Go to any ancient building and there will be interesting, exciting, and romantic stories presented to the visitor. They are commonly believed and widely repeated – but are they really true?

These stories include those of secret passages linking ancient buildings, spiral staircases in castles giving advantage to right-handed defenders, ship timbers used in the construction of buildings on land, blocked doors in churches which are thought to keep the Devil out and claims to be the oldest pub in the country.                             Blue Peter Inn, Polperro

James Wright

James Wright FSA is a buildings archaeologist, based in Nottingham. With over twenty years of professional experience, he has published a number of books and articles concentrating on mediaeval and early modern architecture. His latest book - Historic Building Mythbusting - investigates and debunks commonly believed and repeated stories about ancient buildings. 

He has spoken to a wide variety of organisations including Historic Royal Palaces, the National Trust, Gresham College, Shakespeare400 and the Museum of London. Lecturing is his favourite part of his job as he firmly believes that there is simply no point in carrying out research unless you actually tell folk what you have been doing!

This lecture reveals how the USA covertly used both Modernist design and Abstract Expressionism as cold war tools against the Soviet Bloc in the 1950s.

In one of the most curious stories in art history, it explores how America's new artists were unwittingly weaponised by the CIA and how Mid-Century Modern design was used in European exhibitions...to demonstrate American cultural superiority to wavering intellectuals.

President Khrushchev and Vice President Nixon argue over kitchen design at the American National Exhibition, Moscow, 1959 (public domain - Nixon Presidential Library and Museum)

James Vaux

James took a law degree at Oxford with First Class Honours and qualified as a solicitor before switching career. As a managing director of the international bank Rothschild & Co, he set up and ran the bank’s Nordic operations, living and working in Scandinavia and immersing himself in the countries’ arts, culture and history. James then gained an MA (Distinction) at UCL in Scandinavian Studies.

He studied interior design and art history at the Inchbald School, Mid-Century Modern at Sotheby’s Institute and electronic music at Point Blank. He has also been a DJ, promoter, record label owner, hosted a local radio show for four years and ran a community cinema.

He is now a popular lecturer on Nordic arts and design - as well as abstract expressionism - delivering 50 talks in 2025 alone. His focus is on placing works in their historical context and sharing inside knowledge from his extensive research trips.

John Singer Sargent was THE international art star of the Gilded Age. He was most famous for his dramatic and stylish portraits of the elegant and wealthy. He brought his subjects to life, but also used fashion as a powerful tool to depict identity and personality. Cindy Polemis explores how John Singer Sargent 'fashioned' his world.

Sargent used clothing to shape how his sitters’ identities and personalities appeared, often choosing or adjusting their outfits himself. By manipulating garments, tightening a coat to define a figure or letting a dress strap fall for sensual effect, used fashion and these daring choices as a key artistic device to convey his creative vision.

Cindy Polemis

Cindy Polemis is an art historian, independent lecturer and art guide. She has a BA in Modern History from Oxford University and as a mature student she went back to university to study first for a BA and then for a Masters in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London University. Before that she spent many years as a radio producer and presenter for the BBC World Service working in news and current affairs. Since 2016 Cindy has worked as  a lecturer and an official art guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has also been a trustee at the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum. Cindy has accumulated a wide range of art historical knowledge ranging from 18th European and British art to the contemporary international art scene. She has been an official guide for  Frieze Masters art fair in London. She is particularly keen to draw parallels with art and social history and her lectures are accessible and engaging, drawing out the stories of art and artists which are steeped in human emotions and experiences which we all share.

In our modern world it’s easy to take colour for granted. Yet before organic chemistry the most desirable pigments were often exotic or poisonous.

Merchants supplied pungent yellow ‘purree’ nuggets from India, cochineal ‘grana’ from the holds of Spanish galleons, lapis rock carried by camel train from the mountains of Badakhshan. Alchemists prepared deadly ‘King’s Yellow’ and ‘Ruby of Arsenic’. ‘Moorish Gold’ was concocted, according to a 12th century monk, from basilisk powder ground with human blood!

Small wonder artists kept their paint recipes closely guarded in Books of Secrets.

Lynne Gibson

Now working as a freelance lecturer in the History of Art, Lynne originally trained as a fine artist and has taught painting, drawing and printmaking in higher and adult education. She lectured as an art historian for the universities of Sussex and Bristol where she introduced 'Understanding Art' to the Lifelong Learning programme and residential summer schools. She gives talks, lectures and guided tours to a wide range of organisations and institutions including ARCA colleges, the National Trust, Art museums and Art societies. She has worked as a professional artist specialising in oil painting and etching. Solo and group shows have included the RWA, British Museum and the Barbican. All titles available as lectures or study days.  She gave us a fascinating day in March 2024 on Double Dutch, Symbols, Emblems and Double-Entendre in Dutch Painting which was very popular.

When Diego Velázquez arrived at the court in Madrid from Seville, he stepped into a world that was the polar opposite to the bustle and chaos of his hometown. The court of Philip IV was governed by strict codes, hierarchies and prejudices. Yet, in his portraits of the king, courtiers, jesters and dwarfs Velázquez manages to peel away mask of formality to reveal the individual beneath. This lecture explores these paintings and the relationships behind them. I will end with a discussion of Velázquez’s greatest and most enigmatic masterpiece, Las Meninas.

Isabelle Kent

Isabelle is an academic and educator specialising in the baroque, with a particular focus on Spain and its empire. She is currently a research fellow at Oriel College, Oxford. 

Isabelle received a BA and MPhil in History of Art from Trinity College, Cambridge, where she recently completed her PhD on the art of Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán. From 2017 to 2019 she worked as a curator at the Wallace Collection and in 2020 her book Collecting Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in Britain and Ireland was published by CEEH.  Alongside her academic work, Isabelle is an expert guide for a travel company, leading groups around Spain and beyond, and she also teaches regularly for the V&A, the Art Fund,  the Royal Academy, Chelsea Arts Club, the Wallace Collection and at the University of Cambridge.

From those gorgeous 1930s travel posters, through nationalisation of the railways in 1948, with their bright regional colours, to the creation of the famous BR Double-Arrow symbol in the 1960s...it's surprising how British railways have led the way in terms of design. In this lecture we reminisce over those beautiful graphics, bygone days of railway architecture and travel. We'll pay homage to the wonderful Tube map by Harry Beck and look to the future of train and station design. So get your tickets ready for inspection: we're on the right track!

Mark Ovenden

Mark Ovenden is a broadcaster and author who has sold a quarter of a million books and appeared on many TV and radio programmes. He specialises in the subjects of industrial design and architecture - especially in the world of public transport. Since he became  AS accredited in 2018 he has lectured to societies all over Britain and in Europe, the most popular being his talk on the London Underground.

His first book (a New York Times "Bestseller") was a guide to the maps of Transit systems across the planet and it's been re-issued and translated many times. His titles include books about the Paris Metro, Railway Maps, the New York Subway; the London Underground; typeface design; Manchester's Metrolink; Airline Maps; Underground Cities and Cartography design.

He has worked at the BBC producing programmes for Radios 1's John Peel and Annie Nightingale, in commercial radio as a journalist and newsreader, and in television as a researcher and even for MTV as a music programmer. Mark recently produced his own documentary for BBC 4. He is currently reading as a mature student online for a Masters in Railway Studies.

Carpets from the Islamic world are a common feature in many European paintings. This lecture investigates what these paintings can tell us about how carpets were used and regarded in Europe. They also offer insights into trade routes of the time as we witness carpets coming in from different regions of the East and reaching more distant parts of Europe. This is a story of taste, status and international trade from the 14th to the 17th century.

Illustration:  Portrait of Giovanni della Volta with his Wife and Children 1515 by
Lorenzo Lotto  © National Gallery
Notice the Anatolian Ottoman carpet draped over the table to emphasize the family’s wealth and mercantile sophistication.  These carpets are now named after Lotto because he painted them so frequently!

Antonia Gatward-Cevizli

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

 H G Murphy’s greatest misfortune was to die just before the start of the Second World War. The designs and inspirations of the pre-war era were simply seen as passé and totally out of keeping with the new spirit of modernism which quickly grew after the Festival of Britain in 1951. Harry Murphy served his apprenticeship under Henry Wilson, probably Britain’s greatest designer goldsmith of the Arts and Crafts era. Here he learnt a wide range of skills and techniques including enamelling, gem-setting and polishing, niello, engraving and hammering.  We will be dazzled by the art treasures we will discover from this forgotten master goldsmith.

John Benjamin 

John Benjamin is a jewellery historian, lecturer, author and broadcaster. Formerly International Director of Jewellery at Phillips Fine Art Auctioneers, since 1999 he has been an independent jewellery consultant on behalf of the private client network. John is well-known from his appearances over 30 years on BBC Television’s ever-popular Antiques Roadshow. He is a Freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company, a Court Assistant and Founder Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and in 2021 was appointed Honorary Jewellery Adviser to the National Trust.

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

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

Over the last thirty-five years, Charlie has lectured throughout the UK, Europe and the US. He has held numerous solo exhibitions all over the world, including in London, Tokyo, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, New York and California.

He was awarded the prestigious honorary Fellowship of the British Institute of Professional Photographers and was invited by the Royal Academy to exhibit in 2015's summer exhibition.

Charlie is the owner and founder of Light and Land, the UK’s leading photographic workshop and tour company, running photographic tours, courses and workshops that are dedicated to inspiring photographers and improving their photography, both in the UK and worldwide.

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

No English king is as well-known to us as Henry VIII. He is famous for six marriages, breaking with the Pope, dissolving the monasteries and creating the Church of England; and for his ruthless elimination of those who stood in his way.  But he was also an enthusiastic patron of the arts whose palaces, tapestries and paintings enriched the Tudor court and began the Royal Collection. The forces that influenced Henry’s life can be seen in the works he commissioned, by artists such as Pietro Torrigiano, Hans Holbein and Giralomo da Treviso. They tell us much about his kingship and (unintentionally) his insecurities. Ultimately, each of the works contained some aspect of one central story: the glorification of Henry and his England.

Siobhan Clarke BA Hons 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. Her experience includes education sessions and tours for schools, universities, corporate and private clients.  She has lectured for the British Museum, National Trust, National Archives and the Smithsonian and featured on BBC Radio 'Woman's Hour' and Television's 'Secrets of Henry VIII's Palace'. 

Her published work includes: 'A Tudor Christmas', in collaboration with Alison Weir, (2018), 'The Tudors: The Crown, The Dynasty, The Golden Age' with Linda Collins (2019), 'King and Collector: Henry VIII and the Art of Kingship' (2021) and 'Gloriana: Elizabeth I and the Art of Queenship' (2022).

