This lecture compares and contrasts the lives and work of two great artists, Hokusai and Turner. They were contemporaries and there are many parallels to be drawn between their respective lives. Both shared humble beginnings and both displayed great confidence in their maverick talents. Yet while Turner was eventually welcomed by the art establishment of his day, Hokusai was never accepted by his peers. In this lecture, through comparing the two artists, a greater understanding can be gained of the differing roles art played in the societies where they emerged. The lecture will investigate the artists' world of Edo and London, examining their prodigious artistic output and reassessing their importance to the art of today.

Carol Wilhide Justin is an artist-printmaker who specialises in Japanese woodcut. In 2014 Carol was awarded a residency at the MI-LAB studio, Fujikawaguchiko, Japan, where she was taught the mokuhanga technique by Japanese sensei. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2017 with an MA in Print. She has exhibited in a number of independent shows and larger mixed exhibitions such as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair and Bankside Gallery. Her work is held in private and public collections including Clifford Chance, The Ashmolean and The V&A. She also teaches Japanese Woodcut at The Slade, Morley College, The City Literary Institute and The Art Academy.

Many of Britain’s best-loved country houses were created in the ‘Baroque’ period (c. 1660-1720). Visiting some of the most iconic houses of the period, including Chatsworth, Petworth, and Blenheim, we will meet the patrons who created them, and look at some of the highlights of their sumptuous interiors, gardens and collections, addressing the question: what is ‘Baroque’? 

Dr Amy Lim is an art historian and curator, specialising in British fine and decorative arts from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. She is curator of the Faringdon Collection at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, and the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, and a Departmental Tutor at Oxford Lifelong Learning. She has curated and contributed to numerous exhibitions, including British Baroque: Power and Illusion (Tate, 2020), Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520-1920 (Tate, 2024) and Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk (Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury and the Stanley Spencer Gallery, 2025-6). Amy has degrees in History, and Literature & Arts from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and has published articles and essays on a variety of art-related topics from gothic garden monuments to female patronage.

In the 18th and 19th century British collectors were obsessed with Spanish art, particularly the paintings of Murillo and Velázquez. This lecture considers the development of that taste and the downfall of Murillo's popularity initiated by Ruskin. We will also explore many of the great collections in Britain, from the Duke of Wellington’s at Apsley house, to Pollok House in Glasgow and Kingston Lacy in Dorset.

Dr Isabelle Kent is an academic and educator specialising in the baroque, with a particular focus on Spain and its empire. She is currently a research fellow at Oriel College, Oxford. 

Isabelle received a BA and MPhil in History of Art from Trinity College, Cambridge, where she has recently completing her PhD on the art of Diego Velázquez . From 2017 to 2019 she worked as a curator at the Wallace Collection and in 2020 her book Collecting Murillo in Britain and Ireland was published by CEEH. Alongside her academia, Isabelle is an expert guide for a travel company, leading groups around Spain and beyond, and she also teaches regularly for the V&A, Art Fund, Royal Academy, Chelsea Arts Club, Wallace Collection and University of Cambridge.

MEMBERS CHRISTMAS LUNCH - Tickets on sale from October 15

For Orthodox believers in Eastern Europe, Christmas is celebrated according to the old Julian calendar on 7 January.  It begins after a 40-day fast, and continues until the blessing of the waters on the Feast of Epiphany, with "old" New Year falling on 14 January. This lecture explores the Eastern and Western traditions associated with Christmas in the Slavonic world, and the accompanying festivities of yuletide, rooted in colourful folklore, which include midnight sleigh rides, fortune-telling, the preparation of special dishes, carolling, and dressing up.  Instead of Father Christmas, the Slavs have Grandfather Frost, whose faithful assistant is Snow Maiden - a character from fairy tales invented to explain the passing of winter.  The lecture also explores the reflection of these traditions in works of art – from such staples as The Nutcracker to familiar carols which turn out to have a surprising Ukrainian or Russian origin.

Rosamund Bartlett is a writer, lecturer and translator.  Her work ranges across the arts, from painting to music, and across cultures, from Italy, France and Germany to the countries of Northern and Eastern Europe. She began her career as an academic in Slavic studies after completing her doctorate at Oxford, and has held fellowships both in the UK and at the European University Institute in Florence. She is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Faculty of Modern Languages in Oxford, and in 2024 became a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Brasenose College.

