We are back in the Old Palace for this lecture.

Liberty of London is far more than just a shop; it is also a byword for luxury and innovation.  Founded in 1876, at the height of the 19th century craze for all things Aesthetic and Japanese, it was an immediate success.  Its Oriental textiles, Middle-Eastern rugs, and Artistic accessories and dress were widely admired and the shop was beloved by connoisseurs such as the painter James McNeill Whistler and the critic Oscar Wilde as well as by the cream of London's fashionable elite.

Please note that this lecture takes place on Thursday 11 June in St Mary's Church, Ely

Movie posters have helped us decide how to spend our hard-earned cinema money for over a century, from the art deco attractions of Metropolis, though the widescreen promises of the mid-century, all the way to the formulaic multiplex offerings of today. Some are timeless works of art, some are downright deceptive, some are startlingly original. And today, some change hands for half a million pounds. Join lecturer Christopher Budd to find out what we can learn from a hundred years of movie posters.

Please note that this lecture takes place on Thursday 21st May  in St Mary's Church, Ely

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert expressed their love for each other through art. At every birthday, Christmas and wedding anniversary they exchanged lavish gifts of paintings, sculpture and jewellery. They commissioned artists to record their lives together at Balmoral and Osborne House – the rooms they created, the parties they held and the landscapes in which they loved to walk. Keen amateur artists, they themselves made watercolours and etchings that take us behind the scenes to give us fascinating glimpses into their family life.

We will look not only at glamorous paintings by artists such as Landseer and Winterhalter, but also at the more personal watercolours the couple took pleasure in arranging in their treasured ‘Souvenir Albums’. This lecture tells the story of these royal patrons and collectors who were every bit as passionate about art as they were about each other

Dressing to impress

Emma Johnson, the internationally aclaimed clarinettist, is going to take us on a journey through the musical city of Vienna.

This talk brings together archaeology, volcanology, literary evidence, and art to examine what happened to these two towns famously when destroyed on the same day in AD 79 by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius. We will look at the evidence of Pliny the Younger, who provides history’s first eye witness account of a volcanic eruption, as well as the evidence uncovered in the cities themselves. This talk is ideal for any individual or group planning a trip to the Bay of Naples to see the sites for themselves. 

The celebration of Christmas brings together a broad range of traditions which are now regarded by many as integral to Christmas as a whole. Using a wide range of artworks and covering the output of many well-known and lesser known artists including Giotto, Caspar David Friedrich and Norman Rockwell this talk examines the elements of Christmas in their artistic setting. From the Christmas feast to Christmas Cards, holly and ivy, trees, crackers, gift giving and of course lots and lots of snow, this lecture is guaranteed to put you in the Christmas spirit. 

Garden design in England 1660 to 1720. 

The last splendid flowering of the formal Italianate garden in this country.

The Royalist landowners returning from exile on Charles II’s Restoration in 1660 brought with them, from Holland or France, new tastes in garden design, and a longing to put down roots. John Evelyn was one of many employed to create little Edens for them. 

Lucy will show paintings and plans of the new gardens created during the late Stuart period.  The pictures, many of them by Dutch and Flemish artists who had travelled over with the restored King, are as lovely now as these magnificent gardens once were.   

How did a German refugee from Hitler, an internee and a jobbing journalist, become the Grand Old Man of English art history? The answer lies in his extraordinary one-man survey of all the architecturally significant buildings in the country, county by county. This lecture explores what Pevsner said, rightly or wrongly, about the buildings in your society’s area – churches, houses, shops, town halls, tower blocks, factories, cinemas – and sets his pronouncements in the context of The Buildings of England as a whole. The series has both detractors and passionate defenders, but no imitators.

It is in the private chapel that we find the phenomenon of the country house as community most obviously manifest. This is the space in which members of the household, both above and below stairs, came together (sometimes twice a day) to participate in a communal act of worship. The Art of the Country House Chapel examines the artistic patronage behind these significant spaces from the late medieval period to the moment they started to fall out of daily use in this country in the twentieth century (effectively between the First and Second World Wars).

