British painting has used maps in so many different ways that art can look like a kind of geography.  Founding members of The Royal Academy were map makers, and their skills fed the new science of geology.  In turn, geology changed the vision of painters, and for the next two hundred years artists created new, personal geographies in a tradition that is still very much alive today.

The cost is £40 per person, including a light sandwich lunch.  The venue is the David Raynor Building at Scotsdales Garden Centre in Great Shelford.  Doors open at 10am with a welcoming drink.  The first lecture starts at 10:30am.  The day's timetable includes a morning comfort break and the lunch.  We expect to finish by 3:30pm.

During the day, there will be three sessions, covering:

Maps, Surveying & The Royal Academy: surveying and estate maps; the Sandby brothers in Scotland; the Ordnance Survey; Constable's Stour Valley; Coleridge's maps.

Geology, Drawing & Painting: Mantegna - rock and the Christian vision; 'Strata Smith' and the first geological map of Britain; Turner, Ruskin and geology; Cézanne's quarry paintings; Paul Nash - rocks and the surrealist imagination.

Personal Geographies: John Everett Millais on the Tay; Norman Ackroyd in the Hebrides; Michael Andrews and the Thames Valley; and ending with the speaker's own work on the Essex-Suffolk border.

To book, please register your interest by email to judyboothroyd5@gmail.com, or sign up when you attend a lecture.  Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Once you have received confirmation that your requested place(s) are available to you, please then make payment of £40 per person, by Bank Transfer only, to this account:

• The Arts Society South Cambs
• Sort code 30-98-97
• Account number 67462363

Please use your Surname and Initial plus the letters SID as your reference.  (SID: Special Interest Day)

Lecturer: Stephen Taylor 

Stephen Taylor is an artist and art historian.  He studied John Constable as a post graduate at Essex and Yale, taught at Felsted School and has been Head of Painting at The Open College of the Arts and Course Director at the Inchbald School of Design in London.  In 2000, Stephen turned to landscape painting; many of his works are now in private collections across the world.

Image: digital collage of  public domain images -  extract from Ordnance Survey 1-inch map (Shropshire, 1952); illustration for William Leybourn's 'The Compleat Surveyor' (1722); 'Henley-on-Thames from the Wargrave Road, Oxfordshire' (Johannes Siberecht, 1698)
 

This event is now fully subscribed.  Our thanks go to all those who have booked to attend.

The Ancient Greeks were the founders of Western Civilisation.  In three 60-minute lectures, Rupert Willoughby brings their remarkable story vividly to life.

1. Marathon!  Why remember a battle that took place over two and a half thousand years ago?  Examining the influence of ancient Athens on our art and culture, Rupert reveals Marathon as the victory that saved ‘Western Civilisation’.  Eye-opening, edge-of-your-seat stuff.

2. Cool Marble!  From the controversial Parthenon or ‘Elgin’ marbles to the Venus de Milo, most celebrated among the ‘naked Aphrodites’, here is a chance to meet the Ancient Greeks in the raw.  Contains nudity!

3. Thermopylae!  'A mighty Persian army sweeps into Greece.  For Sparta to be saved, the King must die'.  So says the famed Oracle at Delphi.  Leonidas and his 300 warriors set out for Thermopylae, ready to lay down their lives.  From austere Sparta to glittering Delphi, we re-trace one of the greatest adventures in known history.

The cost is £40 per person including a cold buffet lunch.  The venue is The David Raynor Building at Scotsdales Garden Centre in Great Shelford.  Doors open at 10am with a welcoming drink.  The first lecture starts at 10:30am.  The day's timetable includes a morning comfort break and a lunch.

This event is now fully subscribed.

If you have any questions, please email Judy Boothroyd at judyboothroyd5@gmail.com.

Image: Leonidas at Thermopylae, 1814, by Jacques-Louis David.  Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

A toe-tapping, big-band jazz afternoon in support of the Cambridge Cancer Help Centre at Scotsdales, Great Shelford.

The £10 admission goes entirely to the charity - the musicians (who include our very own David Williams, son of our late founder and President) all play for free.

If it's a warm and dry afternoon the event will be held outdoors, otherwise inside.

The venue is The David Raynor Building, Scotsdales Garden Centre, 120 Cambridge Road, Great Shelford, Cambridge CB22 5JT.

SORRY, THIS SPECIAL INTEREST DAY IS SOLD OUT

BUT DO CONSIDER OUR NEXT EVENT IN NOVEMBER!