Younger son of the famous Pieter Bruegel, Jan did not inherit the right to copy his father’s pictures as his elder brother Peter the Younger did. Instead he had to invent a different realm of subject matter for himself, and he turned what was doubtless his short-sightedness to good use, painting pictures of exquisite detail and entrancing miniature scale.

His landscapes are microcosms of the known flora and fauna of his day, and we can feel his delight in discovering new species of tulip, say, or of parrot. The beautiful scenes he painted are analysed in this lecture, but above all, they are presented for the sheer enjoyment of the audience.

Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe has an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh,and a PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University. With 40 years' experience as a lecturer, she 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 and institutions in London, including the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection. Having also trained as a paintings conservator, she brings an understanding of the making and the physical painting of works to her lectures.

Ralph Hoyle's abiding interest is mid eighteenth-century English Rococo silver. He brings with him the pieces he is going to talk about for the audience to handle and examine, together with a great collection of images, including close-ups of interesting features. The Huguenot influence on this most decorative period is discussed, where new silversmithing techniques fused with new designs together with methods of manufacture. Ralph will interpret the engraved heraldry of the items, and the social context. 

Ralph makes the talk entertaining as well as informative by taking the audience on a journey to uncover the original owners by tracing the heraldry. He shows portraits of them, and reveals some of the life story associated with them; fabulously wealthy aristocrats and middling sorts, they variously had a stint in the Tower of London, or tragic family circumstances, had their descendants gamble away their estates, found their wife in a bed she should certainly not have been in, or were dragged to their death in an overturned carriage!  Knowing the exploits of the original owners of the pieces, adds considerably to their interest and brings another dimension to the handling of them.

Ralph Hoyle has had an enduring interest in English silver. He was a schoolboy member of the Wine Label Circle, a society devoted to the study of silver decanter labels, and went on to be its President. He is a long-standing member of the Silver Society. He aims to entertain as well as inform his audience. He has given talks to the Art Fund, Sheffield Assay Office, American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, Historic Houses, small charity raising events and many Arts Societies.

A behind the scenes lecture where renowned Constable expert, Sarah Cove talks about her discoveries on the BBC show Fake or Fortune. Beyond the show, she has many more stories of highs and lows in the art world.

Sarah Cove

Sarah is an accredited paintings conservator-restorer, technical art historian and lecturer with almost 40 years’ experience working on paintings for the heritage and private sectors. She lives and works in Falmouth, Cornwall, but also has a base in London. As a conservator, she specialises in British portraiture, 19th-20th century British landscapes and oil sketches on paper and board. Alongside her conservation practice, in 1986 Sarah founded the Constable Research Project and she is now the leading authority on Constable’s oil painting materials and techniques. She has appeared in several TV programmes for the BBC notably Constable in Love with Andrew Graham-Dixon and twice on Fake or Fortune? where she was instrumental in the discovery of 3 ‘lost’ Constables.

This is an epic tale of two extraordinary figures from the same valley in Yorkshire who were destined to change the world of fashion and design for all time. A story that takes us from the mills of Yorkshire in the 1920s to the coast of Cornwall. From Welwyn Garden City to the corridors of power at Westminster.  Art, design, textiles, fashion, politics, publishing, philosophy, and the very genesis of modern art in Britain. This lecture tells the story of creativity, determination, passion, and resilience of a true textile Maverick.

Ashley Gray

A leading specialist in Modern Textiles and their history, he is regularly invited to lecture on the subject both in the UK and the US. As a curator and archivist, he works with institutions and foundations on conservation and exhibition projects; most recently as co-curator of Material Textile: Modern British Female Designers’ and Material Textile: Creativity, History & Process, both with Messums Gallery, Common Thread at New Art Centre and From Bauhaus to our House at Cromwell Place. He also curated the acclaimed exhibition Styled by Design celebrating the innovation of Modernist textile design alongside a comprehensive lecture programme to accompany the show.

photo:  Gray MCA Collection, St Ives, 1948 Screen print on silk, Cresta Silks 1985 Edition © Patrick Heron Trust. All rights reserved, DACS 2024

In 1924 an exhibition in London of Canadian landscapes moved the critic C. Lewis Hind to celebrate them as ‘the most vital group of paintings produced since the war - indeed, this century’. These landscapes of Canada’s northern lakes and rugged backwoods, painted in a boldly Post-Impressionist style, had been produced over the previous decade by a collective of Toronto-based painters known as the ‘Group of Seven’, whose aim was to forge a national school of landscape painting.

Ross King explores how they broke through barriers in Canada  to gain international recognition as a distinctive avant-garde movement.

This lecture will focus on two overriding interests of the late 18th century – the study and collecting of Greek vases and a fascination with volcanic activity, encouraged by the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii.  We will look, in particular, at the life and collections of Sir William Hamilton, British envoy to the Court of Naples from 1764 to the end of the century.  It is based on an exhibition of the same name staged by the British Museum in 1996.  

The Museum’s  Enlightenment Gallery is housed in the oldest room in the present Museum. It was originally designed to house King George III's Library.  This diverse permanent exhibition shows how British people understood the world at this time through their collections. If a visit is not possible, try a virtual tour: Enlightenment | British Museum.

Jane Gardiner  

After an MA History of Art, University of London she trained at the V&A and continues 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, among others.

Art lies at the heart of social unrest, a voice for those who cannot be heard. Graffiti is more than mindless vandalism, it’s the early stages of revolution.

Fifth Wall TV is a video production house and platform providing content for the art world. Spearheaded by Scottish born, London-based director Doug Gillen. Fifth Wall TV has become one of the leading names in street art commentary and video production.

Doug Gillen

is the man behind Fifth Wall TV, a London based production channel and digital platform that investigates all aspects of graffiti and street art.  He created Fifth Wall TV six years ago, and has been filming and talking about the world of street art and graffiti ever since. 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.

The remarkable untold story of 'Carry On' actor, Peter Butterworth, and his wife, Britain’s first female tv impressionist, Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher.

Using classic film and tv clips, personal mementos, and rare photographs and letters from his family’s unseen collection, Tyler reveals the private story behind his parents’ public lives.

It’s a journey that takes in MI9, the building of a theatre in the notorious WW2 Prisoner of War camp Stalag Luft III, nights at Chequers with a Prime Minister, This Is Your Life, and many more moments in their long, shared life in the theatre.

Tyler Butterworth

Tyler Butterworth grew up in a theatrical family and spent twenty five years as an actor working extensively in film, television, theatre and radio. He then worked as a development producer in television documentaries. Now, he produces walking audio guides to cities across Europe for private clients.

In and around the seemingly elegant squares of Georgian London lay a sordid world of licentiousness and lust; a world which surprisingly made a huge contribution to London’s economy.  Using Hogarth’s The Harlot's Progress as our pictorial guide, we embark on an extraordinary and eye popping adventure of the low lights and lowlifes of 18th century Covent Garden and Soho. We encounter a celebrity cast of characters including Jack Harris author of Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (the Time Out guide to the leading harlots of the age). We meet ‘Mother Clap’, whose infamous ‘molly house’ brought her to trial.

Simon Whitehouse

Simon is a (recovering) actor, lecturer, presenter, Alexander Technique and voice teacher and award winning London Blue Badge guide. He has worked as a guide lecturer in house at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Opera House, the BBC and the National Gallery guiding both public and private tours. He is on the faculty of Ithaca College and also lectures for the Blue Badge Guide training course on the performing arts and English literature. Simon’s specialisms and passions are theatre, literature, fashion and art history but whatever the subject, Simon will weave a wonderful story from it.

The Wellcome Collection’s MS.8932 is a rare example of a medieval folded almanac, and a superb copy of John Somer’s Kalendarium. To add to its importance, it is covered in the earliest surviving, intact, English embroidered binding, presenting an unrivalled opportunity to learn more about medieval craftsmanship in bindings, embroidery and production methods dating from the medieval period. However, the scale and fragility of MS.8932, combined with the complexity of its construction, makes interpretation a challenge.

Jacqui was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Bursary to analyse the construction of this unique artefact, and attempt to recreate lost techniques. The lecture takes a detailed look at her findings whilst setting the object within the wider context of period bookbinding and embroidery. (Samples/models will be available for handling).

Jacqui Carey

Jacqui Carey is an artist, maker, teacher, author and researcher of textiles. She is well known for her expertise in braiding and historic embroidery. 

Jacqui has been a practicing craftsperson since completing her BA(Hons) degree in Textiles at West Surrey College of Art and Design in 1985. She is renowned for her work in kumihimo, and has been instrumental in introducing this Japanese technique to the West. In 2005, Jacqui became a QEST scholar for her work in analysing historic structures and techniques, and was awarded an MA (distinction) in the History of Textile & Dress from the Textile Conservation Centre. Jacqui’s willingness to share her expertise has seen her exhibit and teach worldwide. She is also the author of over ten books, including the one illustrated here on MS8932.

The first pots appeared in Britain about 6000 years ago and this lecture will chart the ways in which ceramic production has evolved from this time to the present day. From the hand-formed and bonfire-fired pots of our prehistoric ancestors to the products of both modern industry and individual craft potters, this lecture will examine the major changes that have shaped the ways pots are produced and distributed. Roman industrialisation, the introduction of the potter’s wheel and kiln, the effects of the industrial revolution on rural potteries and the rise of the art potteries of the 19th century are all part of this evolving story, told through the pots themselves and the potters that made them. This is a genuinely a ‘potted history’.

Julian Richards

Studied archaeology at Reading University and has since worked as a professional archaeologist, in commercial archaeology, for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992. He has lectured widely in continuing education, to groups and societies and to special interest tour companies. A career in broadcasting involved researching and presenting Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4.  Julian Richards has written a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and landscape. 

In the summer of 1888, Vincent Van Gogh left Paris and walked down south to the old Roman town of Arles. He was thirty five years old with less than two years left to live. Gruff, volatile and highly emotional, uneasy in company, with a corrosive sense of rejection from those around him, he’d developed a startling ability to communicate through his painting. Now in the south of France he hoped to set up a fellowship of artists. 

That did not come to much, but in the autumn he was joined by Paul Gauguin.  He was a very different character to Van Gogh, dramatic and self assured, flamboyant in his appearance and single minded in his determination to succeed, he had thrown up his highly paid job as a stockbroker to become an artist.  'The Painter of Sunflowers (A portrait of Vincent Van Gogh)' 1888 by Paul Gauguin is in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

It was a disastrous combination of personalities. The two artists at once admired each other and were irritated, maddened and exasperated by each other. Respect and loathing became one. Within two months Van Gogh broke, his mind giving way under his first attack of madness, and he was admitted to hospital, his ear mutilated in a sudden fit of remorse for the violent attack he’d made on his friend. Gauguin left for the north and the two men never met again.  

