Bath is a charming place, sir; there are so many good shops here. One can step out of doors and get a thing in five minutes.

Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey

Like London, York and Edinburgh, Bath was famous in the eighteenth century for its luxury shops. Many important scenes in Jane Austen’s novels take place in and around shops and her letters and fictional conversations often discuss the latest fashions, books and bargains. This lecture will take you on a virtual tour of the Georgian spa town, its famous toy shops, libraries, print sellers and confectioners and the ancient market selling everyday goods like fish and vegetables. On our way, we will pause to browse at everything from snuffboxes, fans and Wedgwood’s latest designs to the scented wash balls, tooth powder and lozenges advertised in local newspapers and the renowned raspberry-tarts and hot vermicelli soup on sale in the Abbey Churchyard, as well as the offerings on display in artists’ studios and milliners’ shops.

Amina Wright is currently Senior Curator for the new Faith Museum at Auckland Castle in County Durham. After graduating from Cambridge, she worked for an independent museum, the National Trust, and as curator for English Heritage at Kenwood House before joining the Holburne Museum, Bath in 2001. Here, she was a key member of the team that delivered the museum’s award-winning redevelopment. She produced several major exhibitions and has published and lectured widely in these areas.  Publications include ‘Joseph Wright of Derby, Bath & Beyond’ and ‘Thomas Lawrence, Coming of Age’. She is an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society.

Click here to visit her website.

The Cleaning and Convservation of Paintings by 19th and 20th Century Painters Working in Cornwall

As an Accredited paintings conservator working in Falmouth, Sarah Cove ACR is well placed to clean, restore and study paintings of the Cornish seas and landscapes, as well as those of 19th-21st century artists living and working in Cornwall. This lecture will illustrate the conservation, materials and techniques of a range of sea and landscape pictures with different structural, aesthetic and technical issues. These include paintings by native Cornish artists such as Camborne's William Cox and his prodigious son Garstin and contemporary Cornish painter Michael Praed, as well as those of 'incomer' painters of the Newlyn and Lamorna Schools, such as Stanhope Forbes, the 20th century St Ives art colony including Ben Nicholson and Patrick Heron and current 'eco-warrier', poet and artist Kurt Jackson. Modern approaches to the cleaning, conservation and display of paintings from private and public collections will be shown.

Our lecturer today is Sarah Cove.

With a background in Fine Art and Art History, Sarah Cove ACR FBAPCR FIIC qualified as an Easel Paintings Conservator at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1985 followed by internships at the V&A and the National Portrait Gallery.  She has worked freelance for private, heritage and corporate clients since 1986.

In 1999 Sarah was one of the first British conservator-restorers to gain Professional Accreditation (PACR) from the UK Institute of Conservation (ICON).  She is a Fellow of the British Association of Paintings Conservator-Restorers (BAPCR) and the International Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC).  In 2017 she became an ICON Accredited Assessor for the AIM Collections Care Conservation Grant scheme.  She works closely with UK-based training institutions to offer occasional bespoke internships and student placements at her studio and during on-site projects.

In 2018 Sarah moved from London to Cornwall and established a new conservation studio for paintings and frames in Falmouth to serve the SW region, whilst continuing to work for clients across southern England and the wider UK.

Click to visit her website.

Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Strauss, Mahler, Bruckner, Schoenberg – it reads like a list of the great and good in classical music – but the amazing thing is that every one of these musical geniuses lived and worked in Vienna. With slides showing Viennese art and architecture as well as audio excerpts, this talk brings Vienna in its heyday to life.  Vienna’s proximity to nature, its politics and its burgeoning middle classes were all factors in the city's cultural blossoming, but most important was Vienna’s geographical location at the heart of the Habsburg Empire and the "wine, women and song" philosophy of the Viennese. We discover the special qualities that enabled one city to foster such a golden age for music. We will also look at the developments in visual art, architecture, science and politics which formed the backdrop to this unparalleled explosion of musical genius and discuss why it ended so abruptly with the First World War

Our Speaker today is Emma Johnson.