The lecture looks at examples from the great ‘battleship’ Ducal houses of Chatsworth, Petworth and Blenheim to more reserved spaces such as the chapels of Hardwick Hall or Broughton Castle. It looks at the social history surrounding these spaces, the role of recusant catholic chapels after the Reformation and the sometimes ambiguous status of the Domestic Chaplain within a country house as the role evolved and changed during the religious upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It discusses how these questions were expressed architecturally in the chapels themselves and through their decorative schemes as well as through portraiture of the period.

Should we celebrate his contribution to British art?  LS Lowry found his defining subject matter – the industrial north-west – in 1916 when he missed his train into Manchester one day, and walked around his home town, Pendlebury, as workers were leaving the Acme Spinning Mill. With all the mill’s many floors of windows lit against the darkening sky, Lowry said he was in rapture, and painted such scenes again and again. He filled his paintings with slumped characters, weighed down by their lives under soulless skies. Those who dislike Lowry point to his simplistic depiction of the north-west; those who like him refer to the snobbery of his detractors.

PLEASE NOTE THIS LECTURE WILL BE HELD IN ST MARY'S CHURCH, ELY

Palaces, Mosques, Gardens and Museums .Before the British arrived in India, the Indian subcontinent was ruled by the Mughal Emperors. The stunning buildings and gardens they constructed from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century have left an indelible stamp on India’s architectural and cultural landscape. Mughal architecture fused elements from Islamic, Persian, Turkish and Indian architectural traditions, and gave rise to some of the most beautiful and iconic buildings in the world.

Art, Design and Entertainment at the Festival of Britain.

When the Festival of Britain opened to the public on May 3rd, 1951, it was intended to offer ‘A Tonic to the Nation’. In the midst of the worst weather since 1815, with strikes, disputes and a plague of rats bedevilling the site on London’s South Bank, the press and the public were surprised and delighted to find an exhibition filled with ingenuity, whimsy and startling modernity. In this talk we’ll explore the origins of the Festival, including the 1851 Great Exhibition and the 1900 Paris World Fair.

Images that shaped our culture.This lecture examines a series of iconic photographs that are embedded in our collective memory. They range from records of historic events, to fabulous portraits and scenes of emotional release and joy. The talk analyses the power of these images, traces the fascinating stories of how they came to be produced, and places them in the context of our appreciation of art.

This lecture looks at the contribution of Josiah Wedgwood  to the history of world ceramics.  It begins by looking at Wedgwood’s early career as a potter and his work with Thomas Whieldon. It goes on to examine the development and marketing of cream-coloured earthenware, the partnership with Thomas Bentley and the subsequent opening of the Etruria factory; with its production of black basaltes and the development of encaustic painting. It will consider the collections of Sir William Hamilton as a source of inspiration and Wedgwood’s response to the new neo-classical taste. Finally, it will discuss the development of Jasper ware and its decorative uses and the copying of the famous Portland Vase.

Paul Nash is one of the most important British modernist artists. He is often associated with art movements such as Neo-Romanticism and Surrealism but his work remains hard to categorise. He worked as a war artist in both the First and Second World Wars and forged his own distinctive approach to landscape.

His work makes the homely uncanny and though he depicts specific places they inhabit an imaginative realm that reveals a mystical relationship to the world. Nash is a poet of the visual who creates his own world of symbols that is both natural and unnatural, a landscape of mystery that reveals, in the words of Coleridge: ‘the translucence of the eternal in and through the temporal’.

PLEASE NOTE - THIS LECTURE WILL BE BE ON THURSDAY 10 OCTOBER RATHER THAN 17TH.

2024 marks the bicentenary of the founding of the National Gallery. This lecture tells the story of the establishment of the NG collection beginning in 1824 when Lord Liverpool’s government purchased 38 paintings for £57,000 from the collection of businessman and philanthropist John Julius Angerstein. The paintings were initially displayed at 100 Pall Mall, Angerstein’s townhouse and by 1838, it was decided that a purpose built building was required, giving us the William Wilkins designed building we know and love on Trafalgar Square. During the course of the lecture we examine some of the high (and low) points of the early years of the gallery including suffragette sabotage, bombs and theft. We also take a close up look at some of the original "Angerstein 38” paintings.

