Programme
Membership year 2023/24
The lecture programme is subject to change so keep checking back to the website for
the latest information about lectures. The meetings start at 7.30pm.
27th March 2024
Helen Ritchie
British Studio Pottery; a concise
history
An overview of the British Studio Pottery
movement, exploring handmade pottery in
Britain from the last decades of the
nineteenth century to the present day,
including the work of the Martin Brothers,
Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, Alison Britton
and Grayson Perry.
The Brothers: Walter F. Martin, Robert Wallace Martin and Edwin Martin.
Photo Wikicommons, Public Domain
24th April 2024
Suzanne Perrin
The Art of the Kimono; Japanese Signs, Symbols, and Stories
The Kimono advertised your rank and status, wealth and taste, and complex
symbols and stories abound in the lavish decoration of textiles and fabrics
used for men’s and women’s clothing from 17th to 19th centuries
Young lady in furisode 1920. Public domain
22nd May 2024
Gavin Plumley
John Singer Sargent, The Private Radical
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, The
Daughters of Edward Darley Boit and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw lurks
a much rawer world by far. Sargent certainly scandalised Parisian
society and the city’s Salon with his frank depictions of human
sexuality, yet he was even more modern than they might have feared.
This talk charts the artist’s life and his prolific output, showing that,
like the era he came to represent, Sargent was always on the cusp of
seismic change.
Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau) 1883–84 John Singer Sargent
Metropolitan Museum of Art
26th June 2024
Tobias Capwell
The Scoliotic King: Reconstructing the real King Richard III
The discovery of the grave of King Richard III in Leicester raised an army of new and fascinating
questions. The severe scoliosis exhibited by the skeleton revealed that the twisted physique of
Shakespeare’s ‘Black Legend’ was based in fact.
But how could a diminutive person, suffering from a significant spinal condition, have become a
skilled practitioner of the knightly fighting arts? How could he have worn armour and fought in
three major battles? What would his armour have looked like? How might it have disguised the
King’s condition, presenting him as a powerful warrior? In the case of a king whose royal
legitimacy was questioned by many people, how were the visual trappings of knightly kingship
used to solidify his claim?
Here we encounter armour as an
expressive art-form, designed to radiate
messages, justifications, proof of the
wearer’s right to rule as a king- a wielder of
divine power on Earth.
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.
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 (2011; Apollo Magazine Book of the Year 2012); The Noble Art of the Sword: Fashion
and Fencing in Renaissance Europe 1520-1630, ex. cat. (2012); Armour of the English Knight
1400-1450 (2015; Military History Monthly Illustrated Book of the Year 2017); and most recently
Arms and Armour of the Medieval Joust (2018). Toby also appears regularly on television, most
recently on A Stitch in Time (2018; BBC4); as presenter and armour advisor on Richard III: The
New Evidence (2014; C4), and as the writer and presenter of Metalworks: The Knight's Tale
(2012; BBC4).
Photo: Digital-Designs, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
There are no lectures in July or August
25th September 2024 The last lecture of the 2023/24 membership year
Simon Seligman
A 21st Century Renaissance: Chatsworth and the Devonshire Collection in the Modern
Age
Since the 1950s, Chatsworth and its collections have undergone a renaissance under the
leadership of first the 11th, and now the 12th, Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. This lecture
paints a portrait of Devonshire’s treasure house in the
modern age, illustrating the extensive recent
decorative and furnishing renovations in the house and
the restoration of historic interiors, stone work and
works of art.
The lecture also includes work by modern and
contemporary artists in the collection at Chatsworth
including Lucian Freud, Elisabeth Frink, David
Hockney and David Nash, to Richard Long, Allen
Jones, Michael Craig-Martin and Edmund de Waal.
Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication
A Sounding Line, Edmund de Waal, porcelain - Chapel Corridor, Chatsworth House - Derbyshire, England.
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