With 30 CDs to her name, Emma Johnson is one of the few clarinettists to have performed as a soloist all over the world. She also enjoys giving talks about music “Woodwind Wizardry” and “The Poet John Milton” were both broadcast by BBC radio. She has also lectured about composers Gerald Finzi and Malcolm Arnold for the internet company Tonebase, as well as about Schubert and Brahms for Martin Randall Travel.Johnson studied Music and English at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, where she was the first woman to be made an Honorary Fellow. bShe was honoured by the Queen with an M.B.E. in 1996.

Click here for her website

It is now around 200 years since the purchase of the so- called 'Elgin Marbles' from Lord Elgin, by the British Parliament.  This lecture, beautifully illustrated with specifically taken slides and video, will explore the aesthetics, the back-story, and the heated debates surrounding these fascinating and controversial works of ancient Greek art.  What do we mean by 'the Elgin Marbles'?  How and why were they originally created?  Why are they so highly regarded?  What happened to them between their creation and Elgin's time?  How did he acquire them?  Why are they now in the British Museum?  Finally, why are there such passionately held views both for and against their repatriation to Greece?

Our Speaker today is Dr Steve Kershaw BA.(Hons), Ph.D.

Steve has had a special interest in the world of the Ancient Greeks and Romans ever since being introduced to Homer’s Iliad by an inspirational teacher.  He developed his interests in the Classics at Heath Grammar School, Halifax, before studying at Bristol University.  Having achieved a degree in Classics, Steve stayed on to write his Ph.D.

Since graduation, Steve has taught Classics in a number of establishments, and now operates principally for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education.   Steve also lectures regularly at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  He has travelled extensively throughout the Mediterranean.  He has published a number of books on Classical topics as well as editing Pierre Grimal’s Concise Dictionary of Classical Mythology, later converted to The Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology, partly as a result of a course on Greek Mythology which he taught.

Click here for his website.

The speaker has written extensively on craftspeople: their passions, skills and materials. Some of them are the last practitioners of their craft. How and why do people transform raw materials into works of art? How do their hands and tools transform raw materials into works of utility and beauty? How do they see their prospects as inheritors and conduits of hand- crafted tradition in an industrialised world of mass production?

Our speaker today is Dr Jonathan Foyle.

Jonathan is a career communicator, best known for presenting TV series such as BBC2's Broadcast Award-winning l5-part 'Climbing Great Buildings’, as well as contributing to Channel 4's ‘Time Team' and Channel 5's 'Secrets of the Royal Palaces'. His former roles have encompassed Curator at Hampton Court and Chief Executive of World Monuments Fund Britain, writer for the FT Weekend. He is now a lecturer at the University of Bath. Jonathan has authored seven volumes on great Cathedrals and castles and has spoken worldwide about discoveries in British arts.

This talk offers fresh and analyses of architecture and the arts and crafts. The aim of this talk is share the keys to understanding, with a sense of humour and in friendship.

Click here for his wikpedia page.

The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is well known for its intricate brocades and unique weaving tradition.  Textiles are woven into every aspect of Bhutanese life; they represent status, wealth and expressions of spiritual devotion.  The weavers (always women) are renowned for their stunning mastery of colour, pattern and design, whilst the men (usually monks) are highly skilled in embroidery and applique used to create Buddhist images, monastic furnishings and dance costumes. Bhutan had no currency before the 1960s, so cloth was the major form of wealth. It was used to pay taxes, to bestow as diplomatic gifts and to mark any social occasion.  This lecture will introduce us to this outstanding art form and explain how textiles are crucial to Bhutan’s cultural identity.

Our speaker today is Zara Fleming.

Zara is an independent art consultant, lecturer, tour guide and exhibition curator with specialist knowledge of Buddhist art; focusing on the art and culture of Tibet and the Himalayas.  Lecturing experience includes the Arts Society (formerly NADFAS), the School of African and Oriental Studies, the V & A, Merseyside County Museums, the Oriental Museum in Durham, the Royal Academy, the Brunei Gallery, Asia House and to schools, universities and various study groups.

