This lecture explores the artistic culture of Vietnam, beginning with the architectural legacy of French colonialism.  We will explore the streets of Hanoi, with its superb French opera house, Belle Époque villas, colorful markets, and the Old Quarter of 36 Streets, where you can buy everything from coffee to coffins.  Moving south, the lecture highlights Saigon’s own opera house and cathedral before examining the country's vibrant modern culture.  Revived since the turbulent events of the 20th century, this contemporary scene is revealed in the stylish costumes of Vietnamese women and, most notably, in modern oil and lacquer paintings that fuse Eastern and Western influences.

Denise Haywood is an author, lecturer, photographer, and journalist specializing in Southeast Asian art, a field she has studied since working in Cambodia in the 1990s.  She teaches for the postgraduate Asian Art Course at SOAS (University of London) and has lectured globally for institutions such as the British Museum, the V&A, and the Royal Geographical Society.  Her published works include acclaimed books on the Buddhist temples of Laos and Cambodian dance, the latter featuring a foreword by the daughter of King Sihanouk.  In addition to her media appearances on TV and radio, Denise frequently shares her expertise on cruise ships and leads cultural tours to Southeast Asia and France for the Royal Academy and the Art Fund.

Image provided by lecturer.

The legendary quality of light, dramatic landscape and sparkling turquoise seas have drawn artists to West Cornwall for over 200 years.  This talk explores the 'Newlyn School' artists, from their first flowering to the later Lamorna colony, together with their contemporaries in nearby St Ives.  Featured artists include 'Newlyners' Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes, Walter Langley and Frank Bramley; the later generation, including Laura Knight, Harold Harvey, Dod Procter and ‘Lamorna’ Birch, and St Ives-based contemporaries Helene Schjerfbeck, Marianne Stokes and Julius Olsson.   

Alison Bevan BEM is a freelance lecturer, curator and consultant with over three decades of leadership in the public art gallery sector.  After graduating in History of Art from Nottingham University in 1986, she began her career at the Graham Sutherland Gallery before spending ten years curating at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery.  In 1999, she became Director of Penlee House Gallery & Museum, establishing herself as an international expert on the Newlyn, Lamorna, and St Ives artists' colonies. Her work raising the profile of Cornish art earned her the British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to Cultural Heritage in 2013.  Most recently, from 2013 to 2024, she served as Director of the Royal West of England Academy (RWA), Britain’s only regional Royal Academy of Art. 

A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach - 1885 -  Stanhope Forbes

This lecture looks at the enormous changes in our homes over a hundred year period, encompassing aspects of household taste from Victorian clutter to the psychedelic ‘throw away’ furnishings of the 1970s.  Although in many ways light-hearted, the lecture examines how social upheaval, war and technological advances transformed our houses.  From the 1880s, when each interior was governed by strict convention and the home was regarded as a shrine to family life, we look at how change gradually came about.  The coming of electricity and central heating altered appearance and comfort and other major developments in design all changed our interiors.

Matthew Williams trained as an Art and Architectural historian before becoming Curator of Cardiff Castle in 1990 a post he held for nearly 30 years.  He is a recognised expert on the Gothic revival architect William Burges and lectures widely on the subject of Victorian design and country houses.  His published articles include contributions to The Decorative Arts Society Journal, articles in ‘Country Life’, and ‘Architectural History’.  His book ‘Cardiff Castle and the Marquesses of Bute’ was published by Scala Press in 2019.  Matthew has been an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society since 2001 and lectures to the Universities of Nottingham and Southampton, The Art Fund, The National Trust and The Tate Gallery.  He was made a Fellow of the Society Of Antiquaries in 2019.

The work of women photographers has often been unfairly neglected.  This lecture seeks to correct that by examining the contribution of three outstanding British practitioners; Julia Margaret Cameron, a Victorian pioneer; Jane Bown, a brilliant portraitist and Fay Godwin, who excelled in landscape photography.  We also explore the work of two highly influential Americans: Dorothea Lange, who produced brilliant documentary images and Annie Leibovitz, who continues to both surprise and delight her audience.

