures and presentations at conferences all over the world.  Over the last decade he has been a popular speaker on the Arts Society circuit in the UK and Europe as well as a frequent visitor to the societies in Australia and New Zealand.

If Queen Victoria couldn’t travel to India – India had to come to her!  Austrian artist Rudolf Swoboda was commissioned by Queen Victoria to paint authentic portraits of her Indian subjects to represent ‘various types of the different nationalities’ of India.  Helen will talk about Victorian encounters with India beginning with these portraits decorating the corridors of Queen Victoria’s favourite palace, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.  She will also talk about the exquisitely carved Durbar Hall, created and shipped over from India to serve as a backdrop for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition.

Dr Helen Rufus-Ward is an art historian with a doctorate from the University of Sussex.  She has published on Late Antique and Byzantine ivory carvings, plaster casting of art works and 19th century collecting.  As well as holding a Higher Education Academy teaching qualification, Helen is a member of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, the Society of Jewellery Historians, and is the Chairman of Eastbourne Arts Circle that has raised significant sums of money for the Towner Art Gallery Eastbourne.

The avant-gardes in Latin America that developed during the 1920s delved into the paradox of pursuing an artistic language that addressed universal concerns whilst striving to realise a national artistic identity.  Daniele will show us how these artists explored a new spectrum of styles, mediums and languages.  She will consider Mexican, Argentinean, Uruguayan and Brazilian artists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros, Frida Kahlo, Joaquin Torres Garcia, Anita Malfatti & Tarsila do Amaral.  

Daniela Galan is a Colombian artist and art historian from Goldsmiths University.  Daniela is the founding Director of AMALGAMA, the first cultural programme and digital platform in the UK devoted to exhibiting, promoting, and publishing the work of female artists with Spanish, Portuguese, Central and South American heritage.  Daniele has curated several exhibitions in London, featuring over 20 Latin American artists and has an ongoing collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes London to promote Latin American artists in the UK.

Long before cappuccinos and skinny lattes, all the world’s coffee traded through the tiny port of Mokha in Yemen.  Popularised in Constantinople, Vienna and Amsterdam, the first English coffee house opened in the 1650’s and by 1700 there were 500 in London alone.  Christopher will tell us how the marketing of coffee went through distinctive art nouveau and art deco periods; we see it included in works of the major French Impressionists.  

Expert in the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa, Christopher Bradley has led groups throughout the Middle East and Asia as a professional tour guide and lecturer.  He has written extensively on Arabia and as a photographer has pictures represented by four photographic libraries.  He has given lectures to the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Institute of British Architect among others.  He has also made documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic TV and Channel 4.  

If you were an aristocrat in 18th century England you would certainly have silverware but would generally have your crest engraved on the already highly decorated designs of the time.  Ralph will tell us about the silverware of this period, the Huguenot influence on the decorations and the silversmithing techniques of the time.  Furthermore he will give us the history of some of the silver he will show and this includes the social standing of the owners and makers.  

Ralph Hoyle was a schoolboy member of the Wine Label Circle, a society devoted to the study of silver labels for decanters, and went on to be its President.  He is a long standing member of the Silver Society.  He has given talks to the Art Fund, Sheffield Assay Office, American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, Historic Houses and small charity raising events.  

This lecture looks at how textile colours developed in the 20th century.  It is the story of everything from khaki to the little black dress and from day glo to colours which respond to the sun or the rain.  Susan will look at the transformation of colour in clothing, in interiors and in the corporate world.  We shall also discover which is the most commercially challenging colour and which is the colour most commonly worn today and why.  

Susan Kay-Williams is the Chief Executive of the Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace.  She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Institute of Marketing and, in 2015, was made a Fellow of the Society of Dyers and Colourists in recognition of her work on the history of dyes.  Susan has a longstanding interest in textiles especially colour and published her first book, The Story of Colour in Textiles (Bloomsbury) in 2013.  

John will take us on a complete journey through European architectural development.   The story begins in ancient Greece and subsequently develops through the Roman and Byzantine periods.  Medieval Europe then goes through Romanesque and Gothic styles before the Renaissance revives classicism.  But as industrialisation takes hold medieval styles get revived again and John identifies some of the principal influencers.  

An engineer by training, John Sherlock was educated at Winchester and Oxford. He has spent much of his working life in the City of London, and now runs his own business advising the owners of historic houses and landscapes,  He counts the National Trust and the Crown Estate among his clients, as well as several privately owned properties.  

The flower paintings of Cedric Morris (1889-1982) show him as a consummate botanist.  After a fire in 1940, Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines were forced to relocate their East Anglia School of Painting and Drawing to Benton End in Suffolk.  It was not just a school but a vibrant eclectic artistic hub in a setting of Morris’s horticultural genius.  He lived at Benton End until his death, enjoying national stature as artist and plantsman whose legacy included over 90 new varieties of iris.  

Caroline Holmes lectures for the Royal Horticultural Society, museums, specialist travel companies and online for the Gardens Trust.  She is a consultant designer specialising in evoking historic, artistic and symbolic references in her work.  She is the author of 12 books and is a presenter and contributor to BBC Radio 4.  

The bleak midwinter held little appeal to the artist for many centuries until Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow in the 16th century.  Sue will show us how snow and ice can form either a pristine backdrop or a dramatic and tempestuous storm such as those Turner produced.  She will describe the ways in which the Impressionists captured the ‘snow effect’ and how artists can show snow as a symbol of peace but also of grandeur and terror.  

Originally in academic art and design publishing, Sue Jackson is a Fellow of the Huguenot Society, a Freeman of the City of London, a tutor at the City Literary Institute and a Blue Badge guide, conducting a variety of walks and visits.  

The Arts Society Englemere will hold its annual Christmas Event at The Windlesham Golf Club on Friday 1st December 2023.  Tickets are £48.00 per person for a three course lunch with champagne reception.  

For further details of the event and a booking form with menu options please click HERE

Gaston Leroux scored a minor success with his potboiler novel The Phantom of the Opera and in the following century it grew to be a global phenomenon through a vast number of adaptations for stage and screen.  John will tell us  how the original novel come about, why has it proved so adaptable, and what gives it such a lasting grip on the popular imagination.  With Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical as just one of the many examples, this lecture unpacks a world of mystery, masks and music to discover romance in China, comedy in South America and high art in Europe.  

John Snelson has a degree in music and, following an early career in teaching, has worked for twenty years at the Royal Opera House.  He is now a leading expert in British musical theatre (the subject of his PhD).  His publications include Andrew Lloyd Webber (Yale University Press) and chapters in many authoritative reference works.     John has given talks for, among others, the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, the Garsington and Glyndebourne festivals and for BBC radio.  

For all the things that have been written about the great Sun King, Louis XIV, he is best remembered for the creation of Versailles, the immense chateau which he built on the site of his father’s old hunting lodge.  It became the seat of French government and the setting for all grand court ceremonial; the envy of every other European monarch. Jane will give us an introduction to the sumptuous state apartments, the collections of the King, the vast gardens and pleasure pavilions and the spectacular entertainments all encompassing the whole etiquette of life at one of the greatest courts in Europe.  

Jane Gardiner has a masters in History of Art from the University of London and subsequently trained at the V&A, continuing to lecture there.  She was Senior Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art for 17 years, becoming a Deputy Director of Sotheby's, UK.  She has also lectured for the National Trust, the Art Fund, London University, Buckingham University, l'Institut d'Etudes Superieures des Arts in Paris, on cruise ships and at antiques fairs and interior design conferences in America.  

The paintings of Johannes Vermeer are among the best-loved artworks in the world. Relatively little is known about the master from Delft but that has not deterred a torrent of publications about him, both fictional and scholarly. One of the most hotly debated topics in Vermeer literature is his supposed use of the camera obscura.  Rupert will tackle this controversy head on by investigating the history of optical devices in art and examining the latest theories on Vermeer’s technique.  A chance to view Vermeer afresh through a different lens.  

Rupert Dickens studied art history at Birkbeck College before undertaking a Masters in Dutch Golden Age Studies at University College London.  He now works at the Wallace Collection as a guide conducting public and private tours and lecturing on aspects of the collection.  As an art historian based in south London with a special interest in Dutch and Flemish 16th and 17th century painting, Rupert is also a tour director for a Cambridge-based company accompanying groups on art-themed tours to the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria and Italy.  

Medical practitioners, their treatments and the diseases they were tackling were all portrayed in caricatures of the 18th and 19th century. Briony will take some of the best examples from British collections, created by artists including William Hogarth, James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson, to examine the depiction of apothecaries, pharmacists, quack medicines and illnesses in the period. Come prepared to laugh and wince in equal measure.  

Briony Hudson studied history at Cambridge University, and museums studies at Leicester University. Having worked at museums as diverse as Hereford Cider Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Wakefield Museum, she moved into medical history in 2002 as Keeper of the Museum Collections at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.  She then progressed to be Director of Museums at the Royal College of Surgeons, and then as an independent curator for a range of medical museums and royal colleges. Her publications include books on liquorice, English delftware drug jars, popular historical medicines, and the histories of UCL, Cardiff and Sunderland schools of pharmacy.  

For more than three centuries Sadler's Wells has been a place of entertainment and a part of London's theatrical history with a reputation known across the world. Surviving many highs, lows and rebuilding, the theatre has hosted and nurtured an impressive array of performing companies over the years. Nigel will tell us the unique story of The Wells which includes pony racing, naval warfare, Shakespeare with Sir John Gielgud as well as the strongest connections with the worlds of opera and dance and the roots of today's Royal Ballet companies.  

