Details of the lecture

Speed! Technology! Destruction! The battle cry of the Futurists WWI heralded the appearance of the car as a powerful symbol in avant-garde art. Soon the Art Deco masterpieces of the great car builders came to epitomise style, luxury and craftmanship, works of art in their own right. The romance of speed continued to be a major theme in how cars were depicted in art, but, since the 1950s the car has become art, used as a canvas for artists as celebrated as Peter Blake, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst. This lecture will showcase the beautiful and the bizarre, celebrating the dynamic, creative, and sometimes unsettling relationship between cars and art.

Lecturer: Julian Richards

Julian Richards, theartssociety.org

I studied archaeology at Reading University and have since worked as a professional archaeologist, in commercial archaeology, for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent. I was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992 and have an honorary doctorate. I have long been involved in teaching and outreach projects, lecturing widely in continuing education, to schools (with a focus on special needs pupils) and societies. My career in broadcasting involved researching and presenting Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4. I have written a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and landscape. Museum work includes curating Stonehenge related exhibitions in the UK and abroad (Germany and Austria) and I have just curated the new permanent ceramics gallery for Salisbury Museum. With no intention of retiring I am still passionate about Stonehenge, pots and old cars.