Liberated by rejection from the dark constraints of the official Salon, the Impressionists found a new version of painting, out in the open air inspired by the Barbizon painters in the forests of Fontainbleau. The new painters found plenty of interest along the banks of the Seine.

Hilary lectures in the main museums in London for American universities and has toured widely in USA including at the Smithsonian Institute. She has also worked for the Art Fund and taught courses at Cambridge University. Trained as a painter at Central St Martin's, she mostly exhibits abroad, recently in Berlin and France.

For more information click here

Please join us for three lectures presented by Val Woodgate.

Political and social upheavals in the 1920s and -30s had a profound effect on artists, and were to inspire some of the greatest works of modern art in the first half of the twentieth century.  Under the Nazis avant-garde art was condemned as 'degenerate' and in 1937 the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) Exhibition in Munich displayed artistic masterpieces confiscated and put on show to be mocked and vilified.  Meanwhile, the horrors of the Spanish Civil War inspired some of Picasso's and Dali's greatest works.  Other artists like Chagall responded in a deeply personal way to the political atmosphere of the time. 

Val is a lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, for the Art Fund, the National Trust,  U3A, City of London libraries at Barbican and Guildhall. She lectures on a wide variety of topics.

Registration in the foyer of the Big School, Epsom College.  10.00am

Lecture 1                                                                                10.15 - 11.15

'The Aftermath of the First World War and the Rise of Hitler'

Coffee and comfort break                                                     11.15 - 12.00

Lecture 2                                                                                 12.00 - 13.00

'The Great Depression and the Degenerate Art Exhibition, Totalitarianism v the Avant-Garde'

Lunch                                                                                       13.00 - 14.30

Lecture 3                                                                                  14.30 - 15.30

'The Spanish Civil War and the Outbreak of the Second World War'

THIS IS AN OPEN MEETING - BRING YOUR FRIENDS!

Tickets cost £48 and include a hot lunch.

For more information please click here

We all take photographs, but can they ever be considered Art?  What makes a great photograph? 

Can we trust what we are being shown? 

Three lectures covering

- Photography as Fine Art

- World Famous Photographs: Images that shaped our Culture 

- Great Photographs that make us Smile

Brian Stater  lectured at University College London for 25 years, retiring in 2021 as a Senior Teaching Fellow.  He is a former member of the Association of Historical and Fne Art Photography, and works with a range of cameras, including a pre-War Leica as used by his great hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others.  He is an engaging and amusing speaker who seeks to entertain as well as inform his audience.

For more information about SIDs please contact Virginia Jervis at specialinterestdays@gmail.com

Three fascinating lectures focussing on

Hot Stuff - the Birth of Studio Glass. - After centuries of production the 1960's saw a revolution in the way it was made - making glass more accessable and allowing it to be used as a medium for art.

Frank Thrower and Dartington Glass - We look at the history of the company from its foundation in 1967 and the pivotal role played by its founder, Frank Thrower.

Curves, Colours and Cool - an introduction to Mid 20th century Modern - A look at the revolution in design of furniture, ceramics, glass, lighting and metalware that took place during the 1970's

For more information click here

Mark Hill: studied History of Art & Architecture and began his career at Bonhams before moving to Sotheby's.  He founded his own publishing company in 2005 and has published over 15 books on emerging specialist subjects in the decorative arts.  He has been a miscellaneous expert on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow  since 2007 and an expert on the BBC's Antiques Roadtrip.  He has lectured across the world, including at the V & A in London 

Join us for a fascinating day as Jacqueline Cockburn leads us through a day travelling the Spanish coast, visiting the work of three Spanish titans.

Lecture 1.  Picasso - The Boy from Malaga

Lecture 2.  Sorolla - Painter of Light

Lecture 3. Gaudi - Fantasy comes from the Ghosts - Gaudi and other Catalan architects

Members are welcome to invite friends to accompany them and enjoy the lectures and the day.