Nigel Bates has been a performer for more than forty years in and out of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, including seventeen years as Principal Percussionist with the Orchestra and eight years as the Music Administrator of The Royal Ballet.  He has worked with many of the leading figures in the classical music industry and was also a producer for both the BBC's Maestro at the Opera and Pappano's Classical Voices documentary series.  He is a regular contributor to the printed and online content of the ROH.  

The Maya lived in Central America between 1000 BC and 1528 at which time they were conquered by the Spaniards.  At the peak of their civilisation, between 300 and 900 AD, they built enormous monuments, produced jade and ceramic items of great beauty.  Duncan will tell us about their advanced understanding of mathematics and astronomy equipping them to develop a calendar that was far more advanced than anything in Europe at the time.  

Duncan Pring graduated from Oxford and completed a masters and PhD at London university.  His PhD thesis was on “The Preclassic Ceramics of Northern Belize”.  He has subsequently published articles on Mayan ceramics including ‘The Protoclassic in the Maya Lowlands’ published in 2000 by British Archaeological Reports. He is currently working with other North American archaeologists pulling together different ceramic sequences in Belize.  

The history of Britain is intricately woven with the history of textiles.  Following World War II there was a desire for change, colour and inspiration in the home.  This energy and innovation was led by female textile designers destined to revolutionise design internationally for decades to come.  This lecture celebrates their vision, their influences and their determination that successfully brought modern and contemporary art into the home through their designs and thereby democratising modern art for the first time by making it literally a part of the furniture.  

Ashley Gray is a leading specialist and curator in the key art discipline of Modern Textiles and their history.  He is regularly invited to lecture on the subject both in the UK and the US and sits on the advisory board of The Frances Neady Collection at FIT, New York.  As a curator and archivist, he works with institutions and foundations on conservation and exhibition projects.  He also curates the acclaimed exhibition Styled by Design that celebrates the innovation of Modernist textile design alongside a comprehensive lecture programme that accompanies the exhibitions.  

The National Trust has over 13,000 works of art, of these over 1,000 are Dutch 17th century paintings.  Dutch masters such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Aelbert Cuyp, and Meindert Hobbema were extremely popular with the British nobility and entrepreneurs from the 17th to the 20th century.  Some of the most beautiful examples of these artists are to be found in National Trust houses.  Jane Choy-Thurlow will tell us about the variety of paintings to be found, the artists who painted them and how they came to be there.  

Jane received her BSc from Salem State University, USA, her MEd from Trinity College Dublin and continued her art history studies at Leiden University.  She continues to give lectures and tours at the Mauritshuis, Prince William V Gallery and the Huygens Museum Hofwijck in The Hague.  In 2018 she was given the honour of Knight in the Order of Oranje Nassau by the Dutch King Willem Alexander of Orange for her knowledge and work in the field of the Arts especially 15th to 17th century Dutch and Flemish art.  

Michael Howard poses the question: was Gauguin nothing but a tourist seeking some lost Shangri-la or was he an exile searching for his lost home?  He was an artist who was imprisoned by the myths he himself invented, a true visionary, a troubled creator of beautiful jewel-like canvases that sing to us with a dream-like intensity.  Michael has woven into this lecture his own story of international intrigue, mystery and skulduggery as he became involved in the quest to authenticate two Gauguin paintings - each worth millions if proven to be genuine, worth nothing if proven to be forgeries.  

Michael is a practising artist, and has exhibited at the Royal Academy, the New York Art Fair and elsewhere.  He is represented in Manchester Art Gallery and in many private collections both here and abroad.  Although retired, he continues to teach at the Manchester School of Art and has published widely on European art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  His book on Gauguin, was written in association with the Gauguin Museum, Tahiti.  

The coldest months of the year inspired a number of writers and artists; the poet William Cowper wrote pleasurably about the season from the warmth of his fireside; Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Caspar David Friedrich were both inspired by the sublimity of the winter landscape; while William Wordsworth and Henry Raeburn created iconic ice-skating scenes in verse and painting.  Annalie Talent’s seasonal lecture will explore why Romantic writers and artists were so keen on ‘the frosty season’ and how their legacy lives on today in our own ideas about this time of year.  

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 two Sandford Awards 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.  

The Arts Society Englemere will hold its annual Christmas Event at The Windlesham Golf Club on Friday 2nd December 2022.  Tickets are £45.00 per person for a three course lunch with champagne reception.  

For further details of the event and a booking form with menu options please click HERE

Dr. Graham Jones will entertain us with descriptions of the various ceremonial events that take place around Christmas time.  Carol services, concerts and even Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace and at Windsor all play their part.  It may be only November but for Christmas celebration ideas find out how the Chelsea Pensioners prepare and celebrate the festive season.  

Graham started his professional life as a musician in the British Army and over a glittering career spanning nearly forty years he retired as the Senior Director of Music, Household Division and Director of Music, Coldstream Guards a position unequaled throughout military music in Great Britain.  He is enjoying a second career as a guest conductor, adjudicator, guest speaker, lecturer, clinician, recording consultant and educator.  He is also the Artistic Director of London International Band Week, music consultant to Henley Music Festival, resident conductor of the British Imperial Orchestra and visiting conductor in residence at Troy University, Alabama, USA.  

Cartoonist Harry Venning will trace the history of his profession with examples from early practitioners like Cruickshank and Hogarth, to more contemporary artists such as Giles and Schulz, bringing events right up to date with cartoons produced fresh on the page.  Yes, Harry will be drawing for us during his lecture.  Prepare to hear some tricks of his trade, learn where to put eyebrows for maximum effect.  

Harry has been a professional cartoonist for thirty years, during which time he has provided cartoons for several high profile UK publications as well as for countless more obscure titles.  He has had work published in the UK and abroad, including the strip Clare in the Community which has been a weekly feature in The Guardian since 1996.  In 2016 he was awarded Strip Cartoonist of the Year by the UK Cartoon Trust    For the last ten years he has been performing his cartoon workshop ‘Release Your Inner Cartoonist’ to audiences as diverse as schoolchildren, business executives and festival goers.  

Mary Branson is best known for her large scale conceptual light installations, particularly the iconic New Dawn 2016 sculpture in the Houses of Parliament, which celebrates the centenary of the Suffrage movement and is the first permanent piece of contemporary abstract art in the Palace of Westminster.  Her talk will tell us about her artist process and what was involved in making this public work of art.  

Mary has created works for the London 2012 Olympics, The Magna Carta Memorial at Runnymede, Royal Holloway University and more recently Harvest a huge site-specific installation at Box Hill Surrey in collaboration with the National Trust.  Her latest work is Ladders of Light, a piece for Sky Arts 50, that fills Salisbury Cathedral.  Mary is an award-winning print maker, a choreographer for performance and dance events, and a mentor and public speaker, having lately returned from a lecture tour to New York and Washington DC.  

Photographs have the ability to stop time; to provide a freeze-frame of a moment in time and space.  They give the observer the opportunity to think, to react, to feel and to soak in the details of the circumstances surrounding the image.  Roger Mendham’s talk examines some of the most important images and photographers of the past century.  He explores why these images are so powerful and influential in our understanding of history.  

Roger is a keen and accomplished photographer; now retired. His interest in art was sparked by his wife’s academic studies into the History of Art and he has a particular interest in 20th century art.  Because of his passion for photography he tends to focus on the visual aspects of art and is currently studying public art.  He has researched numerous statues and monuments and is interested in how they have evolved in response to cultural changes over the past century.  

This year is the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and 2023 marks the 70th Anniversary of her Coronation, events which are unique in the history of our nation.  Barbara Askew’s lecture celebrates these events and looks at the evolution of the coronation ceremony from Saxon times to that of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.  She examines the different stages of the ceremony from the Recognition through to the Homage and explains the significance of the different items of the coronation regalia.  Her lecture also considers various mishaps at past coronations and ends with that of Her Majesty the Queen, the first coronation to be genuinely witnessed by the people through the medium of television.  

Barbara is an historian and has been a 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.  She is the only Blue Badge Guide accredited to guide the Albert Memorial and has conducted tours for American museums and alumni groups for the past 25 years.  

Based on research behind a national touring exhibition of the same name, Christopher Garibaldi’s lecture looks at the use of flowers as symbols in art from 1500 to 2000.  It particularly aims to unlock the hidden meanings of flowers where they have been used by artists to convey particular religious symbolism, individual aspects of identity or other emblematic meanings across both the fine and decorative arts.  

Christopher is an independent researcher and was, until 2019, the director of Palace   House, Newmarket; the national heritage centre for horse racing and sporting art.  Prior to that he was co-director of the Attingham Summer School for the study of historic houses and collections and senior curator & assistant keeper of art at Norwich Castle Museum.  While at Norwich he co-curated ‘Flower Power’ – The Meaning of Flowers in Art and Eat, Drink and Be Merry, the British at Table 1600 to 2000.  

