Lectures

Select the Lecture below – Click again to close :        Select images to enlarge

Friday 27 March 2026 – John Singer Sargent and Fashion

Lecturer: Cindy Polemis

John Singer Sargent was THE international art star of the Gilded Age. He was most famous for his dramatic and stylish portraits of the elegant and wealthy. He brought his subjects to life but also used fashion as a powerful tool to depict identity and personality. Cindy Polemis explores how John Singer Sargent ‘fashioned’ his world.

Friday 24 April 2026 – Vincennes to Sevres

Lecturer: Anne Haworth

Sèvres was the most illustrious and innovative porcelain factory in 18th Century France, employing brilliant artisans as painters, modellers, gilders and technicians. Spectacular vases and finely decorated dining services made at Sèvres added lustre and glamour to the grandest of state rooms and the most intimate of boudoirs in the nearby Palace of Versailles. These objects of desire were sought after by the nobility during Europe’s Ancien Régime, by English collectors such as the Prince Regent and, generations later, by a new moneyed aristocracy in America’s ‘Gilded Age’. However, the origins of this most fashionable porcelain factory were very different.

Friday 22 May 2026 – The Tudor Court and its World: The Paintings, Drawings and Miniatures of Holbein and Hilliard

Lecturer: Mark Cottle

The Tudor court and its world are captured unforgettably by Hans Holbein under Henry VIII and Nicholas Hilliard under Elizabeth 1. Between them, these two artists transformed English art. Holbein set radically new standards in portraiture, in his hauntingly evocative drawings and his exquisite miniatures. Hilliard, in turn, effectively established the miniature – “England’s greatest contribution to the art of the Renaissance” (Sir Roy Strong) – as the art form, personal and public, which would last unchallenged until the arrival of photography in the 1840’s. Without these two artists, English art as a whole could be immeasurably the poorer

Friday 26 June 2026 – The genius of Rene Lalique

Lecturer: Andy McConnell

René Lalique was the 20th century’s greatest glass designer/entrepreneur. Lalique’s extraordinary work was unrivalled, combining his unique visual sense with a perfect understanding of glassmaking technologies and revolutionary approach to marketing. This talk is a visual feast, covers Lalique’s early work in jewels and furniture before he dedicated the remainder of his life, c1905-45, to glass. His output spanned simple, pressed cosmetic pots through car mascots and stemware to the unique cire perdu [lost wax] vases that today can command tens and even millions of pounds.

Friday 24 July 2026 – The other Sack of Rome

Lecturer: Sarah Dunant

By the 1520s Rome, fuelled by the wealth of the catholic church, was the great centre of the renaissance. But in 1527 the unthinkable happened and for only the second time in her history, the city was invaded by an army of unpaid and half starving mercenaries. Many were German Lutherans with an intense hatred of Catholics and the Pope, who they saw as ruling over a cesspit of corruption and pornography. (Spoiler alert: they were not wrong). Palaces and homes were occupied, their owners killed and tortured to reveal treasure. Convents and monasteries were sacked, inmates raped and murdered, art and relics destroyed.

Friday 25 September 2026 – The Age of Jazz

Lecturer: Sandy Burnett

Jazz is one of music’s most important genres: a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free- wheeling creativity, close-knit ensembles and imaginative improvisation. Drawing on his experience both as musicologist and gigging musician, Sandy can shed light on jazz from the inside. His talk covers the early years of jazz up to the Second World War, and touches on the disparate influences which lay behind the emergence of jazz. Musical illustrations range from the blues, ragtime and the very first recordings through to classics by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and the sumptuous sound of the Swing Era.

Friday 23 October 2026 – Turner and Constable: Romantic Rivals

Lecturer: Antonia Gatward Cevizli

Turner and Constable were exact contemporaries, born just one year apart. Tate Britain will be commemorating the 250th anniversary of the birth of these two giants of British art with the exhibition Turner and Constable running from November 2025-April 2026.

Friday 27 November 2026 – Antony Gormley: A Body of Work

Lecturer: Rosalind Whyte

Antony Gormley’s career spans nearly 40 years, during which time he has made sculpture that explores the relationship of the human body to space, often using his own body as his starting point. His work has been shown throughout the world, in galleries including the Tate in London and the Hermitage in St Petersburg, but is also often on open display, as public art, such as Another Place at Crosby Beach, near Liverpool. As well as works that he is well known for, like the iconic Angel of the North, this lecture will look at some of his earlier and less well-known works, to give an overall view of the development of his work across his whole career, up to the present time.