Brian Stater lectured at University College London for 25 years, retiring in 2021 as a Senior Teaching Fellow.  His principal academic interest lay in the appreciation of architecture and he has a lifelong enthusiasm for photography.  He has written on architecture for a wide range of publications and an exhibition of his own photographs was held at UCL.  Brian is a former member of the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography.  He works with a range of cameras, including a pre-War Leica as used by his great hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others. 

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of technology famously proposed that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’.   This lecture looks at how the new technologies of Artificial Intelligence, Virtual and Augmented Reality, 3D printing and Big Data, wearable tech and location-tracking, voice recognition, live-streaming and projection mapping are changing the way art is made and experienced – asking where technology will take artists and the art world in the next decade.

Jacky Klein is an art historian, publisher, writer and broadcaster, specialising in modern and contemporary art.  After studying at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she worked as a curator at a number of leading galleries: Tate, the Barbican, the Courtauld and the Hayward.  In 2008, she moved sideways into the world of art publishing, first as Commissioning Editor at Thames & Hudson, then as Executive Editor at Tate Publishing and subsequently as Director of HENI Publishing, a small independent arts publisher.  She is the author herself of a bestselling book on British artist Grayson Perry (Thames & Hudson, 3rd edition 2020) and co-author of a number of other titles including Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe (Ben Uri Gallery / Alfred Cohen Art Foundation, 2020), Body of Art (Phaidon, 2015) and What is Contemporary Art?  (Thames & Hudson, 2012), a children's guide to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which has been translated into 11 languages.  A public and passionate advocate for the arts, she was a Trustee of the UK Association for Art History from 2013-2023, and was most recently Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute on their Masters programme, 'Curating the Art Museum'. 

Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) was one of the most celebrated artists her time. She displayed exceptional early talent and on 31 May 1783 became one of just four women elected to France’s prestigious Académie Royale de Peinture et de sculpture.  Vigée Le Brun was Queen Marie-Antoinette’s favourite portraitist, creating royal portraits that were astonishing in their informality.  Following the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, that relationship became a liability. Vigée Le Brun fled France with her nine-year old daughter, travelling through Italy, Austria, Russia, Germany, England and Switzerland.

Dr Lois Oliver is Professor in History of Art at the University of Notre Dame in London and a Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute.  She has worked as a Curator at the V&A, the National Gallery and the Royal Academy.  Her recent exhibitions include ‘Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism’ at Dulwich Picture Gallery and ‘Jock McFadyen: Tourist without a Guidebook’ for the Royal Academy.  She has created audio and multimedia tours for many of the UK’s leading arts institutions and has appeared on BBC Radio and TV.  Lois studied English Literature at Cambridge Unersity, and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, completing an MA in Venetian Renaissance Art and writing her PhD thesis on The Image of the Artist, Paris 1815-1855.

The aim of this lecture is to explore Asia’s holistic approach to medicine, which advocates a balanced relationship between body, mind and spirit.  If there is disharmony in any aspect of life, then there is disease.  The great medical traditions of Asia (Indian, Chinese and Tibetan) have been practised over thousands of years and are still very much in use today.  These will be explored through a rich diversity of artistic treasures (both historical and contemporary) – including exquisite Indian paintings, rare Chinese acupuncture charts, Tibetan tangkhas and Japanese woodblock prints.  Diet, exercise, astrology and spiritual practise are also crucial for health and wellbeing.

Zara Fleming is a freelance lecturer, art consultant and exhibition curator specialising in the art and culture of Tibet, the Himalayan areas and Mongolia.  Initially based at the V&A, but also worked with the Central Asian Department of Bonn University, the Orient Foundation, the Royal Academy, Tibet House, the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside and Asia House. In addition to lecturing for The Arts Society, she lectures for museums, universities, Asian art societies and private associations.  Guest lecturer and tour guide on numerous trips to the Himalayas.  Edited Masterpieces of Mongolian Art: Vol 1 and has published many articles in the field of Buddhist art and culture.

