Of Crowns and Coronations 

We follow crowns and coronations from their origins in 9th. Century B.C. Egypt through the Anglo-Saxons, Normans and Mediaeval Europeans to the British Empire and the modern day.

Image: The Diadem or Crown of Princess Sit-Hathor Yunet from her tomb by Hans Olleman and courtesy of wikimedia and creative commons license and the Cairo Museum

The Artists of Montmartre: The Pilgrims of Babylon

There is no more evocative example of Bohemian life than Montmartre. This lecture charts the course of its extraordinary life from Renoir to Picasso.

Image: by Moonik of Cafe Maison Rose, Monmartre, Paris, courtesy of wikimedia and creative commons license

Writers and Relics: A History of Literary Tourism - Annalie Talent

We embark on a journey beginning in Stratford-upon-Avon and continuing up to the formation of museums dedicated to Wordsworth, the Brontes and Jane Austen.

Image: Jane Austen's House at Cahwton courtsy of Nick MacNeill and the Geograph Project

Threads of History: The World of the Bayeux Tapestry

We explore some of this tapestry’s mysteries and seek to place it in the context of its age while examining what firmly establishes it as a landmark of Western Art.

Image: Harold & Stigand - courtesy of Daniel R Blume and thansk to French Government and wikimedia license

NEWS: coming to the British Museum https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/press/press-releases/bayeux-tapestry-displayed-british-museum

The Golden Age of British Comedy 

This unashamedly affectionate and entertaining lecture will bring back fond memories of a key part of our theatrical heritage.

Image: 'Crying mask Melpomene and laughing mask Thalia' courtesy of Tim Green and the Bishopsgate Hotel in Leeds and wikimedia 

Koh-i-Noor: The Most Famous Diamond in the World 

We journey with this fabulous diamond from the depths of early Indian history to the power and politics of the British Empire

Image: Courtesy of Chris 73 and wikimedia Commons 

The Art of Marriage in 15th. Century Florence 

This lecture will focus on the beauty of the Renaissance wedding chests called “Cassoni” which contained the bride’s dowry in Florentine weddings of the period.

Image: 'fronti di cassoni con storie di lucrezia' by artist Biagio d'Antonio Courtesy of the Italian Government and wikimeadia creative commons license

Our (very quick) AGM followed by Music in Art - Sophie Matthews

With so many of our historical references to musical instruments being found in works of art, we will examine such instruments with live demonstrations on replicas.

Image: 'Two women playing music served by a page' by Gerard ter Borch courtesy of the Louvre and wikimedia creative commons license.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: The Golden Age of Mexican Painting

These artists have iconic status in Mexico. This lecture surveys their work, their turbulent marriage and Mexican history after the 1910 Revolution.

Image Mural de Bellas Artes by Diego Rivera courtesy of Wikimedia 

We trace Chagall's long, chequered and colourful career with an emphasis on the creative tensions produced by his very different cultural and artisitc environments 

Image: I and the Village by Marc Chagall courtesy of Creative commons and Andrew Milligan

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

During the 19th Century, the Czech people sought to reclaim both country and capital through their artists, composers, writers and architects. 

Image: View of Karlstejn Castle by Tavik Frantisek Simon

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

We look at the developemnt of stained glass: its purposes, the process by which it is created  - whether for vast cathedrals or tiny chapels - and consider the reasons for its decline in popularity. 

Image:Stained glass side-window by Marc Chagall, All Saints Church, Tudeley courtesy of H Harder and wikimedia commons 

The story of Banksy's humble beginnings on the streets of Bristol in the 1980s to being one of the most recognisable names in the art world. 

Image: Banksy Pressure Wahshing Away Art by Bansksy courtesy https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banksy_Pressure_Washing_Away_Art.jpg

We explore the role of women in mid-victorian England through the Pre-Raphelite paintings. These roles are viewed in relation to Victorian history. 

Image Cupid and Psyche by Edward Burne-Jones of courtesy of https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Our love affair with civic and domestic buildings of the 1920s and 1930s is examined - looking at hotels, restaurants, tube stations and other public and private buildings. 

Special Extra Christmas lecture by our favourite Sarah Dunant 

Here Sarah will look at finding the story and character in Renaissance Art. She shares her secrets of her trade as researcher and author. This is the story of her discoveries. 

PLEASE NOTE this talk is the FIRST Wednesday in December 

Carole will look at the hosts of artists who flocked to the picturesque harbour of Honfleur and its surroundings where sky, sea and earth seem to fuse.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia commons by Claude Monet - The Seine Near its Estuary, Honfleur - RHode Island School of Design Museum 

With Marc Allum from BBC's Antiques Roadshow

Our very own with a spontaneous audience participation talk based on artefacts members bring in - interspersed with some of Marc's own.

If you wish to bring a small item - please let us know click here 

Image Marc Allum courtesy of the Arts Society London 

Tim Mirfin returns to us and speaks about: some of opera's greatest rivalries, spats and tiffs ranging from the throwaway remark to in- public fighting.

Image courtesy of Merritt Wilson & Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives Works 3.0 License

In the last few years the top end of the art market has flourished, and collectors have been prepared to pay astonishing amounts to own a modern masterpiece. This lecture is about the works that have sold for over $100 million and is an excuse to examine some beautiful and varied art. These works would not achieve such sky-high prices if they were no good.

So, we’ll see some wonderful paintings including those by Picasso, Cézanne, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Modigliani, Klimt, Bacon and Pollock, all held together by the common thread of their extraordinary commercial value. But we will also look at the buyers and sellers, the stories behind the works, the reasons for changing hands and I will try to answer the question “Are they really worth hundreds of millions of pounds?”

Ian Swankie 

A Londoner with a passion for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, the Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul's Cathedral. He runs a weekly lecture programme in his own home town, Richmond, London. He is also a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars. 

Since the ground-breaking Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expedition trip in 1956, the masterpieces from this remote fortress-monastery now occupy a seminal position within the history of art. Find out more about the key works and why they are important. Plus, a chance to see some of the hidden sacred places on Mt Sinai itself. 

Helen Mcildowie-Jenkins

Helen combines her many years’ experience as an educator and professional artist to explain Late Medieval Italian Art and Eastern Orthodox iconography from a different perspective. Her interdisciplinary lectures weave together (with passion and humour) art historical scholarship, technical expertise and devotional context to provide a unique narrative for understanding 13th -14th century Italian panel painting. 