Sailing Boats have always occupied a pivotal place in Western Art. From medieval manuscripts, through Old Masters depicting exploration and military might to modern objects of every-day life they pervade the British imagination of young and old alike. This lecture will display paintings as well as many other forms of art which celebrate our island race’s fascination with our maritime history. In order to provide a firm case study Magdalen will show how the high quality of the woodlands in East Anglia gave rise to a flowering of boatyards along the estuaries and coastline of the North Sea resulting in bountiful commissions from both the Royal Navy and commercial patrons. Several still survive, where shipwrights train apprentices in traditional boatbuilding, and an interesting connection with modern art and film-making thrives. She will show slides of stained glass, ceramics, tapestries, antiquarian book covers, advertising posters, weather-vanes, chandeliers, pub signs and even topiary all inspired by the English sailing boat.

Dogs and horses gambol through manuscripts and tapestries, but a far wider range of animals also inhabit thought and art. In stone, paint and wood, apparently with no distinction between the animals we know and those, like unicorns or salamanders, which in medieval times were believed to be equally real, we read moral lessons, often presented with wit and mischief to mock man and his pretensions.

Have any other buildings brought such pleasure to so many?

We follow the arrival of moving pictures in the 1890s, looking at early venues such as converted shops and fairground booths. Then the architecture becomes increasingly lavish and we marvel at the plush inter-war picture palaces.  Odeons, Astorias, Gaumonts, Alhambras and Granadas abound.

We look too at the decline of the cinema-going habit but end on a high with a vibrant celebration of the movie poster (Fred Astaire, 'Third Man', Hitchcock and all).

Ravenna enjoyed a brief spell as the capital of the Roman west before falling to the invading Ostrogoths. Emperors and Kings built lavishly, especially churches and tombs, leaving as a legacy the world’s finest collection of Early Christian mosaics. The most interesting patron was the sister of the Emperor Honorious, Galla Placidia, whose riotous life ended with a rash of building and mosaics. The Ostrogoths lavished churches and decoration upon the city until the Byzantine Emperor Justinian conquered it and completed the decor of the famous San Vitale. Ravenna’s rapid decline is our good fortune, as we shall see.

The City of London’s art gallery was in a parlous state after bombing in the Second World War and when the foundations for the new building were being excavated a major discovery was made – the remains of the Roman amphitheatre. Historians were certain the Romans had built one in London but no trace had been found until the 1980s. During his lecture, Tim  will show pictures of the Amphitheatre as well as some of the City’s paintings on display in the gallery above, with a strong emphasis on Victorian painters, as well as one of the biggest framed paintings in Britain.

Frith was one of the greatest painters of his age. No other artist captured life in the Victorian period so comprehensively. Through costume, pose and physiognomy, Frith's painting depict all stratas of society and define the age. This lecture examines his great social panamas including Derby Day and The Railway Station as well as his Hogarthian series Road to Ruin illustrating how the artist became the greatest painter of crowds and of painterly story telling.

Some of the most iconic images of the 20th century were created, not for galleries or private patrons, but for record sleeves. The zebra crossing immortalised on the cover of the Beatles’ Abbey Road is the site of a pilgrimage for people traveling thousands of miles to recreate this famous scene. Album covers have been adorned by Andy Warhol, Peter Blake, Yoko Ono, Richard Hamilton and a host of lesser-known artists and designers.

We will explore the art of the album cover and reveal the close connections between visual and musical creativity in this vibrant period of popular culture.

This lecture tells the story of men's tailoring over the past 200 years, told through the lives of the men who commissioned and created and wore it. Tailors, shirtmaker, hatters and other craftspeople in London’s west end, especially around Savile Row & Jermyn Street have shaped the way men dress since the Regency. How did men such as Beau Brummell, The Duke of Windsor, Tommy Nutter, Montague Burton, Alexander McQueen and John Stephen create their signature looks which influenced the mens fashion?