Designed by Inigo Jones in 1622, the Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace is infamous as the execution site of King Charles I.  The hall survived the fire that destroyed Henry VIII’s great Whitehall Palace in 1698 and its magnificent painted ceiling, by Peter Paul Rubens, is the only one in the world still in its original setting.  Siobhan Clarke will help us discover the building’s revolutionary architecture and Baroque-style art, seismic events in constitutional history, and how Parliament dared to kill a king.  (Image by Nathan Hughes Hamilton)

Siobhan Clarke BA has worked for Historic Royal Palaces for 20 years delivering tours and lectures on Hampton Court, Kensington, the Tower of London and the Banqueting House, Whitehall Palace.  She has lectured for the British Museum, National Trust, U3A, Arts Society and Smithsonian and featured on BBC Radio Women's Hour and Television's Secrets of Henry VIII's Palace.  She has written a number of books and is currently working on Gloriana: Elizabeth I and the Art of Queenship.

This is the story of the epic rivalry between the two giants of British art, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable.  As unlike in background and temperament as their paintings were in style, these two creative geniuses transformed the art of landscape. Nicola Moorby sets them head-to-head and examines their differences, their similarities, their battles and their shared triumphs.  As well as giving an overview of Turner and Constable, Nicola provides an enjoyable overview of the British art world during the nineteenth century.  

Nicola is an independent art historian specialising in British art of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  She studied at the University of York and Birkbeck College, London.  Formerly a curator at Tate Britain she has curated a number of exhibitions and has published widely on J.M.W. Turner, including contributions to the forthcoming online catalogue of the Turner Bequest.  She is co-editor and author of How to Paint Like Turner (Tate Publishing, 2010), she has published on Walter Richard Sickert and is co-author of Tate's catalogue of works by the Camden Town Group.  

Join us for a virtual tour of the Borghese Gallery with our guide Stuart Harvey.  

For more details and joining instructions please click HERE

Western Art from ‘Down Under’ is often overlooked and neglected, but there is a large number of talented and inventive painters who rose to prominence in the post-World War II era.  Paul Chapman will help us understand and appreciate the modern art of Australia and its place in the history of Western Art with references to painters like Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd working in a naive and expressive style, Fred Williams’ landscapes and John Brack’s figurative paintings.  Paul will also reference works by John Olsen, Brett Whiteley and Jeffery Smart.  

Paul is an Art Historian and a National Gallery trained guide with many years of experience working in education.  As a freelance Paul delivers courses and lectures for a wide range of educational organisations.  He has also given talks and tours for art associations/societies in Museums and Galleries in the UK and Europe.  As a writer, Paul has published a book, which examines the subject of cultural crossovers and appropriations in 20th century painting.  He also has a long-standing commitment, in conjunction with the National Gallery, as a tour guide at the Longford Castle art collection.  

One of the first artists to paint snow, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-1569) is known today for wintery masterpieces such as The Hunters in the Snow, The Census at Bethlehem and The Massacre of the Innocents. In this lecture Dr Amy Orrock will explore Bruegel’s iconic winter scenes, looking at how they both follow and break with traditions that had gone before.  

Amy is an art historian and curator who has published and lectured widely on Northern European art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  She has a degree from University College London and then completed her PhD on Pieter Bruegel the Elder at the University of Edinburgh.  In 2017 she co-curated the exhibition Bruegel: Defining a Dynasty at the Holburne Museum, Bath.  Amy is currently Senior Curator at Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park.  

The Arts Society Englemere will hold its annual Christmas Dinner at The Royal Ascot Golf Club on Friday 3rd December 2021.  Tickets are £45.00 per person for a three course dinner with champagne reception.  

Entertainment will be provided by Katy John - "The Magic of the Musicals".  

For further details of the event and a booking form with menu options please click HERE

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

Julian studied archaeology at Reading University and has since worked as a professional archaeologist for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992 and is being awarded an honorary doctorate.  He has been involved in teaching and outreach projects, lecturing widely in continuing education, to groups, societies and to special interest tour companies.  He researched and presented Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4.  He is also the author of a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and landscape.  

The Falcon Studio was the retail premises in Marylebone where, in the 1920s and 30s, Harry Murphy designed and created prodigious quantities of silverware for the corporate, civic and private sectors.  In addition he created some truly startling gold, silver and enamel jewellery inspired by nature, architecture, The Ballets Russes and the vibrancy of the jazz age.  John Benjamin will tell us about the life and works of this master  jeweller and silversmith.  

John was with Phillips Auctioneers for 23 years, latterly as international director of jewellery and since 1999 has been an independent jewellery consultant.  John lectures, writes and broadcasts, including the BBC Antiques Roadshow, and was admitted to Goldsmith’s Company in 2000.  

The world’s first underground railway has a unique heritage of architecture, ingenious design, powerful advertising posters and unique calligraphy.  Ian Swankie will tell us of the early development of the Underground, examining the legacy of Frank Pick and Charles Holden, looking at some of the iconic posters, and celebrating the award-winning architecture of the modern Tube in the Jubilee Line Extension.  He will also give us a peek at a few of the new Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) stations, designed by some of the world’s top architects.  

Ian is a Londoner with a passion for art and architecture.  He is an official guide and gives tours at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and leads regular tours for various corporations and organisations.  He is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.  

The bed has been the site of multiple encounters in art from the stunning in Titian’s mythologies through Manet’s Olympia, Picasso’s nudes, to the abject of Tracey Emin’s infamous My Bed.  But if the bed has been linked to passion, it has also been linked to death and Marie-Anne Mancio’s lecture explores its manifestations in the art of Caravaggio, Munch, Klimt, and others.  

Marie-Anne trained as an artist before gaining a PhD in Art and Critical Theory from the University of Sussex.  She has lectured in art history for the City Lit, Tate Modern, the Course, Art in London, London Art Salon, Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Nth Degree Club and many private art societies. She also runs art history study tours abroad.  

The developments in art, industry, science, technology and social behaviour in the 18th century laid the foundations of the modern Britain that we know today.  This was the age of the Enlightenment and of the Industrial Revolution.  This was also the age of Joseph Wright of Derby who painted the very spirit of that time.  Scott Anderson will consider Wright’s exceptional paintings of both industrial scenes and the many associated characters, such as Sir Richard Arkwright and Erasmus Darwin who were Wright’s subjects and friends.  

Scott 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 and now as a Senior Lecturer, he teaches courses on the history and theory of interior design and visual culture.  For the last few years he has also worked as a consultant valuer for the BBC television programme 'Flog It’.

Join us for a live virtual walk through Old Lisbon.  

For details and joining instructions please click HERE

This is a fascinating insight into the history of one of our greatest ever institutions - our Great British Public Parks.  Paul Rabbitts will tell us of their origins from the great Royal Parks via the Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century, to their Victorian heyday.  He will discuss what makes a great park; its ‘parkitecture’, with examples of lodges, lakes, bandstands, fountains, lidos, palm houses and their wonderful floral displays and the parks’ revival following their decline in the sixties, seventies and eighties.  

Paul has a degree in Geography from Sheffield University and a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh.  He is a qualified landscape architect and park manager and has worked for several local authorities across the UK.  He is a prolific author on parks with 14 books to his name.  Now a UK leading expert on bandstands he has been asked to assist in localised restoration projects nationwide and has been a regular and popular speaker on bandstands and public parks.

Join us for a virtual tour of The Mauritshuis with our guide Jane.

The lute holds a special place in the history of art.  Painters of the Italian Renaissance depicted golden-haired angels plucking its delicate strings; Holbein and Titian in the sixteenth century showed the lute was a becoming pastime of educated courtiers, and in the seventeenth century Jan Steen and Frans Hals used the lute to emphasise the pleasures of interior scenes.  Adam Busiakiewicz will tell us how the lute, and other musical instruments, have been used as devices to express various aspects of the human character throughout the ages.  

Adam has a degree in history from UCL and a masters in fine and decorative art from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London.  He is currently pursuing a doctorate in art history at Warwick University after winning a CADRE Postgraduate Scholarship in 2017.  In between studies he was head of historical interpretation at Warwick Castle and a guide lecturer at the Wallace Collection.

Fake News has been around since the time of the Egyptian pharaohs and art has always been one of its favourite media.  Geri Parlby will be uncovering the subtle art of spin and propaganda in art from the glories of Ancient Mesopotamia to the Norman Conquest and then onto Elizabethan England and the dark days of Nazi Germany.  

Geri has a degree in history and theology, a masters in history of art from The Courtauld Institute and a doctorate in theology from Roehampton University.  After a career as a Fleet Street journalist and in film public relations, she has been lecturing  both in the UK and internationally.  She is also principal lecturer on the Arts Society South West Area’s History of Art course and is an honorary research fellow at Roehampton University.  

Join us for a virtual walk through the centuries in one of the UK’s most beautiful cities taking in some hidden corners and quirky spots you might have overlooked before. George VI said that the history of York is the history of England; join our online guide in uncovering the many layers that make up this fascinating city.  

Our guide, Sarah Cowling, is a Blue Badge Guide for London and Yorkshire and now lives permanently in her native county.  

This is the gripping and sometimes hilarious story of how a band of heroic curators and eccentric custodians saved Britain’s national heritage during our Darkest Hour.  As Hitler’s forces gathered on the other side of the Channel to threaten these islands, men and women from London’s national museums, galleries and archives forged extraordinary plans to evacuate their collections to safety.  Dr Caroline Shenton will tell us how a dedicated team of unlikely heroes packed up their greatest treasures in a race against time during the sweltering summer of 1939, dispatching them throughout the country.  

Caroline is an archivist and historian.  She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives.  Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013 and Mary Beard called it ‘microhistory at its absolute best’.  She was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in 2017, has appeared at the Cheltenham, Hay and Henley literary festivals and on BBC radio and TV.  