It is possible to see a shift in artistic tastes following the plague years which began in the mid C14th.  This is understandable considering that we now know that at least 50% of the population of Europe and beyond perished in the first wave and that the disease recurred over the next 130 years.  There is a distinct increase in interest in the macabre, but also in explorations of what will happen in the next life; some of it surprisingly optimistic and amusing. We see more interest in ex-pagan images and specific demands for spiritual protection and so what might be seen as a dust-to-dust mentality also becomes one of no tragedy, no triumph.   

After nearly 20 years in the British army, Imogen went to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History and Art, graduating with 1st class honours, followed by an MPhil from the University of Birmingham.   She works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe as well as lecturing on small cruise ships and running study tours and courses on land. Has written Stone on Stone: the Men Who Built the Cathedrals, published 2019.  A Freeman of the City of London, being a Member of the Company of Communicators.  Advisor on memorials and monuments for Canterbury's Diocesan Advisory Committee. 

We might assume that our modern Christmas owes much to the Victorians.  In fact, carol-singing, present-giving, mulled wine and mince pies were all just as popular in Tudor times. This lecture is based on Siobhan's book with Alison Weir 'A Tudor Christmas'.  It was a twelve day-long festival, over which the Lord of Misrule held sway; so beloved by English people that its traditions survived remarkably unchanged in an age of tumultuous religious upheaval. 

Siobhan Clarke has worked for Historic Royal Palaces for 20 years delivering tours and lectures on Hampton Court, Kensington, the Tower of London and the Banqueting House, Whitehall Palace.  Her experience includes education sessions and tours for schools, universities, corporate and private clients.  She has lectured for the British Museum, National Trust, National Archives and the Smithsonian and featured on BBC Radio 'Woman's Hour' and Television's 'Secrets of Henry VIII's Palace'.  Her published work includes: 'A Tudor Christmas', in collaboration with Alison Weir, (2018), 'The Tudors: The Crown, The Dynasty, The Golden Age' with Linda Collins (2019), 'King and Collector: Henry VIII and the Art of Kingship' (2021) and 'Gloriana: Elizabeth I and the Art of Queenship' (2022).

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.

Dr Antonia Gatward Cevizli is an independent art historian specialising in both Italian Renaissance art and Ottoman art.  She gained her PhD from the University of Warwick.  Her publications focus on cultural and diplomatic exchange between the Italian city-states and the Ottomans.  Antonia has lectured for a number of institutions including Sabancı University, Istanbul; Sotheby’s Institute of Art; the National Gallery; the V&A Academy and The Courtauld summer school.  Her interests are wide-ranging and she also worked across the collections of both Tate Modern and Tate Britain as a professional guide.  She has lived in Siena, Venice and Istanbul.

The term trompe l’oeil was not used until the 19th century (in order to refer to illusionistic painting in general) but the intriguing game of simulation designed to foster the illusion of reality can be traced all the way back to the Classical era.  The most famous written example comes from Pliny the Elder with his charming description of a competition between two well-known Greek painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who attempted to fool each other with the brilliant realism of their works, an anecdote which continued to inspire artists for hundreds of years.

Siân Walters is an art historian and the director of Art History in Focus.  She has been a lecturer at the National Gallery for over 20 years.  She also lectures for The Wallace Collection, The Art Fund and many art societies and colleges throughout Europe and taught at Surrey University for many years. She appears regularly on radio and television and has recently been commissioned by the National Gallery to write a book on Still Life in the collection.  Her specialist areas include 15th and 16th century Italian Art, Spanish Art and Architecture, Dutch and Flemish painting and the relationship between Dance and Art.  

Klimt was one of the most prominent figures in the Viennese fin de siècle, creating paintings whose sexual themes and bold use of colour and gold shocked an unsuspecting populace. Less is known about his early years as a muralist for the grand municipal buildings and royal and aristocratic palaces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  This lecture looks at the many changes in Klimt's life, his rejection of public pomp and the impact on his style and works.

A writer and broadcaster, Gavin appears on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and contributes to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide.  He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe.  Recent appearances include Klimt and The Kiss in cinemas worldwide and talks for the Hay and Cheltenham Literature Festivals, the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum and the V&A.

His first book, A Home for All Seasons, was published in 2022.

