During the 19th century, when many Central European countries were still under the control of the Habsburgs in Vienna, art and culture were often the only ways in which the Empire’s constituent crownlands could express national identity. Just over a hundred years after the end of Habsburg dominance in Central Europe, this special interest day looks at three case studies, the Czech lands, Slovenia and Hungary, through the prism of their capital cities.

10.00: The Magic of Prague: the City and the Czech Cultural Revival

11.00: Coffee

11.30: Ljubljana and Slovene Singularity

12.30 Lunch (own expense) in Churchill dining hall, or bring your own

13.30: Budapest: A Hungarian Metropolis

The cost is £35 per person. To reserve your place, please book at the signing-in table before any lecture, or email Nan Taplin taplin.nan@gmail.com 

Payment is requested in advance. Cash or cheques are accepted in person, or you can pay via BACS transfer to The Arts Society Granta, Sort Code: 20:17:35 a/c no: 80433713. Ref: Plumley. 

Full details are on the flyer here.

From Sabrina and Funny Face, Love in the Afternoon or Breakfast at Tiffany’s to The Maltese Falcon, North by Northwest and The Great Gatsby, film directors have reached out to fashion designers to clothe their characters and productions. Christopher Budd is a writer, teacher and musician. His interests include silent cinema, Hollywood from the studio system to the experimental ’70s, and British and European film and music of the 1960s and 70s.

PROGRAMME

10.00 Fashion Designers in Film, Hepburn to Givenchy

11.00 – 11.30 Coffee and Biscuits

11.30 – 12.30 Suited and Booted, men’s style from the movies

Price: £30. You can download a booking form here, or contact Irena Milloy.

This will be a 2-lecture morning only SID.

The programme is as follows:

10.30am. Lecture 1: Peter the Great: Hero or Villain?

11.15 (approx): Coffee break

11.30 (approx) Lecture 2: Russians and the Grand Tour

The introduction of Western culture into Russia came late, and was not always welcomed by Russian society. 

The first of these lectures will examine the story behind the founding in the early 18th Century of St Petersburg, Peter the Great’s ‘Window into Europe’. It will then go on to consider how the Tsar/Emperor’s legacy is reflected in works of art, looking in particular at Etienne Falconet’s monumental statue of the Bronze Horseman (1782), and Alexander Pushkin’s great narrative poem of the same name (1833).

After 1762, the Russian nobility started to travel abroad, embarking on their own ‘Grand Tours’ of European destinations. This lecture will look at a selection of the wealthy pioneers who undertook these journeys, and consider some of the artworks and influences they took home.

Jenny Antill has a first class degree in Russian Studies from SSEES (University College, London). For some years she has spoken on cross cultural Russian topics to a wide range of organisations including Pushkin House, CAMRUSS , Russian Summer schools at Essex, Norwich and Cambridge and Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury.

Image: Peter I by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1698. It hangs in the Drawing Room at Kensington Palace.

This will be a 2-lecture morning only SID.

The programme is as follows:

10.30am. Lecture 1: Food in Art and the Fitz's ‘Feast and Fast’ Exhibition, followed by questions

11.25 (approx): Coffee break

11.40 (approx) Lecture 2: Tea, Coffee and Chocolate: The Visual Culture of Hot Drinks, followed by questions

Victoria Avery (BA, MA, PhD, Cantab) has been Keeper of Applied Arts at the Fitzwilliam Museum since 2010, prior to which she was Associate Professor in the History of Art Department, University of Warwick (2005-10) and Rush H. Kress Fellow at Villa I Tatti (Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies; 2004-05). Her field of particular expertise is European sculpture: she has researched, lectured and published extensively on Italian Renaissance sculpture, most recently, Michelangelo, Sculptor in Bronze (PWP, 2018).

Vicky has also published and lectured on many aspects of British and European decorative arts, from arms and armour, clocks and watches, fans and textiles, furniture and ceramics, glass and metalwork. She has curated numerous permanent gallery displays at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and co-curated several ambitious and critically acclaimed interdisciplinary exhibitions, including, Treasured Possessions from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (2015), Madonnas & Miracles: The Holy Home in Renaissance Italy (2017), and Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500–1800 (2019-20).

She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and sits on the Advisory Council of VISTAS (Virtual Images of Sculpture in Time And Space, 1250-1780), the editorial board of Ricche Minere, and the Art Advisory Committee of Ely Cathedral, where she has been a non-residentiary Canon and Member of Chapter since 2017.

Image: The lecturer setting up a 'Baroque Feasting Table' for the exhibition catalogue of the 2019 exhibition

This will be a two-lecture SID, conducted via Zoom, and with a brief pause between the lectures - each of which will be about 45 minutes in duration - for members to take a quick break and replenish their coffee cups.

It will be open to ALL members, and will be FREE OF CHARGE!

Lecture 1: From paste to enamel: Jewellery in nineteenth-century Britain

Exploring the great variety of styles that came into fashion during the nineteenth century, this lecture illustrates the use of innovative materials including cut steel and glass ('paste') and hardstones. It also examines the huge range of styles on offer, many of which were inspired by fashions from abroad or discoveries from the past, including the Classical world.  It will also include the uniquely nineteenth-century obsession with mourning jewellery.

Lecture 2: From plastic to tin cans: Jewellery in twentieth-century Britain

Beginning with jewellery created by arts and crafts designer-makers, this lectures moves through the sinuous curves of the art nouveau and into the angular style of the Art Deco, before looking at jewellery made during the Post-War period and the more glamorous 1960s and 1970s. It will explore jewellery made by silversmiths and artists today, much of which is made from non-traditional materials.