Brilliance and Innovation from Holbein to Huguenots: European artists in Tudor and Stuart England

Torrigiano, Holbein, Gheeraerts the Younger and Van Dyck worked under royal and noble patronage during the Tudor and Stuart dynasties. Art will show the magnificence the English Court during the age of Reformation, Civil War and the Restoration. Other Artisans from Europe will be included in this day.

The Florentine sculptor Pietro Torrigiano and portrait painters such as Hans Holbein, Marcus. Gheeraerts the Younger and Sir Anthony van Dyck were pre-eminent among a succession of European artists who worked under royal and noble patronage during the Tudor and Stuart dynasties. Their art expressed the magnificence and sophistication of the English Court during a turbulent age of Reformation, Civil War and the Restoration. Artisans from Europe included skilled Flemish weavers, Huguenot silversmiths, French upholsterers and weavers of silks and tapestries.

Lecturer; Anne Haworth: Art Historian and ceramics specialist

Venue :The David Rayner Building, Scotsdales Garden Centre,

Great Shelford Cambridge CB22 5JT

Lecture 1 Art for the Tudors
Lecture 2 Art for the Stuarts
Lecture 3 Decorative Arts and Interiors

10am doors open with a welcoming drink

10.30-11.30-1st lecture
11.30-1145-comfort break
11.45-12.45-2nd lecture
12.45-14.00-cold buffet lunch
14.00-15.00-3rd lecture

BOOKING IS NOW OPEN

To book, please email Karin Olley at karinolley1@gmail.com with your name and those of any guests. Place/s will be confirmed upon receipt of payment.

Payment by Bank transfer only please. £40.00 per person.

Lloyds bank: Sort code 30-98-97 account no. 67462363 

Please use Surname & initial and the letters SID for reference. (SID: Special Interest Day)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Huguenots_costumes.png licensed under https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Spirit of Place: Artists and the British landscape

Artists have depicted the British landscape for over a thousand years.

Landscape art in Britain begins with its origins in manuscripts, maps and miniatures Moving on to views and picturesque scenes as portrayed by the artists Constable, Gainsborough, Millais and others. Nash and Ravilious will bring a modern and 20th century angle to the day.

Venue :The David Rayner Building, Scotsdales Garden Centre 

Great Shelford Cambridge CB22 5JT

10am doors open with a welcoming drink

10.30-11.30- 1st lecture

11.30-1145- comfort break

11.45-12.45- 2nd lecture

12.45-14.00- cold buffet lunch

14.00-15.00- 3rd lecture

The day will begin the origins of Britain’s landscape tradition in maps and illuminated manuscripts. We will explore developments by pioneers such as Richard Wilson, Paul Sandby and Thomas Gainsborough. The 18th century was an era of exploration and discovery which brought exciting new ways of looking at the landscape:
a balloonist looked down from his basket to draw the astonishing views that unfolded beneath; amateur artists travelling to the Lake District and north Wales went equipped with coloured lenses to cast an atmospheric tint over the scenes they sketched; and Gainsborough himself devised an innovative ‘show box’ for viewing his glass-paintings.

The second lecture focuses on the Romantic Movement, and the ways in which John Constable and J. M. W. Turner rethought landscape art. Constable in particular was a pioneer of close observation, the first artist to study clouds with scientific rigour and show how English landscape actually appeared to the eye under bright, showery English skies. Watercolour opened up exciting new expressive possibilities, and watercolourists of the Golden Age such as Thomas Girtin, John Robert Cozens and John Sell Cotman used this translucent medium with great skill to capture fleeting effects of light and weather. The young Samuel Palmer, meanwhile, consulted his imagination to produce some of the most idiosyncratic and visionary of rural scenes.

The final lecture tells the stories of Victorian painters such as John Everett Millais, who painted the background of his early masterpiece Ophelia out of doors to capture every flower and blade of grass in eye-popping colour and detail. We will examine fluid, atmospheric watercolours of the late 19th and early 20th centuries by masters of the medium such as James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent before considering landscapes of the interwar and wartime years. Official War Artists Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious were both steeped in the tradition of British landscape but brought an entirely modern angle too: Ravilious could paint a Tiger Moth in the manner of Cotman.