This lecture also looks at the wider cultural shifts since the early 19th century to the present day and how they affected the way that men present themselves.

Caravaggio’s paintings inspired many artists during his lifetime and would go on to influence many more, from Orazio Gentileschi to Peter Paul Rubens, Gerard van Honthorst and Rembrandt.

Each absorbed a different aspect of his work. His style spread across Europe and gave rise to the international movement known as ‘Caravaggism’. Yet for many, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is famed as much for his art as for his criminal record. Was it the violence of his times or his own violent spirit that inspired the dramatic lighting and intense naturalism of his work? This lecture follows the dramatic incidents of the artist’s life and looks at why and how his influence spread so far.

Swimming is Britain’s second favourite form of physical recreation (after walking). Almost everyone has memories of visiting their local baths. But whilst not all these memories might be positive – drooping knitted cozzies anyone? – for many swimmers the baths themselves are cherished. Some, particular those built in the late Victorian and Edwardian years, are rich with decorative tilework, stained glass, polished wood and terracotta detailing.

This sense of municipal pride continued into the 1920s and ’30s, when Art Deco and Modernist lidos became the urban beaches of their day. In this lecture, Simon highlights the treasures of aquatic art that survive, and considers how the pools of today compare. 

"There is an Old Lady in Threadneedle Street

Sits threading of needles so deft and so neat. . ."

Threadneedle Street is just one of the many whimsical verses which make play of the capital's place names in Nursery Rhymes of London Town. First published in 1916, this collection was the first literary success for Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965). Her rhymes about Highgate, Hammersmith, Richmond and dozens more were an instant hit with both children and adults, including soldiers on the Western Front. The book and its sequel the following year paved the way for a string of much-loved children's stories, poetry, musical plays and biography. Today however, Farjeon is best-known for her words to the hymn Morning has Broken and the children's poem Cats Sleep Anywhere. The comic illustrations accompanying the Nursery Rhymes also played a huge role in the book's success – these were the work of my great-uncle, the graphic artist and pictorial mapmaker MacDonald 'Max' Gill.

Caroline wrote:

"My talk tells the story of this enchanting book through a magical mix of poetry, picture and anecdote interwoven with tales of the talented Farjeon family and the artist Max Gill as well as Eleanor's poignant reminiscences of her close friend, the poet Edward Thomas."

Jasmine Allen is the curator of the Stained Glass Museum and will give a talk on the history and contents of this unique museum. 

She writes: "This talk will shed light on the unique art of stained glass, its history and stylistic development from the medieval period to the present day. Using illustrated examples from the collection of The Stained Glass Museum, the UK's only museum dedicated to stained glass and located in Ely, we will uncover a number of illuminating and inspiring works from across Britain and Europe. "

Towards the end of her life May Morris (1862-1938) - designer, craftsperson, and younger daughter of William Morris – wrote, ‘I’m a remarkable woman, always was, though none of you seem to think so’. Overshadowed in her lifetime by the achievements of her illustrious father, thankfully today May Morris is recognised as a leading figure in the Arts & Crafts Movement. Excelling in the field of embroidery, she was Head of Embroidery at Morris & Co. by the time she was twenty-three. May also designed wallpapers, made jewellery and was a talented amateur watercolour artist. She was instrumental in founding the Women’s Guild of Arts formed to support women working in the arts and crafts field at a time when they were excluded from similar organisations. A skilled editor, May spent her later years editing the 24 volumes of her father's collected works.

The artists' views of Australia - Aboriginal, pioneer, botanical and impressionist

A road trip through medieval Burgundy

A road trip through medieval Burgundy

1000 years of Monarchs' homes in Westminster

Unfortunate events and extravagant monarchs

Art and architecture of the Ottoman Empire

Russian history as depicted by its 19th century realist painters

Wool. cotton and silk have each played a crucial role in the fortunes of Central Asia. This lecture wll look at the many influences each played in this fascinating part of the world.