Manga are Japanese comic books that tell stories predominantly through the use of images.  The scroll format has been used for documents in East Asia from ancient times; official documents and Buddhist scriptures written on paper were rolled up into a scroll for easy storage and transport.  Emaki, narrative picture scrolls, first came into use for illustrating secular stories and historical incidents from around the twelfth century. Dr Meri Arichi will share with us her thoughts on how emaki influenced the origin of contemporary Japanese manga.  

Meri studied history of art in London and Florence and completed a post-graduate diploma in Asian Art at SOAS.  She has a masters in History of East Asian Art and a PhD in Shinto-Buddhist Syncretic Art from SOAS London.  She teaches History of Japanese Art in the department of history of art and archaeology at SOAS and has run courses at Birkbeck College, The V&A, The British Museum and The Courtauld Institute.  

A virtual walk on Zoom at 11:00

Join us in a real-time virtual walk around the Cannaregio area in Venice guided by Luisella Romeo, a fully qualified Venetian guide.  Let her show you the secrets of this fascinating district.  She will explain about the hidden places and piazzas of her much loved city.  

Joining details will be sent in the Newsletter a few days before the event.  

Occupying a pair of early Georgian townhouses nestled in historic Greenwich, the story of how The Fan Museum came to fruition dovetails into the multifaceted history of the handheld fan.  From an especially rare Elizabethan-period embroidered folding fan to contemporary examples decorated by street artists, discover some of the key objects within the Museum’s extraordinary collections which encompass more than 5,000 fans and related objects dating from the eleventh century to the present day and gathered from most parts of the world.  

Jacob has a postgraduate degree in Fashion Curation from London College of Fashion and in 2010 took up a position at The Fan Museum, Greenwich; the UK’s only Museum dedicated to the history of fans and the craft of fan making. As the Museum’s Curator, he is responsible for co-organising its temporary exhibition programme and overseeing loans from the Museum’s extraordinary collections to organisations such as the Palace of Versailles and Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

The Alhambra of Granada, the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Alcazar of Seville are three of the most impressive monuments to the architectural creativity of the Moors in Spain.  The classical origins that influenced the Moorish style are less well-known, but their unique interior decorative style certainly gave their architecture beauty and exotic appeal.  Ian Cockburn’s lecture will provide a comprehensive introduction to the Iberian peninsula’s Moorish architecture.  

Ian has a degree in art history from Birkbeck College and a masters in medieval Spanish art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art.  He is a specialist in the nearly 800 years of Moorish occupation and Christian reconquest of medieval Iberia.  He lectures at the V&A, SOAS, Christies Education and the London History Society.  

Blue Badge guide Jackie Clare takes us on a virtual tour of Legal London.

Wine has been part of our society across the Mediterranean and through Europe for over 7,000 years.  From the kwevris of Georgia in 5,000 B.C. to the dining tables of modern society, wine has been a near constant feature.  David Wright will present the  rich evidence of the role wine has played in these societies and how it became an important component of faith, well-being and festivity.  Drawings, paintings, engravings, buildings, pottery and wine labels themselves all contribute to this story.  

David has been a wine retailer, importer and distributor for 30 years.  In that time he has publicly presented tastings and talks on wine to trade and private audiences.  These have taken the form of wine ‘tastings’ or charity events where a particular subject is presented and the wines tasted.  

This video lecture explores the birth of the Soviet mosaic from its roots in Islamic mosaics and Communist propagandist posters through to the question of preservation in post-Soviet Central Asia.  Chris Alexander explores why Soviet thinking was so keen to bring art out of galleries and into public spaces, and how, in an era when Socialist Realism was the only permitted artistic expression, every public artwork came with a message, a value and an agenda.  

Chris studied Media and Journalism at Leicester University following a childhood spent in war-torn Beirut and Turkey, where he was born.  He established a UNESCO workshop in Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, creating income for women.  This experience influenced his books 'A Carpet Ride to Khiva’, ‘Alabaster’ and ‘Manacle’.  He spent two years in Kyrgyzstan in the world’s largest natural walnut forest, where he established a wood-carving workshop.  Chris is now a curate at St. Barnabas, North Finchley.  He returns to Central Asia whenever he can and conducts tours there.

For a historian, there can be little to match the excitement of discovering a forgotten treasure. Graham Griffiths’s eventful research across Russia to unveil the romantic figure of Leokadiya Kashperova (1872-1940), composer and concert pianist (previously known only as ‘Stravinsky’s piano teacher’), offers the perfect example.  Kashperova’s re-discovered music establishes her as the earliest-known female Russian composer of international stature.  This lecture illustrates what it takes to recover the life and works of a composer whom history has completely forgotten; until now.

Graham has a degree in music from Edinburgh and a doctorate from Christ Church, Oxford.  He is a lecturer, conductor, pianist and composer and is currently a music research fellow at the University of London.  He is Musical Director of Grupo Novo Horizonte de Sao Paulo and has lectured and made recordings in the UK and abroad.  His research featured in the BBC Radio 3 Celebration 'Five Forgotten Female Composers' on International Women’s Day 8 March 2018.

Most of us have heard of Sellar and Yeatman’s “1066 and All That” without necessarily knowing the exact facts about this momentous event.  This lecture will present in detail the historical, cultural and artistic aspects of that unique masterpiece, the Bayeux Tapestry, which provides posterity with such a startling testimonial of peoples’ lives in the late Viking age.

Eveline Eaton has a BA Hons from the Courtauld Institute and  a Diploma from the Study Centre for the History of Fine & Decorative Art.  She is a freelance lecturer in Fine Arts and tour-guide to Berlin, Dresden, Munich.  She is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Dresden Trust.

Avant-garde painter, designer, decorator, inspired colourist, mother and muse, Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf, was the warm heart of the Bloomsbury Group; a set who Dorothy Parker once described as “living in squares and loving in triangles”.  Navigating the tides of sexual and artistic revolution with tolerance, irreverence and wit she had a central role in the social and aesthetic life of Bloomsbury.  In this lecture Julia Musgrave asks if Vanessa Bell the painter was as radical as Virginia Woolf the writer.

Julia has a Graduate Diploma in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an MLitt in ‘Art, Style and Design' from the University of Glasgow.  She is currently working towards her Ph.D. at the University of York on the involvement of Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group in the development of the Contemporary Art Society from 1910 to 1937.  She is a lecturer in Art History at the City Literary Institute (City Lit).

The Arts Society Englemere will hold its annual Christmas Dinner at The Royal Ascot Golf Club on Friday 6th December 2019.  Tickets are £40.00 per person for a three course dinner with champagne reception.  

Entertainment through the evening will be provided by Bertie Pearce.  

For further details of the event and a booking form with menu options please click HERE.  

Following the dark days of the Great War, the Roaring Twenties was a loud and boisterous decade, marked by novelty, modernity and huge social, technological and economic change.  It was also a period of great vitality in art and design.  Jo Banham’s lecture will conjure up the energy and originality of the decade and explore the lives of its leading figures and examples of its most innovative art and design.

Jo Banham is a freelance curator, lecturer and writer.  From 2006-2016 she was Head of Adult Learning at the Victoria & Albert Museum and has held similar positions at the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain.  She has published on many aspects of Victorian and early 20th century decoration and interiors.  She is currently curating an exhibition on William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement for the Juan March Fundacion in Madrid and the Museu Nacional d’Art Catalunya in Barcelona.

In this lecture Giles demonstrates theatre’s response to the extraordinary upheavals of the Great Depression, two World Wars, the Cold War, the Space Race and the Information Revolution and considers how, throughout this age of extremes, the show still went on and continued reflecting our story right up to the present day.  

Giles Ramsay is an independent theatre director and producer who specialises in creating new work with artists in developing countries.  He is the Founding Director of the charity Developing Artists, a Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University and Course Leader in Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  Giles combines academic analysis with hands-on experience to bring a unique insight to the world of the theatre.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford houses one of the finest collections of Egyptian antiquities in the UK.  Lucia Gahlin will tell us about a wealth of ancient Egyptian material, examining highlights of the collection from the Predynastic Period (4th millennium BC) through to the Roman Period (2nd century AD).  Outstanding pieces in terms of art, history and culture will include the decorated ceremonial mace-heads of Egypt’s first pharaohs, the ‘Amarna Princesses’ wall-painting, and the shrine of the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa.

Lucia is an Egyptologist who lectures and works in museums and on excavations in Egypt.  She is Honorary Research Associate at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology and Co-Director of Bloomsbury Summer School also at UCL.  She teaches Egyptology for the University of Exeter.  She works in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London and chairs the Friends of the Petrie Museum.  Her publications include 'Egypt: gods, myths, religion'.

Join us on a river boat trip on the Thames from Runnymede to Windsor and back.  While we are at Windsor we will enjoy a buffet lunch at Brown's Brasserie followed by either a tour of a local brewery or a walking tour of Windsor with a blue badge guide.  

For more information on timing, departure/return arrangements and a booking form please click HERE.

History painting was a special genre for a distinct clientele in the Dutch Republic during the 17th Century.  Trained in history painting by Pieter Lastman, Rembrandt gradually developed his own interpretations of such stories as Bathsheba and David or Susanna and the Elders with emphasis on human drama and the human figure. Sophie Oosterwijk’s lecture explores the concept that not all Rembrandt’s contemporaries appreciated his approach.