The British Musical was triumphant in the 1930s when the musicals of Noël Coward and Ivor Novello dominated the West End.  However the arrival of Oklahoma in 1948 changed everything.  Over the next 30 years audiences flocked to see the big American musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein and others.  Nevertheless, the British Musicals held their own with moments of great success.  Julian Slade, Sandy Wilson, David Heneker and, of course, Lionel Bart had hugely successful shows.  Then in the 1970s and 1980s, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice and others established the British musical as a force in the UK and abroad.

Malcolm Jones has lectured on the Victoria & Albert Museum Short Course and Year Course Programmes since 2009, devising and developing a range of courses on Theatre History and Practice.  He also lectures on theatre for Road Scholar and London Arts Discovery Tours for theatre groups visitng the UK from America.  Malcolm was Workshop and Events manager at the V&A Theatre Museum in Covent Garden for 10 years where he was responsible for lectures, Study Days and workshops for adults and interviewed many leading British actors and directors including Kenneth Cranham, Zoe Wanamaker, Barry Cryer, June Whitfield and Don Black.  He has lectured and led workshops at many drama schools including RADA, The Actors Centre and Rose Bruford College.  He has chaired panels and post show talks for Ambassadors Theatre Group.  Malcolm has contributed as a speaker on theatre to many television and radio programmes.  He has worked with Age Exchange Community Arts since 2000 on many creative arts programmes with older people and intergenerational film and theatre projects.

Three giants of the Italian Renaissance who were involved in fierce competition with each other, Leonardo, the master, Michelangelo the brooding upstart genius, and Raphael, the artist who carefully crafted his stellar career in the shadows, to emerge as a bright light that was tragically extinguished by an early death just as he began to be recognised as an artist in his own right. "Everything that Raphael had, he took from me", is what Michelangelo remarked, as Pope Julius II pitted them against each other in the Vatican.

Charlie Hall A passionate arts educator, lecturer, and guide, based in London and Italy. Director of the highly regarded John Hall Venice Course, (est. 1965) Tour lecturer and leader for Kirker Holidays since 2013, and of independent tours in Italy. Designer and host of a series of art talks and events for the Soho House group of private member’s clubs. Designed and led courses for Christie’s Education and The Serpentine Gallery ‘Collector’s Circle’.

Rome’s art and architecture were some of the finest of man’s creations, and have had a lasting effect on our own art and culture. In this talk we look at beautiful buildings and works of art - sculpture, mosaic, wall-paintings, silver and jewellery - to trace the history of this mighty city.  We follow Rome’s rise from its semi-legendary mud-hut origins to the dazzling splendour of the capital city of the Emperors.  The talk focuses on Rome’s golden age – from 30 BC to AD 200, when Emperors such as Augustus, Nero and Hadrian reigned, and filled the city with palaces, temples, theatres, libraries and other incredible monuments.

Dr Paul Roberts is Research Keeper in the Department of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford University.  Paul has been a lecturer with the Arts Society/NADFAS for over twenty years, has travelled extensively to societies across the UK, and has also lectured on numerous cruises in and around the Mediterranean. He studied Classics at the University of Cambridge, and Classical Archaeology at the Universities of Sheffield and Oxford.  He then lived in Italy for several years, teaching and researching.  He has travelled throughout the former lands of the Roman Empire, from Britain to Syria, and has excavated in Britain, Greece, Libya, Turkey and in particular Italy, where he is currently working on a Roman Villa in the Molise region of the Central Apennines. His research focuses on the daily life of ordinary people in the Greek and Roman worlds, and he has written books and articles on Greek and Roman daily life, Pompeii and Herculaneum, Sicily, Roman Emperors, mummy portraits, and Greek and Roman ceramics and glass. He is now writing a history of Rome through its monuments and the Emperors who built them.   From 1994 to 2015 he was Senior Roman Curator in the Greek and Roman Department at the British Museum, where he curated the exhibition Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum (2013). Arriving in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2015, in 2019/20  he curated Last Supper in Pompeii, a tribute to the Roman love affair with food and wine.

