Lectures

What would attract an American, the most celebrated portrait painter of the Edwardian age, to a small village in the Cotswolds? This lecture looks at the work of John Singer Sargent, explains the intriguing connection with Broadway and shows how the bohemian artists’ colony there grew and how Sargent was very much a part of the group.

The Bodleian Library is one of the greatest academic institutions, its constituent libraries across Oxford creating the largest academic collection of books and manuscripts in the world. At the heart of the city’s university is the central Bodleian complex, begun in the 15th century and completed in 2015, presenting a fascinating lexicon of architectural styles and tastes and providing solutions to changing academic demands. Justin will take us from the medieval grace of the Divinity School and the magical Duke Humfrey’s Library through Thomas Bodley’s quirky Old Bodleian, the stylistically anachronistic but historic Convocation House, Hawksmoor’s neo-Classical Clarendon Building and Gibbs’s iconic Radcliffe Camera to Giles Gilbert Scott’s cyclopean New Bodleian (now redesigned as the high tech Weston Library), a unique art historical journey through time and space in the heart of academia.

This lecture will take us from the earliest days of embroidery in this country through several high points in the art. Opus Anglicanum, literally meaning English work, was sought out by Popes and considered the best embroidery in the mediaeval western world. In the 16th century embroidery was worked by Queens (Katherine of Aragon, Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I) before new influences arrived from the east in the 17th century when exquisite embroidered pieces were made by girls of just 11 or 12. Botanic art that could be rendered in water colours or silk threads was the height of fashion in the 18th century and the man’s three piece suit was launched, complete with silk shading embroidery.

In the year 2000, having been a Curator in the British Museum for 13 years, Louise decided to escape. Given a trowel with a diamond
and silver casing in the handle as a leaving present, she set off on a series of extra­ordinary archaeological adventures. In this richly illustrated talk she will take you with her to a mysterious and atmospheric ancient city on the coast of southern Albania, to the banks of the two great rivers of Mesopotamia – the Euphrates and the Tigris – and then to the wild and wonderful mountains of northern Ethiopia.

Famous for his collaboration with AA Milne in creating the Winnie-the-Pooh books, E H Shepard’s artistic journey through the First World War is less well known. From jocular cartoons in Punch as a civilian to dark and impactful images of death and destruction on the western front, this lecture will demonstrate how Shepard’s own artistic style and approach changed and was influenced by the conflict. It will show a range of cartoons, drawings, watercolours, annotated maps and guides for the Intelligence Corps, as well as commercial work for the home market in which we will observe a transition towards the simple economy of line and expression exemplified by the Winnie-the-Pooh illustrations started shortly after the end of the war.

Having had access to the jewels designated as Heirlooms of the Crown and with a spectacular collection of her own, the Queen Mother had so much jewellery to choose from over the course of her long life that it would be almost impossible to describe it all. So in this talk Jeremy Mainwaring-Burton will chronicle the Queen Mother’s passion for jewels by concentrating on a selection of items of particular gemmological and historic interest and the intriguing stories attached to them.

London’s sumptuous Victorian and Edwardian department stores changed the capital and changed its women. Shoppers of every rank were lavishly wooed, seduced and often undone by the temptations laid out before them in these new ‘cathedrals of desire’.
Starting on Oxford Street’s ‘golden mile’, we will set off on a cultural tour of the capital’s big stores – from snooty Marshall & Snelgrove, to Pontings ‘House of Value’; from Kennards’ wart-removal service to the live flamingos atop Derry & Toms; from Bodgers of Ilford to Bon Marché of Brixton.
How did it feel to enter a great store in 1850 – and in 1950? What was it like to serve? From shoppers to shop girls, publicity stunts to wow factor window dressing this lecture aims to present a fascinating slice of social history with wonderful period images.

Many viewers of a BBC4 profile of artists who work out in nature, presented by Dr James Fox, were haunted by the fire stacks of the only female artist featured, Julie Brook. Simon’s lecture explores this fascinating artist and the range of her work over four decades in some of the world’s wild places, centred always on her passion for the islands and coast of West Scotland where she lives. From drawings, oil painting and film to her powerful physical interventions in the landscapes of Britain, North Africa and Japan that engage with the elements of earth, air, fire and water, Julie Brook’s work takes its place alongside such pioneers as Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash and Richard Long.
Simon knows Julie well and has access to her archive including never before seen photographs of her work. The lecture, which charts her career, will include fragments from her astonishing art films.

We have always enjoyed social gatherings and, as Christmas approaches, we kick off the festive season with this lecture that traces people having fun throughout the ages from Roman times to the present. Through a number of themes, beginning with children learning to party through playing together to courtship and marriage, dinner parties, dancing and finally a bit of excess drinking (the gods of mythology were famous for it), Alice will trace a variety of merrymaking, banqueting, dances and music in a feast of colour.