This lecture will be given 'live' at The Old Palace, The Green, Ely.

James Woodforde kept a diary between 1758 and 1802 in which he daily recorded almost every dinner he ate. Jane Austen, moving in similar social circles a generation later,  recorded food and manners in her letters and novels that illuminate Woodforde's careful recording of his every meal.

This lecture will be given by Zoom. Joining link will be sent to members in good time.

This radical new style of art and architecture developed in Europe at the end of the 19th century and was characterised by a spectrum of contradictory images and ideas that embrased the spirit world, fantasy and myth. 

This lecture will be given by zoom.  Joining details will be given to members in good time.

How interior design changes from 'Empire' court style to less expensive factory-made items

Exploring the ways artists from Roman wall paintings to Dutch still life works, have included glass objects; shadows, reflection and translucency

Tracing the history of Faber & Faber through its illustrations, covers and designs

This lecture looks at how Diaghilev, working with renowned composers, choreographers and dancers. created ballet stagings of genius and revolutionised classic dancing

Looking at the symbolic architecture of the closet catholic in Tudor times.

This lecture will be given by Zoom.

A look at the architecture and art within railway stations and how stations are depicted in art

This lecture will by given by Zoom.

Exploring the many aspects of that year's decorative and fine art

This lecture will be given by Zoom

This talk will cover how magicians have been shown in paintings, prints and cartoons. Early artists used the magician to symbolise the unknown.  Cartoonists and satirists enjoyed linking politicians with skulduggery as illustrated by magic tricks.

This lecture will be given by Zoom AND WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A SHORT AGM

Looking at the development of the English secular and religious architecture through the life of John Betjeman

Details of this 'tour' will be available to members in good time.

A great 20th century water colourist and war artist who painted landscapes and the everyday.

This lecture will be given by Zoom.  Members will receive details and the link in good time.

How the master masons created heaven on earth out of the cacophonyof thousands of chisels and hammers. 

This lecture will be given by Zoom.  Members will be sent details and the link in good time.

Bringing many famous ships to life through historic and contemporary art work.

This lecture will be given by Zoom and details and link will be given to members in good time.

What artists portraying animals are trying to tell us about ourselves

The four power houses of Norfolk - Raynham, Houghton, Wolterton and Holkham, built to display their owners' power or ambitions to power and all linked in their architectural conception, construction and intentions.

His life, paintings and his affect on Western art.

The story of World War II women war artists and their painting.

The development of wallpaper design from 16th century to the modern day

A history of the Huguenots and their part in the silk trade.

How the role of sculpture has changed and the growth of sculpture parks

A journey from Gainsborough to the Pre-Raphaelites

Tracking and connection between maps and painting to the present day.

From the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, in the early 1700s, artists were enthralled by the ways new technology changed both the landscape and everyday life. This talk explores the ways in which art and design both reflected, and were radically altered by, mass production and new ideas - culminating in the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Jo Walton is a freelance lecturer specialising in Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture and in British art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The story of gold - its significance and symbolism- within the history of art. Gold, the colour of the sun: of divinity; of status: of love. Creations ancient and contemporary, sacred and profane - all that glitters is certainly gold.

Alexandra Epps is a lecturer at Tate Modern and the Guildhall Art Gallery. She is a qualified guide to the City of London and a member of the  City of London Guide Lecturers Association

This lecture serves as an introduction to the teapot collection at Norwich Castle Museum which has the largest collection of British ceramic teapots in the world. It looks at the changing role of tea from its introduction in the seventeeth century and also examines the development of the teapot.

Christopher started his career with English Heritage and the Royal Collection. He is currently Director of the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket

Victorian, Neo-Gothic, Historicist, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and Modern style jewellery will be dicussed in this visual feast of material rarely seen on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Helen Ritchie is a research assistant in the Department of Applied Arts at the Fitzwilliam Museum

We will see some wonderful paintings including those by Picasso, Cezanne, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Modigliani, Klimt and many others all held together by the common thread of their extraordinary commercial value. Ian will try to answer the question, "Are they really worth hundreds of millions of pounds?"

