This lecture will present the most popular paintings to be found in British collections – in reverse order from No. 20 to No.1, compiled from different polls conducted since 2005 (society members who recall Alan Freeman’s Pick of the Pops will get the idea!). As the list is counted down, there will be detailed discussion of some of the individual artworks, as well as reflections on why some artworks rate so high or low and why some don’t feature at…

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 gardens these principles “had been greatly neglected”. This talk looks at how to apply these principles in designing a border, but it also looks at the…

Many thousands of British soldiers - and, in some cases, their wives - sailed out to India in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the era before photography, many sent back drawings and paintings intended for private consumption. These now offer us a vivid insight into various aspects of their lives, sometimes unglamorous, often amusing. We see their journey out, their social activities, their bungalows, gardens and hill stations; also their cuisine, their recreations, life on the march, and their…

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 into a Radio 4 sitcom. In 'The Art Of The Cartoonist' Harry will be tracing the history of his profession with examples from early practitioners…

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 war. Picasso explores many themes, love, death, nationhood, motherhood and his own life at that point in time. The painting is also full of cross…

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 costumes and happy endings – through the gear change of the war and revolution to the 19th century concerns of nationalism, epic themes and doomed heroines. The talk is based on years of writing articles, programme notes,…

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 famous painting at Hampton Court. Textiles, armour, goldsmiths’ work, painting and even a dazzling temporary palace were all called upon to impress the watching world.…

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; this lecture will uncover the fascinating stories behind some literary portraits of the Romantic period.    We’ll look at various ways in which Romantic writers have been depicted in art, and how these likenesses have been received; both during the writers’ lifetimes,…

Michal Osmenda from Brussels, Belgium, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Morocco Blues – why and how Morocco got painted blue draws on Elizabeth’s time in Morocco in visits spanning more than 25 years. The lecture focuses particularly on the stories behind the blue pigment used for the fishing boats and doorways of photogenic Essaouira on the Moroccan coast, and the Majorelle Blue developed and patented by French artist Jacques Majorelle in Marrakech in the 1920s. The story of Morocco’s…

National Archives and Records Administration, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons This talk is about the White House’s most celebrated twentieth century residents. Others had been, perhaps, more intellectual, such as Eleonora Roosevelt, certainly others utterly perfidious, just to name Nixon for one, but no other couple who inhabited the White House were ever so glamorous, sophisticated and celebrated. Of course they will never be forgotten given the tragic end to the Kennedy presidency, but this has tended to overshadow, somewhat,…