This lecture reconstructs the lives and works of these two remarkable figures; it looks into the motives and ambitions that drove them and examines the few short weeks they spent together, a time that ended in Van Gogh’s confinement in a hospital cell, an isolation from which he would never fully escape and in which his final and most memorable paintings would be made.  

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 Center, Christie's course 'The History of Art Studies' and other London courses. Among his more improbable venues for lectures are the bar on the QE2, MI5 headquarters, the Captain's Room at Lloyds, and an aircraft hanger in a German NATO base. Overseas he has lectured in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain, and has taken numerous tours around Europe. He has written and presented various TV documentaries and 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.

Captain Scott and his four companions died in Antarctic in 1912. Although they had lost the race to the South Pole to Norwegian Roald Amundsen, their deaths unleashed an astonishing wave of tributes not only in Britain but around the world. This lecture will examine the different ways in which artists represented death in the polar wasteland and portrayed failure as heroic sacrifice.  The illustration is one of four panels in the memorial stained glass window in Binton Church, Warwickshire. This panel depicts the cairn erected over the site of Scott's last tent.  

Dr. Max Jones 

Formerly a Fellow and Director of Studies in History at Christ's College, Cambridge, Max now teaches at the University of Manchester and has previously won the university’s ‘Teacher of the Year’ award. He specializes in the cultural history of war and heroism and is currently writing a new history of British heroes. Public lecturing is Max’s passion. Alongside lectures at Manchester and other universities, he has spoken about his research to public audiences throughout the UK and beyond, from the Isles of Scilly to Hobart, Tasmania.

Music was a constant theme in Manet’s life and art. His wife Suzanne Leenhoff was a gifted pianist, and regular musical soirées were held at the Manet family home. His pictures of musicians and their audiences range from major early canvases depicting itinerant gypsy musicians and Spanish dancers, through to paintings encompassing the full range of Parisian musical culture, from private performances to street entertainment, café concerts and the Paris Opera. Bringing together Manet’s art and the music that inspired him, including Spanish flamenco, Haydn string quartets, Wagner       The illustration is The Spanish Singer, 1861  Metropolitan Museum, NY
piano reductions, café songs, and opera highlights, this lecture immerses you in Manet’s world. 

Dr Lois Oliver     

Dr Oliver is Professor in History of Art at the University of Notre Dame in London, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute. She has worked as a Curator at the V&A, the National Gallery, and the Royal Academy. Her recent exhibitions include ‘Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism’ at Dulwich Picture Gallery and ‘Jock McFadyen: Tourist without a Guidebook’ for the Royal Academy.  Also a keen violinist, Lois plays regularly with Kensington Chamber Orchestra and the Endellion Festival Orchestra. Lois studied English Literature at Cambridge University, and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, completing an MA in Venetian Renaissance Art and writing her PhD thesis on The Image of the Artist, Paris 1815-1855.                

An understanding of landscape history and land-use helps an investigator discriminate between a clandestine burial and a mediaeval feature in a woodland.  Mark shows how forensic botany is not new science, plants have played a role in solving major cases for decades.  Plants are silent witnesses to crimes. Their presence in many crime scenes can help identify a suspect or locate a victim. Apparently mundane plants such as brambles and nettles can provide valuable insights into when a crime was committed. Fragments of leaves and seeds embedded in soil on the footwear of a suspect can place them at the scene.

Mark Spencer

Mark has been fascinated by plants since he was a small boy. Originally a horticulturist, he studied horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and also botany and mycology at university, after which he worked as a field botanist for a regional conservation organisation. After 12 years as a senior botany curator at the Natural History Museum, London he is now a consultant forensic botanist, public speaker and occasional radio and TV presenter. He is the honorary curator of Carl Linnaeus’s herbarium at the Linnean Society of London, one of the most significant collections in the history of science. He has a strong interest in the history of botany and botanic gardens, invasive non-native species and the flora of North-West Europe.

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

Tim Mirfin

Tim Mirfin is an opera singer. He has performed in all major European countries, Russia, US, Australia and the Middle East. He has given concerts in some of classical music’s most iconic venues, such as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Musikverein, the Bolshoi, the Wigmore, Festival and Albert Halls. He also teaches singing, gives masterclasses, lectures on opera and the voice and runs a local community choir.  He studied postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music and National Opera Studio, previously reading law at Cambridge. He is passionate both about opera as an art form and also about the sheer act of singing. He is keen to share peeks behind the curtain on both apparently mysterious activities.

The earliest cars were purely functional and lacked even the most basic of passenger comforts, such as doors or even windscreens to protect passengers from the elements.  However, progress was rapid and by the mid-1920s we entered a golden age of automobile design.  A new generation of stylish cars were influenced by the art deco movement and the ‘Great Gatsby era’ included some of the most famous and fabulous cars ever built.

Roger Mendham

A keen and accomplished photographer Roger has gained Distinctions from the Royal Photographic Society and is currently the President of the Surrey Photographic Association. His artistic taste is predominantly 20th century and he is particularly interested in the visual aspects of art. He has studied the evolution of photography from its earliest days in the early 1800s to becoming a major art form in the late 20th and now 21st centuries. An experienced public speaker, his talks are all richly illustrated with both his own and images from some of the leading photographers in history.

Hosted by Food Historian Tasha Marks, this lecture is a treat for those with a sweet tooth.  Tessa thinks the subject of food and art through the ages is most exciting in the realms of the dessert. From the origins of dessert, the crossover between sugar and art, architecture and dessert, to the future of food, we will never look at our puddings the same way again.

Tasha Marks

Tasha Marks is an award-winning food historian and artist, who explores the relationship between food, art and history. Her practice, AVM Curiosities, champions the use of food as an artistic medium, with projects ranging from museum-style exhibitions and sculptural installations, to interactive lectures and limited-edition confectionery. Recent academic achievements include publication in the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, where Tasha authored the entry on Mrs Beeton, one of the Victorian era’s most influential cooks.

The Great British Pantomime

Dr Tony Lidington traces pantomime from its commedia dell' arte roots, to its first British representation in Georgian England and shows how Britain became the crucible of the pantomime form, independently from the rest of the world.

Tony Lidington
Tony has run theatre venues, companies, festivals and events for and with a wide range of diverse communities. He has a doctorate from Exeter University where he is now a part-time lecturer. He regularly broadcasts for both radio and television. 

Pevsner in Cornwall
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 Cornwall and sets his pronouncements in the context of The Buildings of England as a whole.

Susie Harries
Susie is a writer, editor and lecturer, specialising in 20th century culture and the arts. She published a biography of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner in August 2011. Susie has lectured at a range of venues including the Imperial War Museum and British Museum.

Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo spent 18 of the most productive years of his life in Milan and produced some of his most iconic work in this city.  Leonardo found fame for the first time, but also the freedom and space to indulge his interest in nature, art and science. This lecture takes us on a journey, as we travel with the itinerant genius, from humble beginnings in the small town of Vinci to eventual fame as the Maestro del Disegno at the Court of Milan.

Leslie Primo

Leslie was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and 2007.  He has given lectures and guided tours at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery for 18 years.

Music in Art
Many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. They show us what the instruments looked like and also the social context in which they would have been played.  Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

Sophie Matthews
Sophie is a musician well-known for her prowess.   She plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife, crumhorm and recorder.  When not playing on tours, Sophie also makes instruments. 

Fashion, Fury and Feminism
This lecture shines a light on the intriguing story of women’s love affair with plumage ­ – and of the brave eco feminists who fought back on behalf of the birds. Moving from a polite Victorian tea party to an egret hunt in a Florida swamp; from a suffragette ‘monster rally’ to a milliner’s dusty workshop, you’ll be taken back in time to a world where every woman, of every class wore a hat.

Tessa Boase
Tessa is the author of two books of social history. Her interest lies in uncovering stories of invisible women of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, revealing how they drove industry, propped up high society and manipulated politics. 

Goya:  emerging from the shadows
This talk will focus on the work and times of Francisco Goya. Living through one of the most turbulent times in the history of Spain, Goya will be unravelled through his depictions of himself frequently in shadows or silhouetted against a bright light, sometimes painted over, sometimes hidden and always and against a backdrop of a Bourbon Monarchy in crisis.

Jacqueline Cockburn
Jacqueline is a course director and lecturer at the V&A and also lectures at the Royal Academy and the Art Fund.   Her specialist field is Spanish Art, but she also lectures on European Art 1790-1950.

Plants too are silent witnesses to crimes. Their presence in many crime scenes can help an investigator identify a suspect or locate a victim. Apparently mundane plants such as brambles and nettles can provide valuable insights into when a crime was committed. Fragments of leaves and seeds embedded in soil on the footwear of a suspect can place them at the scene.

 Mark Spencer

Mark has been fascinated by plants since he was a small boy and has a strong interest in the history of botany and botanic gardens, invasive non-native species and the flora of North-West Europe.

Originally a horticulturist, Mark studied horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and botany and mycology at university.  He went on to work as a field botanist for a regional conservation organisation.  After 12 years as a senior botany curator at the Natural History Museum, London he is now a consultant forensic botanist, public speaker and occasional radio and TV presenter. He is the honorary curator of Carl Linnaeus’s herbarium at the Linnean Society of London, one of the most significant collections in the history of science. 

Pop Art is a figurative, realist, brightly-coloured response to the modern world of consumerism, youth culture and the mass media in Britain and the USA. Inspired by popular and commercial culture, Pop artists were fascinated with their own modern era.

Valerie Woodgate is one of our most popular lecturers, having visited the Bodmin Society seven times in the last two decades.  She is a lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, also at many other London galleries. Valerie was a former member of the teaching team at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

At the turn of the last century, Vienna was the capital of a vast empire and one of the most exciting artistic laboratories in the world. It was home to many painters, architects, scientists and musicians.  Gavin explores the context of the society in which the artists worked, and asks how and why the City of Dreams became a cultural hotbed around 1900. 

Gavin Plumley is a well known writer and broadcaster, appearing on the BBC and contributing to newspapers and magazines worldwide. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries.

John Stevens will take us on a tour Calcutta; the second city of the British Empire and a hub of cultural and artistic production throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This lecture explores the fascinating ways in which Indian artists viewed the British in India and how it affected their own art and architecture. 

Dr John Stevens is a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is a regular visitor to India and Bangladesh and publishes widely in the fields of British and Indian history.

The Art of Advertising  

John Francis traces how the advertising industry became so successful and in particular why advertising in the UK is often thought of as Art. After all, Sir John Everett Millais’s painting of Bubbles (1885) was bought for £2,200 to help sell bars of soap! We will explore some of the most successful adverts and unpack the psychological and cultural context behind them. 

