27th April – 4th May 2025
THIS TRIP IS FULLY SUBSCRIBED
We stay six nights at the 4* Grand Hotel
Tamerici & Principe in Montecatini Terme
Palazzo Viti, and have tours to Volterra, San Gimignano, Medici Villa of Poggio & Caiano, Montecatini, Lucca & the Duomo of San Martino, Fattoria il Poggio, Siena & its Duomo, Pallazzo Pubblico & Museo Civico, Florence, including the Uffizi Gallery, Pisa, including the Leaning Tower.
14th May 2025: Kelmscott Manor and Buscot Park
Kelmscott Manor dates from 1570 with a late 17th century wing, it is a grade 1 listed, and is on the National Heritage list for England. It became the country retreat of renowned writer, designer and activist of William Morris in 1874.
He and his family lived there until his death in 1896, and it became known as Morris’ ‘Heaven on Earth’. It served as a great inspiration for him and spawned numerous designs and writings. We will have a guided tour followed by lunch after which we will go by coach to Buscot Park.
Buscot Park is a late 18th century house built for a local landowner, Edward Townsend. The estate was purchased by Lord Farringdon in 1889 who greatly enlarged the house and commissioned Harold Pete to design the famous Italianate water garden.
He was a significant collector of Victorian and Old Master paintings by Rembrandt, Botticelli and pre-Raphaelite works including Sir Edward Burne-Jones series, ‘The Legend of the Briar Rose’. A talk explaining the collection, house and gardens has been arranged for us, after which we will be free to explore.
Ticket details and pricing information will be available soon.
Friday 21st March 2025
Speaker: The Rev’d Dr. Nicholas Henderson
In May 2024, Nicholas Henderson gave a Wednesday lecture on Part 1 of “How to Read an English Country Church”. At this Day of Special Interest, he will continue this topic with Parts 2, 3 and 4.
Part 2 will cover The Normans to The Tudors – following the Norman invasion, there was a great flowering of Romanesque and Gothic Architecture.
Part 3 takes us from The Tudor era into the establishment of Protestant England visible in Church structure.
Part 4 covers The Georgians and Victorians to the present day.
The Day will be held at ‘The Warwickshire Country Club’, and follow the usual format of welcome coffee/ tea on arrival, two lectures, then lunch followed by the third lecture.
Price £58 per ticket
This includes a two course lunch with wine/ soft drinks and other refreshments.
Tickets will be available from 1st December 2024 by e-mailing dosi@tasrls.org.uk
Friday 18th October 2024
The Day of Special Interest held on Friday 18th October 2024 at The Warwickshire Country Club had three lectures on “Sport and Play – the ethos, architecture and artefacts of the British at play”.
The first lecture was “A Healthy mind in a Healthy Body” – how the Victorians made us all jolly good sports – a light introduction to the subject, and the second lecture was: “Making a Stand – sporting architecture, list it or lose it?” – there are currently over 316,000 listed buildings in England, but only a tiny proportion of those are related to sports or recreation.
The third lecture, “A Load of Old Balls” – how has the design and manufacture of balls evolved? Why were some games eg. lawn tennis and ping pong made possible only in the mid-19th century and why are rugby balls such an odd shape?
The presenter was Simon Inglis who studied History and History of Architecture. He specialises in the history, heritage and architecture of sport and recreation.
Wednesday 2nd October 2024
Fashion, Feathers and Fury: Women’s Fight for Change
Lecturer: Tessa Boase
Tessa Boase delivered a fascinating lecture about the fashion for bird feathered hats and the consequences for the birds worldwide in the late 1800s. We were introduced to the ladies who actually founded the now RSPB and their portraits now proudly hang at the RSPB headquarters. At its height the plumage trade was huge and tons of birds and feathers would arrive at London Docks. The lecture shone a light on the story of a time when every women of every class wore a hat, and of the brave eco-feminists who fought back on behalf of the birds. Tessa wrapped up the hour by informing us of the plaques, headstones and statues which now celebrate these incredible women.
Reading List for October Lecture:
Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds by Tessa Boase (Aurum
Press)
Kindred Nature: Victorian Women Embrace the Living World by Barbara T Gates (University of Chicago Press)
A Bird in the Bush: A Social History of Birdwatching by Stephen Moss
(Aurum Press)
Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce by Sarah Abrevaya Stein (Yale University Press)
Rebel Girls: How Votes for Women Changed Edwardian Lives by Jill
Liddington (Virago)
All our lectures are held in the Royal Spa Centre, Newbold Terrace, Leamington Spa CV32 4HN at 11:00m and 2:00pm.
Wednesday 6th November 2024
A Crisis of Brilliance: Young British Artists 1908-1919
Lecturer: David Haycock
David Haycock gave a very interesting lecture on five of the Young British Artists 1908-1919. The Slate School was an extraordinary place to study and if you wanted to study art that was the place to be. He began by introducing a photograph of 1912 of the Slade School of Art’s Summer Picnic. They were a special group of young students with their hopes and dreams of a fulfilling future. They didn’t know what was on the horizon – WW1.