Booking from 20th September 2024
Please email Karin Olley at karinolley1@gmail.com
with your name and any guest names. Confirmation of place/s will be confirmed with receipt of  payment

Payment by Bank transfer only please. £40.00 per person

Lloyds bank : Sort code 30-98-97 account no. 67462363 

Please use Surname & initial and the letters SID for reference. (SID: Special Interest Day)

Lecturer: Susan Owens 

Dr Susan Owens is an art historian, writer and curator. She studied English literature at Oxford University and European art at the Courtauld Institute, then wrote a doctoral thesis at University College London. 

She was a curator at the Royal Collection before becoming Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Susan has curated many exhibitions and has written or co-authored books on landscape art, natural history illustrations, watercolours, drawings and self-portraits. She is a regular contributor to publications including the Times Literary Supplement, Apollo, Country Life and the Literary Review. 

Now freelance, Susan lives in Suffolk. Her recent books include The Ghost: A Cultural History (2017) and Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art (2018). Spirit of Place: Artists, Writers and the British Landscape (Thames & Hudson) came out in 2020 and was a Times book of the year. 

Her new book, published by Thames & Hudson in Spring 2023, is Imagining England’s Past: Inspiration, Enchantment, Obsession. 

Alisa Craig licensed under: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Bell_Scott_-_Ailsa_Craig_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

George Stubbs/Treasures of the Turf

This country’s greatest animal painter, George Stubbs. The work of who has been compared to that of Leonardo da Vinci, one even christening him the ‘Leonardo of Liverpool’ to reflect his humble origins as the son of a Liverpool leatherworker.

Using a wealth of paintings, archive material and decorative art objects associated with and depicting the ‘Sport of Kings’, art will take us from the earliest origins of the sport including the development of Newmarket and the Jockey Club as the racing’s headquarters.

Quotes from Christopher Garibaldi

I am always getting feedback from audiences along the lines of 'I nearly didn't come as I thought I wasn't interested in horseracing but that was absolutely fascinating..

 I promise you it isn't just for horse junkies.’

Venue :The David Rayner Building,Scotsdales Garden Centre Gt Shelford Cambridge CB22 5JT

10am doors open with a welcoming drink

10.30-11.30-1st lecture

11.30-1145-comfort break

11.45-12.45-2nd lecture

12.45-14.00-cold sandwich lunch

14.00-15.00-3rd lecture

Lecture 1 Equus: The Art of Horseracing and Equestrianism

Sets the scene and examine the history of horseracing from the ancient world through to the development of the modern sport in this country at the end of the Elizabethan period. It looks at horseracing through its associated cultural material. Using the wealth of paintings, archive material and decorative art objects associated with and depicting the ‘Sport of Kings’, the lecture takes as its starting point the earliest origins of the sport and includes the development of Newmarket and the Jockey Club as racing’s ‘Headquarters’ from the mid-18th century.

Lecture 2 George Stubbs

The English Leonardo’. Many art historians and critics have compared the work of Stubbs to that of Leonardo da Vinci, one even christening him the ‘Leonardo of Liverpool’ to reflect his humble origins as the son of a Liverpool leatherworker.

Lecture 3 Treasures of The Turf

We look at the art of horseracing and equestrianism more generally in the 19th and 20th centuries with a particular focus on the life and career of Sir Alfred Munnings KCVO, PRA (1878-1959) who, from modest Suffolk beginnings, would go on to become one of the most successful English artists of the first half of the 20th century, ending his long career as President of the Royal Academy.  We will look at his amazing and extensive artistic output from his early life as a commercial artist, through the extraordinarily evocative and powerful depictions of Canadian soldiers during the First World, to his mature work as this country’s leading sporting and equestrian artist.

Please email Karin Olley at karinolley1@gmail.com

With the following information

•       Name
•       places being reserved and names of guests
•       A contact telephone number (if happy to do so)
•       Any special dietary requirements

Any problems or queries, email Karin at the above address.

Payment by bank transfer only please; £40.00

• Lloyds bank

• Sort code 30-98-97

• account no. 67462363

Please use

Surname & initial and the letters SID if you have room for the reference. (SID: Special Interest Day). 

Lecturer: Christopher Garibaldi

Independent Researcher. 2010–2019 Director of Palace House, Newmarket (National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art:( www.palacehousenewmarket.co.uk). 2008–2010 Co-Director of the Attingham Summer School for the Study of Historic Houses and Collections. 1998–2003 Senior Curator & Assistant Keeper of Art (Decorative Art) at Norwich Castle Museum: co-curator of Flower Power – The Meaning of Flowers in Art and Eat, Drink and Be Merry, the British at Table 1600 to 2000. 1994–1997 Catalogued the silver in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and other royal residences.

