Kyffin Williams (1918-2006) was born on Anglesey and attended the Slade School of Art which had been evacuated to Oxford during the War. He later became art master at Highgate School before deciding to devote himself entirely to painting in 1973. Kyffin developed a very personal style of painting using a palette knife and thick paint. He loved Wales, its mountains and its coast as well as the people. He painted large and powerful landscapes and seascapes, but he was also a wonderful portrait painter. He drew and painted Welsh farmers with sympathy and understanding but also tackled official commissions.

If you take a good look around a medieval church today, you’ll see a variety of different images. You might see carvings of saints and other obviously Christian symbols. And, in more than a few English churches, you’ll spy a curious image of a man’s face, covered in foliage.  You’d probably recognise this image as the ‘Green Man’. But what are those images doing there?  And, what does this Green Man have to do with Christianity?

When Jane Austen declared that she wrote ‘only for fame’, she was, of course, being ironic: she published anonymously; there is no record on her gravestone that she was a writer; and her books fell out of print shortly after her death.  But now, Jane Austen is one of our best loved authors, with legions of adoring fans throughout the world.  Her novels have inspired countless stage and screen adaptations, and even provided solace to soldiers in the trenches.  She is the face of the £10 banknote, and she adorns tea towels and fridge magnets everywhere.  Jane Austen is now very famous indeed.    But how did it all happen?  This lecture will chart Jane Austen’s rise to fame; it will explore the making of a literary celebrity and examine Austen’s legacy, 250 years after her birth.

Founded in 1919 in Weimar, the Bauhaus was a progressive art school. Under the directorship of architect Walter Gropius, its students studied a broad range of artistic disciplines. The Bauhaus lasted for a 14-year period, with bases in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin, and during that time it not only came to typify an age but also dictate matters of style for decades to come, through its art, architecture and design. This talk looks at some of the movers and shakers behind this hugely influential movement, including Marianne Brandt, Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer, as well as exploring their legacy in our world and homes today.

Why is Leonardo’s famous cartoon in the National Gallery no joke? What is the purpose of a ‘spolvero’?  How much lead is there in a pencil? Which tree produces gall nut ink? And can you spot bracelet shading, cross-hatching, stippling or stumping?  
Drawing plays a key role in an artist’s training. The techniques are quick and immediate. It is a type of brain-storming: a way of sketching out ideas. But it can be also planning a composition, presenting an idea for a large project to a client, or purely a finished product in its own right. 

2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of the quintessential English landscapist John Constable.  Enormously popular and endlessly reproduced, his paintings today are familiar – perhaps over-familiar.  But his modern reputation masks a radical, experimental artist who pushed the boundaries of art of his time just as much as his near-contemporary (and far more successful) rival Turner.  Tate Britain is showing a major exhibition of their work until April 2026.  This lecture will examine Constable’s career and propose five reasons why he should be considered revolutionary and Britain’s greatest landscape painter.

An amusing and informative look at the clothes, underclothes, shoes and accessories which would have been worn by some of the more colourful characters in the Palace’s 300 year history – as well as a look at the House of Dior’s continuing special relationship with Blenheim. The part that arsenic, lead, mercury and mousetraps played in the trends of the day is considered and how, then as now, people went to the most extraordinary lengths to keep abreast of fashion. 

British Pop artist Pauline Boty, was the only prominent female member of the movement. In our lecture Marie-Anne Mancio will explore Boty's pioneering work on feminism, celebrity, and female identity in the 1960s art scene, as seen in her iconic art and life. Pauline Boty's art and life challenged conventions, portraying powerful femininity and questioning sexism, making her a significant feminist figure whose work was rediscovered in the 1990s.

The music, architecture and manuscript illumination of medieval England are among the greatest achievements of the period, indeed of any period of English cultural history. The aim of the lecture is to open a window onto this remarkable world to capture something of the essence of its religious and secular music, its Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and its equally rich span of manuscript illumination, both sacred and profane. Essentially inspirational and aspirational, these are forms of artistic endeavour which at their most impressive, can touch the sublime.

The Cotswolds became one of the most vibrant rural centres of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by William Morris's retreat at Kelmscott Manor, several groups of designers and makers settled in the region, from Ernest Gimson and the Barnsley brothers, to C R Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft, and designers and artists drawn south from the Birmingham School of Art. They were followed by friends and admirers to create a region-wide craft community that lasts to this day.

Car builders of the Art Deco era came to epitomise style, luxury and craftmanship, works of art in their own right. 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.