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in America, explore 25 iconic works of American art, including Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic,’ Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother,’ Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks.’  Trace the history of America through paintings, sculptures, land art, and photography that exemplify vital moments in American history like the Gold Rush, the Civil War, Civil Rights movement, and so forth; key styles/movements like the Hudson River School, Regionalism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art; and showcase ground-breaking artists from the indigenous Native American peoples through to virtuoso portrait painter John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Warhol, Kara Walker and many more.

Marie-Anne Mancio trained as an artist before gaining a PhD in Art and Critical Theory from the University of Sussex. Has lectured in art history for the City Lit, Tate Modern, the Course, Art in London, London Art Salon, Dulwich Picture Gallery, and many private art societies; also runs art history study tours abroad and is a Director of InFems art collective for whom she curates exhibitions and writes.

Four hundred years of international jewellery design, examining the changing styles from the pomp of High Renaissance enamelled gold work to the glamour of Harry Winston diamonds. This presentation covers many of the key elements of manufacture, including the progress of diamond cutting, Neoclassicism and Romanticism, 19th century Archaeological and Renaissance Revivalism, the impact of diamond mining in South Africa, Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts and Art Deco, Post War Modernism and designs of the future. Other important areas covered include Cartier and the introduction of platinum jewellery as a statement of style and the jewels of the Duchess of Windsor. 

John Benjamin is a jewellery historian, lecturer, author and broadcaster. Formerly International Director of Jewellery at Phillips Fine Art Auctioneers, since 1999 he has been an independent jewellery consultant on behalf of the private client network. John is well-known from his appearances over 30 years on BBC Television’s ever-popular Antiques Roadshow. He is a Freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company, a Court Assistant and Founder Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and in 2021 was appointed Honorary Jewellery Adviser to the National Trust.

N.B.  This lecture will take place at St Martin's Hall, St Martin in the Fields.

Modigliani remains one of the most popular artists of the 20th century. I discuss his short life in some detail looking at his early development and his arrival and life in Paris from 1906 to his death in 1920. Modigliani was at the centre of Bohemian Paris and was a close friend of Maurice Utrillo, Picasso, Max Jacob, Moise Kisling, Chaïm Soutine and many other painters and writers who made up Bohemian Paris. I discuss the influences on his painting and sculpture including Cézanne, African art and Cubism and show how he developed a highly individual style of his own. I look at his haunting portraits and sensual nudes while exploring the Bohemian life of Montmartre. 

Julian Halsby studied History of Art at Cambridge. Formerly Senior Lecturer and Head of Department at Croydon College of Art. Publications include Venice - the Artist's Vision (1990, 1995), The Art of Diana Armfield RA (1995), Dictionary of Scottish Painters (1990, 1998, 2001, 4th edition 2010), A Hand to Obey the Demon's Eye (2000), Scottish Watercolours 1740-1940 (1986, 1991), A Private View - David Wolfers and the New Grafton Gallery (2002). Interviews artists for the Artist Magazine and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and The Critics Circle. A practising artist, he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1994 and appointed Keeper in 2010.

Christmas spectacles, slapstick, and beanstalks have been drawing crowds to Covent Garden since 1737. John Rich, the first manager of what is now the Royal Opera House, was a fine dancer, mime, and special effects man and he (and his successors) developed all the well known features of the  London Christmas season. Even now principal boys, fairies, and Harlequin are alive and well on  the ROH stage. This lecture pulls together the whole performing tradition and brings it up to date with the latest Christmas offerings at the Royal Opera House.

Sarah Lenton has spent her working life in the theatre: her principal employers are the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Garsington Opera. She writes programme articles, radio and play scripts, gives lectures on the operas and ballets in the rep. and broadcasts regularly for BBC Radios 3 and 4. She is also a cartoonist.  

The world in which Bede lived was geographically confined to the north east of England, but it’s sometimes hard to believe that he didn’t travel himself. His ability to amass information and interpret it accurately has frequently baffled later scholars: one only has to read the first page of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People to realise that he has described England with astonishing accuracy. The great achievement of this and other books aside, Bede was also the man who gave us the Anno Domini dating system, who understood that the world could not be flat, who worked out tide timetables 1000 years before gravity was understood and much, much more. He was also a monk. This lecture looks into his life and the times in which he lived, and assesses his extraordinary achievements. 