John Francis
John is an international speaker.  Initially trained as a painter, later in his career John produced and directed several short films and animations. He has taught at the University of Exeter, Brunel University, London and Kingston University.

Wine has been part of our global society for over 7,000 years, and this story tells of its origin and appearance in all societies across the Mediterranean and through Europe. There is 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 the story.

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

Buckingham was a beauty, and he surrounded himself with beautiful things. He enjoyed exquisite clothes and he was a superb dancer. He was also a discerning patron. Inigo Jones renovated his houses. John Tradescant was his garden designer.  In his great house on the Strand he put together a collection of art works as fine as King Charles’s. 
At the age of 35 Buckingham was murdered and his collection was scattered. We will see some of the magnificent paintings he owned - the Titians, the Tintorettos, the Veroneses.  He was also a patron, commissioning boldly innovative new work by artists such as Van Honthorst, Van Dyck and Rubens.

Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Lucy is a cultural historian, author and biographer. Her book on Gabriele d’Annunzio, The Pike, was described in The Sunday Times as ‘the biography of the decade’.   Her novel, Peculiar Ground, is largely set in the 17th century, and narrated by a landscape designer loosely based on the great diarist John Evelyn.
Lucy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Historical Association.   She has written on books, theatre and the visual arts for a number of publications, including The Sunday Times, The Observer, The New Statesman and the TLS, and for Radio 3’s Night Waves. She is Chair of the Judges for the 2021 International Booker Prize

In 1900 the Hungarian-born scholar, Aurel Stein, took leave from his post in Lahore to embark on an expedition to the largely unexplored area of Chinese Central Asia. He was seduced by the richness of the remains revealed under the desert sands and, immediately on his return, started planning his next expedition. Lack of funds, political impediments, remoteness of the sites, or age and illness did nothing to deter him. He remained indefatigable: he started his last expedition, to Afghanistan, in his 81st year. 

This lecture looks at his life, explorations, the sites and cultures he uncovered and the impact of his work on our understanding of the Silk Road today.  

Dr Susan Whitfield
Susan is a writer, scholar, lecturer and traveler of the Silk Roads. During 25 years curating the collections of over 50,000 medieval manuscripts from central Asia at the British Library, she also helped found and then developed an international collaboration working on the art and artefacts of the eastern Silk Roads.
Her latest book, “Silk Roads: Peoples, Culture and Landscapes”, was published by Thames & Hudson in October 2019 and translated into six languages.

Raphael was one of the greatest and most influential of all painters, a superstar even in his own lifetime, who remains a byword for classic perfection. This lecture surveys his life and work, from his origins in Urbino, his early years in Florence, his meteoric rise to fame at the papal court in Rome, to his sudden death at the height of his powers, aged only 37. We look at such masterpieces as the Vatican Stanze, the Sistine Madonna, the Transfiguration and the famous Vatican tapestries, charting his astonishing artistic evolution and explaining his importance in the history of art.

Dr Paula Nuttall

Paula is the Director of the V&A Medieval and Renaissance Year Course. Specialist in Renaissance art, both Italian and northern European, on which she has published widely, notably “From Flanders to Florence: the Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500” She has collaborated on major exhibitions including Jan van Eyck: an Optical Revolution (Ghent, 2020). Formerly she was a lecturer at the Courtauld Institute and the British Institute of Florence.

Those opera singers - how do they make all that noise? Why do they feel they need to make all that noise?  This is an exploration of the extraordinary capacity of humans to sing on an opera stage. A brief potted history of the development of opera and opera houses will help us discover why modern operatic singing has developed in the way it has.
This talk is designed to appeal both to the ardent opera lover and to those who might ordinarily say they have no particular interest in the art form.

Tim Mirfin

Tim is a singer who has sung major roles and solo concerts in opera houses and concert halls round the world. He now lives in Devon, chasing after three young children, pets and a flock of chickens, teaching singing and running a local community choir. He believes, with some first-hand evidence, that almost everyone can sing, even if they think they can't!

Jazz is one of music’s most important genres: a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free-wheeling creativity, close-knit ensembles and imaginative improvisation. Drawing on his experience both as musicologist and gigging musician, Sandy can shed light on jazz from the inside. His talk covers the early years of jazz up to the Second World War, and touches on the disparate influences which lay behind the emergence of jazz. The talk is accompanied by musical illustrations.

Sandy Burnett

Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. He combines engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise.  

Mankind has exploited the medicinal properties of plants for thousands of years, yet the role of plants in modern medicine is still considered to be peripheral by many people. This talk attempts to put the record straight and to show that plant products are used every day by all of us to relieve pain and suffering, to heal wounds and cure diseases. 
Gardens are often thought of a place where science and art meet on equal terms. This lecture investigates this relationship. 

Timothy Walker

Timothy was a director of the Oxford University Botanic Garden from 1988 to 2014. Botanic gardens are described as living museums, and garden curators lecture about them in the same way as museum curators talk about their collections. Since 2014 he has been a college lecturer and tutor at Somerville College Oxford. 

Bridget Riley is a well-known name in British art, famous for her black and white paintings of the 1960s that play upon the eye and are associated with Op Art.  However, where does her work fit within the context of the development of abstract art more generally? In this talk, Anna looks at the paths abstract painting took during this decade and how her work relates to international directions.  Anna also discusses how Riley’s later colourful paintings relate to nature and to a tradition of art found on the walls of the National Gallery.

Anna Moszynska

Anna is a London-based lecturer and writer specialising in contemporary art. During the 1990s, she oversaw the development of the first British Master’s Degree in the subject at Sotheby’s Institute. She has taught at the Royal Academy and Tate London, as well as lecturing in cities ranging from Dubai to New York. Anna’s books include Abstract Art (1990, enlarged ed. 2020) and Sculpture Now (2013).

This well known painting by Jan Van Eyck dated 1431 was traditionally called 'The Arnolfini Marriage'. Today it is just referred to as 'The Arnolfini Double Portrait' as much research has somewhat changed the perception of it. Jonathan will take us on a tour of the painting during which we will touch on beds, furniture, chandeliers , mirrors, oranges, windows, dogs, candles, carpets, clothing and much else besides.
He will also discuss the Arnolfini themselves, how they came up from Lucca to live in the court at Bruges, and the life and career of Jan Van Eyck, one of the greatest painters who has ever lived.

Jonathan Weeks

He was born into a farming family in Buckinghamshire and was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School. While studying archaeology at Reading University he developed an interest in Medieval Musical instruments, particularly in the crumhorn and shawm. After 15 years working on the farm he moved to Somerset and began lecturing in earnest principally on the instruments but also on late Medieval paintings. 
In 2018, shortly before he came to us in 2019, life changed immeasurably when his house was destroyed by fire. Miraculously most of the instruments survived, but not much else!

This painting is in the National Gallery, London

In building SS Great Britain, the second of his three great ships, Brunel successfully combined and adapted the very best of cutting-edge technologies to create the world’s first transatlantic liner – a true wonder of the Victorian age. 

She was the first ocean-going steamship with an iron hull, and the first driven by a propeller. This extraordinary ship, launched in 1843 as the largest and fastest afloat, transformed shipbuilding and sea travel for ever.

 The talk also describes her incredible salvage and return to Bristol in 1970, and finally her restoration, preservation and ‘re-launch’ as a multi-award winning museum of international renown.

Ian Caskie

Ian was born and raised on Merseyside, where he spent many an hour watching the arrivals and departures at Liverpool’s busy Pier Head in the 1950s and 60s. This led to his lifelong passion for ships – especially ocean liners. Ian has been a Visitor Experience volunteer with the SS Great Britain Trust since 2007.

Is Christmas in Good Taste?

Even in ancient Rome people made complaints about the mid-winter Saturnalia celebrations, remarkably like the ones we hear today about our commercialised Christmas. In a light-hearted historical review we discover some wonderful and some gloriously awful Christmas imagery, from Giotto’s painting of the first Christmas crib until Dickens meets Coca Cola amongst the movers and shakers who sometimes seem to have turned Christmas into Kitschmas.

David Phillips

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

Mr. Fezziwig's Ball, illustration by John Leech for Dickens's 'Christmas Carol'.

The Work of Angels: The Book of Kells and its contemporaries 

The Book of Kells is widely regarded as one of Ireland's finest national treasures. The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, which was its home for centuries. The illustrations and ornamentation of the Book of Kells surpass that of other Insular Gospel books in extravagance and complexity.

Tom Duncan

After many years spent in University life, Tom has retired from teaching to concentrate on lecturing to a wider public, and to leading tours to his major areas of interest: the architecture and archaeology of Ireland, and the Mediterranean basin.

Virgin and Child: This is possibly the oldest extant image of the Virgin Mary in a Western manuscript.

Women behind the Lens

The work of women photographers has often been unfairly neglected. This lecture seeks to correct that by examining the contribution of three outstanding British practitioners; Julia Margaret Cameron, a Victorian pioneer; Jane Bown, a brilliant portraitist; and Fay Godwin, who excelled in landscape photography. We also explore the work of two highly influential Americans: Dorothea Lange, who produced brilliant documentary images and Annie Leibovitz, who continues to both surprise and delight her audience.

Brian Stater

Brian Stater is a Senior Teaching Fellow at University College London.  He is a member of the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography and he works with a pre-War Leica camera, as used by his great hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The Most Infamous Family in History: the Borgias

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, his son, Cesare, the model for Machiavelli’s The Prince, and the infamous Lucrezia Borgia. 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 and has published thirteen novels. 

 Her last five novels have been set within the Italian Renaissance. Her recent novel, In the Name of the Family, completes the story of the Borgia family and the remarkable period of Italian history in which they lived.

Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI

Caravaggio:  Murderer or Genius?

Caravaggio’s paintings inspired many artists during his lifetime and would go on to influence many more, from Rubens to Rembrandt.

His style spread across Europe and gave rise to the international movement known as ‘Caravaggism’. Yet for many, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is famed as much for his criminal record as for his art. Was it the violence of his times or his own violent spirit that inspired the dramatic lighting and intense naturalism of his work? This lecture follows the dramatic incidents of the artist’s life and looks at why and how his influence spread so far.

Julia Musgrave

Julia Musgrave got her first degree in Chemical Engineering and went on to become a Chartered Information Systems Engineer and IT project manager. In 2008 she decided that life was too short for just one career and decided to become an art historian.

She has a Graduate Diploma in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art. She is currently working towards her Ph.D. at the University of York.  She is a lecturer in Art History at the City Literary Institute (City Lit).

