LECTURE PROGRAMME 2011

 

Monday, 31 January 2011

Venice & London - a musical and artistic partnership

By Peter Medhurst

As Venice declined, it produced ever fewer opportunities for high-grade lucrative employment and as a result, many of its native artists and musicians looked for work elsewhere. Some went south to Rome and Florence, some gravitated to Paris, Vienna, and even Madrid, but many - inspired by the constant procession of Englishman on the Grand Tour - set their sights on the ever expanding English capitol. Through digital images, film and live examples sung and played at the piano, Peter Medhurst explores the knock-on effect of the Venetians' stay in 18th century London and reveals how English clture took on a discernable Venetian quality that was to be detected in its art and music for many years to come.

 

Monday, 28 February 2011

Nicholas Hawksmoor and the Glories of English Baroque

By Andrew Davies

Nicholas Hawksmoor is one of Britain's most important but least-known architects. Responsible in large part for the magnificent Blenheim Palace, Castle Howard and the west towers of Westminster Abbey he also designed several splendid churches. Starting as Sir Christopher Wren's favourite pupil, in the early eighteenth century Hawksmoor developed his own architectural voice and was a major part of Britain's short lived Baroque movement. We will examine his works in detail, plus the legacy of contemporaries such as Sir John Vanbrugh.

 

Monday, 28 March 2011

Vita Sackville-West, Sissinghurst and Twentieth Century English Gardens 

By James Bolton

The Arts and Crafts gardens created, in particular by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, set a standard against which English gardens would be measured for the next 60 years. Sissinghurst, the creation of Vita Sackvill-West and her husband Harold Nicholson is the perfect example of this style; wonderful plantsmanship set within a framework of hedges and vistas.

Throughout the century the mania for Italian gardens continued unabated, while Modernism, instinctively mistrusted by the English, swept over Europe and America in the 1920s and 30s. Only in the 1960s and 70s, were brave steps taken to establish an alternative to the Arts and Crafts style.

Towards the end of the century gardens became either structural and formal, harking back to the gardens of the seventeenth century or contemporary were influenced by the new perennial planting schemes coming from Holland and Germany. The best gardens which point the way forward to the twenty-first century, combine these two elements. 

 

Monday, 09 May 2011

Elizabethan Textile Furnishings

By Dr. Gillian White

Textiles provided the interiors of Elizabethan aristocratic houses with colour, glamour, texture and symbolism. Now only a fraction survives of the huge collecitons of textiles that once graced and invigorated Elizabethan mansions and palaces. This talk looks at designs, techniques and uses , as well as sublject matter and the Elisabehans' fondness for decoding hidden messages and devices. The talk is fully illustrated with a range of images including tapestries, bed hangings, cushion covers, wall hangings and table carpets, as well as references from contemporary inventories and paintings.

 

Monday, 06 June 2011

"At the Sign of the Falcon": The Life and Work of Henry George Murphy, Britain's Most Neglected Goldsmith, Silversmith and Unique Englishman

By John Benjamin

H.G. Murphy's greatest misfortune was to die just before the start of the Second World War. The designs and inspirations of the pre-war era were simply seen as passé and totally out of keeping with the new spirit of modernism which quickly grew after the Festival of Britain in 1951. Harry Murphy served his apprenticeship under Henry Wilson, probably Britain's greatest designer goldsmith of the Arts and Crafts era. Here he learnt a wide range of skills and techniques including enamelling, gem-setting and polishing, niello, engraving and hammering. From 1928 until his death in 1939 he worked from retail premises in Marylebone, London known as the Falcon Studio where he designed and created a prodigious amount of silverware for the corporate, civic and private sectors as well as some truly startling gold, silver and enamel jewellery inspired by nature, architecture, the Ballet Russes and the vibrancy of the Jazz Age.

 

Monday, 26 September 2011

Posters of the Belle Époque

By Charles Harris

The keystone lecture of the Poster Series relates technical innovations in printing with creative genius and remarkable craftsmanship that enabled the Poster to become the world's first effective method of mass communication. From Manet's "Les Chats" to Cheret's "Electrine" and Lautrec's "Moulin Rouge", you'll see inspirational work by artists who made the poster great: magnificent Mucha, socially-conscious Steinlen, idealistic Grasset, and many more. Learn how an effective poster is designed and how it plays on the mind; and why most posters today go unnoticed.

 

Monday, 31 October 2011

Prague: The City of the Winter Queen

By Douglas Skeggs

Prague is one of the great treasure houses of Europe. Reduced to a near ruin under the communists, it has now been restored to its former glory, a unique blend of Gothic, Baroque and Art Nouveau achitecture. The lecture looks at the rich fabric of Prague's past, its legends and its history, as well as the artists, composers, statesmen and rogues that have illuminated this fairy tale city.

 

Monday, 28 November 2011

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: Patrons of the Arts,

Art Collectors and Artists

By Oliver Everett

Victoria & Albert were enthusiastic patrons of the arts throughout their marriage, commissioning and collecting works from both British and European Artists. These included Old Master paintings, sculpture, furniture, jewellery and fine bindings. They viewed their roles as patrons of the arts as being part of the public duties of the monarchy. Buckingham Palace was known as "the headquarter of taste". They also made important changes at Windsor Castle and added three other distinctive royal residences. They played a pivotal role with the ground breaking Great Exhibition of 1851, were important patrons of early photography and also produced their own art - paintings, drawings and etchings. The talk also challenges the popular image of Victoria as a melancholy widow and reveals her as a passionate and open-minded young woman.