THIS LECTURE REPLACES 'MONET AT GIVERNY'

This is one of the quirkiest lectures you will ever hear. There is a universal delight in being deceived and in this lecture Bertie Pearce takes his audience on a whistle stop tour of art which fools, surprises and amuses the viewer. Beginning and ending with the Belgian surrealist, René Magritte, it encompasses Trompe L’oeil, Banksy, Bridget Riley, Arcimboldo and Escher to name a few. Hold on to your seats and get ready to be visually fried.

Optical illusion by Pauline E, CC BY-SA 2.0

"I don’t know what it is, but I’ve got it!"

‘It’ was ”star quality”, and the person that had ‘it’ was Noel Coward!

On the surface, Coward appeared to be just a camp man swanning about in a dressing gown, dropping acerbic one liners like cigarette ash from a long cigarette holder.  But Noel Coward was one of the most versatile cultural figures of the 20th century and his career is the history of 20th century British theatre.

As Lord Mountbatten put it, there may be greater painters, greater comedians, greater novelists, only “the Master” had combined fourteen talents rolled into one! 

In any given week, his plays such as "Private Lives" & "Hay Fever" are being performed somewhere in the world, and we can all quote "Mads Dogs and Englishmen" and "Mad About The Boy", but still the range of his work is underestimated.  I’ve come to realise that underneath the sparking surface, his work is much darker, daring, radical and sadder than it seems.  Despite his claim to only have a ‘talent to amuse’, like Oscar Wilde, he took his work seriously.  His private and often tumultuous love life enabled him to shine a light on the passion and pain of human relationships, and give us in depth observations of class and society! 

TS Eliot said that there are things that you can learn from Noel Coward that you won’t learn from Shakespeare.  Like Shakespeare, some of Coward’s most moving lines are in his poems which I’ll be sharing in the lecture.

Coward said, “I’ll go and see anything so long as it amuses me, or moves me. If it doesn't do either I want to go home.”

Image: Noel Coward, Allan Warren (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

In 1943, the German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. Forty-seven women and girls were drafted into a hurriedly-assembled band that would play to other inmates as they left each morning and as they returned at the end of the day. They were made to give weekly concerts for Nazi officers, and members were sometimes summoned to give individual performances of an officer’s favourite piece of music. For almost all of the musicians chosen to take part, the orchestra was to save their lives. 

Why was the orchestra formed? What was the effect on those women who owed their survival to their participation in a Nazi propaganda project? And how did it feel to be forced to provide solace to the perpetrators of a genocide that claimed the lives of their family and friends? In The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz, award-winning historian Anne Sebba traces these tangled questions of deep moral complexity with sensitivity and care. 

From the orchestra’s formidable conductor (and niece of Gustav Mahler) Alma Rosé, to Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, its cellist and last surviving member, i draw on a mixture of archival research and exclusive first-hand accounts to bring the full and astonishing story of the orchestra and its members to light for the very first time.

Image: Anita Lasker Wallfisch, now aged 100 and visited by King Charles in July 2025

This lecture replaces that printed on the programme card

Investigate Canary Wharf, hailed as a totally new concept which revived London’s Docklands. Or was it?

This lecture takes you back to the foundations of the West India Docks with their magnificent warehouses and follows through to the glittering high-rise commercial hub of today. It shows how history has repeated itself – from the unprecedented scale of development with buildings to marvel at, to the re-use of derelict space in an ‘island’ setting, the innovative transport connections, the private security systems, and the opposition of the City of London.

Image: City of London sunset view from West India Quay, Canary Wharf 

Saytosid, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Frederic Leighton’s studio-house (now Leighton House Museum) is one of the most remarkable buildings of the nineteenth-century. First built in the 1860s, Leighton continued to extend and embellish his home over the next thirty years, transforming what had been a relatively modest house into a palace of art filled with fascinating collections of fine and decorative art. The construction of the exotic Arab Hall, lined with Islamic tiles collected as Leighton travelled through the Middle East brought new fame to the house as Leighton’s reputation continued to grow. This lecture explores Leighton’s motivations in lavishing such attention on the construction of his home and how it came to embody the idea of how a Great Artist should live.

Image: Casa de Leighton, Diego Delso (via Wikimedia Commons)

An in-depth look at the unique jewellery created by flamboyant artist Charles Ricketts at the turn of the twentieth century. His intricate and richly-enamelled neo-Renaissance pieces were designed as gifts for his many friends including May Morris and the fascinating couple known as Michael Field.

Image: Locket by Ricketts, copyright Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Victorian designer William Morris was a man of many faces.  He is probably best known today as the creator of wallpaper, fabrics and stained glass windows, but he was also a poet, artist, philosopher, typographer and socialist. What is less well known about him is his links to the richest copper and arsenic mine in Europe and his toxic green wallpapers that are said to have poisoned thousands of people across England. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain) 

THIS LECTURE WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE ON ZOOM

Christmas raffle tickets with proceeds going to The Parkinsons Society will be sold prior to the lecture.  Raffle drawn at midday.  