For more information please click here

Join us for a fascinating day as Charlie Foreman leads us through 1000 years of the history of our Royal Palaces, before introducing us to John Nash's grand plans for the thoroughfares of the West End.  Finally he will reveal how the Regent's Canal linked the inland waterways, railway termini and the Thames dockyards. Three richly coloured lectures will connect us with the rich and vibrant history of London for the past millennium.

Lecture 1.  One Westminster, Six Royal Palaces

Lecture 2.  How the West (End) was Won.  A John Nash Production

Lecture 3. The Regent's Canal

This meeting will take place at Epsom College. Full details of the day and the lectures, plus a booking form, can be downloaded by clicking here. Please ensure that you print and fully complete the booking form in advance and have it ready with you when seeking to purchase tickets on Wednesday 6 September.

Members are welcome to invite friends to accompany them and enjoy the lectures and the day.

Join us for the day as Gillian Hovell, the self-styled "Muddy Archaeologist", takes us into the astonishing world of the Romans who lived in and around Pompeii. Three richly coloured lectures will connect us with the dramatic story of Pompeii and reveal how the vibrant art speaks to us of the people who lived there, enables us to find our way around and fully explore a Roman city and provides a vivid sense of life 2,000 years ago.

Lecture 1.  Digging Deeper in Pompeii

Lecture 2.  Welcome to Pompeii

Lecture 3.  The Big Picture – A 2,000 Year Old Way of Life and Death

This meeting will take place at Epsom College. Click here for full details of the meeting and a booking form. Tickets will be on sale again prior to our meeting Wednesday 5 April and members are welcome to invite friends to accompany them and enjoy the lectures and the day.

Gillian Hovell is an award winning writer and author who specialises in relating the ancient world to our modern lives, in  person, in the field and in the media.

Whether you know and love New York or maybe have never visited, join us and have fun discovering more about the personalities of the artists, designers, patrons and social climbers who shaped this extraordinary and ever-changing city. Mary Alexander will create the sense of ‘being there’ and to capture the vibrancy, energy and ever-changing nature of the city - today or travelling in the Vanderbilts' horse drawn carriage up Fifth Avenue in the Gilded Age - maps will pinpoint our locations throughout.

Across three lectures, we will consider the influence of ‘new money’ on art patronage and track the relentless move of fashionable society uptown using the 'voices' of Henry James in Washington Square, Edith Wharton in Gramercy Park, or F Scott Fitzgerald exclaiming that 'New York had all the iridescence of the beginning of the world'.  We will explore the people, ideas and fortunes that created the great art collections, buildings and visual environment of the city.

Tickets for this event, that will take place at Epsom College, will be on sale at our monthly meeting on 7 September 2022. Click here for further details.

Mary Alexander has thirty years' experience as a lecturer, with a BA in History and History of Art and a MA with distinction in History of Art from University College London. Now a freelance lecturer to various arts, heritage and antiquarian societies, Mary has also worked in Pentagram design consultancy in London and New York, organising conferences and special events. She is author of various articles on design and visual awareness issues, and her background combines an unusual blend of academic and visual communications skills.

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter in 1922 was the greatest archaeological find of the twentieth century. Over three lectures, Lucia Gahlin will explore the young pharoah's childhood and reign, consider the design and decoration of his tomb, discuss Carter's discovery of the tomb and reveal what happened to the incredible wealth of the funerary goods inside.

Tickets for the event, that will take place at Epsom College, will be on sale at our monthly meeting on 2 March 2022. Click here for further details. 

Lucai Gahlin is a lecturer and author on Egyptology and has worked in museums, on excavations in Egypt and as a tour guide in addition to teaching Egyptology at several UK universities.

Three lectures commencing at 10.15am lead us though the wonders of the Silk Road.

1. The Silk Road: Introduction to its History and Cultures - illustrated with maps and artefacts, giving an outline of what is meant by the Silk Road, we learn of some of the major events and cultures along it in the first millennium AD.