She has lectured, delivered art history and medieval panel painting courses for over thirty years to educational trusts, colleges, art societies, faith organisations, schools and HLF projects, as well as teaching independently and leading art pilgrimage tours in Sinai and Italy. 

She is a MA graduate of the Courtauld Institute (Edmond J.Safra Scholarship) and holds a first-class BA Hons, Fine Art Diploma and Adult Education Teaching qualification. She has worked in the museum sector at London’s leading Russian Art Auction House, MacDougall Arts and at Christie's.

An examination of neo-classic furniture in the context of the Grand Houses and rooms for which it was intended. Adam’s name has become an epithet for his architectural and interior design work, which is characterised by a remarkable and often overwhelming expression of stylistic and chromatic unity. Neither a furniture designer nor maker, he did, however, design a number of pieces for specific locations within his room designs. His style was interpreted and adapted by celebrated cabinetmakers, who produced furniture that made “charming harmony” with his interiors.

Janusz Karczewski-Slowikowski

Freelance lecturer and researcher of English Furniture History and also an antique dealer.  Janusz seeks to explain furniture in terms of the skills and materials employed in its design and construction and also about its socio-economic significance. He has lectured on antique furniture since 1975 and has been in the NADFAS Directory since 1982. He has lectured to over 300 NADFAS societies including those in Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, The Hague and Spain.

This lecture offers an introduction to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: the collection, the building, its history and the recent 10-year renovation that brought back the splendour of architect Pierre Cuypers' original neo-gothic decorations. The collection of the Rijksmuseum includes works by Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh as well as medieval art, jewellery, musical instruments, Asian art and even an FK 23 Bantam plane from 1918. It also has Rembrandt's famous Night Watch - but only on loan! All this and much more about the most famous museum in the Netherlands.

Sophie Oosterwijk

Born in Gouda (Netherlands). 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 and Manchester, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, National Trust, V&A, U3A, WEA and other organisations, and organised many study days, tours and visits. Also a regular lecturer for Cambridge University and travel companies, and Vice President of the Church Monuments Society. 

Thomas Hardy’s Wessex is the land of his creative imagination - a sort of ‘dream Dorset’ based on the county of his birth - which provided the rich and complex background for his passionate and original novels and poems of pastoral life. It is a palimpsest of the real thing, a backdrop for his scenes of tragedy and comedy, rural life and glimpses of a world which was vanishing even during his own lifetime. He gave it what he called a ‘flexible identity’, changing names and locations, enlarging or shrinking areas as it suited his creative purpose.

The talented watercolourist Henry Moule was a close friend of Hardy and later became curator of the Dorset County Museum. Walter Tyndale was a Victorian painter who specialised in landscape and architectural watercolours. His detailed yet delicate application of watercolour imbued his work with a vivid sense of life and colour. Looking at their paintings of rural Dorset and through Hardy’s own words we will be able to explore Hardy’s Wessex.

Elizabeth Merry

Elizabeth has over 25 years' experience lecturing on a range of subjects including classical art and architecture, aspects of the visual arts and the links between literature and art. Has lectured for the WEA, the Universities of Bristol and Southampton Departments of Continuing Education, Royal Society of Arts, Dillington House, Jane Austen Society, Thomas Hardy Society, Brussels Brontë Society, Finzi Society, the Art Fund, Dorset County Museum and literary, historical and philosophical societies nationwide. Has also lectured on study tours to Rome, Aachen, Cologne, Brittany and the Dordogne, as well as all over the UK. Lectured in Australia and New Zealand in 2011 and is returning to Australia for two further lecture tours.

In The Art Of The Cartoonist Harry will be tracing 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 that day!

Yes, Harry will be drawing live. Prepare to hear some tricks of his trade, learn where to put eyebrows for maximum effect and discover exactly what the eskimo brothers said in The Funniest Joke Ever (possibly).

Harry Venning

Harry graduated from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth with a BA in history, formed a touring theatre company bringing new plays to audiences in rural Wales, was then employed for a year as an actor/writer with the Channel Theatre Company in Ramsgate, Kent, before giving up acting and becoming a cartoonist instead.

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. 

Harry is also a Sony Award winning writer of radio comedy, including the shows Coach Karen’s Half Time Team Talk and Clare in the Community starring Sally Phillips, currently recording its twelfth series. He can’t draw hands or horses! 

Murder, poison, corruption and incest: all perfect ingredients for sensational popular culture. But in  an age known for its brutality and church corruption were the Borgias really so bad? This lecture reveals the real family that dominated the Papacy and Italian politics during the last decade of the 15th century: the charismatic figure of Pope Alexander VI, living inside his sumptuously decorated apartments, the career of his son, Cesare, cardinal, general, employer of Da Vinci and the model for Machiavelli’s The Prince, and the journey of Lucrezia Borgia from “the greatest whore in Rome” to a devout and treasured duchess of the city Ferrara. Sometimes truth is more intoxicating than myth.

Sarah Dunant

Novelist, broadcaster and critic. Sarah read history at Cambridge, then worked for many years as a cultural journalist in radio and television on such programmes as Kaleidoscope (BBC Radio 4), The Late Show (BBC 2), and Night Waves/Free thinking (BBC Radio 3).

She has published thirteen novels, taught renaissance studies at Washington University, St Louis and lectured around the world at festivals and conferences. Her last five novels have been set within the Italian Renaissance. In the Name of the Family completes the story of the Borgia family and the remarkable period of Italian history in which they lived. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s A POINT OF VIEW.

Like the imperial emblem of the double-headed eagle, Russia’s two capital cities always looked in different directions before 1917 - Moscow towards Asia, and St. Petersburg towards Europe. This led to Russia’s divided soul, its personality split between the Western-looking, modern metropolis of St. Petersburg, and the oriental-looking ancient city of Moscow. This lecture explores the art and architecture of both of these great cities, examining their different characters and ways of life, and looking at how and why they increased and decreased in importance before and after the 1917 Revolution.  