The Musicians, 1597, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Elgin Marbles

It is now around 200 years since the purchase of the so-called 'Elgin Marbles' from Lord Elgin, by the British Parliament. This lecture, beautifully illustrated with specifically taken slides and video, will explore the aesthetics, the back-story, and the heated debates surrounding these fascinating and controversial works of ancient Greek art.

Staff and vistors in the Temporary Elgin Room of the British Museum

Stephen Kershaw

Dr Kershaw has spent much of the last 30 years travelling extensively in the world of the Greeks and Romans both physically and intellectually. He has published A Brief Guide to the Greek Myths and A Brief Guide to Classical Civilization and is currently working on A Brief Guide to the Roman Empire.

The Genius of Beethoven

Famously, every morning of his adult life, Beethoven measured out exactly 60 coffee beans for his breakfast.  A man who is capable of such discipline over a cup of coffee, can surely apply that exactness elsewhere in his life; and in Beethoven’s case, it was applied to his compositions.  This lecture explores Beethoven’s genius as a writer of music, at the same time setting his extraordinary story against the backdrop of 19th century warfare, revolution and dramatic social changes. 

Peter Medhurst

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

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.  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.

Mark Cottle

Mark was 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

Note:The lecture by Susie Harris on Pevsner in Cornwall: Nikolas Pevsner and the Buildings of England has had to be postponed to 2022

Paula Rego: Painting women on the edge and telling tales of the unexpected

Paula Rego is a British artist of Portuguese origin best known for her depictions of folk tales and strikingly unusual images of women.

In her early days, Paula experimented with many different styles, including abstraction, and was very much influenced by Surrealism, but her mature style places a strong emphasis on clear draughtsmanship and the human figure. She produces works full of psychological tension, drama, and emotion. Frequently she depicts women and girls in disturbing or ambiguous situations and poses, which has occasionally caused some controversy, but her insistence on the physicality of her female figures, and her refusal to idealise or revert to cliché, has earned her global recognition.

Linda Smith

Linda has two first-class degrees in Art History and a broad knowledge of art historical subjects, but she specialises in British Art and twentieth century art. She is a lecturer and guide, especially at Tate Britain and Tate Modern.

The Bride is in the Tate Collection

The Extraordinary life of Misia Sert, “Queen of Paris” 1877-1950

This is an extraordinary and fascinating story of a talented and beautiful woman who was a muse and patron of the arts who has been described as ‘The Queen of Paris’.

Born the daughter of a Polish sculptor living in France, Misia was brought up in Brussels and Paris.  She was a pupil of Gabriel Fauré and became a noted concert pianist. She had three wealthy and influential husbands and consequently she was able to enjoy her role as a wealthy patron of artists and musicians.

Julian Halsby

Julian studied History of Art at Cambridge. He has published works on Venice, Diana Armfield RA and Scottish Watercolours, among others. He is a practising artist and he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1994.

Due to the Covid situation, this will be a Zoom lecture at the same time as the normal lecture.

Nothing says Christmas Like an Axe Fight: 

The Courtly Spectacles of the Renaissance, Armour and Artists

Tobias Capwell

Toby is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London and an internationally-acknowledged authority on Medieval and Renaissance weapons. He is the author of numerous books on the subject of arms and armour, including Masterpieces of European Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection.  In 2015 Toby had the unusual honour of serving as one of the two fully armoured horsemen escorting the remains of King Richard III, from the battlefield at Bosworth to their final resting place in Leicester Cathedral.

Due to the Covid situation, this will be a Zoom lecture at the same time as the normal lecture.

[Mark Cottle:  unfortunately Mark Cottle, who was going to give us a lecture on Churchill, has been taken ill and will not be able to give his lecture on this day.  We hope he will be able to join us in the New Year.]

The Art of State Ceremonial Music

We are delighted that in his place, Graham Jones will be with us on Zoom.  He will answer the questions why, and how, do we in the UK have some of the biggest and best Ceremonial Events in the world?     How do the military prepare for major events such as the State Opening of Parliament, State Visits, National Day of Remembrance, Royal Weddings or even a State Funeral?

This presentation takes a look behind the scenes to see how the music of these Ceremonial  Events come together. Graham’s passion for his topic is infectious with many anecdotes, pictures and video footage from his outstanding career.

Graham Jones

Dr Graham Jones started his professional life as a musician in the British Army and after 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 unequalled throughout military music in Great Britain. During his illustrious career he has recorded over 40 albums and been responsible for the largest commissioning programme of wind band music in recent history, commissioning over 30 new works for wind band. He pioneered a music education programme with the University of Salford for military musicians resulting in a new Master of Music in Performance degree. Graham was made a Member of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace for outstanding service to military music in 1993.

Photo courtesy of UK Ministry of Defence 2018, Cpl Stephen Harvey

Our programme of Autumn lectures has been revised owing to Covid19 and Government regulations.  We will meet again on Wednesday 14th October, at Wadebridge Town Hall, to have a lecture on "Garbo to Garland - The Magical Art of Hollywood" from the popular local Arts Society lecturer, Gari Parlby.  

From Garbo to Garland - the Magical Art of Hollywood

Lights, Camera, Action! – inside stories of the art and artifice of the early decades of Hollywood. This lecture covers the work of stills photographers, costumiers, publicists, actors and actresses and the movie moguls who made it all happen.

Geri Parlby

Geri is a former Fleet Street journalist and film publicist. She has a first class honours degree in History and Theology, a Masters in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute and a Theology doctorate from Roehampton University in London. She has been lecturing for the past eleven years both in the UK and internationally. She is also principal lecturer on the The Arts Society South West Area’s History of Art course and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Roehampton University

The lecture on Aurel Stein and the Silk Road by Susan Whitfield has been post-poned until 2022 due to the Coronavirus pandemic.  

Our September lecture will be on-line via YouTube and available any time to suit you from
 Monday 7th September to Sunday 13th September

To view the lecture, click on the link below.
It will become active just after midnight on Sept. 6th.
https://youtu.be/PmET1OXijBg

Leni Riefenstahl (1902 - 2013) was undoubtedly one of the most creative women of the twentieth century.  From her early days dancing on Berlin’s stages, to becoming an actress and then producing her own films that attracted Hitler - she was always difficult and uncompromising in what she wanted to achieve. Her films of the 1934 Nuremburg Nazi rally and the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games were exceptional using techniques that were way ahead of their time and still used in documentaries today!

After the war she was ostracised and faced three Nazi tribunals but cleared by all of them. She then went to live with a remote African tribe filming stunning documentaries. At 87 she learnt to scuba dive and filmed coral reefs. Over her hundred years, her legacy is fascinating, exciting, unbelievable and brought to life in this extraordinary lecture, with many film clips, photographs and ephemera.

Howard Smith

Howard Smith is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and specialises in Graphic Icons of the Twentieth Century from 1900 to 1950s. All his lectures are highly graphic presentations, entertaining, nostalgic and heavily researched. They contain high resolution graphics, sound and film clips as well as ephemera, artwork and rare items from major collections. Each lecture lasts one hour. 

Born during the Second World War, Howard was educated in Scotland and gained an MA from Trinity College, Dublin. In the 1960s he worked for UK and International Advertising Agencies before starting his own marketing and print company in Canterbury.   For over thirty years he has had a very close relationship with art and artists, producing show catalogues, publishing art books and working as an arts stakeholder.  He is an incurable collector of children’s publications.

Due to the C-virus restrictions there will be no live meeting on 9th September. 

The Opera Singer Phenomenon

Due to the C-virus restrictions there will be no meeting on 10th June.

This lecture has been post-poned until 2022

Those opera singers - how do they make all that noise? Why do they feel they need to make all that noise?  This is an exploration of the extraordinary capacity of humans to sing on an opera stage.  This talk is designed to appeal both to the ardent opera lover and to those who might ordinarily say they have no particular interest in the art form.

Tim Mirfin

Tim is a singer who has sung major roles and solo concerts in opera houses and concert halls round the world. He now lives in Devon, teaching singing and running a local community choir. He believes, with some first-hand evidence, that almost everyone can sing, even if they think they can't.

The Age of Jazz

Due to the C-virus restrictions there will be no meeting on 13 May.  

This lecture has been post-poned until 2022

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, a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free-wheeling creativity, close-knit ensemble work and improvisation. Drawing on his practical experience Sandy is able to shed light on jazz from the inside and his musical illustrations range from the blues, ragtime and the very earliest jazz recordings through to classics by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and the dawn of the Swing Era.

Sandy Burnett

Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. He combines engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise. 

Art of the 21st Century

Due to the C-virus restrictions there will be no meeting on 8th April.  

This lecture has been post-poned until 2022

How do we make sense of the art of our time? In this lecture Anna will examine some of the recent trends and practices which have helped to define the art of the new millennium. She will show how under the influence of globalisation, art from other continents, which has so often been overlooked, now plays a major role in museum acquisitions and displays. The artists discussed include Ai Weiwei, Francis Alys, Jeremy Deller, Adrian Ghenie and Mona Hatoum.

Anna Moszynska

Anna is a lecturer and writer specialising in contemporary art. During the 1990s, she oversaw the development of the first British Master’s Degree in the subject at Sotheby’s Institute and has published two books on Modern Art.  She enjoys introducing art to audiences in a lively and approachable way to make modern and contemporary art both accessible and interesting.

Image : Richard Long's "Wliderness Dreaming (slate)" at Earth Sky exhibition, Houghton Hall, Norfolk

From Downton to Gatsby, Jewellery and Fashion 1890 to1929

For the TV series Downton Abbey, Andrew Prince was commissioned to produce many jewels for the main characters. In this talk you are guided through the extraordinary periods and events between 1890 and 1929, when the great fashion houses collaborated with the finest of jewellers to produce works of art of outstanding quality and glittering opulence. 

Andrew Prince

Andrew Prince has had a passion for making jewellery since he was a small child. In 2002, the V&A commissioned him to produce a collection of jewels to accompany the Tiaras, Past and Present exhibition which became one of their most popular exhibitions. The exposure gained by this show then led to Andrew's jewellery appearing in films and TV.

Lawrence of Arabia: excavating a legend

‘Lawrence of Arabia’ is an early 20th century instance of celebrity culture.  On the basis of sensational new evidence from archaeological fieldwork, this lecture will contrast the legend of Lawrence of Arabia with the true story of what happened in the famous desert war of 1916 to 1918. 

The image is from a portrait by Augustus John at the Tate Gallery

Neil Faulkner

Educated at King's College Cambridge and Institute of Archaeology, UCL, Neil works as lecturer, writer, archaeologist and TV broadcaster. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol.

Between 1885 and 1916, Carl Fabergé made fifty jewelled eggs .  These were Easter presents from Russia’s last two emperors to their wives.  What happened to them is a fascinating story which combines unique decorative art, contemporary culture, history and the murder of the Romanovs with the excitement of a crime novel.

