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14th September 2011 
The Impressionists: French Avant Garde in Context
We will be asked to look afresh at the Impressionists by seeing their work in the broader context of the social period in which they were produced.
Lecturer: Lizzie Darbyshire is a graduate of the Courtauld Institute Of Art. She has wide experience as a freelance lecturer in the History of Art with fine arts societies and museums in Britain, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
The photo: "Impression: soleil levant" by Claude Monet.
Link: there is an informative article about impressionism on Wikipedia.
12 October 2011
Twentieth Century Design Classics
This lecture will bring to life the styles of the twentieth century, through a survey of architecture, interior design, furniture, decorative and applied arts and useful objects, from Cornish Ware to the Sydney Opera House, from G Plan to Westwood via the Jif lemon.
Lecturer: Peter Darty studied history and art in the UK and Italy. He is a founder member of NADFAS and has lectured on Art History since 1965. He currently is the Head of Interior Design History at the KLC School. He worked at Sotheby's, and has subsequently combined lecturing at the V and A Museum, Chelsea School of Art and the Inchbald School of Design with design work. He has also designed several national exhibitions. Peter is the author of several books on the history of furniture and design. Publications includes: English, French and American Chairs, Interior Design, A Guide to English Furniture, Porcelain and Pottery Marks.
The photo: Sydney Opera House.
 9 November 2011
Skin Deep, the Beastly Art of Beauty; Reality and Ridicule
Beautiful in the society portraits, haggard in the merciless lampoon. The artifice pursued by 18th and 19th century fashion victims was, quite literally, hair raising and often fatal. The dream, the joke, the reality, it's all in this revealing lecture. And we thought Botox and implants were novel? Ridiculous? Dangerous?
Lecturer: Amanda Herries read Archaelogy and Anthropology at Cambridge University.She was a Curator at the Museum of London for ten years, specialising in social history and the decorative arts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before moving to Japan for seven years, lecturing and writing on cross cultural and artistic influences.
The photo shows late 19th century fashion.
Link: a comprehensive list of links on Fashion: Past and Present.
7 December 2011 (Please note the date!)
King's College Chapel, Its Architecture and Music
King's College Chapel is a breathtaking experience, not only for its magnificent fan vaulting, the finest in the world, for its carving (both in wood and stone) and its dazzling array of stained glass windows, but above all, perhaps, for its world famous choir. It was King Henry VI who founded the College in 1441, who established that there should be a fine choir in the Chapel to sing daily services during term time. It is especially for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols that the Choir is most famous, reaching TV and radio audiences worldwide on Christmas Eve every year.
The lecture will be illustrated with breathtaking slides and musical recordings. The lecturer's own son was a privileged member of the Choir as a boy treble.
Lecturer: Elizabeth Gordon is both art historian and musician. She lectures on art and music for NADFAS, the National Gallery and V&A. She also lectures in the USA, most frequently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Elizabeth's hobby is singing, and for many years she sang in the Bach Choir. Combining music with visual arts, she will in time for Christmas be sharing her love and knowledge of King's College Cambridge.
Link: the official King's College site.
11 January 2012
Annual lunch at The Dolphin, St Ives.
12 noon for 12.30pm.
8 February 2012
Love and Loss: The Story of Orpheus and Euridice 
Orpheus could quite literally charm the birds out of the trees with his music - yet he failed to bring his beloved Eurydice safely out of the Underworld. All he had to do was to lead her up to the light without looking back at her .... Not surprisingly the tale of how the legendary singer lost his lover has inspired much great music, and visual artists too have responded to this tragic story of love and loss. Explore the wealth of art and music on the theme of Orpheus, with a rich array of paintings and musical examples from Monteverdi, Gluck and Offenbach, even taking in the Can-Can. And all on St Valentine's Day.
