Wednesday 5th October 2022

Thomas Heatherwick: A Modern Leonardo?

Lecturer – Ian Swankie

The past decade has seen the meteoric rise of this extraordinarily versatile British designer with his acclaimed Olympic cauldron, the iconic new London bus, and designs for a spectacular new headquarters building for Google.

Over the past twenty years the Heatherwick Studio has used an intriguing combination of curiosity and experimentation to produce a vast range of solutions to design challenges around the world.

This lecture looked at the problems presented, and the wonderfully creative ways in which Heatherwick and his team have responded.

A Londoner with a passion for art and architecture, Ian Swankie is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is a qualified freelance London guide and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars.

Wednesday 1st March 2023

Art Behind Bars: The Role of the Arts in Breaking the Cycle of Crime, Prison and Re-Offending   

Lecturer – Angela Findlay

Angela Findlay gave a unique insight into the destructive and costly cycle of crime, prisons, and re-offending. She explaine how the arts can have a huge impact in terms of rehabilitation; how, within the process of creating art, there are opportunities for offenders to confront their crimes and develop the key life skills essential to leading positive and productive lives. She has had a long career of teaching art in prisons in Germany and England, and later experience as Arts Coordinator of the Koestler Arts charity.

The Arts Society West Midlands Area, with the help of generous donations from individual societies, including one from The Arts Society Royal Leamington Spa, is currently engaging with Koestler Arts on a pilot project in Her Majesty’s Prison Birmingham and three other regional institutions.

Here’s a link to their website:
Koestler Arts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023

Lucy Kemp-Welch: Painter of Horses  

Lecturer – David Haycock

David Haycock introduced us to Lucy Kemp-Welch, known as the portrait painter of horses.  Lucy was very well known in her lifetime but fell out of favour when horses were not essential and cars and tractors took over.  Her lifelong passion was horses and she said “Horses are to me the breath of life”. One of her most well known paintings is usually hung in the Leamington Art Gallery and Museum but it on tour until the end of the year.

Wednesday 1st February 2023

Bruegel: The Seasons of the World

Lecturer: Gavin Plumley

In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. The images, charting the course of a year, changed the way we view the world through art. This lecture will explore how Bruegel pioneered a new way of thinking about the environment and our individual places within a shifting cosmos.

A writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines, and opera and concert programmes worldwide, Gavin Plumley lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Recent lectures have included those to the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Theatre, the British Museum and the Neue Galerie in New York.

Wednesday 2nd November 2022

A Painter Looks at Cezanne

Lecturer: Ghislaine Howard

In this lecture Ghislaine Howard looked at the art and life of Cezanne with the understanding and knowledge that comes from having spent her own life making paintings.

Ghislaine is a painter of national reputation named as a Woman of The Year 2008 for her contribution to art and society. She has exhibited widely at many prestigious venues such as Manchester Art Gallery, Canterbury Cathedral and Imperial War Museum North and has work in major public collections including The Royal Collection.

She specialises in inspirational talks about the pleasure to be gained by an intimate contemplation of painting.

She has lectured widely and is an associate lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.