Toby Faber

Toby has written two works of narrative history, Stradivarius and Fabergé's Eggs, published by Macmillan and Random House, and given lectures associated with these two subjects at venues in Britain and the USA. His career began with Natural Sciences at Cambridge and has worked in investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Faber and Faber.

Image courtesy of the Forbes Collection, New York. Photographed by Joseph Cosica Jr. Copyright © All rights reserved.

From the earliest days of Christianity the story of the Three Kings has fascinated story-tellers and artists alike. This lecture traces the ways in which artists across the centuries have chosen to represent the Magi. 

Rev Christopher Herbert

Christopher makes another welcome return to Bodmin. He has lectured at the National Gallery, the Courtauld Institute, King’s College, London, Westminster Abbey, and the University of Rikkyo in Japan, and at churches and cathedrals throughout England and in Italy. He was until recently Bishop of St Albans and a member of the House of Lords.

He has an MPhil and PhD in Art History from the University of Leicester.

The AGM will precede this lecture.

Widely known for his outlandish appearances dressed as his feminine alter ego, Claire, Grayson Perry is now a core part of the art establishment. A Turner Prize winner, Royal Academician, popular broadcaster and colourful character. He’s possibly one of the world’s best known contemporary artists. His works of ceramics, textiles, tapestries and prints are highly sought after. Often controversial, he tackles difficult subjects in a poignant yet witty way and holds a mirror up to society. This talk will examine Grayson Perry’s work, his exciting and thought-provoking exhibitions, and the unique character inside the flamboyant frocks.

Ian Swankie

Ian is a Londoner with a passion for art and architecture. He is an official guide 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 an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society, and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars

There is no name more evocative of Bohemian life: of high spirits, decadence, poverty, and revolutionary art in Paris, than Montmartre. In reality it was little more than a rundown suburb overlooking the city, bristling with windmills. But the garden cafes, the dance halls and cabarets, and the ramshackle studios that spilled down the hillside of Montmartre would become the inspiration and home to some of France's greatest artists. 

From the Moulin de la Galette where Renoir painted Parisians dancing in the afternoon sunlight, to Toulouse Lautrec's vivid images of the Moulin Rouge, the smoke filled cabaret where the can-can was danced to Offenbach's music, to the shabby garrets of the Bateau Lavoir where a group of artists headed by Picasso would paint canvases that would shake the foundations of Western art, this lecture charts the course of this extraordinary artistic life.

Douglas Skeggs

Cambridge Fine Arts. Writer, Artist, TV Presenter. Lecturer to many London art courses. Director of the New Academy of Arts. Author of 6 Novels.

An extraordinary story of a self-educated man who was shipwrecked, bankrupted, widowed twice, yet kick-started the Gothic revival and changed the face of Victorian England before he went mad and died at the age of 40.

Hugh Ellwood

Hugh studied philosophy in Rome, followed by a degree in architecture at the University of Manchester. Previously he was an architect partner with Building Design Partnership, the largest multi-discipline design organisation in the UK, and was for some years an external examiner in architecture at the University of Manchester.   Hugh is a practising watercolourist, and has also lectured extensively to various societies and organisations, including cruises, on art and architecture

The moving image has been a powerful source for imagination from the first moment a magic lantern flickered into life in the 17th century. In this lecture we will be looking at how the Motion Pictures industry first developed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. How it then went on to change the face of entertainment and inspire the imaginations of some of the greatest artists of the early 20th century. 

Geri Parlby

Geri is a former Fleet Street journalist and film publicist. She has a first class honours degree in History and Theology, a Masters in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute and a Theology doctorate from Roehampton University in London. She has been lecturing for the past eleven years both in the UK and internationally. She is also principal lecturer on the The Arts Society South West Area’s History of Art course and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Roehampton University.

Ever since the mysterious double panel painting known as the Wilton Diptych was acquired for the National Gallery in 1929, speculations regarding its origins have been rife, because although many discoveries have been made regarding its subject, we are still non-the-wiser regarding its origins. Who are the characters in this painting?  What are they trying to tell us? What can this painting tell us about England or for that matter Europe at the turn of the 15th century?  For what purpose was this enigmatic painting made, and why it has come to represent the quintessential example of a style of painting we have come to call International Gothic? 

Leslie Primo

Leslie holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. He was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and 2007, and 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.

Through the lens of the Wilton Diptych this lecture will look at Medieval England, patronage, saints and kingship, and also unearth the many hidden signs and symbols in this painting that have been slowly revealing themselves to us over the past 80 years or so with detailed close-up, looking at the physical material of the painting to bring to life not only the Wilton Diptych, but also the time in which it was made.

Charles John Huffam Dickens brought into the world a staggering array of wonderful characters with orphans, starving children, misers, murderers and abusive school teachers among them. People such as Mr Micawber, Fagin and Abel Magwitch remain in one’s literary psyche long after the books are put down. Largely self-educated, Dickens possessed the genius to become the greatest writer of his age with 15 major novels and countless short stories and articles. In his lecture Bertie Pearce looks at the life and places of Dickens through his characters. The talk is interspersed with readings of this works. A truly Dickensian experience.

Bertie Pearce

Bertie makes a welcome return to Bodmin this month.  He has a BA (Hons) in Drama from Manchester University, and a Diploma Internationale from the École Internationale du Théatre, Jacques Lecoq. A member of the Inner Magic Circle, with Gold Star. Past experience includes lecturing and performing on cruise ships, and to U3A, historical societies, festivals, schools and colleges. In addition, has toured the world with a magic cabaret show and a one man show entitled “All Aboard”.

The Huguenot Silk Weavers of Spitalfields: from Riches to Rags

Welcomed at first with open arms and bringing luxury skills, the Huguenots’ fortunes fluctuated wildly. I talk about their early 18th-century houses that still stand, how they were decorated and lived in; I discuss the fashionable patterned silk dresses – who designed and made them. And how, finally the trade died out, with some weavers literally dying in poverty at their looms. One of the weavers’ houses can still be visited today. 

Sue Jackson

Originally in art and design publishing (Phaidon and Yale University Press), 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.

Stonehenge is the most celebrated and sophisticated prehistoric stone circle in the British Isles. This lecture explains why Stonehenge must be regarded as architectural in its layout and construction, embodying  techniques that for centuries convinced antiquarians that it could not have been built by ‘primitive’ ancient Britons but must be a product of ‘sophisticated’ Romans.

We then explore how, over the last two centuries, this iconic structure has inspired painters, potters and poets. Blake, Turner, Constable and Moore are amongst those who have all been drawn to this magnificent ruin, resulting in a diverse catalogue of images and impressions. Finally, we will look at Stonehenge as a global icon and how it’s instantly recognisable stones now grace tea towels in Wiltshire, phone cards in Japan and stamps from Bhutan.

Julian Richards

Julian Richards is an archaeologist, writer, educator and former broadcaster on TV and Radio. A graduate of Reading University and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, he has been involved with Stonehenge for nearly 40 years and is the author of a number of books on this subject.

You will hear about 20 different instruments that demonstrate how Medieval man developed the horn and string family, they will all be played with varying degrees of painfullness, everything from a tromba marina to a rommel pot. The talk will be copiously illustrated with pictures of the instruments in their original settings.

Jonathan Weeks

Jonathan Weeks is an Archaeology graduate from Reading University who has been studying, collecting and playing Medieval musical instruments for about 40 years. He has lectured widely on the subject in the West Country over the last 25 years since he moved from Buckinghamshire to Somerset. 

He last visited us in December 2016

The birth of Jesus has inspired many artists. This lecture illustrates how painters throughout history have represented various episodes such as the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Adoration of the Magi and the Flight into Egypt.

Richard Box                                    

Richard is a freelance artist (drawing, painting and embroidery), lecturer, teacher and author since 1985.  He has taught in schools from nursery to secondary.  He was previously Head of Art at Avery Hill College of Education.

He presently teaches and lectures to adults at Education Centres and to independent organisations.

Years of working as an artist within the Criminal Justice System in England and Germany have given Angela unique insights into the destructive and costly cycle of crime, prisons and re-offending. In this thought-provoking talk she offers a deeper understanding of the minds, lives and challenges of offenders. And, with extraordinary slides of art projects and prisoner’s art, she demonstrates how within the process of creating art of any discipline, there are vital opportunities for offenders to confront their crimes and develop the key life skills so essential in leading a positive and productive life.

Angela Finlay                                    

Angela Findlay is a professional artist, writer and freelance lecturer with a long standing interest in the role the arts and the creative process can play in bringing about changes, on a personal level or within societies. Her long career of teaching art in prisons and Young Offender Institutions in Germany and England gave her many insights into the huge impact the arts can have in terms of rehabilitation. She is currently advising the Ministry of Justice.

One of the most original British artists of his generation, Spencer’s art was dominated by his personal life and his profound religious faith. 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.  This lecture will examine the eccentric and visionary world of one of the most creative and imaginative British painters of the 20th century.

Valerie Woodgate                                

Valerie was one of the first lecturer to come to BODFAS and has returned on several occasions.   She is a Guide in Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and in other major galleries, including the Dulwich Picture Gallery.  She is a script-writer for Living Paintings Trust (art for the blind and partially-sighted).

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.

Against the luxurious backdrop of 18th century Venice, and with live musical performances, this lecture explores the amazing world of Vivaldi’s music – music that is as intrinsically Venetian as the canvasses of Canaletto.

Peter Medhurst                                    

Peter is well known to many of our members.  He appears in the UK and abroad as a musician and scholar, giving recitals and delivering illustrated lectures on music and the arts. He studied singing and early keyboard instruments at the Royal College of Music and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

Modern sculpture is mysterious to many people.  Frequently abstract or distorted in form, and it is complicated, rather than illuminated, by critical jargon. It seems difficult and inaccessible.  Yet everywhere we go, we see sculpture - invading our space, demanding to have attention paid.  That is what makes it so challenging, and potentially so rewarding.  

     The viewing of sculpture is an exploration, an adventure, something to be enjoyed.  This lecture sets out to prove that we can all be explorers.

Justine Hopkins

Justine studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and has lectured regularly for Tate Britain, Tate Modern, V&A, National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, as well as to Oxbridge and Bristol Universities.  She is a published author and has broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

Charles shows us that technical innovation, combined with creative genius and remarkable craftsmanship, enabled the Poster to become the world’s first effective method of mass communication. From ‘Les Chats’ by Edouard Manet to ‘Saxoleine’ by Jules Cheret and ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ‘Divan Japonais’ by Toulouse-Lautrec, you’ll see inspirational work by generations of superb artists who made the poster great: magnificent Mucha, socially-conscious Steinlen, and many more. Learn how an effective poster is designed and how it plays on the mind; and why most posters today go unnoticed.

