The 'poor little rich girl' who changed the face of twentieth century art. Not only was Peggy Guggenheim ahead of her time but she was also the woman who helped define it. She discovered and nurtured a new generation of artists producing a new kind of art. Through collecting not only art but also the...

This colourful lecture explores the relationship between an extraordinary American painter and an equally remarkable place: the picturesque state of New Mexico. Having visited the mountain art colony of Taos for the first time in 1929, she moved permanently to New Mexico after World War II. Fascinated by the mountains and desert, adobe churches and...

Fillius, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons In 1888 Gertrude Jekyll wrote a short but seminal article in The Garden in which she urged the readers to “remember that in a garden we are painting a picture”. As an accomplished watercolour artist, Miss Jekyll was familiar with the principles of using colours, but she felt that in...

Harry Venning has been a professional cartoonist for thirty years, during which time he has provided cartoons for several high-profile UK publications (The Guardian, Radio Times) as well as for countless more obscure titles (British Journal Of Wound Care). He was awarded UK Strip Cartoonist Of The Year for his Guardian strip Clare In The Community, which he adapted...

Zarateman, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Picasso's Guernica the painting created in 1937 is considered by many to be his greatest masterpiece. Painted as a reaction to the bombing of the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War, it shows the horror, cruelty and devastation of modern warfare. The painting contains a lot more than a depiction of...

Norio NAKAYAMA from saitama, japan, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons This is my ‘calling card’. The lecture is of general interest and charts opera’s close connection with the society that is paying for it. The talk moves from the 17th and 18th century preoccupations with princely patronage, classical plots, courtly manners, high voices, enormous...

Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons In June 1520 the king of France and the king of England met in a field outside Calais to celebrate peace. The celebrations that accompanied this meeting have become known as The Field of Cloth of Gold because of their extravagance and luxury, a magnificence captured in the...

(left)User Roisterer on en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons-(right)Majvdl, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons I confess to not thinking it much like the original – but that the public will not be able to detect… Cassie Austen on her Aunt Jane’s portrait. From Burns to Byron and from Jane Austen to the Brontes;...