Tantrums and Tiaras- Backstage at the Royal Opera House
London
We look at backstage life at Covent
Garden and pressures faced by singers, dancers, conductors and musicians.
How does the building cope with the demands of modern productions? What do
audiences expect in and outside the theatre? We also try to understand some highs
and lows that have been the fortune of the ROH over the years.
September 10th 2019
Nigel Bates
Undressing Antiques
“Antiques. I don’t
understand them and they’re beyond my budget. Nobody even collects any more. They’re
not for me.” An introduction to
buying antiques and using them in today’s homes. We look at the antiques market
and at different meanings of the word ‘value’. What are current and future
generations of collectors buying, why are they buying it and how do they
display it?
October 8th 2019
Mark Hill
Great British Public Parks – A Concise History
We have all enjoyed our own local parks
at some point but what do we really know about the origins of this great
institution? From their Victorian heyday, through their decline in the 1960s
and 1970s, to our revived love for them today, this talk explores the need for
parks and what makes parks great, illustrated with examples of lodges, lakes,
bandstands, fountains and floral displays.
November 12th
2019
Paul Rabbitts
The History of Wallpaper
Wallpaper is the Cinderella of the decorative arts – the
most ephemeral and least precious of decorations for the home. Yet, wallpaper
has adorned houses grand and ordinary since the 16th century, with many
beautiful designs: the first black and white patterns, elegant flock hangings,
Chinese hand-painted papers, Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, and 20th
century Modernist as well as contemporary designs.
December 10th 2019
Jo Banham
New Art for a New Society: Propaganda and Russian Art
In 1917 Lenin proclaimed that culture in the new Bolshevik
State should support political needs and propagate Communist ideas. How did the revolution, and the new role of
art, affect artists? How did the new government define culture? We will look at
the first expressions of proletarian art, monumental sculpture and evolutionary
slogans and ask: was art useful for the revolution or was revolution useful for
art?
January 14th 2020
Natalia Murray
Do women have to be naked
to get into the museum? Women Artists and Art History
In New York in 1985, 7 women launched the Guerrilla Girls in
response to the MOMA exhibition ‘An International Survey of Recent Painting and
Sculpture’, whose 165 artists included only 13 women. This talk considers the changing
position of women in art history, and looks at examples of female artists who pushed
the boundaries of this male-dominated world.
February 11th
2020
Stella Lyons
Venice to Sheffield - John Ruskin’s Passion for Art, Craft
and Social
Justice
We celebrate the extraordinary life and work of this
visionary Victorian, born 200 years ago. A writer, teacher, artist, collector, patron
and critic, Ruskin is best known as a champion of Turner and admirer of Venice.
But his ideas also inspired the Arts and Crafts and Labour
movements; the founding of the National Trust; and
influenced George Eliot, Tolstoy, Proust and Gandhi.
March 10th 2020
Simon Seligman
The Eagle Comic: Dan Dare and the Art of Frank Hampson
This is the extraordinary story of how a vicar and an art
student founded the million selling Eagle magazine in 1950. It looks at how the
Dan Dare studio worked and the incredible detail that Frank Hampson went to in
creating a graphic legend that was to influence generations. The talk includes rare artwork and vintage
film clips.
April 21st 2020
Howard Smith
Mad Men & Artists – how the Advertising Industry exploits
Fine Art
Fine art has given advertisers a great
deal of material to use in creative campaigns. From the Renaissance to the
present day, art has provided opportunities to enhance brand imagery with
humour, satire and irony. The talk covers how advertisements are created, and
why the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo have been a particularly
rich source of their visuals.
May 12th 2020
Tony Rawlins
Leokadiya Kashperova – Russia’s celebrated
forgotten Female Composer
The rediscovery of Leokadiya Kashperova - composer and concert pianist previously known
only as Stravinsky’s piano teacher - establishes her as the earliest known
female Russian composer of international stature. The story of the lecturer’s
research unveiling this romantic figure – nicknamed ‘Snow Maiden’ - and of Kashperova’s lyrical music, was part of the BBC Radio 3’s
2018 celebration of ‘5 Forgotten Female Composers’.
June 9th 2020
Graham Griffiths