Web site and mobile phone pages designed, created and maintained by Janet Groome, Handshake Computer Training

Past Meetings Here are details of our past meetings, to give you an idea of the variety and scope of the lectures. 24th September 2025 Ashley Gray Post War Textile Visionaries of Modern Art: Alistair Morton & Edinburgh Weavers Alistair Morton, a modernist visionary, was uniquely recognised for his talent of interpreting in fabric the full quality of an artist’s handwriting. He commissioned drawings from some of the greatest modern artists for textile production and through his designer's eye took their art to new levels. In the late 1930s his Constructivist range saw work from Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth translated into jacquard woven textiles for the top end of British Interior design. In the post war era, Morton continued to fuse modern art with textile design, keeping it in step with contemporary living. This is the last lecture of the 2024/2025 Membership year. Social Evening: Wednesday 16 July 2025 Doors will open at 7.00 pm for those of you who wish to have a drink in the bar and socialise with friends and fellow members before the buffet supper. The supper will be a savoury buffet, followed by a selection of sweets and tea or coffee and mints, all for the price of £25.00 per ticket. Should you have any dietary restrictions please indicate this when booking. Places at the evening will be allocated on a first come - first served basis. Guests will be welcome to come with you. There will be no speaker this year, as the aim of the evening is to give you the opportunity to enjoy conversation with friends and other members of the society. However, we hope to have an exhibition of past events at the society, including photographs of society excursions and holidays. Please bring along to the evening any photographs of excursions and holidays with the society. 25th June 2025 Antonia Gatward Cevizli Snuff-boxes Salons and Studios: Women Artists in the 18th and 19th Centuries In 1971 Linda Nochlin wrote her famous essay “Why have there been no great women artists?” Since then, much has been done to insert women into the canon and uncover their lives and works. Visit to Ely Cathedral on Thursday 19th June 2025 Ely Cathedral is one of the wonders of medieval engineering. The structure was completed in 1342 and is considered the jewel in the Cathedral crown. It has welcomed visitors and pilgrims for over 1300 years and offers a glimpse into centuries of English heritage, alongside stunningly beautiful art and architecture. The small city of Ely has grown up around the Cathedral and its arresting and beautiful structure dominates the surrounding Fens. In addition to having a guided tour of the Cathedral, you will be able to visit the stained glass museum (entrance price included) to view panels representing 800 years of the history of the ancient art. The museum is accessed by a spiral stone staircase. The Oliver Cromwell museum is also nearby. 21st May 2025 Charlie Hall Peggy Guggenheim - A Life of Collecting Describing herself by writing, "I am a museum", Peggy Guggenheim's life took a clear path, from setting up a commercial gallery in London, going on a single-minded shopping trip to Paris in the late 1930's even as the German tanks were rolling in to the suburbs, to escape (with her selection of European artists) to New York. There the subsequent establishment of her museum (and Arts centre), and finally the purchase of the eccentric 'unfinished palazzo' in Venice, her collection remains one of the most iconic assemblages of Twentieth Century art in the world. 23rd April 2025 Raymond Warburton Sculpture in Britain Today and Tomorrow British sculpture enjoyed a renaissance in the 20th century, with the likes of Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Caro and Elizabeth Frink leading the way. But who came afterwards and with what effect? Among the new generation of British-based sculptors were Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Anish Kapoor, Richard Long and David Nash. These days all six are world-renowned and are still working as hard as ever. Each in their own way is innovative, inspirational and deeply human. They have produced sculptures that are glorious, challenging and moving in equal measure. 26th March 2025 Joanna Banham A Passion for Pattern : Victorian Wallpapers The Victorian period witnessed massive increases in the production of wallpaper when a product that had previously been a luxury item became a commodity that was available to all but the very poorest of homes. It was also a time that saw a huge proliferation of different styles ranging from glamorous hand-printed French floral patterns, to the geometric designs of the Gothic Revival, to the innovative work of Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement. This lecture also discusses innovative features such as nursery designs and relief decorations like Lincrusta Walton and Anaglypta, and the many different ways that wallpaper was used in the decoration of the Victorian home. 26th February 2025 Barry Venning Cartoons and Contraptions: the Wonderful World of W. Heath Robinson For over a century, W. Heath Robinson, whom the novelist, Philip Pullman called ‘the immortal contraptioneer’, has been famous for drawing rickety, bizarrely complicated devices that carry out the simplest of tasks like potato peeling, wart removal or pancake making. He became so famous for them that in 1933, he was the obvious person to illustrate Norman Hunter’s Professor Branestawm books and, in 1943, Bletchley Park named one of their code-breaking machines after him. Much later still, some of the contraptions in Wallace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers are based on a scale model of a gadget filled house that he made for the Ideal Home Show in 1934. 