This Special Interest Day is organised by The Arts Society South Cambs. You can find a booking form for this event here

In this Special Interest Day we will look at some of the ways in which artistic ideas have moved across, around and between continents. Concentrating on Northern Europe, we’ll consider some of the historical forces that have shaped European culture through war and conquest, but also through trade, exploration and fashion.

After a historical introduction, we will concentrate on developments across the past 150 years – taking as many examples as possible from art that picture and reflect real lives and domestic interiors. We will meet painters, interior designers and dress reformers, as well as idealistic architects. But we will also see how art and politics collide and how the Nazi hatred of the avant-garde forced artists to move to survive – so spreading artistic ideas even more widely than before.

10:00 – 10:30    Coffee

10:30 – 11:30    Session 1.

11:45 – 12:45    Session 2.

12:45 – 14:00     Lunch

14:00 – 15:00    Session 3.

 Biographical Note:

Jo Walton has combined teaching and lecturing with a career in art bookselling and has been a volunteer guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Now she is a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society, the Art Fund, and Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery and for local art societies

 Venue: David Rayner Building, Scotsdales Garden Centre. Cost £27:50 (includes coffee & lunch). 

Geri Parlby, Arts Society lecturer and former Fleet Street journalist, will give us an insight into the birth of the silver screen and the art that surrounded it.

The event will be held at Churchill College, Cambridge. The cost is £30 - please be aware that this does NOT include lunch, which can be purchased at a modest cost in the Churchill College cafeteria.

Please book with Patsy Glazebrook, either by phone: 01799 541180 or by email: glazebrc@doctors.net.uk.

       Programme

• 10.00am            Coffee & biscuits
• 10.30-11.30     From shadow shows to magic lanterns; the art and artifice of the moving image
• 11.30 - 11.45   Interval
• 11.45 - 12.45   Smoke and mirrors of Nickelodeons
• 12.45 – 13.45   Lunch
• 13.45 – 15.00   The birth of Hollywood - epic movies

Click on this link for further information and to download a booking slip. .

Fiona Rose, Arts Society lecturer and Trustee of the William Morris Society, will give us an insight into the life, influences and legacy of the man behind the famous floral designs.

The event will be held at Churchill College, Cambridge. The cost is £30.

Please book with Patsy Glazebrook, either by phone: 01799 541180 or by email: glazebrc@doctors.net.uk. Or download a booking form here: Booking form.

       Programme

• 10.00am            Coffee & biscuits
• 10.30-11.30     The Early Life and Influences of William Morris
• 11.30 - 11.45   Interval
• 11.45 - 12.45   Overview of the Life and Work of William Morris
• 12.45 – 13.45   Lunch
• 13.45 – 15.00   Morris' Lasting Legacy

Click on this link for further information.

Anne Sebba - biographer, journalist, historian and lecturer will examine how the so-called "dollar princesses" challenged the British establishment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She will focus in particular on two of the best-known ladies of that time - Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, and Jennie Jerome, Lady Randolph Churchill. She will also discuss the lives of - and attitudes towards - the literally hundreds of American heiresses who flooded the shores of continental Europe, trading their fortunes for a title and a place in Society.

The event will be held at Churchill College, Cambridge. The cost is £30.

Please book with Patsy Glazebrook, either by phone: 01799 541180 or by email: glazebrc@doctors.net.uk. Or download a booking form here: Booking form.

       Programme

• 10.00am           Coffee & biscuits
• 10.30-11.30     Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor
• 11.30 - 11.45   Interval
• 11.45 - 12.45   Jennie Churchill, Winston’s American Mother
• 12.45 – 13.45   Lunch
• 13.45 – 15.00   The Dollar Princesses

Click on this link for further information: Further information.

Dr Lars Tharp has been with the Antiques Road Show for over 25 years as their expert in ceramics. Lars lectures internationally on the 500 years of the China trade in ceramics and also the Foundling Museum in London of which he is a former Director.

Programme:

10.00am                Coffee & biscuits
10.30-11.30          The epic journey of Chinese Porcelain to Europe
11.30 - 11.45        Interval
11.45 - 12.45        The History of the Foundling Hospital
12.45 – 13.45         Lunch
13.45 – 15.00         Looking at Pots and Life on Antique Road Show
 
Members are invited to bring their own ceramic objects.

ART NOUVEAU (1890-1905) was an international movement aimed at modernising design, and seeking to abolish the traditional hierarchy of the arts.  It drew its inspiration from both organic and geometric forms, relying on the colours of nature and evolving elegant designs that united flowing forms. Architecture, furniture, painting, jewellery all fell under its spell.  Out of fashion before WW1 it enjoyed a popular revival in the 60’s and is now considered to be an important predecessor of modernism.
Eric Knowles is a leading authority on Art Nouveau and a familiar face on television.  Author and broadcaster, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Eric was born in Nelson in 1953. In the 70’s he worked in engineering as well as for a firm of antique shippers.  He inherited his love of antiques from his parents and joined Bonhams in 1976 working first as a porter in the ceramics department, becoming head of department in 1981 and a full director in 1985.
 
Programme:

10 am:              Coffee
10.30-11.30:     General overview of the Art Nouveau style
11.30-11.45:     Interval
11.45-12.45:     Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Glasgow 1900
12:45-1.45:       Lunch Churchill Refectory (independent)
1.45-2.45:         Gustave Klimt and Vienna
2.45-3pm:         Life on the Antiques Road Show followed by a Show and Tell
 
You are most welcome to bring in any treasures that you might care to share.