Programme 2024
On this side you can see our lectures and events from the year 2024.
To download our 2024 lecture programme flyer please click on the the link: Download 2024 Programme.
To get more information of each lecture or event (and to register for a lecture or an event), please click on the picture of the lecture or event or click on the button „More Information„.
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Tom Thomson and the „Group of Seven“
Tom Thomson and the "Group of Seven"
The Group of Seven was formed with the aim of creating a distinctively Canadian art based on the country’s natural landscape. The original members first came together in 1913, and first exhibited as a group in 1920. This lecture will explore examples of their work, which continue to hold great sway in relation to both Canadian art history and national identity. We will also consider their influences, the work of some of their forerunners – including Tom Thomson – and contemporaries, and ask whether they achieved their aims.
Sicilian Splendours: From Greece to the Normans
Sicilian Splendours: From Greece to the Normans
We look at the rich art, architecture and history of Sicily - the largest island of the ancient Mediterranean and, in the ancient world, the wealthiest. First we see the Carthaginians, the first major invaders of Sicily and their distinctive, enigmatic culture, still visible on the small island of Motya. Afterwards come the Greeks, with beautiful cities such as Agrigento, and Syracuse and Segesta, filled with theatres and temples to the gods. Then we see Roman Sicily, peaceful and prosperous, with cities such as Syracuse and Taormina, and the...
The Art of the Cartoonist
The Art of the Cartoonist
Harry Venning graduated from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth with a BA in history, formed a touring theatre company bringing new plays to audiences in rural Wales, was then employed for a year as an actor/writer with the Channel Theatre Company in Ramsgate, Kent, before giving up acting and becoming a cartoonist instead. He has had work published in the UK and abroad, including the strip Clare in the Community which has been a weekly feature in The Guardian since 1996. In 2016 he was awarded Strip Cartoonist of the Year by the UK Cartoon ...
The Athletic Aesthetic – Your Arts Society guide to the 2024 Olympics
The Athletic Aesthetic - Your Arts Society guide to the 2024 Olympics
From July to September 2024 Paris will host the Olympic and Paralympic Games. But whilst most onlookers will focus on sport, art and design will also play a part, as they have since the games began at Olympia nearly three thousand years ago. Greek art is replete with representations of athletes on vases, plates and bronzes. Every four years modern day hosts unveil dazzling new architecture, in the form of stadia, arenas, velodromes and swimming pools. The athletes themselves act as torch bearers for ever changing ideals of physical perfection. ...
Who’s got our paintings? The story of the Public Catalogue Foundation project
Who’s got our paintings? The story of the Public Catalogue Foundation project
One man’s quest to see a favourite painting at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge led to the remarkable project, now known as ‘Art UK’ (and online), which has catalogued over 210,000 thousand oil paintings in UK public ownership since 2003. The project now moves on to sculpture. Cataloguers hunted down paintings in damp stores, clambered up dodgy ladders, unrolled masterpieces and sad tatters of canvas. Amanda knows! She was one of them. An extraordinary record has been created, which benefits from public interaction online and has beco...
George Stubbs (1724 – 1806) „The English Leonardo“
George Stubbs (1724 - 1806) "The English Leonardo"
Many art historians and critics have compared the work of Stubbs to that of Leonardo da Vinci, one even christening him the ‘Leonardo of Liverpool’ to reflect his humble origins as the son of a Liverpool leatherworker. The comparison can seem hubristic until one considers the intense scientific method and investigation that lay behind the production by Stubbs of his world-famous Anatomy of the Horse published in 1766 – a work which revolutionised the understanding and depiction of equine subjects. This lecture looks at the life and work o...
Britain versus the Bauhaus: Modern Design in 1930s
Britain versus the Bauhaus: Modern Design in 1930s
Staatliches Bauhaus was an art school founded under Weimar Republic by the architect Walter Gropius. From 1919 to 1933 its tutors combined crafts and the fine arts in a radical new approach to design education. Less well known is the influence of the Bauhaus and other German design schools on design and art education in Britain in this period. As the impact of the economic ‘Slump’ of c.1929-34 hit British manufacturing sales, many in local and national government took the view that Britain’s struggling industrial base could be improved i...
Cardiff Castle: A Welsh Victorian Camelot
Cardiff Castle: A Welsh Victorian Camelot
Far from being a ruin, Cardiff Castle is one of the most remarkable houses in Britain. Dating from the time of the Romans, centuries of change culminated in the complete transformation undertaken in the 1870s by the Marquess of Bute and his eccentric genius architect William Burges. They created a ‘Feudal extravaganza’ in fifteen highly imaginative interiors, including an Arab room, a Pompeian roof garden and rooms with an astrological theme. The lecture examines this wonderful building and the personalities of those involved.