Rosamund Bartlett

Rosamund is a writer, lecturer and translator whose work as a cultural historian ranges across the arts. She completed her doctorate at Oxford and is the author of several books, including biographies of Chekhov and Tolstoy, and a study of Wagner's influence in Russia. She is currently writing a history of the Russian avant-garde. Her new translation of Anna Karenina for Oxford World’s Classics was published to acclaim in 2014. 

She has written on art, music and literature for publications such as The Daily Telegraph and Apollo, and received commissions from institutions including the Royal Opera House, Tate UK, and the Salzburg Festival. Her lecturing work has taken her from the V&A and the National Theatre in London to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and she contributes regularly to Proms events and opera broadcasts on the BBC.

As a pioneer of literary modernism, TS Eliot inevitably influenced his counterparts in the visual arts. He was friends with several artists. Edward McKnight Kauffer and David Jones illustrated his work; Patrick Heron and Wyndham Lewis painted him; Jacob Epstein sculpted him. There are paintings inspired by his poems.  And the reverse is also true; The Waste Land famously employs techniques borrowed from modern art. This lecture will explore some of those connections, while also taking the chance to display some of Eliot’s own artistic creations: the jokey little sketches he included in letters to children.

Toby Faber

Toby is an experienced lecturer and public speaker who has been accredited by The Arts Society since 2012. His career began with Natural Sciences at Cambridge and has been through investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Faber and Faber, where he remains on the board. He is also non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music and a director of Liverpool University Press.

Toby has written three narrative histories: Stradivarius – Five Violins, One Cello and a Genius; Faberge’s Eggs; and Faber & Faber – The Untold Story, as well as a novel, Close to the Edge. Of these, only the obvious one is published by the family firm.

Rodin is one of the heroic figures of 19th century art history and was internationally celebrated during his lifetime. But after his death his reputation slipped and there were questions about his use of the female image. Now that is very much being reassessed and he is seen as having in one career taken sculpture on a revolutionary path equivalent to what the Realists, Impressionists and Post Impressionists did with many careers. This lecture surveys his work showing why he is one of the greatest sculptors ever, looking at his work in relationship to 19th century sculpture as well assessing his continuing relevance.

David Worthington has been drawn to abstract sculpture since seeing a Barbara Hepworth in a school history book aged 10. He graduated from Oxford University in 1984 with a degree in Philosophy and Theology, then studied fine art in London, Barcelona and New York. A maker he also curates and writes about art. He was shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize in 2009.  David is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Sculptors, and was Vice President in 2010-13.

He has carried out public commissions in the UK, America and Japan. His work is in the museum the Creative Cities Collection Beijing China. He has had solo shows at the Lefevre Gallery, Sladers Yard, Horatio’s Garden, the William Bennington Gallery, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and in October 2017 at the Lightbox Gallery Museum, Woking. He took part in exhibitions at Colyer Bristow Gallery and Contemporary Sculpture at Fulmer 2018.

Image 'The Blessings' by August Rodin courtesy of Creative Commons and flickr. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Treasures of the Turf, looks at the history of horseracing. From the late seventeenth century to the modern period, this lecture examines the development of the sport in this country through its associated cultural material. Using the wealth of paintings, archive material and decorative art objects associated with and depicting the ‘Sport of Kings’, the lecture takes as its starting point the earliest origins of the sport including the development of Newmarket and the Jockey Club as racing’s ‘Headquarters’. Treasures of the Turf also explores other influential racing circuits.

Christopher Garibaldi

Christopher is an independent Researcher. He was Director of Palace House, Newmarket (National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art) from 2010 to 2019 and previously Co-Director of the Attingham Summer School for the Study of Historic Houses and Collections, and Senior Curator & Assistant Keeper of Art (Decorative Art) at Norwich Castle Museum. He catalogued the silver in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and other royal residences from 1994 to 1997.

Image Whistlejacket by George Stubbs courtesy of the National Gallery and Creative Commons. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Before the outbreak of the First World War, a number of young artists settled in the picturesque Cornish village of Lamorna. This group included Laura and Harold Knight, Alfred Munnings, Frank and Jessica Gascoigne Heath and Samuel ‘Lamorna’ Birch. Some came to study at the Forbes School of Art while others were attracted by the existing artists’ colony in Newlyn. This lecture will paint a picture of the lives of these artists: their work, their play, their loves and their losses. On the surface, it is a picture of sunny days spent painting in the coastal light of Cornwall followed by evenings of socialising and gaiety at the Lamorna Inn. But, darkness and tragedy were just below the surface and struck even before the First World War changed their lives forever.

Sarah Burles

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University followed by a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years.  

Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia. She is also a Tour Director for a travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Sarah moved her work online, offering art history courses to audiences all over the world. 

Image of Lamorna Cove by A.R. Quinton courtesy of wiki commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Public_domain

( AGM takes 5-10 minutes @ 1.55pm sharp) Papers for AGM sent to members 3 weeks before the meeting. Contact us if you haven't received yours by 20th February at info@theartssocietyexeter.org.uk

Picasso is one of the most famous and controversial figures of the 20th century. Even today his work triggers mixed and often violent reactions from art lovers. This lecture aims to calm those fears. It follows his early career from his childhood in Spain, where his unique talent was first recognized, to the garrets and back streets of Paris where the poetic and wistful images of the Blue Period were transformed into the daring experiments with form and structure that became known as Cubism.  It examines the ideas and hopes that he nurtured, the friends and influences he met along the way, the technical problems he overcame and the single-minded determination that enabled him to break every rule of painting, alter the course of modern art and yet remain a classical painter in the long tradition of western art. 2023 is the 50th Anniversary of his death (April 8th 1973)

Douglas Skeggs

Douglas read Fine Art at Magdalene College Cambridge and has been a lecturer on paintings since 1980. In that time he has given over 8000 lectures to universities, colleges and art societies. He was the director of  The New Academy of Art Studies for three years and is presently a regular lecturer at The Study Centre, Christie's course 'The History of Art Studies' and other London courses. Among his more improbable venues for lectures are the bar on the QE2, MI5 headquarters, the Captain's Room at Lloyds, and an aircraft hanger in a German NATO base. Overseas he has lectured in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain, and has taken numerous tours around Europe.

He has written and presented various TV documentaries, notably the Omnibus programme on Whistler and the exhibition video on William Morris. Three one-man exhibitions of his paintings have been held in England and Switzerland. He has published five novels, which have been translated into 8 foreign languages, and his book on Monet, River of Light, has sold 30,000 copies in England, America and France.