Caption: Side view of dissected horse from The Anatomy of The Horse, 1766 by George Stubbs (1724–1806)
Credit line: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

“Challenging Conventions: the Avant Garde in Cornwall 1880-1975”

THIS IS NOW FULLY BOOKED. 

To go on to the waiting list please email Karin Olley.

From the late 19th century, Cornwall became a focus for a number of artists who challenged conventions, beginning with the artists’colonies at Newlyn and then Lamorna. In the 20th century, St Ives was home to british modernists such as Bernard Leach, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson who in turn inspired and were challenged by a younger generation of avant-garde artists that included Peter Lanyon, Roger Hilton, Patrick Heron and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. This study day will look at the work of these artists and others who lived and worked in Cornwall from the 1880s to the 1970s and explore their artistic influences, relationships and legacy.

Venue :The David Rayner Building,Scotsdales Garden Centre Gt Shelford Cambridge CB22 5JT.  Click here

 Lecture 1 - Newlyn and Lamorna

This lecture sets the scene for the arrival of the first generation of artists to Newlyn in the 1880s and looks at the work of artists such as Stanhope Forbes, Walter Langley, Edwin Harris and Henry Scott Tuke. Stanhope Forbes married the Canadian born artist, Elizabeth Armstrong and in 1899 they established the Forbes School of Art which helped to attract a younger generation of artists to Newlyn and the nearby village of Lamorna. These included Harold and Laura Knight, Dod and Ernest Proctor, Samuel ‘Lamorna’ Birch, Frank Gascoigne Heath and Alfred Munnings.

 Lecture 2 - St Ives and the arrival of the Modernists

Artists were also attracted to St Ives from the late 19th century onwards and it may have been the presence of so many artists in the town, which encouraged the selftaught artist Alfred Wallis to begin painting in the 1920s, using household paint on scraps of cardboard. His work was championed by modernists such as Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood who admired Wallis’ authenticity. With war on the horizon in the summer of 1939, Nicholson and his second wife, Barbara Hepworth, moved to St Ives, together with Naum Gabo. They challenged the traditionalists and inspired the next generation of artists in Cornwall.

Lecture 3 - The Triumph of St Ives 1945-1975

This final lecture will chart the rise of St Ives as a centre for modern art after the war and show that it was not only Nicholson, Hepworth and Gabo who achieved international success but other artists such as Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost and Wilhemena Barns Graham. This success led to the town becoming a focal point for post-war avant garde art which led the eyes of the modern art world to focus, for a brief period, on St Ives.

10am doors open with a welcoming drink

10.30-11.30-1st lecture

11.30-1145-comfort break

11.45-12.45-2nd lecture

12.45-14.00-cold buffet lunch

14.00-15.00-3rd lecture 

Lecturer; Sarah Burles MA (Cantab) MA

Sarah Burles studied History of Art at Cambridge University before doing a master’s degree at University College London. She went on to have a career in museum and gallery education, establishing new services in three different museums before working at the Fitzwilliam Museum for many years.  Sarah is the founder of Cambridge Art Tours, which runs tours and courses in and around East Anglia. Sara also tours and lectures around the world.

Blackberry Gathering by Elizabeth Forbes, public domain

 'From Downton to Gatsby' and 'The Glamour Years', you will be guided through the various decades and see illustrations of the events and people who created today’s modern world.

You will be shown how the period between 1890 and 1959 was probably the most tumultuous and extraordinary in world history, with political and world events having a profound and lasting effect, not only how people lived, but also on fashion and jewellery design.

Venue: The Granary Stapleford, Bury Road, Stapleford, Cambridge, CB22 5BP.

Click here.

10am doors open with a welcoming drink

10.30-11.30-1st lecture

11.30-1145-comfort break

11.45-12.45-2nd lecture

12.45-14.00-cold buffet lunch

14.00-15.00-3rd lecture

Bookings being taken from 5th January 2023.

Please email Karin Olley, click here.

With the following information:

1. Your name
2. Places being reserved and names of guests
3. A contact telephone number (if happy to do so)
4. Any special dietary requirements

Payment by bank transfer please, price: £40.00.