Charles Harris                                    

Charles was a global-award winning Creative Director of international advertising agencies and has lectured extensively on design, illustration and photographic styles as they have influenced the building of brands. He has himself created posters for major brands including British Airways, Nestlé, Sony, General Motors and Shell.

In this illustrated lecture, Sarah Dunant, international bestselling novelist of the Italian renaissance, shares the secrets of her trade. To recreate the past as a living, breathing place, Sarah has visited churches, archives, museums and art galleries all over Italy. This is the story of her discoveries; how the decoding of old paintings alongside the work of the most modern historians helped her to penetrate hidden worlds inside the Renaissance, finding wonder and drama in ordinary lives and exploring the complexities of politics and religion along with emotion, the senses, and the heady appetites of body and soul.

Sarah Dunant  

Novelist, broadcaster and critic.  Sarah read history at Cambridge, then worked for many years as a cultural journalist in radio and television. She has published thirteen novels, and her last five novels have been set within the Italian Renaissance.

Heatherwick’s Studio brings craft, design and urban planning together in a single workspace. The Studio’s design process is independent of scale: from individual items, such as the Zip Bag for the French firm Longchamp, to large urban spaces, the same process  is applied to produce elegant and ingenious results. Who doesn’t remember Heatherwick’s Olympic Cauldron with its breathtaking giant ring of fire when it was revealed at the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games in 2012? 

Born in 1970, Heatherwick’s innovative approach is now in demand all over the world, and the lecture will highlight the broad range of his designs. 

Anthea Streeter                                     

Anthea studied Fine and Decorative Arts in London and Harvard University. It was while at Harvard that she became interested in 20th century architecture. Since returning from America she has taught on courses in Oxford and London and for several private groups around the country. Her special interest is in the architecture and design of 20th century.

A small team of French and Turkish archaeologists found a Roman city on the banks of the Euphrates, with mosaics and wall-paintings finer than those of Pompeii. However, just beside them was the almost completed Birecik Dam, and the Turks had begun to flood the great reservoir behind it, taking the city under water. This lecture tells the story of the extraordinary archaeological rescue excavation that then took place and the fabulous treasures recovered.

Louise Schofield                                     

Having been Curator of Greek Bronze Age and Geometric Antiquities in the British Museum for thirteen years, Louise now works on international archaeological projects, principally in Turkey and Albania. She lectures for a number of universities and institutions, including Florida State University, Christie's Education and cruise companies.

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. 

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.  He was invited by the Royal Academy to exhibit in 2015's summer exhibition.

How did the remains of Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop from Myra in Turkey, reach Bari, Italy in 1087? And how did this rather obscure churchman become the patron saint of sailors, merchants, prisoners and children in the Byzantine Empire and Western Europe? This lecture explores the development of St Nicholas’ medieval cult through the artefacts associated with it: icons, wall paintings and illuminated manuscripts, and charts his eventual transformation into the well-loved Santa Claus.  

Sally Dormer

Sally is a lecturer and tutor for the Early Medieval Year Course at V&A. She is also Dean of 'European Studies' for 2 US Universities and a freelance lecturer for The Art Fund.

Works of art and functional tools

In this talk you are invited to look at maps from their origin to the present, consider them as works of art and as functional tools. Jeremy will assess the particular challenges of mapping, and of representation and consider the range of maps, both thematic and geographical.

Jeremy Black

Jeremy graduated from Cambridge and then undertook graduate work at Oxford. He became a professor at Exeter in 1996. He has lectured around the world and has appeared on both radio and television, most recently presenting a BBC2 programme on the Industrial Revolution.

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!   In addition to a wide range of examples John will examine how illustrations contribute to the development of understanding and how the interaction of image and narrative creates such powerful memories.

John Ericson

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.  His diverse interests include Pub Signs, Children’s Book Illustrations and the Shakers of North America.

‘A Caterpillar on the Green Leaf of Reputation’

James Gillray may well be the greatest political cartoonist who ever lived. He did not invent the art of caricature, but in his hands it became a highly sophisticated and inventive aspect of the visual culture of his day.  Through his work, we can get a glimpse of the riotous society in which he lived, and see how the larger-than-life public figures and political personalities of the times were viewed by this master of disrespect. 

Linda Smith

Linda holds two first-class degrees in Art History.  She is an experienced guide and lecturer at Tate Britain, Tate Modern and the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

This lecture introduces us to the architectural writings and opinions of John Betjeman, discussing the history of the buildings he used as examples and exploring structures as diverse as churches, houses and pleasure piers. A man who made the unpopular fashionable and who was a pioneer in the subject of the sociological impact of buildings, John Betjeman was a popular but controversial figure.

John Vigar

Professional ecclesiastical historian, author and broadcaster for over 35 years, John has visited and recorded over 13,000 churches in England and Wales. He is a trustee of the oldest church preservation society in Britain - The Friends of Friendless Churches.

Immortalised in Cole Porter’s lyrics, the Waldorf Astoria hotel was ‘home in New York to the stars’, international celebrities and world leaders. Built at the height of the Depression and famous before it opened, its glittering Jazz Age interiors were created by leading European designers, artists and sculptors. We will also explore the intriguing story of the hotel’s equally iconic predecessor on Fifth Avenue.  This lecture recreates the stunning interiors of both hotels, the personalities who created them, and the stars who met, feasted and lived there.

Mary Alexander

Mary has thirty years' experience as a lecturer, with a BA in History and History of Art and a MA with distinction in History of Art from University College London. Her experience includes public lectures in museums, tutoring for the Open University, visiting lecturer at Christie's Education in London, museum curator at Platt Hall, the Gallery of Costume, Manchester.

Bestiaries are the famous medieval illuminated manuscripts describing the animals of the world, known and mythical.   They contain enchanting accounts of the creatures’ supposed characteristics and habits, some unexpectedly accurate, some wildly credulous.    The lecture, which is profusely illustrated, will look at the real purpose of Bestiaries, why they were made and how they were used, and it will show their importance in understanding medieval art and the concepts of the natural world.

Christropher de Hamel

A Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Christopher is probably the best-known expert on medieval manuscripts in the world and has given public lectures in six continents.   His new book, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, was published in 2016.

(Note: This is a change from the lecture that was previously advised.)

It is about 600 years since the birth of Piero della Francesca so the perfect opportunity to revisit the work of this enigmatic painter. His grave, solid figures set in a timeless landscape and lit by a clear light encapsulate the harmony of man and a world that lay at the heart of Italian Renaissance thought.  Whether working in the service of the church or of his patron, Federigo da Montefeltro, his paintings radiate a serenity and timelessness.

Shirley Smith

With a first class honours degree in the History of Art, specialising in the Italian and Northern Renaissance, Shirley is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a part-time lecturer for the University of East Anglia and for the Department of Continuing Education of the University of Cambridge.  She is particularly keen to set the art and architecture of the period in the context of the society for which it was produced.

(Image from The Web Gallery of Art)

Three Empresses of China and the fate of the Imperial Art Collection

In Ancient China, the phoenix, a bird of myth and legend, symbolised the Empress, consort to the Dragon Emperor. This lecture focuses on three Empresses who lived in the Forbidden City from the 18th century to the end of empire in 1911.  Their history reaches back to a golden age of art patronage and expansion of the vast Imperial collection, through the opium wars and twilight days of Empire, to the Warlord era of the 20th century. 

The phoenix is also the Imperial art collection itself, which was reborn from the ashes of Empire and civil war.

Anne Haworth

Anne is a lecturer at the V&A and a guide for private tours of the State Rooms and the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace.  In Autumn 2002, she catalogued the collection of Chinese porcelain at Kensington Palace.  From 1995 to 2002, was resident in Shanghai, China, where she visited ancient kiln sites and lectured to expatriate groups.

Through centuaries of art men have often been shown to be behaving badly, frequently at the expense of women.  The talk brings the number of ‘rakes’ in art, both on and off the canvas, up-to-date, with Picasso, Gauguin, Augustus John, Jacob Epstein, Lucian Freud and others. In the interests of balance, there is a short section at the end entitled ‘Women Strike Back!’.

John Iddon 

Lecturer and Guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern.  Has lectured freelance to numerous art societies, to the National Trust and the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery in Venice.

The medieval woodwind instruments are reed pipes, shawms, bagpipes, bladder pipe, hornpipe, crumhorn, cornemuse, kortholt, bone whistles, flute, double flute,gemshorn, pipe and tabor, early recorders, portative organ and symphony. Jonathan will play each one and show images of them in a Medieval context.

Jonathan Weeks is an Archaeology graduate from Reading University who has been studying, collecting and playing Medieval musical instruments for about 40 years.

Giotto was chiefly responsible for changing the style of western European art, particularly with regard to the depiction of the figure, in a clear spatial setting. He was responsible for moving the visual arts away from the more formal Byzantine style. Alice will explain how a fresco is made and the challenges that faced fresco painters: how important it was for them to follow recipes; how climate played a part; why they had to know how quickly or slowly they were able to work. Finally, the importance of the patron will be considered.

Alice Foster lectured for the University of Oxford Department of Continuing Education for 15 years and organises the History of Art module for a Summer Programme at Brasenose College, Oxford for American students. She has been a guest lecturer at the University of Bristol and New College, Oxford.

The history of the sundial outstrips that of the clock by at least two thousand years. Kevin will examine how time has been told down the ages from the perspective of both the Sundial and its competitors. He will compare what philosophers and poets thought about time. He looks at various aspects of the sundial as ... a teller of time, a marker for religious observance, a memento mori, a vehicle for exquisite craftsmanship, a sign of elegance, sophistication and civic pride.

Kevin Karney studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, was a VSO teacher in Borneo, and worked across the world as an underground engineer. He is now a magistrate in Gwent. He has had a life-long interest in the history of timekeeping and cosmology, and in sundials in particular, as objects of art, craft and science.

L S Lowry is one of Britain's most popular artists - and yet the very familiarity of his work has stopped us looking as closely as we should at the paintings of this extraordinary artist. He was a painter not only of the mills of the industrial North-West, but also perhaps one of the great painters of the human condition.

Michael Howard is a Programme Leader in the School of the History of Art and Design at the Manchester Metropolitan University, where he teaches both academic and studio based students. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and President of Bolton NADFAS and is a practising artist, painter, sculptor, printmaker and ceramicist.

Jim Thompson arrived in Bangkok as a US army officer in 1945, fell in love with it and stayed. Captivated by the beauty of Thai silk, an ancient craft in decline, he resuscitated it and made it famous, creating costumes for films and embellishing his house, which today is a museum. This lecture tells the story of his achievements.