Murder, poison, corruption and incest: all perfect ingredients for sensational popular culture. But in an age known for its brutality and church corruption, were the Borgias really so bad? This lecture reveals the real family that dominated the Papacy and Italian politics during the last decade of the 15th century: the charismatic figure of Pope Alexander VI, living inside his sumptuously decorated apartments, the career of his son, Cesare, cardinal, general, employer of Da Vinci and the model for Machiavelli’s The Prince, and the journey of Lucrezia Borgia from “the greatest whore in Rome” to a devout and treasured duchess of the city Ferrara.

Our next lecture, ''Stanley Spencer's Cookham: A Village in Heaven," will take place at the Gateway Centre, Monk Street, Abergavenny, NP7 5ND.

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.

 An American artist in London, James Abbott McNeill Whistler was a leading proponent of the idea of "art for art's sake". He signed his paintings with stylized monogram of a butterfly with a long stinger for a tail – as much a symbol of his love of Japanese art as his assertive and sometimes combative nature. Having lived and worked with the Paris avant-garde he settled in London in 1859 having created a distinctive Post-Impressionist style at a time when many of his British contemporaries had yet to come to terms with Impressionism.
     Inspired, influential, and infuriating, his art was full of subtle delicacy, he had a wide social network of friends and family and yet, if crossed, could be a formidable opponent. He mastered the art of making enemies.

Holst was an unconventional man who led something of a double life and not fully understood in his own time.  He spent most of his working life as Director of Music in a girls’ school, but he embraced Hindu philosophy and taught himself Sanskrit.  He believed that music should be available for everyone, was appointed conductor of a Socialist choir and was a champion of the amateur musician.  This lecture will examine Holst’s life, the background to “The Planets” and will explore many of his other works.

Forks and salt-cellars, Bacchus and the Garden of Eden, medieval banquets, Mrs Beeton and coffee-houses - through the centuries, food and its rituals have provided vibrant opportunities for artists to celebrate, to analyse their world and even to develop complex ideas of morality.  At the heart of the home, a shared fascination with food provides the perfect opportunity to flaunt money and status through elaborate artefacts, and illustrates shifting fashions and styles of eating. From still-lives to the Last Supper, religion, mythology and social traditions are rich in themes of food and shared meals.

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. From the Jama Masjid in Delhi, to the Taj Mahal in Agra, to the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, this lecture will take you on a tour of some of India’s greatest buildings, and provide insight into the historical contexts and colourful personalities involved in their construction. 

Andrew was inspired to produce this after visiting the National Portrait Gallery, and seeing all the Tudor and Stuart monarchs, in all their finery, and wondering where were and what are all the jewels that they wore.
Among the many jewels he traces, Andrew follows some pearls that belonged to Catherine De Medici then Mary Queen of Scotts, Queen Elizabeth Ist and now are worn by Oueen Elizabeth II. Also a spectacular diamond that belonged to King Charles Ist, later worn by Marie Antoinette, which was stolen then purchased by a Russian Aristocrat and later mounted in a tiara by Cartier for an American Heiress, when she became a British member of parliament! Jewel hunting has never been more fascinating.

Andrew Prince Andrew Prince has had a passion for the jewellery since he was a small child. The very first piece of jewellery he created was a ring made of copper wire pulled from the back of a television. He presented it to his grandmother (it turned her finger green and gave her a rash). He then created a necklace for his mother using beads taken off her wedding dress (she was not at all happy).
In 1980, when he was nine, Andrew's mother took him to the Princely Magnificence exhibition at the V&A, exhibiting Renaissance jewels dating from 1500 to 1630. It proved a revelation. Dazzled by the splendour and opulence of the jewels on show, Andrew decided then and there that creating jewellery was what he wanted to devote his life to. Andrew started work in London’s Bond Street, working for The Antiques Roadshow expert Ian Harris.He then joined the renowned contemporary jeweller Elizabeth Gage who was to have an enormous influence on Andrew's sense of what was possible within the realm of jewellery design.
Andrew's taste for fine 'costume jewellery' can be traced back to an antique market, where he came across a late Victorian brooch set with what he initially thought were emeralds and diamonds. They were, in fact, crystal and green glass set in silver and gold. He realised that beautiful jewellery didn't require expensive stones, and that it was the elegance of the design and the quality of the workmanship that truly mattered. Private commissions then started to trickle and then flood in. In 2012, he was chosen by the creators of Downton Abbey to supply a large collection of jewellery for the third series. The characters played by Maggie Smith, Shirley Maclaine, Elizabeth McGovern and Michelle Dockery were all adorned with elegant tiaras, combs, earrings and necklaces designed and created by Andrew Prince.

