PROGRAMME Membership year 2022/23 Meetings will be held at Barnwell Village Hall and simultaneous Zoom hybrid transmissions will continue to be used at the discretion of the committee. Coffee will be available from 10:00am and the meeting will start at 10:50am. Guests are welcome for a fee of £10, but it is important to contact the Membership Secretary beforehand; drtonyb@icloud.com or 07917 632268 There are no lectures in July and August. The new membership year starts in September. 16th September 2022 & AGM at 10:45 Caroline Holmes The Painter and Plantsman Cedric Morris; Irises and Beyond. The flower paintings of Cedric Morris (1889-1982) capturing plants around the Mediterranean, the Canaries and beyond reveal him as a consummate botanist. After a fire in 1940, Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines were forced to relocate their East Anglia School of Painting and Drawing to Benton End near Hadleigh, in Suffolk. Not just a School but a vibrant eclectic artistic hub in a setting of Morris’s horticultural genius. He lived at Benton End until his death, enjoying national stature as artist and plantsman whose legacy included over 90 new irises. Painted by Frances Mary Hodgkins cc Wikimediacommons 21st October 2022 Irving Finkel A Curator speaks; What are Museums for? A light-hearted but serious look at the business of museums, and collecting, and how easy it is to lose one’s way without introspection, vision and money. Whose stuff is it anyway? And what of the future? How to make people look at objects rather than striding past without stopping. What actually happens to visitors in museums and art galleries? Why, for example, are there so seldom seats? 18th November 2022 Sarah Burles ‘Les Trios Grandes Dames’ of Impressionism. The Impressionists were an innovative and radical group of artists whose took Paris by storm in the 1870s. Using new colours and techniques, they created paintings of modern life which shocked and horrified the art establishment. From the start the group included women artists but their contribution to Impressionism has often been overshadowed by their male contemporaries. Marie Bracquemond, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt all exhibited regularly at the Impressionist exhibitions alongside artists such as Monet, Renoir and Degas. In 1894 they were given the title “Les Trois Grandes Dames d’Impressionisme” by the art critic Gustave Geffroy. This lecture will discuss the lives of each of these artists and their work, revealing their skill and originality as well as their willingness to take risks, despite the additional obstacles they faced as women. 16th December 2022 Peter Medhurst The Twelve Days of Christmas The celebration of the period following Christmas can be traced back several millennia, and to at least two cultures – neither of them Christian. One of them is the southern Roman feast of Kalends on the 1st January, and the other, the northern Nordic festivals of Yuletide surrounding the celebrations of the Winter solstice. However, it was Pope Julius I who decided to subvert the gluttony, drunkenness and sun worship to Christian purpose, and by choosing the 25th December to celebrate the birth of Christ, he neatly bridged these cultures and paved the way for future Christmas festivities. And so it is that many of our modern Christmas customs and carols bear references to traditions that have nothing to do with the birth of Christ. Nonetheless, each year, Christ’s birthday on 25th December signifies the beginning of twelve festive days of celebrations and music making. In this lecture-recital Peter Medhurst explores the wealth of Christmas music, traditions and curious legends that are connected with them. Music performed includes: Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly, The Coventry Carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas, The Wassail Song, The Three Kings – Cornelius. 20th January 2023 Rosalind Whyte Constantin Brâncuśi Constantin Brâncuși was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th- century and a pioneer of modernism, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture. Lecture synopsis not available. 17th February 2023 Helen Oakden The Art of Paula Rego Many adore her art, few understand it. Rego’s confusing and confrontational paintings mix fairy stories with the socio-political context of her family and her homeland. Helen Oakden will talk about Rego’s life, the history of Salazar’s rule in Portugal, and delve into detail into the works recently seen in the Tate Britain’s exhibition, as well as some other important works by the artist including the mural in the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing café. Paula Rego's Studio 2007 Dinkydarcey - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 17th March 2023 Angela Findlay The Empty Chair in Art from Van Gogh to Ai Wei Wei We all use chairs! But over the past 150 years, artists across the world have been using the humble chair as a conduit for profound ideas on themes from protest, absence and memory to domestic or everyday life. In Europe, Egon Schiele, René Magritte, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys used empty chairs for personal expression, while in America, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Kosuth and Bruce Nauman used chairs to develop the exciting new artistic movements arising in the sixties. The Palestinian artist, Mona Hatoum, adapted chairs to explore female identity and the Columbian artist, Doris Salcedo, stacked 1,550 between two buildings to remember anonymous victims of war. These are just some of the many diverse artists and uses of chairs we will be looking at in this talk. And as in all my lectures, my personal connection as an artist, who has worked with chairs throughout her career, will aim to bring the subject to life. Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, December 1888 Wikimedia commons 21st April 2023 Dominic Riley The Whole Art of the Book Why was the best paper made from the worn out clothes of peasants? Why did leather have to be tanned outside the city walls? Why is gold leaf so thin that it is measured in atoms and cannot be touched with the hands? Why do printers have to do everything upside down and backwards? Why did gold finishers get paid more than other bookbinders despite not washing their hair? And why is the art of bookbinding itself, surely the most complex of all hand crafts, as beguiling and enchanting today as it was when it was invented on the banks of the Nile 2,000 years ago. This lecture is a ‘Through the Round Window’ for grown-ups, and tells the fascinating story of everything that makes a traditional hand bound book. Tom Murphy VII Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 19th May 2023 Paula Nuttall Bruegel; Peasants, Proverbs and Landscapes The art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525/30-1569) is a byword for the depiction of genre subjects and landscapes. This lecture explores his work and its meanings, from his beginnings in the style of Hieronymus Bosch, to the development of a highly original art that offered an alternative to the Italianate art then in vogue. Working for an elite circle of connoisseurs, at the end of his short life he produced some of his greatest masterpieces, including the Peasant Dance and Peasant Wedding, and the lyrical Months of the Year, which rank amongst the greatest achievements of Netherlandish painting. Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Tower of Babel (Vienna) Public domain Wikimedia 16th June 2023 Micheal Howard David Hockney: A Certain Generosity of Spirit This lecture will celebrate the inspirational work of one of Britain’s best known artists whose work is instantly recognisable and speaks directly to us of the joys and challenges of being alive. We will share the journey of his life from Bradford to London; to New York and Los Angeles and back to Yorkshire and then his return to LA. His art is a sounding board of his vivid and colourful life and a reminder of the joys of looking, making . . . and living. Disclaimer: The Arts Society Oundle cannot be held responsible for any personal accident, damage to, or loss or theft of members’ personal property unless there is proven negligence. Legal liability insurance is in force.