Ian Swankie has a passion for art and architecture. He is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and St Paul's Cathedral.

This will be a comprehensive and lavishly illustrated tour around the history, architecture, contents and use of libraries in British and Irish country houses from Roman times to the present.

Mark Purcell is a Deputy Director of Cambridge University Library and a Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He is an acknowledged expert on historic libraries.

Over 4.6 Billion years ago a star was born and our sun started to shine. Soon after this the Earth and our other planets were formed and light began its eight minute flight to Earth. Science and art have moved forward together in the quest to understand light as can be seen in representations of rainbows or contemporary Black Holes.For artists light can express emotions, from El Greco’s light of spiritual ecstasy to the dangerous darkness of Caravaggio, from Turner’s sublime sunlight to Samuel Palmer’s melancholy moonlight. Australian Impressionism uses a different colour palette to European Impressionism. 

Stonehenge was built to worship the sun, and today James Turrell makes light temples in art galleries and Dan Flavin makes altarpieces from fluorescent tubes.

 Alexandra Drysdale  An art historian and a professional artist specialising in painting, sculpture and performance. Her lectures combine art historical knowledge with personal expertise in aesthetics and artistic techniques. Art from all periods, including examples of her own work, is examined from an artist's point of view. This entails a perceptive analysis of a painting's structure, its meaning, and its relationship to the history of art. She puts a particular emphasis on studying the symbolic language of the imagination. BA (Hons) Fine Art from Chelsea School of Art and an MFA from Cambridge School of Art.

Titanic: a name we all know. It’s associated with luxury, poverty and death. This lecture delves more deeply, looking at life on the great ship specifically through the one subject everyone has a view on: food! We cover the very different eating experiences of third, second and first class passengers on a luxury liner in the Edwardian period, looking at décor, dining style and the food itself.

Dr Annie Gray Dr Annie Gray is one of Britian’s leading food historians. She has degrees from Oxford, York and Liverpool, and remains connected to academia as a research associate at the University of York. She is also a popular lecturer, writer, consultant and broadcaster. She works as a consultant on historic food for organisations such as The National Trust and Historic Royal Palaces, as well as training staff in live interpretation, having run a team of professional costumed interpreters for many years for English Heritage. She also writes both popular and academic content, including articles for BBC Good Food Magazine, and is currently working on her first book. Increasingly in demand from the media, you may well have heard Annie as the resident food historian on BBC Radio 4’s culinary panel show, The Kitchen Cabinet, or you may have seen her on The Great British Bake Off, or in one of her regular slots on James Martin: Home Comforts. She recently advised on, and co-presented, Victorian Bakers, a living history-based documentary for BBC2. 

The peaceful setting of most of our medieval churches cannot cover up the fact that they contain images and references to less savoury aspects of life. Medieval murals and stained glass depict the martyrdom of saints from home and abroad, and the grisliest of dooms. Underneath misericords are images of whippings, wife beatings, and brawls whilst stone carvings depict sexual imagery rarely associated with religious buildings. Finally there are many monuments and memorials that show scenes of murder and mayhem in goodly measure including stagecoach crashes, bridge collapses, falling trees, falling bridges, falling chimneys, shootings, stabbings, mine collapses, shipwrecks and explosions. This  lecture shows a selection of images of murder and mayhem from across the country and explains both the stories behind them and their relevance to particular periods of history. 

John Vigar Professional ecclesiastical historian, author and broadcaster for over 35 years, John has visited and recorded over 13,000 churches in England and Wales. He is a trustee of the oldest church preservation society in Britain - The Friends of Friendless Churches. Formerly an employee of The Churches Conservation Trust, John has also served as Photographic Curator of The Kempe Trust and Hon. Secretary of The Ledgerstone Survey of England and Wales. In his spare time he has written 12 books, leads specialist church tours and is a tutor at Denman College.