Denise Heywood is an author, lecturer, photographer and journalist who has worked in Cambodia and lived in France and America and she has published books on art and customs in Laos and Cambodia. Denise lectures for the Art Fund, the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) on their post graduate Asian Art Course and for Madingley Hall (University of Cambridge);

Orpheus could quite literally charm the birds out of the trees with his music - yet he failed to bring his beloved Eurydice safely out of the Underworld. All he had to do was to lead her up to the light without looking back at her... Not surprisingly the tale of how the legendary singer lost his lover through a single glance has inspired much great music. And visual artists too have responded to this tragic story of love and loss.

Dr Lois Oliver studied English Literature at Cambridge University, and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and is currently Associate Professor in History of Art at the University of Notre Dame in London, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute. She is also a keen violinist who plays regularly with groups and you may have seen her down here with the St Endellion festival orchestra.

Paula is a director of the V&A Medieval & Renaissance Year course and author of 'From Flanders to Florence: the Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500'. She also lectures for the Courtauld Institute, Christie's Education, the Art Fund and the National Gallery and was formerly lecturer at the British Institute of Florence.

Theodora Clarke is an art historian, lecturer and critic specialising in Russian art and European modernism. She has previously lectured at institutions including the V&A, Tate Britain, Cambridge University and the Courtauld Institute of Art. Harvard University awarded her a dissertation grant.

Lucia Gahlin is an Egyptologist who works in museums and on excavations in Egypt, but mostly lectures in London, Exeter and Bristol. She also works in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London.

Caroline was an official guide at the British Museum and has published articles on samplers. She has lectured for many years to universities and art organisations in America and on cruise boats.

Sarah Deere-Jones performs, writes and lectures in the UK and abroad as a musician and scholar, having been a graduate and prize-winner from the Royal Academy of Music. She has appeared on national radio and television in UK and America, and lectured for National Trust, English Heritage, U3A, schools and colleges and onboard the QE2. Her lectures include live music and songs on various harps, depending on the subject.

Vivien Heffernan was a teacher and Head of Art Department from 1976-1986. She was the Art History tutor for continuing education departments of Essex and Cambridge Universities, colleges and adult education organisations and a long-standing lecturer with the Open University on art history courses ranging from the early Renaissance to the 20th century. Vivien is also a practising artist.

Peter Warwick is an author, historian, major event organiser, and a recognised authority on Admiral Lord Nelson. Peter chairs the New Waterloo Dispatch/Waterloo 200, the official body arranging the bicentenary commemorations for Waterloo in 2015. He chaired Thames Alive which in 2012 arranged the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant and the Thames Olympic Torch Relay. He lectures at the Defence Academy, National Maritime Museum, National Museum for the Royal Navy, Royal Institution and at schools and universities.

Dr David Bostwick is a lecturer and consultant in the Cultural History of the Medieval, Tudor and Stuart periods. He specialises in medieval imagery and interior furnishings and decoration 1400-1700. He is a former Keeper of the Social History Collections, Sheffield City Museums and is a consultant on historic buildings and their interpretation to the National Trust, English Heritage and Historic Scotland.

John Osborne graduated in Classics at Cambridge University and taught at Marlborough College for over thirty years. He worked for the British Council in Iran and Turkey, and lectures in Islamic Civilisation. He is a tutor at Marlborough College Summer School and a Lecturer at the University of Bath.

Kate Strasdin has worked with objects of dress and textiles in museums for almost twenty years in curatorial positions; currently Assistant Curator at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Totnes, Devon. She is an Associate Lecturer at University College, Falmouth, teaching history and contextual studies to fashion and textile students. Kate's publications include 'An Easy Day for a Lady' (Costume, Journal of the Costume Society, 2008) and 'Empire Dressing - the Design and Realisation of Queen Alexandra's Coronation Gown' (Journal of Design History, 2012). She is also one of the younger practitioners of the dying art of producing handmade Honiton lace.

Pamela Halford is a freelance lecturer and has lectured variously to the English Speaking Union, National Trust, Art & Historical societies, the National Gallery and Bath University's Department of Continuing Education. She is President (Past Chairman) of Bristol DFAS. Previously she was a lecturer and researcher/scriptwriter/director for the BBC.

Hugh Ellwood studied philosophy in Rome, followed by a degree in architecture at the University of Manchester. Previously an architect partner with Building Design Partnership, the largest multi-discipline design organisation in the UK. For several years he was a visiting lecturer in the history of art and architecture at the University of Central Lancashire. For relaxation he is a practising watercolourist.

Born and brought up at Lamorna Cove in Cornwall, David Evans knew some of the Newlyn and Lamorna artists in their final years. His father, Major C Gilbert Evans was closely involved with the colony from 1909-1914. David lectures on Newlyn artists to the Art Fund and The National Trust.

Sarah Stopford is a guide and lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She studied art history as part of her first degree at Harvard. After a further degree in English at Cambridge and a career as a teacher of English literature in both the United States and England, she has returned to the world of art history where her special interests include British and post-1900 art.

Andrew is an Extra-Mural Tutor for London, Essex and The Open University. He is the author of 9 books, including "The East End Nobody Knows". He frequently contributes to radio and television and has lectured all over the world.

Julian Halsby studied History of Art at Cambridge. He was formerly Senior Lecturer and Head of Department at Croydon College of Art. A practising artist, he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1994 and appointed Keeper in 2010.

Lynne is a freelance lecturer and artist, specialising in Critical Studies in Art and practical painting, etching and drawing and for many years she has lectured at Sussex and Bristol Universities. Her own artwork has been exhibited widely, including the RWA, British Museum, Guild Gallery in Bristol and London's Barbican.

This will be a welcome return visit to Bodmin by Valerie. She is a lecturer and guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and a guide for Tate on cruises.

Brian has been a dealer and consultant in antique oriental rugs and carpets since 1979 after his return from Iran. He is the author of 'Tribal Rugs - Treasures of the Black Tent' which was originally published in 1997 and was re-printed in April 2010. Brian is one of few western dealers to have lived and worked among tribal groups in remote areas of Iran and Afghanistan during the 1970s and then again, after the Iranian Revolution, in the 1990s.

Linda holds two first-class degrees in Art History and is an experienced guide and lecturer at Tate Britain, Tate Modern and the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Sam Smiles is Professor of Art History & Visual Culture, at the University of Exeter and Emeritus Professor for Art History, University of Plymouth. He has curated exhibitions and published widely on British art c. 1750-1930 and has a particular interest in the work of J.M.W. Turner, on whose art he is an authority.

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

Dr Steven Kershaw has spent much of the last 30 years travelling extensively in the world of the Greeks and Romans both physically and intellectually. Steven was a Classics Tutor for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, Professor of History of Art for the European Studies Program of Rhodes College and The University of the South, and is a guest speaker on cruise ships.

Michael is stained glass adviser to the Diocese of Truro and to Truro Cathedral. He is well-known throughout the Southwest of England as a lecturer and tutor in adult education, and has written numerous articles on stained glass. His book on the windows of Truro cathedral is scheduled for publication in 2014.

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

Dr Annie Gray is a lecturer, TV presenter and food historian. She works across the heritage industry, acting as a consultant on all matters relating to food and dining. She has appeared as a talking head on programmes such as The Great British Bake Off and she is a regular panellist on Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet, hosted by Jay Rayner.

Janusz is a lecturer and researcher in English furniture history and also antique dealer. And as he says it is worth coming to his lecture to see how well the person introducing Janusz manages to pronounce his surname!

Douglas has talked to us in Bodmin more than any other lecturer and it is always a pleasure when he visits. He is a Writer, Artist, TV Presenter and Lecturer to many London art courses. He is a Director of the New Academy of Arts and author of 6 Novels.

Monica Bohm-Duchen is a freelance lecturer, writer and exhibition organizer. She has lectured for the Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Open University, Sotheby's Institute of Art and the Courtauld Institute of Art. She is widely published, including Understanding Modern Art (1991), The Nude (1992), Chagall (1998/2001), The Private Life of a Masterpiece (2001) and The Art and Life of Josef Herman (2009).

Twigs is a garden historian, author, researcher and lecturer. Her interest in garden history grew out of her original career in landscape archaeology and landscape history, and blossomed during a period of lecturing for the University of Cambridge. In addition to the serious side of her work she likes to explore the quirkier and less trammelled aspects of gardens in the past and her publications include Allotments, History of Garden Gnomes and a History of Women in the Garden.

Bertie visited Bodmin in 2010 when he explained the history of the Punch and Judy show with copious illustrations. He has a BA (Hons) in Drama from Manchester University, and a Diploma Internationale from the École Internationale du Théatre, Jacques Lecoq. He is also a member of the Inner Magic Circle, with Gold Star. Past experience includes lecturing to cruise ship audiences, the Women’s Institute, theatre clubs and the Sussex Magic Circle, as well as NADFAS. In addition, has toured the world with a magic cabaret show and a one man show entitled ‘All Aboard’.

Tom Errington is a practising artist and designer, specialising in Trompe L'Oeil paintings and murals. He is Art, Art History, and Stained Glass Adviser to the Diocese of Southwell & Nottingham and Stained Glass Adviser to the Diocese of Coventry. Formerly a lecturer at The Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Tom has worked in theatre on the technical side - having been Production Manager at Nottingham Playhouse - and Producer/Director of Independent Films.

Dr Susan Kay-Williams is Chief Executive of the Royal School of Needlework, and a Fellow of the RSA and the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Has a longstanding interest in textiles, especially colour, and is currently researching a book on the history of colour in textiles for Blacks. Has extensive lecturing and speaking experience on a variety of subjects to a range of audiences.

After university, Jo Walton began teaching and lecturing, combining this with a career in art bookselling. She set up and ran the Atrium Bookshop in Cork Street - the heart of London's art world - and worked with Christie's, the fine art auctioneers. She now combines freelance lecturing with work in publishing and as a guide at Tate Modern and Tate Britain.

Jeanne Dolmetsch is the daughter of Dr. Carl Dolmetsch C.B.E. and a grand-daughter of Arnold Dolmetsch. Taught recorder, viol and harpsichord by her father, she went on from The Royal Naval School, Haslemere to study violin and piano at The Royal Academy of Music, London where she gained her L.R.A.M. Like her younger twin-sister Marguerite, she is an active professional musician giving concerts throughout Great Britain and abroad. She is a lecturer for The Decorative and Fine Arts Society, an adjudicator for the British Federation of Music Festivals and an editor, arranger and reviewer.

Dr Celia Fisher BA Hons, MA, PhD is a freelance lecturer and author.