ADFAS

Tuesday 7th October 2008

London's National Gallery:

Every painting has a story to tell

Linda Collins

Linda Collins, MA BA (Hons), is also a lecturer for the National Trust. She spoke to us in November 2002 on "It's not compulsory to like modern art to enjoy the history surrounding it!"

Right: (Engraving, 1837, of 'The National Gallery - Charing Cross' from the design by William Wilkins.)

Unlike most national art collections in Europe, London's National Gallery did not acquire its works by absorbing a royal collection. It therefore had to start at the beginning and acquire paintings by other means. This is the story of how the collection was built up, and of the stories behind some of the paintings.

Monday 3rd November 2008

Beautiful Houses

- Frank Lloyd Wright, America's Greatest Architect

Anne Anderson

Anne trained as an Art Historian and Archaeologist and worked as an archaeologist for 8 years. She was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London in 1996. In 1993 she took up a position at Southampton Institute as lecturer in Fine Arts Valuation, where she specializes in Victorian fine and decorative arts, architecture and interior design. As a senior lecturer, she now concentrates on research and publications.

She was awarded her PhD in English in 2001, from Exeter University, for the impact of Aestheticism on Victorian Women. She has published in leading commercial and academic journals. Her research interests include the Aesthetic movement, especially Art Pottery, and the Arts and Crafts movement. Anne is also a Trustee of the Victorian Society and a Main Committee member of the Women's History Network.

Her TV credits include BBC´s "Flog It!"

In addition to houses built for the wealthy of early 20th century USA, he was responsible for the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo.

Above: The Guggenheim Museum, New York

Monday 1st December 2008

Is Christmas in Good Taste?

David Phillips

Monday 12 January 2009

Venice: The Golden Age

Karin Debbaut

Right: 'Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge 
of S. Lorenzo' by Gentile Bellini, 1500; 

Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

This lecture will, as the title suggests, cover the golden period of Venetian art starting with Bellini, and continuing with a look at Giorgioni, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto …

Monday 2nd February 2009

City of 3 Names and 3 Cultures:

Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul

Elizabeth Gordon

Elizabeth Gordon lived in Italy for 17 years and lectures in art history in both the UK and the US, where she has lectured at all the major art museums. She has also made lecture tours of Australia and South Africa and has accompanied many art and music tours in Europe.

Right: The Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Byzantium was nearly 1,000 years old when the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great decided to move his capital there from Rome. He called his city "the New Rome" but it soon came to be known as Constantine's City – Constantinople. When the city fell to the Ottomans in 1453 the name Istanbul came into use, but not until 1930 did the name officially and permanently become Istanbul.

Monday 2nd March 2009

The Fine Art of Crime:

Actual Case Studies of the Trail & Reparation of Stolen Art

Malcolm Kenwood

Malcolm Kenwood is a former police detective specialising in art and antique crime and Recoveries Director for the Art Loss Register and international commercial database of stolen cultural property.

Right: 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch was stolen and recovered more than once.

Monday 6th April 2009

Beyond the Gilded Stage:

The Social and Cultural History of Opera

Daniel Snowman

Daniel Snowman was born in London and educated at Cambridge (Double First in History) and Cornell University in the USA. At 24 he was a Lecturer at Sussex University. 

For many years, he worked at the BBC where, as Chief Producer (Features), he was responsible for a wide variety of radio series on cultural and historical subjects, specialising in such large-scale projects as Northern Lights and Fin de Siècle, which later appeared as a book which he edited along with Asa Briggs.

Daniel is a frequent speaker for a number of British arts festivals, cultural organisations, luncheon clubs, NADFAS etc, and in a typical year delivers some 60-70 illustrated talks and lectures in the UK and abroad. For more information, visit his web site.

Right: The audience seated on stage during John Gay's 'The Beggar's Opera', by William Hogarth.

A richly illustrated history of an art form that incorporates all the others. From the birth of opera in late Renaissance Italy to Louis XIV’s Versailles, Handel’s London, Mozart’s Vienna, Verdi’s Italy and Wagner’s Germany, this lecture looks at the changing nature of audiences, theatrical architecture and stage design, and the impact of new technologies such as electric lighting, recording, photography and film.

Monday 4 May 2009

Meet: 19:00, AGM: 20:00, Lecture 20:15

The Paintings of
Hieronymous Bosch

Valerie Woodgate

Right: 'Christ Carrying the Cross' by Hieronymous Bosch (1516), Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent

Many of the works of Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516) depict sin and human moral failings. He used images of demons, half-human animals and machines to evoke fear and confusion and portray the evil of man. The works contain complex, highly original, imaginative and dense use of symbolic figures and iconography, some of which were obscure even in his own time.