We ask for donations for coffee at this meeting with proceeds going to the Epping Forest Food Bank.

PLEASE BRING CASH 

To kick off our seasonal celebrations, musician and broadcaster Sandy Burnett is on hand to share his selection of much-loved Christmas tunes.  Expect an hour of the finest festive music from across the globe - his selections include sparkling moments from Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker, a heart-warming ballad from Mel Torme, something from Soweto, a heavenly chorus from Johann Sebastian Bach's Leipzig, an illustration of the English carol tradition at its finest and something more cynical from Eartha Kitt.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

In his best known painting "Paris Street, Rainy Day" Gustave Caillebotte gives us a striking image of the wide boulevards of the modern city, together with the people who pass through these new spaces.  In the mid 19th century Paris had been transformed by the urban planner, Georges-Eugene Haussmann, and Caillebotte's painting captures this transformation.  It was exhibited in 1877 at the Third Impressionist exhibition alongside works by Monet, Renoir, Morisot and Degas who, like Caillebotte, wanted to paint the modern world around them.  Caillebotte not only exhibited with these artists and worked alongside them, but also bought their paintings and helped organise the Impressionist exhibitions.  This lecture will discuss the art and life of Gustave Caillebotte, his paintings and other passions and consider how his legacy shaped the history of Impressionism.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia: Art Institute of Chicago)

The Bank of England sets the leading interest rate for the UK and also regulates the UK's financial services industry - its actions affect everyone in the country.  It has also accumulated, sinces its foundation in 1694, an impressive range of artworks.  Some are easily visible on the outside of the Bank's City of London building in Threadneedle Street, whilst others are on display inside the building.  During his lecture Tim Kidd will show pictures of the artworks and explain their background.  You can expect to hear about artchitecture, statues, mosaics and, of course, the intricate designs of the banknotes.  There will be no free samples!

(Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Inspired by Steve's appearance as an expert contributor in a Channel 5 TV documentary about ruined ancient cities, "The Bronze Age Frescoes from Santorini: The Art of Atlantis?" indulges in a sumptuously illustrated look at some outstanding ancient Greek artworks and the intriguing possibilities of interpretation that they have produced.  In around 1625 BCE the thriving harbour town of Akrotiri on the island of Santorini was overwhelmed in a cataclysmic volcanic eruption that both destroyed and preserved one of the most wondrous sets of frescoes to emerge from the ancient world.

(Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Scandal, politics, botany, art and wit - this talk has it all!  Following the life of the 'grotto nymph' and creator of botanic paper art, Mary Delany.  Feted by Erasmus Darwin, acclaimed by Sir Joseph Banks and personal friend of Queen Charlotte, after a life of gardening and 'shell work' she embarked, aged 72, on a fabulous flora of paper portrayals of exotic plants.  Heavily illustrated talk drawing on Mary Delany's own words.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

The lecturer has had a home in Prishtina for 17 years and is happy to share the things she loves about this little-known city.  Visit the library which qualified for inclusion in a list of the world's ugliest buildings, the youngest population in Europe (and the creative cafe life and excellent coffee you would expect to go with it) in a majority Muslim city whose main boulevard commemorates Mother Teresa as one of the country's most famous daughters.  Hear the impressions of travellers there in wartime and peacetime.

(Image courtesy of Elizabeth Gowing)

Few artists are as rooted in a place as Stanley Spencer and his beloved home village of Cookham.  This Thames-side village was not only his birthplace, his home for most of his life and even his nickname, but it dominated his imagination and was the inspiration and location for many of his greatest paintings.  This lecture will look at Cookham's place in Spencer's art and how it was central to his unique vision of English domestic and spiritual life.

(Image courtesy of Stanley Spencer Gallery)

Immerse yourself in a world of carnations, tulips, hyacinths and roses as you discover the history of the famous Turkish Iznik ceramics.  From its origins imitating Chinese porcelain to its 16th century heyday and subsequent decline.

(Image: Iznik, Dish Depicting Two Birds among Flowering Plants, ca. 1575–90, Metropolitan Museum)

Explores the way T S Eliot was indebted to, and himself inspired - whether as subject or as poet - some of the 20th Century's greatest artists.

As a pioneer of literary modernism T S Eliot inevitably influenced his counterparts in the visual arts.  He was friends with several artists.  Edward McKnight Kauffer and David Jones illustrated his work; Patrick Heron and Wyndham Lewis painted him; Jacob Epstein sculpted him.  There are paintings and compositions inspired by his poems.  And the reverse is also true: The Waste Land famously employs techniques borrowed from modern art.

