Wednesday 4th September 2024

Donatello: Renaissance Genius

Lecturer: Paula Nuttall

Donatello is one of the artistic giants of the Italian Renaissance. Arguably the greatest sculptor of all time, working in a range of media, he pioneered the new style of sculpture that emerged in Florence around 1400. This lecture will outline his career working for patrons in Florence, Siena and Padua.

Paula is a specialist in Italian and Northern European Renaissance art and has published widely, notably From Flanders to Florence: The Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400-1500 (Yale, 2004). She has collaborated on major exhibitions, including Jan Eyck: an Optical Revolution (Ghent, 2020), is a former Director of the V&A Medieval and Renaissance Year course, and a lecturer at both the Courtauld Institute and the British Institute of Florence.

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Wednesday 2nd October 2024

Fashion, Feathers and Fury: Women’s Fight for Change

Lecturer: Tessa Boase

When social historian Tessa Boase told the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds that she wanted to write their early story, they refused to let her visit their archives. To a former investigative journalist, this was a challenge she could not resist. This lecture will shine a light on the intriguing story of women’s love affair with plumage, at a time when every woman of every class wore a hat, and that of the brave eco-feminists who fought back on behalf of the birds.

Tessa Boase is a freelance journalist, lecturer and campaigner with an interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women in the 19th and early 20th centuries. She’s the author of three books of social history: Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds (first published as Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather in 2018), The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (2014) and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams (2022). Since uncovering the feminist origins of the RSPB, she has been campaigning for public recognition of its female founders.

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Wednesday 6th November 2024

A Crisis of Brilliance: Young British Artists 1908-1919

Lecturer: David Haycock

In the years leading up to the First World War, the Slade School of Art in London was the leading establishment in England for the teaching of drawing and painting. Its students included some of the most important British artists of the first half of the 20th century, including Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Mark Gertler, Richard Nevinson and Dora Carrington. Based on his book A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War (2009), this lecture will explore the fascinating story of these artists’ interlocking lives and of their artistic education and development.

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. His latest books include a new biography of the young Augustus John and, as we heard in May 2023, a biography of the equestrian painter Lucy Kemp-Welch.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Wednesday 4th June 2025

Silent Lines Like a Cry of Pain: The Art of Kathe Kollwitz

Lecturer: Angela Smith

Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) was one of the most respected German artists of the early 20th century. A painter, sculptor and printmaker, Kollwitz lived most of her life in Berlin, where she documented the effect of poverty and war on the ordinary people. This lecture will offer a survey of her life and work, examining the impact that Expressionism had on the artist and her stubborn refusal to be silenced by the Nazis after 1933.

After gaining a PhD at the Warburg Institute, University of London, Angela Smith has become an established author, lecturer and contributor to television programmes, most recently Digging Up Britain’s Past.

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Wednesday 2nd July 2025

A Haaaand-Baaaag?: The Importance of Being Oscar (and Earnest!)

Lecturer: Simon Whitehouse

Oscar Wilde’s great literary and theatrical successes began with The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1890 and was followed by four smash hits in three years. His greatest play, The Importance of Being Earnest, is one of the funniest, most performed and frequently quoted plays in the English-speaking world. Described as “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People”, it was of its time and yet ahead of its time, satirising the shallowness and superficiality of upper-class Victorian society. This lecture will explore some of the hidden elements of which the audience then (and perhaps now) were not aware and discover that, for the
author, this glittering triumph heralded the beginning of his own fatal final act …

Simon Whitehouse is a (recovering) actor, lecturer, Alexander technique and voice coach and an award-winning London Blue Badge guide. He is on the faculty of Ithaca College and works as a guide at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, the Royal Opera House, the BBC and the National Gallery. He specialises in theatre, literature, fashion and art history, but whatever the subject he promises to weave a wonderful story from it.

This lecture, the final one in our 2024/ 25 season, will follow the Annual General Meeting which will start at 10:30am. There will be no afternoon lecture.