Image The Dream by Picasso 1932 & licensed here by creative commons and courtesy of SVG https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

We will explore the origins and development of that odd artistic beast, the opera singer. We will explore why and how that extraordinary noise they make has come about. We will also look at some of the challenges facing the singer in performance. The talk is aimed to engage those that don't necessarily like opera as an art form as much as those that do. 

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

Image by Pietro Tessarin of the Venice Opera Stage courtesy of Wikimedia commons

By looking first at Madras, and then Calcutta – there is an opportunity to look at the very best of the buildings constructed in the heyday of the East India Company. This lecture touches on the early 17th century origins of the East India Company and considers the tentative architectural endeavours of the amateur architects and engineers working at the Company’s behest.  Study is made of Company’s magnificent late 18th and early 19th century classical buildings, as well as of the stunning late flowering of the Indo Saracenic in Madras and the remarkable Edwardian Baroque of the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta.

Anthony Peers

A freelance historic buildings' consultant, educated as an Architectural Historian at Manchester University and trained in building conservation at the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, York. After two years with SAVE Britain's Heritage, where he wrote Deserted Bastions, he worked with the English Heritage Listing Division on the review of military buildings. In the mid 1990s Anthony was employed by the DTI in Bombay, India, setting up and running an innovative project to repair George Gilbert Scott's university buildings and training local architects and craftsmen in conservation techniques and philosophy. From 1998 until 2010, worked as Rodney Melville & Partners' historian, involved with research, analysis, assessment and conservation planning at such sites as The Workhouse, Southwell; Aston Hall, Birmingham; The Royal Institution, London and Cliveden. He has published a book on the History of Birmingham Town Hall in 2012, to critical acclaim. Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and Deputy 

Image of the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta taken by Vyacheslav Argenberg courtesy of Creative Commons This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Charlie Waite focuses on how perspectives of arc and line take photography into the realms of fine art. Featuring black and white images made around the world, he discusses the extraordinary juxtapositions of form, light, contrast and composition.

Charlie Waite

One of the world's leading landscape photographers, he has lectured for 25 years throughout the UK, Europe and the US. Has held numerous one-man exhibitions in London, exhibited twice in Tokyo, and was awarded the prestigious honorary Fellowship of the British Institute of Professional Photographers, as well as a Direct Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society. In 2007, he launched LPOTY - UK Landscape Photographer of the Year. Amongst many publications, the most recent includes Landscape; the Story of 50 Photographs (2005), and Arc & Line (2011). He was invited by the Royal Academy to exhibit in 2015's summer exhibition.

In the twelfth century a hot-headed but saintly man, Francis of Assisi founded a religious order dedicated to poverty. Within a year of his death, plans were laid to create one of the loveliest churches in Christendom, the Basilica at Assisi where artists such as Cimabue and Giotto were commissioned to create frescoes of unparalled beauty.  This lecture traces the story of Francis’ life and, by exploring the work of artists, tries to explain how a movement dedicated to simplicity of life led to such an outpouring of artistic magnificence.

The Right Revd Dr Christopher Herbert

As an authority on Christian art and a former diocesan Bishop, Christopher Herbert has developed a range of talks and lectures which have been enthusiastically received by local, national and international audiences.  He has been guest lecturer at the National Gallery, Westminster Abbey and the Courtauld Institute.  Since retiring he has established himself as a sought-after lecturer in the field of art and spirituality.

In an age where women had little public power, Isabella d’ Este (1474 – 1539) stands out as a formidable figure. She was one of the first and greatest female patrons and art collectors of the Renaissance. And her court in Mantua was filled with writers and poets of distinction. Her clever, educated and entitled voice sings out from thousands of letters which she composed in her meticulously designed study, and images – from Da Vinci to Titian – bring alive a woman whose eye for fashion was every bit as keen as her eye for art.

Sarah Dunant

Novelist, broadcaster and critic. Sarah read history at Cambridge, then worked for many years as a cultural journalist in radio and television on such programmes as Kaleidoscope, The Late Show  and Night Waves. She has published thirteen novels, taught renaissance studies at Washington University, St Louis, is a visiting tutor on the MA in creative writing at Oxford Brooks and has lectured around the world at festivals and conferences. Her last five novels have been set within the Italian Renaissance. In the Name of the Family (2017) completes the story of the Borgia family and the remarkable period of Italian history in which they lived.

One of the most original British artists of his generation, Spencer’s art was dominated by his personal life and his profound religious faith. Cookham, his birthplace, was for him an earthly paradise whose people and surroundings possessed a mystical quality. This was the setting for many of his great religious works and he spoke of “the rich religious significance of the place I live in”. Despite the failure of his two marriages, he continued to believe in the power of love and some of his most important works were inspired by his feelings for the two women whom he married. The paintings inspired by his military service in World War I, concentrating on hope and redemption rather than on suffering, reveal a similar basic optimism. This lecture will examine the eccentric and visionary world of one of the most creative and imaginative British painters of the 20th century.

Val Woodgate

Lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, also at many other London galleries. Former member of the teaching team at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Lecturer and runs courses at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.

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

Timothy Walker

Since 1986 I have given 1,500 public lectures. This was originally part of my work as director of the Oxford University Botanic Garden from 1988 to 2014. Botanic gardens are often described as living museums, and garden curators lecture about them in the same way as museum curators talk about their collections. Since 2014 I have been a college lecturer and tutor at Somerville College Oxford. Gardens are often thought of a place where science and art meet on equal terms. My lectures investigate this relationship.

This lecture will look at Gonzagan Court Life in the fifteenth & sixteenth centuries and concentrate on three key players in Mantua’s rich artistic heritage: Pisanello, a painter of courtly life and chivalrous encounters; Andrea Mantegna, whose Classicism and Humanism made Mantua very trendy; and finally Guilio Romano whose artistic naughtiness perfectly suited the ribald tastes of a brash Gonzaga Duke. Although their work covers a period of 200 years and each artist is distinct in their respective Gothic, Renaissance and Mannerist style, Dan will reveal how their working environment has caused unintended co-ordination.