2. The Silk Road: Exploration and Discovery - we hear the story of the early 20th imperial archaeologists of the Silk Road, concentrating on the British/Hungarian, Sir Aurel Stein, and how he uncovered forgotten civilisations of the Silk Road from the desert sands of the Taklamakan. His finds are now mainly in the British Museum and British Library.

3. Silk Road Art - introduces several wonderful pieces of art exemplifying the transmissions and interactions of peoples, faiths, technologies, materials and designs along the Silk Road. The objects include a gilt silver flask, a glass bowl, and a patterned silk.

Dr Susan Whitfield is a writer, scholar, lecturer and traveller of the Silk Roads. During 25 years curating the collections of over 50,000 medieval manuscripts from central Asia at the British Library, she also helped found and then developed an international collaboration working on the art and artefacts of the eastern Silk Roads. Susan has lectured and written widely on the history and arts of the Silk Roads and also curated several major exhibitions.

Note: This event will be held at Epsom College.

Regrettably it has been necessary to cancel this event on account of Coronavirus

Whatever the historical context, clothing and fashion have been used to denote wealth and status, or to differentiate between social groups and to display disaffection or affiliation, often interpreted though complex and subtle visual codes.  Through a wide ranging selection of historical and contemporary examples of male and female dress, paintings, portraits, photographs and advertisements, this two lecture SID will encourage new ways of interpreting these codes.

Lecture 1: 'Tools of the Devil' to 'Circles of Influence' - a 17thC-18thC overview

Lecture 2: 'Conspicuous Consumption' to 'Instagram Influencers' - a 19thC-early 20thC overview.

Tickets at £30 pp, including lunch, will be on sale again to members prior to our monthly lecture on Wednesday 8th April and non-member guests may also be invited.

Sicily has been both a gateway and a crossroads attracting a long line of colonisers from the Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans and Arabs to the Normans and Spanish. Three lectures look at Sicily during the ancient and medieval periods especially the Greek temples and the beautifully preserved Roman Villa Casale, and the monuments from the Arab - Norman period when Palermo was the most intellectually active and artistically eclectic centre in Europe.

Tickets at £33 per person, including lunch, will be on sale to members immediately prior to our monthly lectures on Wednesday 4th September and Wednesday 2nd October.

Leonardo is the most famous painter of the Italian Renaissance and the day's three lectures aim to put his artistic production in context by explaining how his paintings, drawings, and scientific experiments are all governed by a quest to discover the underlying principles that Leonardo believed governed all forms.  They will consider how all Leonardo's art can be understood as a form of science, and how his approach to science was governed by his artistic concerns.

Lecture 1:  The Body of Man - will consider Leonardo’s most important and enduring artistic pre-occupation; the representation of the human form.

Lecture 2:  The Motions of the Mind - considers how for Leonardo, mind and body were intrinsically interconnected.

Lecture 3: The Body of Earth - explores Leonardo’s unprecedented study of the natural world.

Tickets for this Special Interest Day that is being held at Epsom College will be priced at £33 pp (including lunch) and will go on sale to members from 09.30am immediately prior to our monthly lecture on Wednesday 6th February.

Across three lectures, renowned expert James Bolton will guide us through the evolution of garden design in the 20th Century and explore the increasing role of women in horticulture.

First lecture (10:15 – 11:15): Lutyens & Jekyll and The Arts and Crafts Gardens

The last two decades of the 19th century reverberated with the row between William Robinson and Reginald Blomfield as to the pre-eminence in the garden of the architect or the gardener. At a stroke, the problem was solved by the partnership between Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens, so that a house by Lutyens with a garden by Jekyll became an Edwardian ideal.

Together they designed gardens with a strong architectural background, softened by luxuriant planting in the natural style advocated by Robinson. Their partnership thrived in the brash, new-moneyed Edwardian era, but the First World War ended that golden afternoon and as Lutyens became distracted by the creation of New Delhi and Miss Jekyll, almost blind, became more and more reluctant to leave Munstead Wood, so the gardens they designed together were fewer and farther between.