Jan van Eyck is today renowned for the depth and luminosity of his paintings whether of the Virgin and Child, or the wealthy merchant Giovanni Arnolfini and the numerous men and women he met while working in the court of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. His ability to capture the gleam of the Virgin's crown or the reflective light of the Flemish landscape was largely due to his revolutionary techniques in his use of oil. However, he was not only a court artist but also a valued ambassador, sent by the Duke on numerous diplomatic errands. This lecture will study the paintings of van Eyck and of the people he painted both as works of art and as a reflection of the times in which he lived.

Shirley Smith Graduated from the University of East Anglia with a first class honours degree in the History of Art, specialising in the Italian and Northern Renaissance. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a part-time lecturer for the University of East Anglia and for the Department of Continuing Education of the University of Cambridge.

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was a keen patron of contemporary British artists who gave valuable support to the arts during the Second World War. This lecture tells the stories behind her purchases and commissions – including John Piper’s famous views of Windsor Castle – and explores her warm friendships with artists. 

Susan Owens is a writer and freelance curator with a degree in English literature from Somerville College, Oxford, a Masters in History of Art from the Courtauld and a PhD from University College London. She was formerly Curator of Paintings at the V&A, where she was responsible for oils, watercolours and drawings from 1800 to the present day. She previously worked for the Royal Collection as Assistant Curator of the Print Room at Windsor Castle. She publishes and lectures widely on British art. 

During the Renaissance the staircase as an architectural feature underwent a massive change in status, moving from a utilitarian device to be concealed out of sight, to the focal point of the building and a huge architectural statement. This lecture will examine the genesis of the staircase in the architecture of Renaissance Italy looking at examples in Rome, Venice, Urbino and the designs of Bramante, Michelangelo and Palladio, amongst others. It will also illustrate the emergence of the spiral staircase and consider some amazing examples of the type. Considering the single architectural feature of the staircase illustrates the changes which took place in building design throughout the Renaissance and illuminates an intriguing element of building design which is often overlooked. 

Sarah Pearson Holds a First Class BA in Art History from Reading University, an MA in World Art Studies from the University of East Anglia and a PhD in Architectural History, also from Reading. Lectured for 10 years at Reading and at the University of East Anglia, and now works as a freelance lecturer and adult education provider.

Dr Francis Woodman is a lecturer in Art History and Architecture, University of Cambridge, based at the Institute for Continuing Education, with several books and numerous articles for academic journals, he has previously taught History of Art at the UEA and UCL (London) and has lectured in Adult and Higher Education since 1978. Has lectured to cathedral groups, National Trust, on cruise ships and to universities in Australia and the USA. Has led numerous lecture tours all over Europe, North Africa and the Far East.

This lecture looks at the symbolism, significance and spirituality of colour throughout the history of art. Experience the power of the red of the Tudors; the utopian white of Abstraction; the secret formula of Klein blue and Mondrian’s dynamic combination of all three.

 Alexandra Epps Lecturer and Guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Guildhall Art Gallery. 

By profession a graphic designer running a design consultancy for many years for a wide range of sectors including the arts, financial, government and professional services. BA Saint Martins School of Art, MA London College of Printing.

Official Guide to the City of London, offering lectures and walks about many aspects of the arts for societies, corporations and private individuals. Member of the City of London Guide Lecturers Association. Co-author of the book Lord Mayor's Portraits 1983-2014 (2015).

Art History Tutor for City Lit Institute. Pallant House Gallery Lecturer. 

In the early evening of 16 October 1834, to the horror of bystanders, a huge ball of fire exploded through the roof of the Houses of Parliament, creating a blaze so enormous that it could be seen by the King and Queen at Windsor and from stagecoaches on top of the South Downs. In front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses, the great conflagration destroyed Parliament's glorious old buildings and their contents. No one who witnessed the disaster would ever forget it.  Based on the acclaimed book of the same name, this talk takes the audience through the gripping hour-by-hour story of the fire through contemporary depictions of the disaster by Turner, William Heath and others.