Sophie Oosterwijk has an MA and PhD in English Literature (Leiden), an MA in Medieval Studies (York) and a PhD in Art History (Leicester).  She has taught at the universities of St Andrews, Leicester, Nottingham and Manchester, and at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, the National Trust and the V&A.  She is a regular lecturer for Cambridge University and Honorary Research Fellow with the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews.

Journey with Pat Clark to discover this ‘forgotten man’ of Scottish art to find evidence of his skill as a colourist.  Pat will take us through a comprehensive survey of the life  of Charles Mackie and the development of his art, from his early struggles as an artist up to his final recognition as RSA, RSW.  The lecture will include illustrations  of all aspects of his work: watercolours, oils, tooled leatherwork, woodblock prints and sculpture.

Pat was a teacher of history and politics for over 30 years and latterly, ISI Inspector and Headteacher of a Secondary school.  In 2004-6 she was appointed as VSO Education Adviser to an NGO in Cambodia, where she lectured to Khmer colleagues, fellow volunteers, sister NGOs and representatives from the Ministry of Education. She has lectured to audiences throughout Scotland, including the Staithes Art Festival and has been invited to deliver the Annual Edinburgh Philosophical Institution Lecture in May 2019.

Cobalt blue mineral provides the distinctive under-glaze colour of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain.  During the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese imperial kilns at Jingdezhen perfected the production of blue-and-white porcelain wares extending the scope of China’s trade with the West.  Professor Marie Conte-Helm will trace the history of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain and the trade in export porcelain.  Her lecture will also cover salvage operations of the ‘Nanking Cargo’ and the ‘Hoi An Hoard’ which have enhanced our understanding of blue-and-white porcelain and its wider commercial impact.  

Marie has a BA in History of Art and an MA in Asian Art.  She is currently Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, a Member of the Board of Governors for the University for the Creative Arts and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.  She is widely published and has lectured throughout the UK and abroad.  Marie was awarded an OBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to UK-Japan educational and cultural relations.

Although Islam prohibits representative art, 15th century illuminated manuscripts in Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, show detailed carpet designs.  Chris Alexander will examine the traditional role of carpet weaving and embroidery in the social lives of Central Asian women.  He will also indicate how the constraints of gender-inequality, corruption and the sourcing of natural dyes from neighbouring Afghanistan continue to challenge attempts at reviving this rich textile heritage.  

Chris studied Media and Journalism at Leicester University following a childhood spent in war-torn Beirut and Turkey, where he was born.  He established a UNESCO workshop in Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, creating income for women.  This experience influenced his books 'A Carpet Ride to Khiva’, ‘Alabaster’ and ‘Manacle’.  He spent two years in Kyrgyzstan in the world’s largest natural walnut forest, where he established a wood-carving workshop.  Chris is now a curate at St. Barnabas, North Finchley.  He returns to Central Asia whenever he can and conducts tours there.

Max was the younger brother of the sculptor and typographer Eric Gill.  He was an architect, graphic designer and letterer, best known for his pictorial maps, especially those for the London Underground.  An enduring legacy is his alphabet for the Imperial War Graves Commission used on all British military headstones since the First World War.  Caroline Walker’s illustrated talk presents a colourful overview of this versatile artist's personal life and artistic achievements.  

Caroline embarked on family history research in 2006.  She became fascinated in the life and work of her great-uncle MacDonald 'Max' Gill (1884-1947).  She has given talks for the National Archives, the Art Workers' Guild, Christie's, Friends of Kettle's Yard and the National Trust.  She is currently writing a biography and runs the MacDonald Gill website.

One hundred years ago a group of American musicians docked in London bringing with them, for the very first time, one of the twentieth century’s most important musical genres.  Jazz is a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free-wheeling creativity, close-knit ensemble work and improvisation.  Sandy Burnett’s lecture covers the early years of jazz from its beginnings through to the start of the Second World War. Drawing on his practical experience both as musicologist and gigging musician, Sandy is able to shed light on jazz from the inside.  

Sandy studied music at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and worked as music director for the RSC,  the National Theatre and in London’s West End.  He spent a decade as one of the core teams of music presenters on BBC Radio 3.  He enjoys a varied career that embraces broadcasting, conducting and playing double bass.  He regularly leads cultural lecture holidays, and is the author of 'The Idler Guide to Classical Music’.

It is taboo to mention money in art gallery wall labels, yet in reality artists were as pre-occupied with cash as the rest of us.  David Phillips describes the tug of war between creativity and credit in financial vignettes from five centuries.  This includes a role for Charles Dickens as a virtuoso financial advisor solving a little local difficulty for William Holman Hunt.  We look at prices for new art in relation to the cost of living for both artists and patrons in the past and conclude by wondering whether today’s colossal world art market is to the benefit or to the cost of creativity.  

David studied history at Oxford, and from 1968-82 worked for Nottingham Castle Museum.  From 1982-98, he was a lecturer in Museum Studies and Art History at the University of Manchester.  He has published a book about museum practice with Manchester University Press; Exhibiting Authenticity 1997.

Three course dinner with champagne reception at The Royal Ascot Golf Club £40.00 per person

Following dinner there will be a short recital of guitar music by Hani Elias; recipient of an Englemere DFAS Young Arts grant in 2016.  

For full details, menu selections and a booking form please click HERE.  

Karin Fernald will tell us about Fanny Mendelssohn who was four years younger than her better known brother Felix.  She received the same musical education and composed prolifically in her early teens but was persuaded by her father to take a back seat in favour of Felix.  She married an artist Wilhelm Hensel, and continued to compose in private, giving successful Sunday concerts in their Berlin home.  Aged 40, she published a few compositions and started to receive public acclaim before her untimely death aged 42.  

Karin is an actor, writer and speaker known for her entertaining lectures on writers and diarists connected with the arts from the mid 18th to 19th century.  Extensive research into diaries and letters bring subjects vividly to life.  Karin illustrates her talks with slides of contemporary pictures and portraits from varied sources.  She has appeared at festivals all over England and abroad including Japan, Australia, Europe and South Africa.

A tiny section of the Seine to the West of Paris represented the perfect antidote to the claustrophobia of mid 19th century Paris, and has been termed the 'Cradle of Impressionism'.  It was here in five neighbouring riverside villages that the artists who would later become known as the Impressionists, became frequent visitors.  In this talk Carole Petipher will explore the lives and early works of Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Morisot.  Both the painting styles adopted and the subject matter depicted were to cause a revolution in the art world.  

Carole is a guide and lecturer with over ten years experience in giving combined history and art tours in France.  Life aboard river vessels on the Seine, Oise, Marne and Rhone provided the chance to explore and further research certain riverside locations linked to art, which helped to develop her in-depth knowledge of the subject.  She also has experience through work as a specialist guide for a privately owned stately home in the UK.  

An historic building survey at Knole, Kent enabled a very surprising revelation about the history of the house in the early 17th century.  A series of symbols beneath the floorboards carved by the carpenters working at the house were intended to protect the building from possession by witches, demons and evil spirits.  James Wright’s talk will reveal how further research showed that the symbols were related to James I, witch trials and the Gunpowder Plot.  

James is an archaeologist and historian based at the University of Nottingham.  He specialises in the British Mediaeval and Early Modern periods and has given talks to a wide variety of organisations.  These include Historic Royal Palaces, the National Trust, Lowdham Book Festival, the Fortean Society, Gresham College, Shakespeare400 and the Museum of London.

Our Summer event this year is combined with our celebration of the 50th Anniversary of NADFAS / The Arts Society.  Join us at 3pm for Afternoon Tea and Music in a 'fully dressed' marquee at Mill Ride Golf Club.  

Booking will open at the May meeting - meanwhile - save the date!

For further details of the event and a booking form please click HERE.

Bowls has been played in Britain since at least the 16th century and remains immensely popular, especially amongst the over 50s.  Between 2005 and 2015 Simon Inglis joined bowler Hugh Hornby on an epic venture, visiting nearly 1,000 clubs from Cornwall to the Orkneys, for the Historic England publication 'Bowled Over'.  In this lecture Simon describes the wonderful artworks they encountered, starting with a 14th century manuscript at the Bodleian and including works by William Marshall, Jan Kip, Robert Cruikshank and John Seymour Lucas.  At the world’s oldest club, in Lewes, he reveals, they still play a game that Francis Drake would recognise, using odd-shaped ‘woods’ on a castle green in use since 1639.  

Simon is a writer and historian specialising in the architecture and heritage of sport and recreation.  Simon’s themes are architecture, design, heritage and popular culture.  He has curated exhibitions for the Building Centre and the British Council, and contributed to radio and television.  One of his books was listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.  Another, on British football grounds, was described as the best sports book of the 20th century by journalist Frank Keating.

The Nazis looted over 20% of Western Art during World War II and the effects are still evident today.  This lecture by Shauna Isaac covers setting the scene in Germany, the Führermuseum, Nazi art repositories, post war restitution and The Monuments Men.  She looks at contemporary restitution issues and current international recovery efforts.  She also discuss several landmark international cases in detail, including Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer and the stash of looted art found in Cornelius Gurlitt’s flat.  

Shauna studied at The Courtauld Institute and Birkbeck College, London.  She manages an Art Recovery Company and served on the Looted Art Working Group for the Holocaust Era Assets Conference in Prague.  She was instrumental in drafting the Terezin Declaration on Nazi looting, which was ratified by 46 countries.  She has presented lectures to the Focus-Abengoa Foundation Symposium in Seville, the Courtauld Institute, the Documentation Centre of World War II Cultural Assets, Sotheby's Arts Institute and Microsoft.  Her publications include articles for The Art Newspaper, Art & Law Magazine and Art Quarterly.