(Image courtesy of Tony Faber)

When the Wallace Collection was bequeathed to the British nation in 1897 it was believed that the museum had 12 paintings by Rembrandt.  Later, however, most of these pictures were re-assigned to other artists, to the extent that 100 years later it was thought that there was only one genuine work by the great Dutch master - a wonderful portrait of the artist's son Titus.  Since then further research has suggested that in fact four of the other paintings are also wholly or partly by Rembrandt.  But who decides things like this, and how do they make their decisions?

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia: Rembrandt self-portrait)

An unforgettable journey to explore the highlights of the vast Vatican Museums collection, with a deep focus on the spectacular frescoes by Michelangelo Buonarroti and others in the Sistine Chapel. Professional Rome tourist guide Stuart Harvey takes you on a virtual stroll through the corridors and rooms to see ancient classical statues that influenced renaissance and later artists, and also intricate roman mosaics, magnificent tapestries, and the beautiful frescoes by Raphael that decorate the private rooms of the 16th century Popes. We will end our journey in the Sistine Chapel, where Popes are elected in secret at Conclave. Here we can examine in depth Michelangelo's famous Creation frescoes on the ceiling and the magnificent Last Judgement and its deep symbolism.

(Image courtesy of Stuart Harvey)

Charles Dickens has often been proclaimed as "The Man Who Invented Christmas" and indeed on hearing that Dickens had died, a cockney barrow-girl said: "Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?"  Dickens revived the Christmas traditions with his warm portrayal of Christmas in the domestic setting; with plum pudding, piping hot turkey, games, dancing  and family cheer by the hearth. Although he celebrated Christmas in numerous works it is his enduring masterpiece, 'A Christmas Carol' published on 19th December 1843 which immortalises the spirit of Christmas Cheer.

(Image courtesy of The Arts Society image library)

In sixteenth-century Venice, Tintoretto, helped by his studio assistants, produced work so quickly that he was nicknamed 'Il Furioso' ("The Furious") by his contemporaries. He had received almost no formal training.  Without the benefit of an apprenticeship in the studio of a major artist he had to find work the hard way: by under-cutting prices and delivering faster than his competitors (who included Titian and Veronese).

(Image: Self-portrait circa 1588 courtesy of Wikipedia)

Following AGM 10.30 am

So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

(Image courtesy of The Arts Society image library)

People were bridging the Thames in the Bronze Age - 1,500 years before the Romans built London Bridge. In the 1,700 year wait for the next bridge, other crossings relied on watermen and horse ferries, as traffic jammed on London Bridge. The last 200 years have seen over 50 new crossings over and under the river. Some are great feats of engineering, some are architecturally elegant. Every crossover changes the city's genetic code. Even now a newly designed bridge awaits a start on site. This lecture explores the way we have connected up across the Thames and what that tells us about the culture of the capital through time.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

This lecture topic is light and humorous in spirit but is serious at its heart. It is dedicated to an everyday root vegetable which is famous for its distinctive colour and its reputation for charming (or challenging) our taste-buds. This familiar mainstay of the winter kitchen has exotic connections; its ancestors and cousins probably grew wild in Persia and Central Asia and travelled westwards - alongside more durable and costly commodities - on the ancient overland trade routes called The Silk Road. These older wild varieties were purple or yellow, similar to the 'heritage' types sold today. Carrots feature as meticulously painted meditations on nature in Spanish still-life paintings.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

This lecture examines the life and times of Oscar Wilde from his Irish roots to his days as a student at Oxford and his meteoric rise to the heights of celebrity. We travel with him to the United States and examine his starring role within the artistic & theatrical worlds of late 19th century London. We visit his home in bohemian Chelsea and some of his favourite West End haunts. Finally, we learn how 'tired of being in the heights, he plunged into the depths' and became famous for being INfamous...

(Image courtesy of unsplash)

We are still living amongst the infrastructure created by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the 19th century. He changed the face of the English landscape with his ground-breaking projects including railways, bridges, tunnels, ships, and grand buildings such as the magnificent Paddington Station. He merged art with engineering and science and was a pioneer and a revolutionary. And he was brilliant. We'll look at the man, his background, his work, and his legacy.

(Image courtesy of unsplash)

The story of the Heidelberg School – the first true Australian art form post-colonisation. In the late 1800s talented artists from Britain arriving in the new country sought a way to describe the exotic and alien landscape around them and seized on the new ideas and ambitions of French Impressionism for their task.  However their skill and imagination soon progressed this project far beyond their chosen model, deeply influenced by the remarkable light and space of Australia.

The painters of Heidelberg, a rural area near Melbourne, developed an artistic form that was more than simply a version of European art - they created a distinctive Australian practice that is admired to this day.    

The lecture will trace the story of Banksy's humble beginnings as a tagger on the streets of Bristol in the 1980's to one of the most recognisable names in the art world.  We will examine the reasons behind his incredible rise, looking at some of his famous stunts and discuss what his influence has been on the art market today and look at what his legacy, if any, might be.