Daniel Evans is an educationalist with a passion for all things Italian. Dan is a Housemaster and Teacher at Cheltenham College and was formerly Head of History of Art at Wycombe Abbey School. He has been lecturing since 2001, and spent 9 years working as a senior lecturer, tutor and tour guide for Art History Abroad. He was voted the British winner of the World Guide of the Year Awards in 2008 and alongside his lectures and special interest days he also leads educational study trips for groups of friends to a range of destinations in Italy.

THE VENUE FOR THIS MEETING WILL NOW BE THE EXETER GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB: SEE ITEM UNDER NEWS

In the last few years the top end of the art market has flourished, and collectors have been prepared to pay astonishing amounts to own a modern masterpiece. This lecture is about the works that have sold for over $100 million and is an excuse to examine some beautiful and varied art. These works would not achieve such sky-high prices if they were no good. So, we’ll see some wonderful paintings including those by Picasso, Cézanne, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Modigliani, Klimt, Bacon and Pollock, all held together by the common thread of their extraordinary commercial value. But we will also look at the buyers and sellers, the stories behind the works, the reasons for changing hands and I will try to answer the question “Are they really worth hundreds of millions of pounds?”

Ian Swankie

A Londoner with a passion for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral, and gives tours around each venue. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and leads regular tours for various corporations and organisations. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. He is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.

The cartoonist, Carl Giles, once said that he loved his creation, Grandma Giles – that fearsome, black-clad, gambling, drinking battleaxe – because she allowed him to say things through his cartoons that he was too polite to say in person. She helped him to poke fun at authority in all its forms, from Hitler to traffic wardens and even his employers at the Daily Express, who didn’t trust him and had sub-editors scouring his cartoons for subversive background details. His admirers included Prince Charles, Sir Malcolm Sargent and Tommy Cooper, and it was no surprise when he was voted Britain’s best-loved cartoonist in 2000. Few people realise, however, that this likeable and humane satirist was also a war correspondent who witnessed the horrors of Belsen, where he found that the camp commandant, Josef Kramer, was also a great fan of his work. Giles gave us a remarkable picture of a half-century of British life. He was also, as his editor John Gordon put it “a spreader of happiness’ and ‘a genius…with the common touch’.

Barry Venning

An historian of British art with a particular interest in the work of JMW Turner, on whom he has published widely, including the volume on Turner in Phaidon's Art & Ideas series, and several catalogue essays for exhibitions in the UK, Germany, Italy and Poland. He was the BBC's script consultant on Turner's Fighting Temeraire and has recently taken part (2013) in a BBC documentary called The Genius of Turner: Painting the Industrial Revolution. He has also published a study of John Constable's paintings. His interests and his teaching extend from medieval architecture to contemporary British art. He is currently Associate Lecturer with the Open University and lecturing on a freelance basis for The Arts Society, Christie's Education and other organisations.

The Russian Avant Garde movement contained some of the greatest names of its generation. Malevich, Chagall, Kandinsky, Exter, Popova, Rozanova, Rodchenko, Tatlin and countless others blazed a trail through Art History for an all-too brief period. With their creativity stunted by the advent of Socialist Realism in 1932, their work disappeared – only to re-emerge in the early 1970s when Greek collector, George Costakis began to buy up swathes of paintings of the period. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a flood of newly-discovered works appeared on the Western and domestic markets of which the vast majority, up to 95%, had neither verifiable provenance nor exhibition history, their authenticity supported only by documents from now discredited Russian and Western art historians and erroneous certificates of chemical expertise.

This scandal reached a crescendo in January 2018 with an exhibition of 24 dubious works of the period at the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts in Belgium. James Butterwick examines the background behind the mass faking of the Russian Avant Garde, the history of these dubious paintings, universally rejected by museums and the art market, as well as the methods used to ‘create’ authenticity.

James Butterwick

James Butterwick began collecting and selling Russian Art in 1985 and has established himself as one of the world’s leading experts. He moved to Moscow in 1994, becoming the only foreign member of the Russian Society of Private Collectors and began forming collections, taking part in museum exhibitions and lecturing on Russian Art, including at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in 2013 and the Museum of Russian Impressionism in June of this year.  In 2008 James became the only foreign member of International Confederation of Antique and Art Dealers of Russia and the CIS and in 2013 joined the Society of London Art Dealers.  James acts as a source of museum quality paintings with flawless provenance of both the Russian and European School and has access to all the leading experts, private collections and museums in any area of the arts. He travels regularly to Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan where, in October 2013, he opened an exhibition of leading Impressionist paintings.  His private gallery is in London. He speaks fluent Russian.

The Wilton Diptych is one of the most beautiful yet enigmatic paintings ever made and the hammer-beam angel roof of Westminster Hall has been described by the architectural historian John Harvey, as ‘the most outstanding individual work in the whole history of English art’.

 Both appear in the last decade of Richard II’s turbulent reign and they represent the high watermark of a period rich in artistic achievement. This lecture will focus on these two works of art but will also include other examples of art and architecture from late medieval England.

Mark Cottle

Born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and 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 & St John's University College, Plymouth, and at Bath University on Anglo Saxon and medieval England. Currently runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.

Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense has never been out of print, but what isn’t realised often is that he made his living producing topographical watercolours of great delicacy. “A man of original and versatile genius”: ornithologist, diarist, musician, traveller- this warm and delightful human-being expressed his simple philosophy through timeless humour. An illustrated lecture focussing on his biography with quotations from his writings throughout. 

Tim Stimson

Tim's involvement in art began with the practical; for a number of years he was a professional painter and ceramicist in Scotland and Wales, before returning to university to study literature and the history of art, then training to teach adults. For the last 20 years he has been a freelance cultural art historian, specialising in 17th and 19th century art and society. He now lectures for the universities of Cambridge, Nottingham and Hull; the WEA, the Art Fund and presents residential study courses in Britain and Europe. He has recently completed a month long lecture tour of Western Australia.

What misfortune to be an artist born at the same time as a dazzling personality like Michelangelo or Caravaggio. Perhaps we should pay more attention to the artists contemporary with and learning from such overpowering characters? This lecture repositions Caravaggio’s achievements in the period immediately following his brilliant but short career. Turning over the page of art history, it presents the splendid achievements of many artists such as Gentileschi, - father and daughter - the Spaniards Ribera and Velázquez, the Dutch Honthorst, French artists Vouet, and de la Tour, and ultimately connecting him to Rembrandt. It also asks “what happened next?” - how was it that Caravaggio’s style came to lose its hold and that fashion in art began to change.

Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe

MA in History of Art from Edinburgh, PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University. With 40 years' experience as a lecturer, Chantal has taught at Sotheby's Institute of Art on the MA in Fine and Decorative Arts since 1989, and as a freelance lecturer for a number of societies in London, Italy and America. Having also trained as a paintings conservator, she brings an understanding of the making and the physical painting to her lectures and study sessions.

From the 1890s to the 1960s, Winston Churchill’s life was captured in countless photographs. He was a prolific writer and speechmaker - the definitive edition of his speeches alone runs to four volumes. He was a successful and enthusiastic artist, producing some 500 paintings in a span of over fifty years.

Churchill was a complex and sensitive man of many parts and many interests – a discriminating contemporary, Kenneth Clark, was to write of him, “I have never been frightened by anyone except Churchill … he was a man of a wonderful and very powerful mind”.

The aim of this lecture is to try to capture the richness and diversity of this great man’s life and character which can still inspire us today.

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Mark Cottle

Born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and 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 & St John's University College, Plymouth, and at Bath University on Anglo Saxon and medieval England. Currently runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.

Poised between Europe and Africa, Sicily has been both a gateway and a crossroads attracting a long line of colonisers from the Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans and Arabs to the Normans and Spanish. The legacy of so many dominant civilisations produced a cultural mix of great richness and diversity, and included periods of exceptional wealth, intellectual activity and artistic achievement. This lecture looks at Sicily during the ancient and medieval periods: the Greek temples, the beautifully preserved Roman Villa Casale, and the monuments from the Arab - Norman period when Palermo was the most intellectually active and artistically eclectic centre in Europe. The 12th century cathedrals of Cefalu, Monreale, and the Palatine Chapel of the Norman Palace, witness to a brilliant fusion of Norman, Arab and Byzantine art and architecture.

Jane is a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society and other arts organisations. She runs her own art tours company, specialising in cultural visits. She speaks several foreign languages and has translated a number of works of 19th century Russian literature for Penguin Books and Oxford University Press. She has a BA in Russian Studies and an MA in Byzantine Studies.

Édouard Manet is one of the most remarkable and fascinating artists of the 19th century. His life is full of contradictions – he loved to dress well and be a ‘man about town’ but was also an extremely hard worked devoted to his art; he was sharp tongued and had an acerbic wit, yet was also generous and compassionate; he was outwardly a respectable married man, yet had a succession of lovers and admirers; he had a great influence on the Impressionist painters yet refused to exhibit with them.

Born into a wealthy Parisian family, Manet attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts under Thomas Couture where he learnt to draw and to admire the great classical painters of the past, but he challenged the academic system of art training. The Dejeuner sur L’Herbe of 1863 shocked the public and art establishment by making references to the great paintings of Giorgione, while depicting a notorious nude model sitting with two men dressed in contemporary fashion. Olympia, exhibited at the 1865 Salon, went further suggesting a prostitute receiving flowers from a male client. Manet made references to the work of Titian and Giorgione as well as to contemporary pornographic images.

In 1867, he began work on his most political painting, The Execution of Maximilian which attacked the government of Napoleon III, which Manet as a staunch Republican could not tolerate. During the 1870s Manet produced his most Impressionist paintings influenced by Claude Monet and by Berthe Morisot, whom he adored. He painted some wonderful café interiors, culminating in The Bar at the Folies Bergère, 1882. Manet was also great portrait painter, able to capture the sitters’ character in a few seemingly effortless strokes of his brush. He painted many of the great figures of his day – Zola, Cemenceau, Mallarmé, as well as a succession of beautiful women.

Manet’s private life is intriguing. He met Suzanne Leenhof when he was very young, having a son by her and eventually marrying her, but his heart lay with Berthe Morisot, who conveniently married his brother Eugène. He died a painful death aged only 51. This is a fascinating lecture, full of art history and anecdote, about a fascinating man.

Julian Halsby studied History of Art at Cambridge. Formerly Senior Lecturer and Head of Department at Croydon College of Art. Publications include Venice - the Artist's Vision (1990, 1995), The Art of Diana Armfield RA (1995), Dictionary of Scottish Painters (1990, 1998, 2001, 4th edition 2010), A Hand to Obey the Demon's Eye (2000), Scottish Watercolours 1740-1940 (1986, 1991), A Private View - David Wolfers and the New Grafton Gallery (2002). Interviews artists for the Artist Magazine and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and The Critics Circle. A practising artist, he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1994 and appointed Keeper in 2010.

Dr Jonathan Foyle has devoted his career to the preservation and public appreciation of historic buildings. He lectures widely and is a regular contributor to the Financial Times on architecture and craft. Dr Foyle’s recently published book, ‘Exeter Cathedral, The Garden of Paradise’, describes vividly how the cathedral is a very fine example of the brilliantly inventive period of English architecture in the 14th and 15th centuries. He links his story with that of Exeter’s Prince Bishops as well as the contemporary perception of Mary as a defended walled garden and St Peter as gatekeeper of this fertile paradise. This new perspective of our much-loved cathedral should form a most interesting lecture.'

During a long, successful and immensely lucrative career, Titian established himself as the foremost painter of northern Italy. Training in the Bellini workshop, he developed the Venetian love of light and colour, but adding a sense of drama and immediacy that charged his religious, mythological and, most importantly, his portraits with a realism hitherto unknown to the arts. Tough, astute and ambitious, he is often seen as the first 'modern' painter, applying the pigments directly to the canvas without preparatory studies, drawing the figures as he invented the composition, building up the paint in thick sensual layers, drenched in colour and sunlight, a brilliant new style of painting that shaped the art of the Baroque and cast its influence over every painterly painter of the next four centuries.

Douglas Skeggs read Fine Art at Magdalene College Cambridge and has been a lecturer on paintings since 1980. In that time, he has given over 4000 lectures to universities, colleges and art societies. He was the director of ‘The New Academy of Art Studies' for three years and is presently a regular lecturer at 'The Study 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.' Three one-man exhibitions of his paintings have been held in England and Switzerland. He has published five novels, which have been translated into 8 foreign languages, and his book on Monet, 'River of Light', has sold 30,000 copies in England, America and France.