The SS Great Britain Trust holds the world class collection of artefacts and archival material on Isambard Kingdom Brunel.  He was one of the greatest and most innovative engineers of the 19th century.  His projects encompassed railways, tunnels, bridges and ships.  All were pioneering projects and some were more successful than others.  This talk by Helen Doe looks at the works of Brunel, the new exhibition in Bristol and how items in the collection give us some fascinating insights into his creative mind.  

Helen is a part time lecturer on 19th and 20th century maritime and business history. She has published extensively and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Trustee of the SS Great Britain.  She is a regular speaker onboard all three Cunard ships.  She has appeared on radio and television, most recently as a maritime expert in the latest series of Who Do You Think You Are?  She is currently writing a book on Brunel’s ship the Great Western.

There are many illustrious gardens on the shores of Lakes Como and Maggiore in the mountainous far north of Italy.  Steven Desmond’s lecture includes a 16th-century parterre and water staircase, a baroque garden in the middle of a lake, two gardens made by rival Napoleonic grandees, and a garden created by two Edwardian romantics as a theatre for sharing their love of art and nature.  They are set in a climate ideal for garden-making among some of the world’s noblest scenery, where Wordsworth, Liszt and Bellini found inspiration.  

Steven is an independent landscape consultant specialising in historic gardens and architecture, a freelance lecturer and specialist tour leader in Britain and abroad.  He is a writer and broadcaster on historic gardens and related topics.  Steven Desmond's book Gardens of the Italian Lakes, with photography by Marianne Majerus, is published by Frances Lincoln.

Born Elizabeth Thompson in 1846 and brought up in Italy, then England, Elizabeth attended the Female School of Art in South Kensington.  She became well known after successfully submitting a painting of the Crimean War to the Royal Academy.  Thereafter she almost exclusively painted battle scenes.  After marrying Major, later General and Knight, William Butler, she accompanied him to Egypt and South Africa.  She continued to paint until her death in 1933.  

Felicity has a degree in History and Economics and a masters in Fine Arts Valuation.  She is an experienced cruise lecturer also to many other well known organisations.  Felicity is a member of the Nelson Society and 1805 Club, and also involvement with Blackmore Vale and Wimborne DFAS’s.

In the context of prisons, it is clear, that the arts are not simply decorative but absolutely vital and potentially life-changing.  Angela Finlay has worked for many years as an artist in the Criminal Justice System in England and Germany.  She will show that within the process of creating art there are many vital opportunities for offenders to develop key life skills.  

Angela has a degree in Fine Art, a Diploma in Artistic Therapy and her paintings are widely exhibited both nationally and internationally.  Her long career of teaching art in prisons and Young Offender Institutions in Germany and England, followed by her role as the former Arts Coordinator of the Koestler Trust in London, gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation.  She is currently advising the Ministry of Justice and presenting the case for the arts to be included in their new rehabilitation and education policies.  

Opera is an elaborate, even extravagant, art form.  From its earliest times at the beginning of the 17th century, up to the present day, it has employed artists and architects to design sets and costumes and has used the richest materials and special effects.  Simon Rees traces the arts associated with opera through surviving drawings, paintings, early theatres and their scenery, up to the present day, where such artists as John Piper, Sidney Nolan and David Hockney have thrived as theatre designers.  

Simon studied at Colchester Royal Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, receiving a BA and an MA in English Literature.  He taught in Italy and Japan, exploring the art and architecture of both countries.   From 1989 to 2012 he was Dramaturg at Welsh National Opera in Cardiff, working with set, costume and props designers and giving lectures on their work in opera production.  Now a freelance writer and lecturer, he lectures widely on opera, art history and literature.  He has published several novels, poems and opera librettos.  

Three course dinner with champagne reception on arrival.  Operatic excerpts performed by Jayne Strand.  

7:00 pm for 7:30 pm until 11:00 pm.  Black Tie.  £40.00 per person.  

For further information and a booking form please click HERE.  

The Adoration of the Magi was one of the most popular religious subjects for the great artists.  The term 'Magi' refers to the Zoroastrian priest-sages; anonymous wise men who specialised in medicine, religion and astronomy.  Christopher Bradley will present the historical facts and fiction behind the Three Wise Men and the symbolism of their gifts.  Tradition has placed the number of Magi at three, relating to gold, frankincense, and myrrh, with Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar becoming universal symbols and representations.

Christopher has travelled extensively in the ME, Asia and Africa, first as a civil engineer then as a professional tour guide, adventure tour leader, author, consultant and photographer.  He is an expert in the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa and has written several guidebooks.  As a film producer and cameraman he has made documentaries for National Geographic TV, Channel 4 and the BBC.

Nicholas Merchant will talk about both these early rulers of ‘modern’ Russia who were voracious collectors but in different directions and for different reasons.  Peter with his enormous animal energy and enquiring mind was a collector of curiosities and oddities.  Catherine was the founder of the Russia art collections.  Like Peter her curiosity was insatiable and she scoured Europe for collections buying from the cash strapped such as the Walpole’s treasures at Houghton.  

Nicholas has worked as a valuer for both Phillips and Sotheby’s and also runs his own book business devoted to the decorative and fine arts.  He has had a long term interest in antiques and lectures extensively in the USA, South Africa, Europe and UK, including the V&A.

Why were foreign painters preferred by the aristocracy in London to native-born English painters and why did foreigners come in the first place?  Leslie Primo returns to Englemere with one of his latest lectures. He will look at various formats and uses of art, tracing foreign artists from the Tudor period through to Renaissance and Baroque, looking at their origins and how they came to work in England.  He will examine the contributions of artists such as Holbein, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, Peter Lely, and others.  He will look at how these artists influenced the British School of painting and assesses their legacy.  

Leslie is a graduate of Art History with an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck, University College, London.  He worked at the National Gallery in London for 15 years, and has also taught a variety of art history courses at Reading University.  He gives lectures and guided tours, plus special talks, at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery.  He also lectures at the City Literary Institute, and has presented a series of talks at the National Maritime Museum and the Courtauld Institute.

Pauly Zarb is a multi-instrumentalist, including keyboards, guitar, percussion, whistles and the didgeridoo.  Playing an eclectic mix of OZ folksongs and a wide variety of styles from around the world, his music will bring a unique atmosphere to the party.  He is a dynamic performer with a lot of enthusiasm for life.  

For further information about the event please click HERE.

There's more to the world of street art than Banksy.  From train writing in New York to interactive technology that brings murals to life, the concept of un-commissioned public art is a very different beast to that which it once was.  Doug Gillen explores the key stages in street art's growth examining the different elements and styles that comprise the scene with no rules.  

Doug has a degree in Film and Media from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and has several years ‘hands-on’ experience in filming and film production.  He is heavily involved in documenting the street art scene in London and abroad through his project Fifth Wall TV, and can offer a genuine insight into this world.   He previously lectured for London Art and More, and when not filming he is an East End tour guide for Alternative London, specialising in culture and art.

Is the legend a myth; was Lawrence, as some claim, a liar and a charlatan?  Does the legend reflect reality; was he in fact, a brilliant military commander and a sincere advocate of the Arab national cause?  Neil Faulkner will contrast the legend with the true story of what happened in the famous desert war of 1916 to 1918.  He will offer a new narrative and analysis of the war based upon the archaeological evidence, leading to a new assessment both of Lawrence’s role and achievements, and of the relationship between art and reality in the creation of ‘celebrity’.

Neil was educated at King's College Cambridge and The Institute of Archaeology at UCL.  He is a research fellow at the University of Bristol and works as a lecturer, writer, archaeologist and occasional broadcaster.  He is the author of ‘The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain’, ‘Apocalypse’, ‘Hidden Treasure’, ‘Rome: Empire of the Eagles’, and the forthcoming ‘Lawrence of Arabia's War’.

Julian Richards will examine the sophisticated architecture of Stonehenge; the product of stone tools, determination, organisation and strongly held beliefs. Then he will examine how perceptions and understanding of Stonehenge have changed over the centuries - from the magic and druidism of the Middle Ages and beyond to today’s approach based firmly on archaeological science.

Julian 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. He is the author of a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and the landscape.

Peter Medhurst will trace the development of Russian music in the 20th Century.  In many senses Russia was a late starter in the field of classical music and only at the end of the 19th century, with the powerful and original compositions of the so called ‘Five’ (Cesar Cui, Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov) and particularly the works of Tchaikovsky, was Russia able to look Western music in the eye. The lecture traces the development of their music to observe how composers overcame the strictures placed on their music to produce music of such originality.

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

From delicate dessert tables, to processed wafer cones, ices have been part of the British diet for over 400 years.  Yet our modern versions pale when compared to the glories of the past.  Made with the most basic of equipment, but moulded in ever more intricate ways, and flavoured with combinations we'd not even think of today ices were exciting, exuberant and extraordinarily delicious.  This lecture explores the rich history of a chilly delight.  

Annie is one of Britian’s leading food historians. She has degrees from Oxford, York and Liverpool.  She works as a consultant on historic food for organisations such as The National Trust and Historic Royal Palaces, as well as having run a team of professional costumed interpreters for many years for English Heritage. She recently advised on, and co-presented, Victorian Bakers, a living history-based documentary for BBC2.  