It was very dark times. Some of them were pacifists but all were profoundly disturbed during the war, some came back and continued as artists and some of them sadly lost their lives. David brought each one to life. Paul Nash was a very dapper individual and became one of the most well-known war artists; Stanley Spencer served in the war and afterwards returned to finish the painting he was working on at the start of the war – Swan Upping, Cookham. He returned to his beloved Cookham a different man and finished the painting with angular shapes and dark colours.
Mark Gentler painted a vivid colourful painting entitled ‘the Merry GoRound’ 1916. Gertler was successful very early on and made money painting portraits. Richard Nevinson’s La Mitrailleuse of 1915 was the first modern painting of the War. Dora Carrington was loved by both Nevinson and Gertler but she loved and lived with Lytton Strachey and she painted a stunning portrait of him in 1916. Other players in the photograph were Henry Tonks, their drawing master and Roger Fry who lectured Renaissance Art.
They all had to attend many Life Drawing classes. David also introduced us to a group of Italian artists who arrived on the scene in London known as the Futurists. It was a very informative and comprehensive view of these artists.
David Boyd Haycock is a freelance art historian and writer. A former curator at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, he is a specialist in British art and culture in the period 1860 to 1940.
Further Reading:
D B Haycock – ‘A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young Artists and the Great War’ (2009)
Alexandra Harris – ‘Romantic Moderns:English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper (2010)
Christopher Neve – ‘Unquiet Landscape: Places and Ideas in 20th-Century British Painting’ (2020)
Susan Owens – ‘Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and British Landscape’ (2021)
Wednesday 5th February 2025
John Singer Sargent: The Private Radical
Gavin Plumley
Whether drawing duchesses or portraying princes, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was high society’s leading portraitist. Flaunting a consummate technique, his luxurious canvases mirrored his subjects’ wealth. Yet beneath the dazzling veneer of works such as Madame X and The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit lurks a much rawer world by far. This lecture will chart the artist’s life and his prolific output, and show that, like the era he came to represent, Sargent was always on the cusp of seismic change.
Gavin Plumley is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on Radios 3 and 4, and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. He lectures widely on the culture of Central Europe to organisations such as the Royal Opera House, the National Theatre, the National Gallery, the British Museum and the V&A.
All our lectures are held in the Royal Spa Centre, Newbold Terrace, Leamington Spa CV32 4HN at 11:00m and 2:00pm.
Wednesday 5th March 2025
Pots and Frocks: The World of Grayson Perry
Ian Swankie
Best known for his outlandish appearances dressed as his feminine alter ego Claire, Grayson Perry is now a core part of the art establishment, a Knight of the Realm, Turner Prize winner, Royal Academician and a popular broadcaster. His works include ceramics, textiles, tapestries and prints. Often controversial, he holds a mirror up to modern society. This lecture will examine Grayson Perry’s work, his thought-provoking exhibitions, and the unique character inside the flamboyant frocks.
With a contagious enthusiasm 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 Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.
All our lectures are held in the Royal Spa Centre, Newbold Terrace, Leamington Spa CV32 4HN at 11:00m and 2:00pm.
Wednesday 2nd April 2025
The Mayan Civilisation of Central America
Lecturer: Duncan Pring
The Maya lived in Central America between 1000 BC and 1528 AD, when they were conquered by the Spanish. The peak of their civilisation was between 300 and 900 AD. During that time, they built enormous monuments, produced jade and ceramic items of great beauty, and developed a calendar that was far more advanced than anything in Europe at the time. They had an advanced understanding of mathematics and astronomy and developed a hieroglyphic script which scholars are beginning to decipher, allowing us to understand their achievements much more fully.
Educated at Oxford and London universities, Duncan Pring’s PhD thesis was on The Preclassic Ceramics of Northern Belize. He has published widely on Mayan ceramics.
All our lectures are held in the Royal Spa Centre, Newbold Terrace, Leamington Spa CV32 4HN at 11:00m and 2:00pm.
Wednesday 7th May 2025
Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious
Lecturer: James Russell
The name of Eric Ravilious has become familiar over the past decade, but few people are aware that his wife, Tirzah Garwood (1908-51), was a talented and original artist in her own right. A witty observer of the human condition, the youthful Garwood became established as a wood engraver of rare ability. After marrying Ravilious she took up paper marbling, quickly achieving renown for the dazzling originality of her decorative papers. She later turned to oil painting, producing in a few short years a series of strange, beautiful paintings.
Having studied History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, James Russell enjoyed a lengthy stint selling contemporary paintings and sculpture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an experience that inspired him to begin writing and lecturing on 20th century art. He has curated major exhibitions for museums around the country. His exhibition devoted to Tirzah Garwood will run at Dulwich Picture Gallery between November 2024 and May 2025.
All our lectures are held in the Royal Spa Centre, Newbold Terrace, Leamington Spa CV32 4HN at 11:00m and 2:00pm.