This lecture will be delivered by ZOOM. Joining instructions will be sent by email in due course.

It is not inevitable that an artist's personality will be reflected in their work. But in the case of the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) there is a strong correspondence between the shy, reserved character described by friends, and the quiet interiority of his work. Hammershøi's subject is the domestic interior - occasionally inhabited by a single figure, more often empty; he shows us the spaces that contained, shaped and reflected his perceptions and feelings. His paintings combine abstract beauty with an emotional resonance. They make us reflect on the spaces we inhabit, and suggest a world beyond that which is ordinarily domestic.

A lecturer specialising in 19th-century art history, Kathy McLauchlan is currently a course director at the Victoria & Albert Museum, organising courses and study days on the history of art and design. She teaches at several institutions, including Art Pursuits. She is a graduate of Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute, with a PhD on French 19th-century painters in Rome.

Regrettably, because of the Tier Four strict restrictions covering London, Tony Faber is unable to travel down to give his lecture on Faber & Faber. However it will be delivered by Zoom, which means, of course, that you will be able to watch it in your own homes, but only at 2.00pm on January 13th, ie there will be no recording of this lecture. Trevor Wrixon will send you an email in due course with the necessary link for this, so please do not turn up at The Phoenix for this lecture.

Since its foundation in 1925, Faber and Faber has built a reputation as one of London’s most important literary publishing houses. Part of that relates to the editorial team that Geoffrey Faber and his successors built around them - TS Eliot was famously an early recruit - but a large part is also due to the firm’s insistence on good design and illustration. This lecture traces the history of Faber and Faber through its illustrations, covers and designs. Early years brought innovations like the Ariel Poems – single poems, beautifully illustrated, sold in their own envelopes. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was an emphasis on typography, led by the firm’s art director Berthold Wolpe; his Albertus font is still used on City of London road signs. In the 1980s, the firm started its association with Pentagram, responsible for the ff logo. Along the way, it has employed some of our most celebrated artists as cover illustrators – from Rex Whistler and Barnett Freedman to Peter Blake and Damien Hirst. Slides will range from book covers, advertisements and photos of key individuals, to illustrations of the concepts behind the designs. The talk will also be peppered with personal insight and anecdote. Faber and Faber is the last of the great publishing houses to remain independent. As the grandson of its founder, I grew up steeped in its books. I was managing director for four years and I remain on the board. I am passionate about the firm’s success, and intensely proud of my association with it. 

Toby Faber is an experienced lecturer and public speaker who has been accredited by The Arts Society since 2012. His career began with Natural Sciences at Cambridge and has been through investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Faber and Faber, where he remains on the board. He is also non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music and a director of Liverpool University Press.

Toby has written three narrative histories: Stradivarius – Five Violins, One Cello and a Genius; Faberge’s Eggs; and Faber & Faber – The Untold Story, as well as a novel, Close to the Edge. Of these, only the obvious one is published by the family firm.

Using illustrations from illuminated manuscripts, readings from literature and contemporary accounts, and the haunting songs, carols and lively dance tunes of medieval England, Sarah brings alive the spirit of a Medieval Christmas- a time of joy and celebration for some, but hardship and suffering for others. With extracts from literature and manorial household accounts, she pieces together life in a medieval manor house at Yuletide. In addition to her reproduction medieval harps, she adds plucked psaltery, hurdy-gurdy, hammered dulcimer and gemshorn to the musical mix, performing carols, music and readings for an atmospheric and musical seasonal celebration.

Sarah Deere-Jones is a graduate and prize-winner from the Royal Academy of Music and in 2015 was elected an Associate. She performs, writes and lectures about the harp regularly in America, Australia, Europe and UK. All lectures are presented digitally and include live music and songs on harps and other instruments depending on subject matter. 

The work of Nicholas Poussin became the cornerstone of the French classical tradition. This lecture will look at the ways in which Poussin was in fact highly original, with early works that were dramatic and highly idiosyncratic. It will look at some of the ideas underlying his work, examining how it compares with that of his contemporaries, and how his mature works reflect a new and coherent philosophy of art. It will consider the fact that Poussin was a thoughtful, private person who resisted attempts by the French court to lure him into the art establishment – and how his work would one day influence radical, anti-establishment artists such as Cézanne and Picasso.

Richard Whincop is a professional artist who graduated in English and Art History from York University in 1986. From 1988-1994 he lectured at the adult education departments of Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities, and then went on to become a full-time figurative artist, executing large-scale public commissions, and exhibiting widely throughout the UK. He now lives and works in Chichester, West Sussex. 

Looking at maps from their origin to the present, consider them as works of art and as functional tools. Assesses the particular challenges of mapping and of representation. Considers range of maps, both thematic and geographical. 

Jeremy Black was born in London in 1955 and graduated from Cambridge with a starred first. Undertook graduate work at Oxford and taught at Durham from 1980, eventually as professor, before moving to Exeter as professor in 1996. He has lectured around the world to popular and academic audiences, including the Decorative Arts Society in New York and the Bard, as well as the annual decorative arts conference at Newport, Rhode Island. He has also lectured in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain and on various cruise lines. He has appeared on both radio and television, most recently presenting a BBC2 programme on the Industrial Revolution. His other works include studies of maps, tourism and politics. Published over 100 books, including A Subject for Taste: Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (2005) and Visions of the World: a History of Maps (2003). His MBE was awarded for services to stamp design
 

Following Goverment's advice that social and other gatherings should not take place; that the vulnerable and people aged 70 and above should self-isolate; and, the closing of Phoenix Arts Centre in Exeter, the programme of lectures has ben cancelled.

Members will be informed in due course when the Societies activities can recommence and what any new prgoramme will be.

How did a German refugee from Hitler, an internee and a jobbing journalist, become the Grand Old Man of English art history? The answer lies in his extraordinary one-man survey of all the architecturally significant buildings in the country, county by county. This lecture explores what Pevsner said, rightly or wrongly, about the buildings in your society’s area – churches, houses, shops, town halls, tower blocks, factories, cinemas – and sets his pronouncements in the context of The Buildings of England as a whole. The series has both detractors and passionate defenders, but no imitators. Pevsner himself said, ‘There won’t be another madman so soon.’