Chateau de Malmaison, which was bought by the couple as their private retreat away from the Pomp and Ceremony of the Official Residences, was made into a National Museum in 1905.  It now houses a huge collection of their possessions; paintings, personal objects and some magnificent pieces of porcelain.  This lecture uses the collection to explore the characters of Napoleon and Josephine, their relationship and their ambitions.  

Carole is a guide and lecturer on combined history/art tours in France, with over ten years' experience.  Life aboard river vessels on the Seine, Oise, Marne and Rhone offered the chance to explore and further research certain riverside locations linked to art, which helped develop in-depth knowledge.  

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

John was formerly a lecturer at the University of Bath where he was Director of Studies in the School of Education with responsibility for the professional development of teachers.   He has worked extensively overseas as an educational consultant and has developed a particular interest in presentation skills including the role of pictures in learning and the appropriate use of PowerPoint.  

David was a museum curator at Nottingham Castle and then lectured on the subject at Manchester University.  He now lectures with NADFAS and follows up his interests in the psychology of perception and aesthetics.  

David will entertain us with a critical look at Christmas Imagery. 

Armour was one of the great Renaissance art-forms, but today it is usually overlooked by art historians, scholars and enthusiasts. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries almost all of the richest, most powerful noblemen in Europe could be counted as dedicated patrons of the armourer’s art. This was an intensely personal art which demanded not only fantastic skill in the sculpting of iron and steel, but also mastery of all decorative techniques available to the Renaissance metalworker.  

Toby is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and an internationally acknowledged expert on Medieval and Renaissance weapons.  As well as writing a number of books he appears regularly on television; most recently as presenter and armour advisor on Channel 4’s ‘Richard III: The New Evidence’.  

Vivaldi is the one Baroque composer whose music is a direct reflection of the city in which it was composed. Listen to a Vivaldi concerto and hey presto you are transported directly to the heart of 18th century Venice. The reasons for this are many:- Vivaldi’s passion for colour, display and spectacle in his music; the unusual way in which Venice solved its problems with the poor and the homeless; Vivaldi’s health problems and his eccentricities as a man and a priest.  

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

Edouard Manet’s, ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’ appears to show a barmaid at work while a gentleman waits at the bar and in the background spectators watch the night’s entertainment.  That’s how it seems but is it?  What sort of establishment is this?  Who frequents it?  What ‘entertainment’ is provided here?  Who is the barmaid - and the gentleman?  Is this a straightforward representation of a contemporary scene or is Manet playing with accepted conventions to undermine the coherence of the image and its content.  

Lizzie is a graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art. She has wide experience as a freelance lecturer in the History of Art, working with fine arts societies and art galleries throughout Britain, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.  Lizzie is particularly interested in placing works of art within their wider social and economic context, exploring the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ behind the paintings.  

Andy Thomas is a leading researcher on unexplained mysteries and author of many books on crop circles, conspiraces and the paranormal.  Andy writes and lecturers widely and has made numerous radio and television appearances. 

From the WW1 munitions girl and her uniform to the Duchess of Devonshire and her couture wardrobe, the way that the human body is clothed speaks volumes about its place in society.  An institution that has long recognised this truth is the British Monarchy.  This lecture examines the changing fashions at court and ways in which dress can convey messages about the role and status of the wearer.  

Kate is a Senior Lecturer at Falmouth University and Specialist Visiting Lecturer at DeTao Masters Academy in Shanghai.  She specialises in female dress of the 19th and early 20th century. She was the 2011 Gervers research fellow at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, and is the honorary deputy curator at the Totnes Fashion and Textile Museum in Devon.  

This lecture explores the collection of paintings and decorative art objects from the national Horse-racing Museum to illustrate the history of Newmarket and the ‘Sport of Kings’ across the United Kingdom from the early 17th century to the present day.  The lecture will look at the earliest origins of the sport and the development of Newmarket and the Jockey Club as racing’s ‘Headquarters’ and the influence of racing circuits such as Ascot.  

Christopher is currently the director of the National Horseracing Museum, at Newmarket.  Prior to the completion of an MBA at the University of Cape Town he was Senior Curator and Assistant Keeper of Art (Decorative Art) at Norwich Castle Museum whose most important collections are Norwich Silver, Lowestoft Porcelain and the largest specialist collection of British ceramic teapots in the world.  He has also catalogued the silver at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the other royal residences. 

Julia Korner will introduce us to the history of frames and how they developed in Europe, often influenced by the prevailing architectural styles.  We’ll learn how frames are constructed and conserved, and how a frame can transform a painting and display it to its best advantage.  Julia will discuss why a picture might need a frame aesthetically, how to protect it from the dangers of light and temperature, the materials available for use and the process of making gold leaf and gesso frames. 

Julia trained in art history, sculpture and graphic illustration in Cambridge and then for twenty years she worked for Christie’s as a paintings specialist, building extensive knowledge of Old Masters, and of British, European and American paintings from the 1700s onwards.  Julia now works independently in her own studio in west London where she and her small team provide specialist conservation work for paintings and frames.

‘Nil Intentatum Reliquit’ is the main motto on the coat of arms of Captain Cook.  The grant of arms was made to Mrs Elizabeth Cook in September 1785, some nine years after his death during his final Pacific voyage.  Peter Warwick tells the story of this third and fateful voyage and explores and describes Cook’s remarkable discoveries and achievements.  He examines their impact on the Age of the Enlightenment, assesses them in the context of other European ‘discoverers’ and from the point of view of the indigenous peoples who Cook and his crew encountered.  

Peter is an author and historian who specialises in naval and polar history and is a recognised authority on Admiral Lord Nelson.  Among other duties he chairs the 1805 Club which conserves the graves, monuments and memorials of the sailing navy of the Georgian era.  He lectures at the Defence Academy, National Maritime Museum, National Museum for the Royal Navy, Royal Institution and at schools and universities.

Born Elizabeth Thompson in 1846 and brought up in Italy, then England, Elizabeth attended the Female School of Art in South Kensington. She became well known after successfully submitting a painting of the Crimean War to the Royal Academy. Thereafter she almost exclusively painted battle scenes. After marrying Major, later General and Knight, William Butler, she accompanied him to Egypt and South Africa. She continued to paint until her death in 1933.

Felicity has a MA in Fine Arts Valuation and a BA in History and Economics. She is an experienced cruise lecturer also to many other well known organisations. Felicity is a member of the Nelson Society and 1805 Club, and also involvement with Blackmore Vale and Wimborne DFAS's.

The Romans have left us with a remarkable artistic record of their lifestyle, beliefs, achievements and entertainment, in the form of beautiful mosaics. This lecture draws on examples from the best collections around the world. This is the Roman Empire as you have never seen it before from Britain to Sicily, from Morocco to Syria.

Christopher is an expert in the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa. He is a professional tour guide and lecturer. His varied talents include photography, publishing and he has also been a producer and cameraman making documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic and Channel 4.

Edward, the elder of the two Princes in the Tower was known as Edward V for a few months after his father, Edward IV, died; but he was never crowned. When Prince Arthur Tudor and Prince Henry Stuart died they were succeeded by their younger brothers, who became Henry VIII and Charles I respectively. These, and several others, form the basis of this lecture.

Chloe is a popular lecturer for NADFAS, the National Trust and many historical associations throughout Britain. A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Wales she has been a Regional Development Manager for the Churches Conservation Trust since 2001. Her special interests are heraldry and fabulous beasts.

Virginia Woolf never painted or drew but her closeness to her sister Vanessa Bell, a dedicated artist, and Roger Fry, an art critic, would stimulate a passionate curiosity. From her letters we can see her comparing writing and painting. Woolf felt that what she did best as a writer was to recreate visual scenes. The lecture is illustrated with contemporary pictures and portraits from a variety of sources

Karin is renowned for her entertaining lectures on writers and diarists from the 18th and 19th Centuries who were connected with the arts. She has been a NADFAS lecturer for 25 years and has traveled widely abroad. Karin began her career in the theatre and further as an actress with radio and TV parts. She has also published a children's book, The Dumpy Princess, which is about the fraught childhood of Queen Victoria!

The working collaboration between Eric Gill and Jacob Epstein in 1910 altered the course of sculpture in England. They did the carving themselves, leaving out preparatory maquettes and other traditional practices by bringing together the artist as a man of imagination and the artist as a craftsman. Archive photographs of Gill and Epstein's methods will be shown along with examples of contemporary works carved directly in stone.

Madeline has a degree in Law from the LSE, also a Fine Art degree and M. Phil in Art History. She has been a professional sculptor for more than twenty years and practices in stone carving, drawing and printmaking. Madeline is also a pianist and has published a book on the early piano.

The lecture explores the life of England's greatest pianist. John Ogden (1937 - 1989) who won the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition in 1962 and placed him at the summit of his profession. He was famed for his impossible exploits at the keyboard - the ultimate piano man. Tragically he suffered a severe mental breakdown which lead to his early death at the age of 52.

Charles holds an MA from Oxford. He has lectured extensively through North America and widely in schools, heritage societies and historical groups in the UK. Charles is also an author of several publications on a variety of subjects.

"Oh we do like to be beside the seaside" !

What do we mean by jewellery? What does it mean to different societies across time and across the world? This lecture takes a number of themes in order to expand the concept of jewellery and examine the different reasons why people wear it. Jewellery can be a powerful vehicle of communication, indicating the wearer's preoccupations, their religion or ethnic group.

