Lectures 2025 - 2026

11th September

Bruegal: Peasants, Proverbs and Landscapes - Paula Nuttall

The art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525/30-1569) is a byword for the depiction of genre subjects and landscapes. This lecture explores his work and its meanings, from his beginnings in the style of Hieronymus Bosch, to the development of a highly original art that offered an alternative to the Italianate art then in vogue.

9th October

Painter and Plantsman: Cedric Morris, Irises and Beyond - Caroline Holmes

The flower paintings of Cedric Morris (1889-1982), which captured plants from around the Mediterranean, the Canaries and beyond, reveal him as a consummate botanist. He enjoyed national stature as an artist and as a plantsman whose legacy included breeding over ninety new irises.

13th November

Paul and John Nash: Brothers in Art - James Russell

Growing up together in the shadow of their mother's illness, Paul and John Nash emerged as artists at the same time, exhibiting their work in a joint exhibition in 1913. The following year they both enlisted and served on the Western Front, which deeply affected them, before working together as war artists. Both subsequently explored wood engraving and book illustration, but otherwise their art moved in different directions. It could be the plot of a novel, but every word of this intriguing, personal story of brotherly love, strife and competition is true!

11th December

Boris Anrep and the National Gallery Mosaics - Lois Oliver

Visitors to the National Gallery will find at their feet mosaics, by Boris Anrep, featuring a host of famous characters, including Winston Churchill, Virginia Woolf, and Greta Garbo. Anrep’s exploits included deeds of derring-do in occupied France and competing in the men’s doubles at Wimbledon.

8th January

"Les Trois Grandes Dames" of Impressionism:

Marie Bracquemond, Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot - Sarah Burles

The Impressionists were an innovative and radical group of artists who took Paris by storm in the 1870s. Marie Bracquemond, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt all exhibited regularly at the Impressionist exhibitions alongside artists such as Monet, Renoir and Degas.

12th February

Dame Laura Knight - Rosalind Whyte

In 1936 Dame Laura Knight became the first woman to be elected as a full member of the Royal Academy in London, 168 years after its establishment. In her extraordinary career she painted landscapes, portraits and seascapes, as well as scenes from the circus, the ballet and the theatre. She was the only woman to be given War Commissions in both the First and Second World Wars and the only British artist to cover the Nuremberg Trials of 1946.

12th March

"The Very Model of an English Entertainment": the Savoy Operas of W.S.Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan - Roger Askew

This lecture, fully illustrated with musical examples, will examine how the peculiar geniuses of these two very different men, W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, came together under the guiding hand of the impresario, Richard D’Oyly Carte.

9th April

The Partnership of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens - Tom Duncan

For those interested in architectural and garden design, the names of Sir Edward Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll are inseparably linked together. Each outstanding in their field, this is a story of friendship and wonderful artistic collaboration.

14th May

The Roaring Twenties: Art, Design and High Society - Jo Banham

The Roaring Twenties was a loud and boisterous decade, marked by novelty, modernity and change. The Bright Young Things of the period were determined to shock by breaking with the conventions of the past. It was a period of enormous vitality in art and design.

11th June

The Art World: An Insider's Guide - Jacky Klein

Have you ever wondered what happens in an artist’s studio? What goes into making a blockbuster exhibition? How publishers decide which artists and movements to promote? This lecture reveals all, inviting you in to discover how it all works.