The author of several books, including biographies of Chekhov and Tolstoy, and a study of Wagner's influence in Russia, she is also well known as a translator - her publications include acclaimed editions of Anna Karenina and Chekhov's stories for Oxford World’s Classics. 

Japan re-opened to the West in 1868 when the Meiji restoration brought the end of the Shogun era. Japanese lacquers, wood-block prints, ceramics and silks caused a sensation in the West and inspired fantastic jewellery from Cartier, Tiffany, Falize, Boucheron, Fouquet, Gaillard, Vever, Lalique and Fabergé. Chrysanthemums, cherry blossom, kimonos and samurais decorated jewels inspired by the colours and materials of Japanese art. The art of Japan became the foundation of the Art Nouveau movement. 

Rachel Church developed a love of history as a student in Cambridge. After a Masters in Museum Studies, she went on to work as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She became an expert in jewellery by cataloguing and researching the collection, and as part of the team which redisplayed the William and Judith Bollinger Jewellery Gallery in 2011. Her books Rings (V&A / Thames and Hudson, 2011 and 2017) and Brooches and Badges (V&A / Thames and Hudson, 2019) look at the human stories behind some of our most beautiful jewels. She lectures on V&A courses, for the Goldsmiths company and many arts societies. Her website www.thelifeofjewels.com explores stories behind jewellery and its history. She writes regularly for specialist jewellery publications and for the Times Luxx magazine. 

In this lecture we trace the development of French Landscape Painting, from its humble beginnings when it was not even considered by many to be a worthy subject for painting, to the gradual acceptance of landscape by the art establishment, as long as it included an ‘historical’ element. From there it developed in radical form with an insistence on realism and the harshness of rural life, as illustrated famously by Jean-François Millet’s The Gleaners and in the work of others of the ‘Barbizon School’, and Gustave Courbet. This realism was subsequently undermined by the Impressionists who, with their sketchy, visible brush strokes, attempted to capture the changing qualities of light in nature. The story covers the battles landscape painters fought and won to gain acceptance and recognition for their subject, culminating in the highpoint of landscape’s popularity, with the acceptance of the work of the Impressionists, whose work now attracts universal plaudits and commands huge sums on the art market.

 Rosalind has a BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. Experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. Lectures at Tate, to independent art societies and on cruises.

Using David Hockney’s commentaries, sketches and photographs of the work in progress, the lecture explores the characters and their stories. The sitters Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark, were leading fashion celebrities and close friends of the artist. The role of London will be explored as a magnet for attracting creative young art and design talent, especially designers from the north of England such as Hockney, Clark and Birtwell. In Hockney’s own words, “In the 1960s you felt a freshness that was exciting. You didn’t let the commercial side interfere with things in film, music, painting and fashion. It was an energy driven by the bohemian world”. 

Mary Alexander trained as an art historian and graduated with a BA Hons in History & History of Art (University College London) and later an MA (with Distinction) in History of Art (University College London). She moved to Manchester to take up the post of Assistant Curator at Platt Hall, the Gallery of English Costume, a renowned collection of historic dress. Subsequently she lectured in art history at the University of Leeds, the Open University and Manchester University Extra Mural Department. From 1995 - 2008, she was a Visiting Lecturer at Christie’s Education in London. Mary has also combined academic work with the world of design consultancy. In 1985 she joined Pentagram Design in London, a leading international design consultancy, and coordinated client presentations, publications, conferences and international special events, including the 1986 British Design event in Aspen Colorado. In 1988 she transferred to Pentagram’s New York office with the task of organising an international design conference held at Stanford University involving business, design and education leaders. As an experienced international speaker, Mary lectures regularly for The Arts Society throughout the UK, Europe and Australia and New Zealand. She also contributes articles to magazines, newspapers and professional journals. She was President of The Arts Society Glaven Valley, Norfolk from 2016- 2021.