Famously, every morning of his adult life, Beethoven measured out exactly 60 coffee beans for his breakfast. A man who is capable of such discipline over a cup of coffee, can surely apply that exactness elsewhere in his life; and in Beethoven’s case, it was applied to his compositions. In fact, the detail found in his music is often so subtle, that most people don’t even know it’s there. The lecture explores Beethoven’s genius as a writer of music, at the same time setting his extraordinary story against the backdrop of 19th century warfare, revolution and dramatic social changes. Beethoven will be 250 years old on 17 December 2020.

Peter Medhurst appears in the UK and abroad as a musician and scholar, giving recitals and delivering illustrated lectures on music and the arts. He studied singing and early keyboard instruments at the Royal College of Music and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. 

When Augustus John died in 1961 he was described in The New York Times as ‘the grand old man of British painting and one of the greatest in British history.’ He was only in his mid twenties when, in the early 1900s, he was widely acknowledged as one of the most talented and promising young British artists – a Welsh rival, perhaps, to Gauguin or Picasso. This lecture explores John’s extraordinary life, including his early achievements, his position as one of the most exciting and outrageous young British artists before the Great War, his slow decline after it, and his troubled status as ‘the last Bohemian’.

David Haycock read Modern History at the University of Oxford, and has an MA in the History of Art and a PhD in British History. He is the author of a number of books, including Paul Nash (2002), A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War (2009) and Augustus John: Drawn from Life (2018); he has lectured widely at galleries and museums in the UK, including Tate Britain, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Watercolour Society and Pallant House. He was formerly a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, and at UCLA, and was Curator of Maritime and Imperial History at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. He is now a freelance writer and lecturer.

Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall?. Bess of Hardwick is one of the most fascinating women of the sixteenth century and her most famous building, Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, survives as a fine example of Elizabethan creativity, magnificence and pride. During this study day we?ll examine Bess?s story, her rising social status, her association with Mary, Queen of Scots, her many husbands and her royal aspirations. We?ll also look at her earlier great house, Chatsworth, before concentrating on her surviving masterpiece, Hardwick Hall, its architecture, its interior and its luxurious furnishings.

Gillian White Specialises in the visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England. She formerly worked for the National Trust as Curator and Collections Manager at Hardwick Hall, about which she then wrote her PhD at Warwick University. She now teaches part-time at Leicester University, predominantly in The Centre for the Study of the Country House, and is involved with the Continuing Education Department at Oxford University, as well as freelance lecturing.

This lecture provides a colourful introduction to the secret world of our 2000-mile inland waterway network and looks at all aspects of their exceptional artistic, architectural and engineering vernacular. Features range from sweeping aqueducts to tiny bollards; from colourful historic narrowboats to 'Roses and Castles' artwork; from grand World Heritage Sites to quirky listed buildings. A well-known architectural historian once described our canals as a 'poor man's art gallery'.

Roger Butler holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. Was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and Roger Butler is a landscape architect and an experienced writer, photographer and lecturer. He has a particular interest in the unique history, architecture and traditions of our canal network and worked on some of the UK’s major canal restoration projects. He has also acted as a consultant to bodies such as Waterways Ireland, Natural England and the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.
He regularly contributes to waterway and heritage magazines and writes and provides images for a range of countryside and outdoor titles. Roger is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society and a Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute. He lives near Stratford upon Avon and lectures to groups such as the National Trust, RSPB, U3A, history societies, etc across the Midlands and further afield.

Why were foreigner painters preferred by the aristocracy in London to native-born English painters, why did foreigners come in the first place, what was their motivation, and what was the impact of foreigners in London on English art and art practise? The lecture will look at the various formats and uses of art, tracing foreign artists from the Tudor period through to the Renaissance and Baroque, looking at their origins and how they came to work in England. It will examine the contributions of artists such as Holbein, Gerrit van Honthorst, Marcus Gheeraerts the younger, Lucas and Susanna Horenbout, Isaac Oliver, Paulus van Somer, van Dyck, Peter Lely, and Rubens. This lecture will look at how these artists influenced the British School of painting and assess their legacy.

Leslie Primo holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. Was Visiting Lecturer in Art History at the University of Reading in 2005 and 2007, and gives lectures and guided tours, plus special talks, at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. Also lectures at the City Literary Institute, and has presented a series of talks at the National Maritime Museum and the Courtauld Institute.