Caroline is an archivist, historian and author. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives at Westminster and a senior archivist at The National Archives at Kew. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Historical Society and has appeared on national TV and radio and reviews books for The Spectator. Her first popular history book, The Day Parliament Burned Down, won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013

Jane is currently Special Events Organiser, Theatre Royal Bath. Interviews visiting actors, writers, directors. Lectures regularly to theatre going societies, NT and history and fine arts groups. West Country Tourist Board Registered Blue Badge Guide/Lecturer. Author and researcher of theatre programme notes on Hamlet, Sheridan's The Rivals and Jane Austen's Emma. Theatrical landlady! Home Economist. Consultant to various TV productions of Jane Austen adaptations on food in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hosts and cooks period meals in her Regency house in Bath for the Jane Austen Festival and other literary groups.

Charles is a former Director of Broadfield House Glass Museum (1974-2003) and one of the top authorities on glass in the country. Author of 'British Glass 1800-1914' (1991), '20th Century British Glass' (2009) and contributor to numerous books and magazines. Lectures internationally to glass museums and collector's societies. Fellow of the Society of Glass Technology, and a member of the Arts Advisory Board at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland. President of the Glass Association which he was instrumental in founding.

An insight into the design, selection and guilding techniques  of frames throughout time.

Julia Korner is a specialist and lecturer in fine art conservation and the restoration of paintings, sculptures and frames. She is also a valuer, passionate collector, advisor and curator of paintings and works of art. Julia trained in art history, sculpture and graphic illustration in Cambridge, England. Then, for twenty years, she worked for Christie's as a paintings specialist, building extensive knowledge of Old Masters, and of British, European and American paintings from the 1700s onwards.

Will Charles Beauclerk answer the question?

Charles holds an MA from Oxford. Has lectured extensively across Canada and the United States and widely at schools in the UK; has also lectured to heritage societies and historical groups. He is a vice-president of the Royal Stuart Society. Publications include Nell Gwyn: A Biography, Shakespeare’s Lost Kingdom and Piano Man: A Life of John Ogdon, as well as various articles

Colin Davies asks how these are linked.

Charles is an architect who was until recently Professor of Architectural Theory at London Metropolitan University. A former editor of The Architects' Journal and a regular contributor to architectural magazines worldwide. Books include Thinking About Architecture, Key Houses of the Twentieth Century, The Prefabricated Home, High Tech Architecture, and various monographs on the work of Norman Foster, Michael Hopkins and Nicholas Grimshaw. Currently writing a history of modern architecture.

Rakes and rogues on and off the canvas.

John Iddon is a lecturer and Guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. He ran an MA course in Heritage Interpretation at St Mary's University College. Has lectured freelance to numerous art societies, to the National Trust and the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery in Venice. Lectures on art for cruises. In 2012, he wrote the new guidebook to the newly opened Strawberry Hill.

Should we accept that the very best of photography is fine art?

Brian's chief interests lie in photography, architecture and history and he combines all three in his lecturing career. He has taught at University College London, since 1997 and became a NADFAS lecturer in 2003. He is a member of the Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography and an exhibition of his own photographs has been staged at UCL. In an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the skills of some great photographers of the past, he has begun to work with a pre-War Leica camera, as used by his great hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others.

ures on art for cruises. In 2012, he wrote the new guidebook to the newly opened Strawberry Hill.

A fascinating tour behand the scenes of this wonderful museum

Connoisseurs of Faberge remain equally impressed with his revolutionary efforts to bring the art of the jeweller into everyday life.

Peter studied history and art in UK and Italy. He is a founder member of NADFAS. Formerly Head of History of Interior Design at KLC School of Design, an international school of design based in London. He has also lectured at London University, the V&A, Chelsea School of Art, The Inchbald School of Design, fine art cruises and art tours. He has organised NADFAS tours to Paris and St. Petersburg. Publications include 'A Guide to English Furniture', 'Chairs', and 'Study of Style'.

This local artist designs new schemes for historic buildings