Initially based at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Zara was then affiliated with the Central Asian Department at Bonn University cataloguing the Tibetan and Mongolian collections of all UK Museums and private collections, as part of a larger cataloguing project throughout Europe.  She was also the Assistant Projects Director in Europe  for the Orient Foundation. She has curated several major exhibitions.

Click here for her website.

According to one leading architect, “the modern architectural drawing is interesting, the photograph is magnificent, the building is an unfortunate but necessary stage between the two.” Architecture + Photography = Art introduces photographers who crystallised the architects’ vision in images that are both works of art in their own right and shape our opinion of the buildings they depict. These photographers include Dell and Wainwright from Britain, Julius Shulman in the United States and Lucien Hervé in France. The lecture also examines photographers who recorded rural churches, barns and cottages to create a lyrical vision of Britain. Prominent in this group are Edwin Smith, Frederick Evans and Eric de Maré, a friend and drinking companion of John Betjeman and widely considered to have been the poet’s favourite photographer.

Our speaker today is Brian Stater.

He is a Senior Teaching Fellow at University College London. His principal academic interest lies in the appreciation of architecture, while a strong personal enthusiasm is for photography. An exhibition of his own photographs has been held at University College London. He is a member of the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography and works with a pre-war Leica camera, as used by his great hero Henri Cartier-Bresson and many others.

Photograph courtesy of Architecture & Design.

Australian artist John Peter Russell was a friend of some of the Impressionists.  The sculptor Rodin said he would be as famous as himself and their friend Monet.  Matisse said that Russell had taught him everything he knew about colour.  During their lifetimes, Russell was more successful than his friend, the unknown Vincent van Gogh.  What reversed this situation?  How do artists become famous and who writes the canon?  This lecture explores that conundrum.

Our Speaker today is Lucrezia Walker.

Lucrezia lectures regularly for the National Gallery, teaching six week courses, Study Days and lunchtime lectures.  She studied in Venice and Perugia, lived and worked in Rome, and has 20 years experience of leading cultural tours in major European cities.  She teaches the London Art History Program for the University of North Carolina.  She was Galleries Correspondent for The Tablet and Lay Canon (Visual Arts) at St Paul’s Cathedral where she continues to serve on the Visual Arts Committee.  She was invited recently to speak on van Gogh on the BBC World Service’s The Forum, in a debate on his life, art, death and fame.  She has also contributed to a programme on changing attitudes to van Gogh for BBC Four.

Photograph courtesy of Wikipedia.

When Edvard Munch created The Scream in 1893, he was responding to an intense emotional experience. Today, we would call it a panic attack. This primal cry was also a rallying call: for Munch and for the wider world of art. It gave birth to a movement known as expressionism, showing life not at it is (realism) or as it might be perceived in a fleeting moment (impressionism), but as it is experienced within the unembellished core of our being. Explosive and emotive, the aftershocks of Munch’s vision were felt across the world: in art and music, literature, dance and film. Charting the origins of expressionism and its historical context, this talk embraces artists and thinkers such as Kandinsky, Klee and Schiele, Nietzsche, Freud and Schoenberg, pondering the radical ways in which they both reflected and ignited our inner feelings.

Our Speaker today isGavin Plumley who has lectured us on previous occasions.

The Times has named Gavin a ‘leading cultural historian’. Known for his expertise on Central European art and music, Gavin’s work spans various periods and disciplines. His first book, “A home for all Seasons” is out now. Other recent projects include Klimt and the Kiss in cinemas worldwide and on Sky Arts. Current projects include a celebration of the 150th birthday of Liberty for Country Life, programme notes for the Salzburg Festival, the Royal Opera House and Glyndebourne, talks for the CBSO and the Arts Society, and tours in Central Europe with Martin Randall Travel. He contributes regularly to Country Life, as well as opera and concert programmes worldwide. Gavin appears frequently on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and Monocle 24. He lectures widely and is an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society.

Born in Dundee in 1981, Gavin is half-Welsh, half-English. He studied music at Keble College, Oxford. Gavin lives in Herefordshire  (Click here for his website.) with his husband, Alastair Tighe, and their dog, Nimrod.

Photograph courtesy of The National Gallery of Norway.