After nearly 20 years in the British army, Imogen Corrigan went to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History and Art, graduating with 1st class honours, followed by an MPhil from the University of Birmingham. Works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe as well as lecturing on small cruise ships and running study tours and courses on land. Has written Stone on Stone: the Men Who Built the Cathedrals, published 2019. A Freeman of the City of London, being a Member of the Company of Communicators.

Alice provides a painter’s perspective on famous artworks from the 17th to the 21st centuries. Rembrandt and Turner are revealed as artistic risk-takers, whose new combinations of glazes, surfaces, pigments and processes re-defined the language of painting. These two forefathers of experimentation lead the way for modern artists such as Pollock and Fontana, who went beyond the brush, the canvas, and the gallery wall itself in search of the meaning of making. Explore the mess and methodology of the creative process: from broken brushes to smudged thumb-marks, raw pigment to secret sketchbooks, slashed canvases to immersive light installations, this lecture uncovers a new way of seeing painting.

Alice White is a contemporary oil-painter, and a Tutor at the University of the Arts London and University College London. She has provided guest lectures at Kings College, London, The Art Workers' Guild and the Courtauld Institute of Art.Her essay 'A Painter's Perspective' is published in ‘Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe’ and her article ‘How to Look at Painting’ was printed in The Art Society Magazine in 2020. Alice’s solo show, A New Wave, documented her year’s residency as Artist for Animals at ZSL London Zoo. Recent projects include The Art of Science (Scott Polar Institute, University of Cambridge 2021). She also regularly exhibits at the Mall Galleries in London. Awards include the Russell and Chapple Prize for an Outstanding work in Oils (Royal Society of Marine Artists 2017) and the Time Space Money Bursary (A-n The Artist Information Company/Arts Council England 2020).

 In 1866 William Bürger, a pseudonym for Étienne-Joseph-Théophile Thoré (1807-69) published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts his article called “Sphinx of Delft” about the mysterious painter called Vermeer, and so began the modern-day revival of Vermeer. However, this lecture will begin by tracing Vermeer’s origins, his early training and influences, and how he came to the genre of painting domestic interiors. The lecture will look at his earliest known paintings and how he gradually migrated to the genre of domestic set-piece paintings we know him for today. It will also set Vermeer in the context of contemporaneous Dutch artists and contemporaneous Delft artists; tracing the early beginnings of the town of Delft, its rise in prosperity and the low points of the town also. We will see how Vermeer went from being referred to as ‘the excellent and famous Vermeer’ in 1669 to being declared bankrupt towards the end of his life in 1675. How did it all go so wrong, were the signs there at the beginning or was there some great disaster in his life that prompted his financial demise? Finally this lecture will look at the late 19th century and 20th century revival of Vermeer that became the cult of Vermeer, and why this cult of Vermeer endures to this day.

Art historian Leslie Primo is an author, broadcaster, and graduate of Birkbeck, University College, with an MA in Renaissance studies. He lectured at the National Gallery, London for 18 years, and has appeared on the BBC speaking on Michelangelo and presenting on JMW Turner. He contributed to the Oxford Companion Guide to Black British History, and has a forthcoming Thames & Hudson book called, The Foreigners that Invented British Art. He currently teaches art history at Imperial College, and lectures for the Royal Academy, London.

The remarkable untold story of ‘Carry On’ actor Peter Butterworth and his wife Janet Brown, Britain’s first female tv impressionist, best known for her impressions of Margaret Thatcher. 

Using classic film and tv clips, personal mementos, and rare photographs and letters from his family’s unseen collection, Tyler reveals the private story behind his parents’ public lives. A journey that takes in MI9, the building of a theatre in the notorious WW2 Prisoner of War camp Stalag Luft III, nights at Chequers with a Prime Minister, ‘This Is Your Life’, and many more moments in their long, shared life in the theatre.