A highly topical lecture, given the current arguments about the multi-billion pound restoration planned for Westminster! The Houses of Parliament in London is one of the most famous and staggering buildings in the world. Its rises serenely from the Thames at Westminster, on a site which has been the centre of power and government in England from the earliest times. It is a masterpiece of Victorian architecture and a spectacular feat of civil engineering: but from the beginning, its design and construction were a battleground for its architect, Charles Barry. The practical challenges, even by the standards of Victorian invention, were immense Battling the interference of MPs and royalty, coaxing and soothing the genius of his partner Pugin, fending off the mad schemes of a host of crackpot inventors and busybodies, and coming in three times over budget and twenty-four years behind schedule, this lecture will tell the story of how Charles Barry created the most famous building in Britain. 

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist, historian and an award-winning writer. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her books, lectures and study days focus on political art and heritage in peril. Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in 2017, has appeared at many literary festivals and on radio and TV. In 2023 she was appointed by the government to the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), which considers whether national heritage destined for sale overseas should be saved for the nation.

Winifred Nicholson’s life and work has often been seen in the context of her mar riage to Ben, but as this lecture reveals, she was an innovative artist in her own right,  whose exploration of colour and light was unique and distinctive. Born into an aris tocratic and artistic family, in the 1920s Winifred Nicholson became a key member  of the Seven and Five Society, whose members challenged traditional British painting.  Moving to Paris in the 1930s, she became friends with artists such as Mondrian,  Brancusi and Jean Arp and experimented with abstraction. Her later prism paintings  show her continuing to explore colour in new ways. Looking back on her work to wards the end of her life, she wrote: “My paintings talk in colour and any of the shapes  are there to express colour but not outline. The flowers are sparks of light, built of and  thrown out into the air as rainbows are thrown, in an arc”. 

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University before doing a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years. Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia, as well as online. She is a Tour Director for an award winning travel company and has led tours to Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and America. Sarah became an Arts Society accredited lecturer in 2021 and, since then, has given lectures and run study days for Arts Societies throughout the UK, as well as in Germany, Holland and New Zealand.

MEMBERS SUMMER LUNCH - Tickets on sale from April 15

For over a century, W. Heath Robinson, whom the novelist, Philip Pullman called ‘the immortal contraptioneer’, has been famous for drawing rickety, bizarrely complicated devices that carry out the simplest of tasks like potato peeling, wart removal or pancake making. He became so famous for them that in 1933, he was the obvious person to illustrate Norman Hunter’s Professor Branestawm books and, in 1943, Bletchley Park named one of their code-breaking machines after him.  Much later still, some of the contraptions in Wallace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers are based on a scale model of a gadget filled house that he made for the Ideal Home Show in 1934. But there was more to him than this: he was also a fine painter, an outstanding literary illustrator and a brilliant satirist, who poked gentle fun at modern life in cartoons that are still laugh out loud funny.

Barry Venning is an art historian whose interests and teaching range from the art of late medieval Europe to global contemporary art. He has published books, articles and exhibition catalogue essays on Turner, Constable and European landscape painting, but also has an ongoing research interest in postcolonial art and British visual satire. He works as a consultant and associate lecturer for the Open University. His media work includes two BBC TV documentaries, radio appearances for BBC local radio and abc Australia, and a DVD on Turner for the Tate. 

Too often the sculpture of Central Europe is ignored and yet some of the most important pieces of Renaissance sculpture was produced in northern cities and towns, often for small parish churches off the beaten track, as well as for the large cathedrals. The lecture  will trace the development of German sculpture in stone, for example at Strasbourg, Naumburg and Ulm. Then, as sculpture becomes independent of architecture, sculptors emerge from obscurity and during the later 15th and 16th centuries a golden age of sculpture, in particular through the medium of limewood, comes about, culminating in the work of the great limewood carvers, Michael Pacher, Tilman Riemenschneider, Veit Stoss and culminating in the glorious wood carving of the 17th centuty British sculptor, Grinling Gibbons.

Clare has an Honours degree in History of Art, Birkbeck College, University of London. Regular commitments include Centre for Lifelong Learning, London University, National Gallery, V&A Museum, WEA, Morley College, the City Literary Institute, the Art Fund and National Trust. Study tours abroad.