• Lloyds bank
• Sort code 30-98-97
• account no. 67462363 

Please use: Surname & initial and the letters SID if you have room for the reference. (SID:Special Interest Day).

Lecturer

Andrew Prince's (literal) consuming passion for jewels can be traced back to him swallowing one of his mother’s pearl earrings as a 3-year-old.
Andrew's exquisite jewels have adorned celebrities including Michael Jackson, Miss Piggy, and the stars of Downton Abbey.
His entertaining and informative lectures on the history of jewellery and fashion have delighted audiences around the world. 

The Golden Age of Spanish Painting 1550-1660 (an An introduction to the Spanish artists of the 16th and 17th centuries)

The late 16th century to the middle of the 17th century in Spain was a period rich in both art and literature: a Golden Age. The great artistic giants of this time - El Greco, Velázquez, Zurbarán and Murillo - reveal formality, faith and human frailty in paintings commissioned by the Spanish Habsburg monarchs, and the Church.

We begin by looking El Greco, who moved to Spain from his native Crete via Italy, and his contribution to painting in Spain during the reign of King Philip II.   Diego Velázquez’s genius at observation is seen in youthful works from Seville, and then in formal portraits of King Philip IV’s Court. These include royal children, dwarves, and jesters as well as the King and Queen. Francisco Zurbarán, Velázquez’ friend and contemporary, painted mainly for the Church – the other major patron of the arts at this time. We will see his white-robed monks, vivid female saints and stark still life paintings, before admiring the lively beggar boys, and triumphant Baroque Virgins of Bartolomeo Murillo.

Venue
Stapleford Granary

Date
Thursday, 3rd November 2022

Timings
10:00 – 10:30 Coffee

10:30 – 11:30 Session 1:   Philip II, El Escorial and El Greco

We begin in the reign of Philip II and his patronage of the arts for his vast monastery-palace of El Escorial, outside Madrid. Italian and Flemish styles influenced painting at his court. As a young man Philip spent lengthy periods in both Italy and Northern Europe, and like his father, the Emperor Charles V, he commissioned works from Titian. We will look at formal portraits of members of the royal family by Antonis Mor, and his follower, Alonso Sanchez Coello.  We will also glimpse decorative schemes in El Escorial, before moving on to Toledo, where the Cretan El Greco made his home. His unique paintings are distinguished by their electric colours and elongated forms.

11:30 – 11:45 Short comfort break

11:45 – 12:45 Session 2:  Velazquez in Seville and at the Court in Madrid

For this first part of the lecture we will study Velázquez’ early works from Seville, and see how naturalism, contemporary sculpture and Italian influences played their part in his development.   We then move with Velázquez to Madrid, and the Court of Philip IV, and meet some of the personalities there.  Philip was passionate about the arts and was an avid collector. Velázquez, his leading courtier and court artist, furnished him with marvellous portraits, and organised major decorative schemes for royal palaces and hunting lodges. 

12:45 – 14:00 Lunch followed by coffee. Wine will be available to be purchased from the bar.

14:00 – 15:00 Session 3: The Church as patron: Zurbaran and Murillo 

Seville was an important ”boom” town in the late 16th and early 17th century.  It was a major port, but was also a city at the forefront of the Counter-Reformation, with a cathedral, and many convents, monasteries and churches. We will look first at the naturalism and crisp lines of Velázquez’ contemporary, Zurbarán, with his paintings of meditative monks and saints,and then in complete contrast we will meet Murillo’s urchins and see the low life of Seville.  The Church was a major patron of the arts, and Murillo undertook many important commissions.  We will end with the Baroque triumphalism of Murillo’s Virgins.

Cost

£35 (includes coffees and a light lunch). 

To book a place at this event please email Karin Olley at karinolley1@gmail.com and provide the following information:

• Number of places you require
• Name(s) of member(s) booking places and a contact telephone number
• Name(s) of any guest(s)

Your request will be recorded but your place(s) will be secured only upon receipt of payment of £35 per person.  Karin will then email confirmation to you.  If for any reason the day is cancelled, you will be fully refunded.

Please pay by bank transfer to this account:

• The Arts Society South Cambs
• Sort code 30-98-97
• Account number 67462363

Please provide as the reference your surname & initial followed by the letters SID if you have room.

We very much look forward to seeing you at this exciting set of lectures and advise you to book as early as possible as places are limited.