Tyler Butterworth grew up in a theatrical family and spent twenty five years as an actor working extensively in film, television, theatre and radio. Then as a development producer in television documentaries and closely involved with NASA on a landmark commemorative TV series. He now works as a voice actor, recording audiobooks.

In the summer of 1888, Vincent Van Gogh left Paris and walked south to the old Roman town of Arles.  Born in Holland, he started his career as an art dealer, but then discovered his true vocation as an artist. That autumn he was joined by Paul Gauguin, a very different character to Van Gogh, dramatic and self assured, flamboyant and single minded in his determination to succeed - a disastrous combination of personalities. Within two months Van Gogh was admitted to hospital and Gauguin left for the north and the two men never met again. This lecture reconstructs the lives and works of these two remarkable figures and looks into the motives and ambitions that drove them and examines the few short weeks they spent together.

Douglas Skeggs read Fine Art at Magdalene College Cambridge and has been a lecturer on paintings since 1980 where he has given over 8000 lectures to universities, colleges and art societies. He was the director of The New Academy of Art Studies and a regular lecturer at The Study Center, Christie's course ‘The History of Art Studies'. Among his more improbable venues for lectures are the bar on the QE2, MI5 headquarters, the Captain's Room at Lloyds, and an aircraft hanger in a German NATO base. He has written and presented TV documentaries, and published five novels, translated into 8 foreign languages, and his book on Monet, ‘River of Light’, has sold 30,000 copies in England, America and France.

Born in a railway station north of Vienna, Egon Schiele became the Imperial capital's most shocking artist. Defying the authorities, the Academy of Fine Arts and the curvilinear lines of his idol Klimt's art nouveau, Schiele created his own brand of artistic expression. He got to the very core of human emotion and the restive experience of life at the beginning of the 20th century. Looking at strained portraits, cramped cityscapes and sparse landscapes alike, this talk surveys 28 years of tenacious creativity, as well as the impact Schiele would have on artists such as Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lucien Freud and Tracey Emin.

Gavin Plumley is a writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. Gavin lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Recent talks include the Royal Opera House, National Gallery, National Trust, National Theatre, British Museum, V&A, Southbank Centre, Tate and the Neue Galerie, New York. His first book, A Home for All Seasons, was published in June 2022.

The Wall Street Crash in 1929 led to a questioning of the success of the American dream. President Roosevelt stepped in with the Works Progress Administration and the New Deal. The government initiative meant employment for over eight million largely unskilled Americans and importantly 5,300 artists. Murals, painting, photography, graphic design all flourished. In this lecture we will explore some of the key artists of this era. The abstract painters Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning will be evaluated along with the social realism of Dorothea Lange and Ben Shahn. The soundtrack of the era is provided by Woody Guthrie and Jimmie Rogers.

John Francis is an inspirational speaker who has delivered lectures and workshops in the United States, Beijing, Malaysia and the UK. Initially trained as a painter, John was awarded the Max Beckmann Memorial Scholarship in painting in Brooklyn, New York and went on to be artist in resident for the state of Texas. Later John produced and directed several short films and animations, has taught film, art and pedagogy at many universities.

Having never left the Russian nor Soviet empires in his lifetime, this Kiev based artist can only have heard about the new tendencies in Western Art through magazines or publications. Nonetheless, Bohomazov created masterpieces no less exceptional or ground-breaking than those of his European contemporaries. A difficult, at times tragic life, at a time of major historical upheaval Oleksander Bohomazov is an artist of revolutionary ideas and unique style. James Butterwick examines the legacy of the genius who many consider the national artist of the Ukraine and how his work is finally moving into the light.

James Butterwick a collector of Russian and Ukrainian Art has established himself as one of the world’s leading experts. In 1994, he became the only foreign member of the Russian Society of Private Collectors, taking part in museum exhibitions and lecturing on Russian Art, at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Museum of Russian Impressionism. His focus changed to Ukrainian Modernism with three exhibitions of Oleksandr Bohomazov and others. In 2015 James was invited to exhibit early 20th century Ukrainian and Russian art at TEFAF, Maastricht and the TEFAF New York Fair in 2017.