Lecturer: Lois Oliver studied English literature at Cambridge University, before taking an MA in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute. She has worked on the staff of the Harvard University Art Museum, before joining the curatorial staff of the V&A and then the National Gallery, where she curated the major exhibition Rebels and Martyrs (2006) and the series of National Gallery Touring Exhibitions: Passion for Paint (2006); Work, Rest and Play (2007); and Love (2008). She has appeared on a number of TV programmes, including Painting Flowers and The Art of the Gods for the BBC, and Hanging El Greco for Channel 5, as well as broadcasting on Radio 4's Start the Week and Front Row, and Radio 3's In Tune.
Lois is currently working on a proposed National Gallery exhibition Tailoring the Image. She is studying for a PhD at the Courtauld and teaches on the faculty of Notre Dame University in London. She is a keen violinist and plays regularly with orchestras including Chelsea Opera group.
The picture is of Orpheus and Euridice by Joseph Paelinck.
Link: Wikipedia article on Euridice.
14 March 2012
Lutyens and the Country House
A country house designed by Edwin Lutyens, preferably with a garden by Gertrude Jekyll, and illustrated in Country Life, was one of the status symbols of the Edwardian age - a remarkable and paradoxical achievement at a time when England's country houses and the lifestyle that went with them were under threat as never before, both economically and socially. With Lutyens - one of England's greatest architects - the country house saw a kind of Indian summer. This lecture will explore his inventive designs, which - whether picturesque and romantic or classical and formal - are always full of wit and imagination, successfully evoking tradition but also subtly modern.
Lecturer: Nicola Smith spent the years between 1979 and 1993 at the sharp end of conservation and heritage management as a Historic Buildings Inspector in the Department of the Environment's Directorate of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings, which became English Heritage in 1984. From 1993‑2003 she was Senior Lecturer in History of Art and Heritage Management at the University of Buckingham. She is now a director of Art Pursuits, a company organising study days, visits and tours. She has published a number of articles and books including The Royal Image and the English People (Ashgate, 2001). She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Link: the Lutyens Trust site.
 11 April 2012
Goldwork: The Story of Britain and Gold
Lecturer: After reading History at Cambridge, Helen Clifford completed her doctorate at the RCA on a 18th Century silversmith partnership. She has since curated many exhibitions including A Treasured Inheritance: 600 Years of Oxford College Silver at the Ashmolean in 2004 and is currently curating an exhibition Goldwork for the Goldsmiths' Company for 2012, which we are planning to visit. She has taught for many years at the universities of Warwick, Essex, Oxford and the V&A Museum. She runs her own Museum, the Swaledale Museum in Reeeth, North Yorkshire, which concentrates on the local lead mining industry, and she also fosters several study groups looking at vernacular building, poor law, oral history and archaeology.
The photo shows an Anglo-Saxon gold strip.
 9 May 2012
English Caricature from Hogarth to Punch
Exuberant, topical, lively - and just a little rude - English caricature has always shown up human beings as they were rather than as they would like to be, From William Hogarth to David Low via Rowlandson and Gillray, we will explore this fascinating and revealing world.
Lecturer: Andrew Davies in an Extra Mural Tutor for London, Essex and the Open University. He is the author of nine books, including The East End Nobody Knows. He is a frequent contributor to radio and television.
The photo: part of a hand-coloured etching by James Gillray in 1799, illustrating a popular song about how "Punch cures the gout ..."
Link: the free eBook of the 1893 "English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century."
 13 June 2012
Looking over the Artist's Shoulder: Turner's Travels in Italy
This talk follows Turner's travels in Northern Italy, showing both his visions of the locations and how they were achieved.
Lecturer: Nicola Moorby is a Curator at Tate Britain. She studied at the University of York and Birkbeck College, London. She specializes in British art of the 19th and early 20th centuries. She has curated a number of exhibitions and is co-author of How to Paint Like Turner.
The picture is Turner's Bay of Naples (Vesuvius Angry), c 1817.
Link: an article about Turner in Italy in The Scotsman.
This lecture will be followed by our Annual General Meeting. Nominations and Resolutions for the AGM must be given to the Secretary before the end of April.
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