If you have any questions please email or call Karin Olley:

• karinolley1@gmail.com
• 01223881758

Lecturer: Gail Turner

Historian, art historian, and painter. Lecturer for The Arts Society since 1992, lectures regularly for the V&A High Renaissance and Baroque course, Art Pursuits, and the Art Fund.  She has led tours to Spain for The Arts Society and other tour companies. In 2015 Gail was awarded the Encomienda de Isabel la Catolica (the equivalent of the CBE) by the King of Spain for promoting Spanish culture among British audiences, and was recently elected President of The Arts Society Colchester.

Reading list:

The Golden Age of Painting in Spain – Jonathan Brown (Yale)

Spanish Painting: El Greco to Goya – Janis Tomlinson (Everyman Art Library p/b)

Zurbarán – J. Brown

Velázquez – J. Brown

Murillo – D. Angulo

Image is a detail from Las Meninas by Diego Velácruz.

During the 1880s the city of Glasgow emerged as a major cultural centre.  New money and a desire to collect modern art provided great opportunities for a new generation of artists.  Now known as the Glasgow Boys, they were influenced by Japan, and by contemporary French and Dutch painting.  They worked out of doors, and escaped to the countryside to find scenes of everyday life.

The Glasgow Boys laid the foundations for the Glasgow School, which flourished from the 1890s to 1910.  Prominent among the School were the Glasgow Four - Charles Rennie Mackintosh, his wife Margaret MacDonald, her sister Frances and Herbert MacNair.  Nicknamed the Spook School, these four in time had a profound influence on European artistic style, including Art Nouveau.

The Scottish Colourists - Cadell, Fergusson, Hunter and Peploe - came to prominence in the 1920s.  Trained in France, they were a loose grouping who rarely painted together.  But they did exhibit together, in Paris (1924) and London (1925).  Their work showed a distinct Scottish take on the contemporary French styles of Impressionism and Fauvism.

Venue
Stapleford Granary

Date
Thursday 3rd March 2022

Timings
10:00 – 10:30 Coffee
10:30 – 11:30 Session 1: The Glasgow Boys: Naturalism
11:30 – 11:45 Short break
11:45 – 12:45 Session 2: Mackintosh and the Glasgow Girls: Symbolism
12:45 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:00 Session 3: The Scottish Colourists: post-Impressionism

Cost
£35 (includes coffee and a light lunch)

Biographical Note
Anne Anderson was from 1993-2007 a senior lecturer at Southampton Solent University, where she specialised in the Aesthetic Movement, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and Modernism.  She has in more recent times lectured for the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society, the National Trust, Christie’s, and the V& A Learning Academy.  She guides Arts and Crafts UK tours and Art Nouveau European tours.  Her most recent books include Art Nouveau Architecture and Beyond the Brotherhood: The Pre- Raphaelite Legacy.

Anne has her own website, anne-anderson.com.

The Arts Society South Cambs cannot be held responsible for accident, loss, damage or theft of Members’ personal property. Members are covered against proven liability to Third Parties. Refunds can only be made if a replacement from the waiting list is available.

Self Portrait by Simon Cadell, public domain

In this Special Interest Day, Mary Alexander will take us on a personal "time-travel" tour of New York City.  She will unashamedly cherry-pick the artistic highlights and icons of New York and will consider the influence of ‘new money’ on art patronage and track the move of fashionable society from Washington Square, so beloved by Henry James and Edith Wharton, in the relentless move uptown.

She will use digital photography to full effect with visual collages and exquisite details to re-create the atmosphere of the brownstones and high society clubs of Gramercy Park, the Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall, the grand hotels and nightclubs, the 21 Club and the Speakeasy, the building of the great art collections including the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim. Whether you know and love New York or maybe have never visited, join Mary and have fun discovering more about the personalities of the artists, designers, patrons and social climbers who shaped this extraordinary and ever-changing city. The aim will be to create the sense of ‘being there’ and to capture the vibrancy and energy of the city.

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

Click here for a flyer and booking form.

Biographical Note:
Mary Alexander trained as an art historian at University College London. She is an experienced public speaker and freelance lecturer and travels widely in the UK, Europe and beyond, including successful lecture tours in Australia and New Zealand.

Venue: Stapleford Granary. Cost £30 (includes coffee and a light lunch).

The Arts Society South Cambs cannot be held responsible for accident, loss, damage or theft of Members’ personal property. Members are covered against proven liability to Third Parties. Refunds can only be made if a replacement from the waiting list is available.