Susie is a writer, editor and lecturer, specialising in 20th century culture and the arts. She has published eight books on subjects including official war art, opera and the composer Elisabeth Lutyens. The most recent is the biography of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, published in August 2011. She has lectured to a range of audiences, from the Imperial War Museum and British Museum to the Twentieth Century Society and the RSA, most recently at the Cheltenham and Bridport Literary Festivals and the Victorian Society.

The Huguenots came to England in huge numbers in the late 17th century bringing a wide variety of skills - as silk weavers, silversmiths, clock makers, opticians, bankers, gilders, ironworkers, horticulturists etc. Names such as Paul de Lamerie, Samuel Courtauld and Jean Tijou spring to mind. In virtually all areas, they were innovators and more advanced than the English who were forced to improve their own skills or go out of business. Although the majority settled in London, others found their way to East Anglia, Macclesfield and Canterbury. This talk examines their lasting legacy.

Originally in art and design publishing (Phaidon and Yale University Press), Sue now lectures for the National Trust, U3A, City Literary Institute. A qualified Blue Badge Guide, she gives guided walks on various themes and has published work on the lost world of the River Fleet.

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

One of the world's leading landscape photographers, Charlie has lectured for 25 years throughout the UK, Europe and the US. Has held numerous one-man exhibitions in London, exhibited twice in Tokyo, and was awarded the prestigious honorary Fellowship of the British Institute of Professional Photographers, as well as a Direct Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society. Amongst many publications, the most recent includes Landscape; the Story of 50 Photographs (2005), and Arc & Line (2011). He was invited by the Royal Academy to exhibit in 2015's summer exhibition.

The ancient buildings of Exeter have been recorded to a greater extent than any other urban community in the South West.  This done by artists on an individual and collective basis and the result is a staggering legacy of paintings, engravings, drawings and sketches.

Dr. Todd Gray FRHistS, MBE is a historian of the county of Devon, England, long based at Exeter University. As of 2007 he was Honorary Research Fellow of Exeter University, Chairman of the Devonshire Association and of Friends of Devon's Archives (retired 2014), and President of the Family History Society. He famously claimed that the Cornish Pasty was in fact invented in Devon in about 1460, which not only caused consternation in Cornwall, but was remarked upon as far away as China. Gray is said to have written more widely on Devon than any other Devon historian and has published over 40 works, many through his own publishing company.

This lecture covers aspects of Islamic art in some of the most important cities, sites and museums in the world especially Cordoba, Cairo, Damascus, Isfahan and Samarkand. From its Arabian heartland comes a wealth of decorated ceramics, carved wood, metalwork, glass, tiles, mosaics, carpets, architecture and gardens. Islamic art encompasses the great wealth of artistic treasures inspired by the Islamic religion, but there is also non-religious art such as the colourful dancing figures from the pleasure palaces of Persia; the simple mud brick decorations of a merchant caravanserai; or the delicate carved marble of arguably the world’s most beautiful building – the Taj Mahal. We tend to think of all Islamic art in a religious context, but within these regions are many non-Muslim communities of Copts, Jews and Zoroastrians whose own art is inextricably linked. Despite unifying themes of mosques, minarets, madrassas and mausoleums to be found between Morocco and China, each region has its own history that influences the decorative art we see today.

Chris is an expert in the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa. As a professional tour guide and lecturer he has led groups throughout the Middle East and Asia. Has written extensively on Arabia and is the author of The Discovery Guide to Yemen, Insight Guide to the Silk Road and Berlitz Guides to Libya; The Red Sea; Cairo; Abu Dhabi and Nile Cruising. As a photographer has pictures represented by four photographic libraries. A broad range of lecturing experience, including to the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Institute of British Architects. As a film producer and cameraman he has made documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic TV and Channel 4.

The great composer Franz Schubert (1797 – 1838) surrounded himself with a brilliant circle of artists, poets and musicians whose talents and kindness fed his romantic creativity.  Graham Griffiths tells the fascinating story of how Schubert rewards his friends with gifts of his ’divine music’.  Celebrated images of Schubert in concert playing comic charades or travelling by horse-drawn carriage across Austria are illustrated by Dr Griffiths at the piano via musical ‘postcards’ which immortalise the names of Schubert’s devoted companions: the sweet Kupelwieser Waltz (written as a wedding present) or the amusing Huttenbrenner variations.

To conclude, a performance of Impromptus (1828): masterpieces of great lyrical beauty and power which brings the presentation to a rousing finale.

Graham is a man of many talents as the list of his activities and accomplisments reveals:

Lecturer, conductor, pianist, composer. Music Research Fellow (City, University of London). DPhil., Musicology (Christ Church, Oxford, 2008), PGCE (Cambridge), BMusHons (Edinburgh). 

Musical Director Grupo Novo Horizonte de Sao Paulo (featured on BBCR3); lectures, concerts, and recordings (UK, Denmark, Brazil, Russia); Guest of The British Council; University lecturing (UK) at Bath, Bristol, Canterbury (Christchurch), City (London), Oxford.

Author: Stravinsky’s Piano: Genesis of a Musical Language (Cambridge, 2013/2015; ‘Kaschperowa, Leokadiya’ in Instrumentalistinnen-Lexikon-online (Bremen: Sophie Drinker Institut, 2018).

Editor: Stravinsky in Context (Cambridge, 2020); Contributor to The Stravinsky Encyclopedia (Cambridge, forthcoming); Strawinsky Abécédaire (ed. Marie Strawinsky) (Geneva: Editions Slatkine, 2018).

Recordings: Latin American Sacred Music of the 18th and 19th centuries; Brazilian contemporary music; the piano music of L.A.Kashperova.

Composer, film: Voyage of the Vikings: Hurricane! Hurry! (dir. Camille Bontemps: Edwards Films, 2018).

Guest appearances at ‘St Petersburg International Conservatoires Festival’ performing lost works by Leokadiya Kashperova (1872-1940) re-discovered by Griffiths. This research featured in the BBCRadio3/AHRC celebration Five Forgotten Female Composers on International Women’s Day (8 March 2018). Griffiths’s work has been featured by public service broadcasters in several countries.