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.
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