22nd January 2025 Astrid Bolodis Gustavs Klucis: Lenin’s poster boy, careerist or enemy of the state? Gustavs Klucis was born in a region of the Russian Empire that would become the independent Republic of Latvia. His life and practice followed the trajectory of the Bolshevik Revolution, the death of Lenin, the eventual acknowledgment of Joseph Stalin as leader of the Soviet Union, and ended during the Great Terror. The talk will illustrate how his work and ambition was influenced by other artists, and adapted in response to the politics and economics of his time. Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour, on Wednesday 29th January 2025 Visit to Milton Keynes Gallery This is the largest ever show of work from this prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group. It examines every facet of her work, including paintings, drawings, ceramics and furniture. This promises to be a wonderful, not to be missed, exhibition. 27th November Paul Rabbitts Concise History of Public Parks This really is a fascinating insight into the history of one of our greatest ever institutions - our Great British Public Park. We have all enjoyed them at some time in our lives but what do we really know about them? What are their origins? This talk illustrates their origins from the great Royal Parks to the Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century, to their Victorian heyday. It discusses what makes a great park, it’s ‘parkitecture’ with examples of lodges, lakes, bandstands, fountains, lidos, palm houses and to their wonderful floral displays, to their great decline in the sixties, seventies and eighties. Visit to Winterbourne House and Garden and the Barber Institute Tuesday 29th October 2024 9am to 5pm Winterbourne was designed as a small Edwardian country estate in the Arts and Crafts style, built for John Nettlefold, a pioneer of early housing reform. The gardens were inspired by Gertrude Jekyll and now form the University of Birmingham Botanic Gardens. An exhibition of the work of local Leicester artist Helen Newton will also be on display. The Barber Institute hosts the exhibition ‘Scent and the Art of the Pre-Raphaelites’ which enables us to sniff the scents associated with the paintings. 23rd October 24 Peter Swallow Bentwood and plywood furniture. Its design and creation Plywood can trace it origins back to Ancient Egypt where thin, hand sawn slices of timber were used to build up decorative panels. The widespread is of plywood began in C19th with advances in manufacturing technology to produce large stable boards. Following a brief introduction to furniture prior to 1800 and and overview of the many uses of plywood the talk will concentrate on the design and manufacture of plywood chairs. 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. 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? Visit to ‘Edward Bawden and Me’ exhibition at The Higgins Gallery, Bedford on Thursday 13th June 2024 The Keeper of Fine Art will take us on a guided tour of the exhibition, which showcases some of the biggest names in British art, illustration, ceramics and textiles. The stunning exhibition features their artistic responses, seen alongside the Bawden work which inspired them. 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. Study Day 19th April 2024 Three Tudor Themed Lectures Professor Jonathan Foyle Former curator at Hampton Court and presenter of the BBC2 series Climbing Great Buildings and Channel 4’s Secrets of the Palaces 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 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. 28th Febuary 2024 Andrew Hopkins The Kennedy Whitehouse; Art, Architecture, and Gardens of Camelot Following the 60th anniversary of the assignation of JFK, this talk is about the White House’s most celebrated twentieth century residents. The tragic end of his presidency has tended to overshadow the astounding aesthetic and artistic changes made during the Kennedy’s relatively brief tenure in the presidential residence. Apart from the wonderful film tour of the residence made by Mrs Kennedy and still shown to visitors today, the Rose Garden was a fine creation by Jackie and her friend, the renowned garden designer Bunny Mellon. So too, the interiors were restored seriously, based on historical research and items belonging to the house throughout its history were purchased and returned, even in many cases gifted back by patriotic individuals. Take a trip down memory lane and visit Camelot in this richly illustrated talk. Click here to see Jackie Kennedy’s interiors 24th January 2024 Clare Phillips Decadence and Dreams; Jewellery from around 1900 The decades around 1900 witnessed a fascinating variety of styles and produced some of the most elegant pieces of jewellery ever made. Diamonds and pearls - the mainstay of European court jewellery - were arranged in garlands and ribbon bows of incredible delicacy. At the same time symmetry was challenged by the sinuous lines of Art Nouveau, and the ‘one colour theory’ long practised in European jewellery was undermined by a fascination with unusual gemstones and a more luxuriant sense of colour. The lecture will explore the distinctive styles of great jewellers such as Cartier, Fabergé, Tiffany and Lalique, and examine also the contrasting aesthetic of Britain’s Arts and Crafts Movement with its celebration of traditional craftsmanship, unfaceted stones and hand-beaten metals. Web site designed, created and maintained by Janet Groome, Handshake Computer Training