Judy has worked at the British Museum since 1974 specialising in jewellery, together with 19th and 20th Century decorative arts. She has co-authored an award winning book about Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria. She is a Freeman of the Goldsmiths Company and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries

The lecture will chart the rise of the precocious youth: Albrecht Durer, born in Nuremberg in 1471. It will explore his early life and works, and the long lasting influence he had on the Italian Renaissance. He left a vast amount of autobiographical writings with the thought that posterity would want to know about him, his work, and his life.

Leslie has a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies. In 2005 and 2007 he was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at Reading University. He gives lecture and tours at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery.

A lecture illustrated with photos from the swinging sixties, a time when British photography enjoyed a golden age. Young, talented newcomers broke out from the conventional studios to revolutionise perceptions of fashion, portraiture and popular culture. Superb images from David Bailey, Terence Donovan, Lewis Morley, Tony Ray-Jones and Jane Brown will be shown.

Brian's chief interests lie in photography, architecture and history; he combines these in his portfolio of lectures. He has been lecturing for NADFAS since 2003. He has taught at University College London where, also, his own photographs have been exhibited.

This lecture tells the story about a wild property on the island of Ischia, in the Bay of Naples, which was bought by Sir William Walton and his wife. The estate has been transformed into an amazing garden and, a wonderful work of art.

Laura de Beden is a chartered landscape and garden architect. She lectures internationally and is a writer on landscape issues.

Kate Baden Fuller is an established glass artist, lecturer and writer who has been working as a designer and glass maker for the last 30 years.

The lecture starts with images of how hand-blown glass and stained glass windows are made and then shows examples of glass in a variety of buildings throughout the world. Kate will bring samples of her glass and some of her glass working tools to show us.

Tony Tucker is an historian and former chairman of the City of London Guide Lecturers' Association and Trustee of the Friends of the City Churches.

This lecture is on the City Church Organs, the men who built them, the great musicians who played on them and the magnificent carved cases in which they are housed.

Barbara Askew is a lecturer, historian and Blue Badge Guide and is an acknowledged expert on the history of Windsor Castle.

The Celts were a series of tribes sharing a similar language and occupying parts of Europe from the 8th to the 1st century BC. Though portrayed by Greek and Roman writers as fearsome barbaric warriors, their archaeological remains reveal an accomplished society whose metalwork shows a technical and artistic brilliance unsurpassed in prehistoric Europe.

James Allan is curator of the Islamic collection and keeper of Eastern Art at the Ashmolean Museum and lectures in Islamic art at the University of Oxford.

His lecture introduces Islamic art through its three most widely appreciated strands- calligraphy, geometry and the arabesque. It also explores the figural side and shows how widespread figural art really is in the world of Islam, even, most surprisingly, in some religious settings.

Annie Gray is a food historian and lecturer who works across the heritage industry as a consultant on food and dining, as well the use of live interpretation and the presentation of sites to the public.

This Christmas themed lecture looks at the mid-Victorian Christmas through the gaze of Isabella Beeton. The lecture addresses the way in which the customs we consider part of the 'traditional' Christmas were invented (re-invented), promoted or, indeed, not thought of in the mid-nineteenth century

Lois's lecture marking the Bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo complements a major exhibition to be held at The Royal Academy in the autumn of 2015.

The lecture explores the contrasting views presented by British and French artists including such masters as J.M.W.Turner and J.-L. David. It also considers the public appetite for less elevated art forms such as ladies' fans illustrated with the latest military news or full-scale military re-enactments of naval battles

Elizabeth Rumbelow has degrees in both English and Music; her speciality is the inter-relationship of the arts, especially painting music and literature.

In this lecture Elizabeth looks at how the Russian impresario Diaghilev created a ballet company in which a dazzling array of painters, such as Picasso and de Chirico, composers such as Ravel and Stravinsky and dancers of the calibre of Nijinsky and Pavlova worked together on collaborative productions. In particular the lecture concentrates on two famous ballets, Petruschka and L'Après Midi d'un Faune.

Libby Horner is a leading authority on Frank Brangwyn and her catalogue of his war work will be published in 2014. Brangwyn was not an official war artist but he produced over 80 poster designs during World War 1.

The lecture explains his background, describes his involvement with war propaganda, the sources of his inspiration and his eclectic style.

Susan Bennett, a curator and archivist, is currently Honorary Secretary and Editor for The William Shipley Group for RSA History.

Sir Gordon Russell was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and believed that everyone should have access to good honest, well-crafted affordable furniture. The Utility Furniture scheme, The Festival of Britain and the Establishment of the Design Council can all thank his guiding hand.

Brian Macdonald FRGS has lived and worked in Iran and has travelled widely there. Since his return from Iran in 1979 he has been a dealer and consultant in antique Eastern rugs, carpets and tribal weavings.

The lecture illustrates the woven art of the nomads as they move over the territories they have travelled for generations. There will be opportunities to look at some of their work.

Between 1750 and 1850 one of Britain's most successful exports was the Georgian House. It was elegant and versatile, particularly for hot climates and a wide variety of materials. In this lecture we travel across the Irish Sea and then to America, Australia and New Zealand with a final stop in Cape Town.

Roger Mitchell studied history and Fine Art and has a particular interest in domestic architecture.

For two hundred and fifty years after his death Stradivarius's violins and cellos remain the most prized instruments in the world. This lecture explores the central mystery by following some of his instruments from the workshop to the present day.

Toby Faber has written a narrative history of the genius of Stradivari.

Thirza looks at the world of entertainment in 19th century Paris, from cafes, concerts and cabarets to Vaudeville and the Opera Comique; from the penny theatre to the Grand Opera.

Thirza Vallois has lived in Paris for more than forty years. She is the author of a three volume series "Around and About Paris" - a comprehensive, cultural companion to the city.

The lecture traces Australia's artistic legacy and extraordinary climactic contrasts through Aboriginal cave paintings, dreams of pioneers, and unique botanical treasures. Following influences from the impressionists of the Heidelberg School and, finally, the rediscovery of indigenous art.

Caroline Holmes is a garden historian, lecturer and broadcaster, an author of nine books.

Nirvana Romell is a Croatian born art historian now living in the UK.

The lecture explores the reciprocity of influences between Venice and its Mediterranean colonies. In order to secure its trading routes with the East, the Venetian Republic actively occupied islands and coastal areas of the Eastern Mediterranean from as early as the 11th Century.Traces of Venetian styles are found in Croatia and Greece. How much though did these colonies contribute to Venetian art?

Rupert Willoughby, prize-winning historian, who specialises in the domestic and social life of the past.

In this lecture Rupert reveals the nobler Basingstoke that is buried beneath the concrete, and shows that there is more to the town than numerous roundabouts and absurd modern architecture. He has published a book with same title as the lecture.

Bernard Allen, art historian and lecturer, specialises in French and British art of the 18th and 19th Centuries. In this lecture he examines the work of this relatively unknown impressionist.

Berthe Morisot enjoyed a privileged background, taking lessons in painting and sculpture from some leading artists of her time. She had a successful career as an exhibitor at the official Paris Salon. She was an unlikely recruit to the Impressionist cause. In fact, she was at the heart of the new painting of the 1870's and 80's

Roger is a professional writer, lecturer and photographer. He is the author of several books about medieval subjects including stained glass, wall paintings in English and Welsh churches, Monasteries, Saints and Shrines.

This lecture traces the history of stained glass from Anglo-Saxon times until the present day. Roger explains the evolution of styles and techniques and why some of Europe's greatest painters created these masterpieces of colour and storytelling. (This is a change to the lecture originally published)

This lecture looks at the film and photography of Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley, also the paintings of Dr. Edward Wilson and George Marston which captured the wonderful world of Antarctica for the first time. Their images enthralled a whole nation with their beauty and prepared the way for today's natural history programmes.

Peter Warwick, a recognised authority on Nelson, is a lecturer, a naval and polar historian, and organiser of major commemorative events.

Gloria Broadbent has a degree in Architecture from the University of Cusco and a Masters degree in the Theory and History of Architecture from the University of Lima. Her lecture gives an insight into the building techniques and planning of Machu Picchu; the best example of the integration of nature and architecture.

Patrick Conner is The Director of the Martyn Gregory Gallery in London. Prior to this post, between 1975 and 1986, he was Keeper of Fine Art at the Royal Pavillion, Art Gallery and Museums, Brighton. He has written several books notably about Ruskin and also Oriental subjects.

How could such an extraordinary and outlandish creation have been built in England? The answers partly lie in the 18th Century fashion for chinoiserie, partly in the travels of British artists to India and China, and partly to the personality of the Prince Regent - later KIng George IV. Surviving an arson attack in 1975 it has been restored to the magnificent and exotic palace we see today.

Anthony Penrose is the son of the photographer Lee Miller and the surrealist artist Roland Penrose and, for the last thirty years, has been conserving and disseminating their work. He is the director of the Lee Miller Archives and the Penrose Collection at Farley Farm House in Sussex. As a boy he met many of the friends who visited this house including Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Max Ernst and Joan Miro. This lecture includes an account of some of these meetings.

Elizabeth Rumbelow has honours degrees in English (University of Bristol) and Music (University of London). Her main career was devoted to teaching, culminating in the post of Head of English at Guildford High School. Her speciality is the inter-relationship of the arts, especially painting, music and drama. Her lecture follows the separate and inter-twined lives of three leading exponents of the Romantic Movement: Chopin, Delacroix and George Sand.