Second Lecture (12:00 – 1:00): Informal and Formal Gardens

Two styles of gardening run through the 20th Century, each springing from the influence of Lutyens and Jekyll. Informal gardens, from Hidcote to Great Dixter, where a passion for plants is the key following the centuries old English obsession with collecting plants and growing them well. Formal structured gardens, whose history runs from Sir George Sitwell’s Italianate garden at Renishaw to the contemporary post-modern gardens created by Geoffrey Jellicoe, Charles Jencks and Ian Hamilton-Finlay.

Third Lecture (2:30 – 3:30): Twentieth Century Women Gardeners

Gardening in 1900 was, for the majority of women, a polite affair involving little more than dead-heading roses and instructing the gardening staff. Great changes were made in the rôle of women in horticulture by great gardeners like Ellen Wilmot, Margerie Fish, Vita Sackville-West and Nancy Lancaster. By 2000, designers such as Penelope Hobhouse, Arabella Lennox-Boyd and a whole host of more or less well known, but no less professional, women are creating wonderful and challenging gardens.

It has long been recognized that the worlds of the visual and aural arts link with extraordinary power when one medium inspires the other. This lecture, which spans over 600 years of the arts, analyses and discusses a range of related works, bringing together the music of Martinu with the frescoes of Piero della Francesca, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus with Respighi’s Trittico botticelliano, Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead with Rachmaninoff’s symphonic poem and Poet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie with the piano playing of Albert Ammons.

The study day is presented with digital images, video, recorded music and live examples sung and played at the piano.

Session one: After a brief introduction to the subject of ‘music inspired by paintings’, three paintings are discussed that have produced direct musical responses in famous composers.  

Session two: The theme of music drawing inspiration from identifiable paintings continues.

Session three: The last session explores the wealth of 19th and 20th century paintings that connect with specific musical works and musical genres.

Three lectures studying the work of Russian Artists including the famous Imperial Easter Eggs by Peter Carl Gustavovich Fabergé; the influence of the Russian Revolution and the introduction of the avant-garde.

Lecture 1:  All That Glitters: Art Before the Revolution

In the years leading up to the Russian Revolution, Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra commissioned a host of extraordinary items for the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo. Annually, this included the famous Imperial Easter Eggs by Peter Carl Gustavovich Fabergé (1846, St. Petersburg —1920, Lausanne). Discover the history behind some of the most famous eggs and other pieces of jewellery from their origins as Russian royal family gifts to their subsequent fates during the Revolution.

Lecture 2: The Avant-Garde

The Russian Revolution was preceded by a revolution in art when students at the Imperial Academy of Art rebelled against the mythological subjects they were set and started painting the world around them, notably in Ilya Repin's Barge Haulers on the Volga. As artists returned from Paris, having seen the work of Picasso and Matisse, they created their own style: Cubo-Futurism. Explore it through the works of artists like Natalya Goncharova, Liubov Popova and Alexandra Exter.

Lecture 3: The New Revolutionaries

In the early years of the Russian Revolution, the new government adopted the language of avant-garde art. Art education itself was being revolutionised with a battle between the Expressionism of Chagall and the Suprematism of Kasimir Malevich. But once painting itself was declared bourgeois, artists were encouraged to make art with functional applications which led to innovation in poster design, theatre design, and fashion. From the Black Square to Tatlin’s ‘monument without a beard,’ discover what made this period so fascinating and vital.

Only a limited number of tickets remain available at £32 pp (including lunch). These will again be on sale to members immediately prior to our next monthly lecture on 4th October.  Alternatively, to secure a ticket, contact Virginia Jervis direct or E-mail info@theartssocietyepsom.org.uk as soon as possible.

The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), although ending in the collapse of Imperial Rule, was exceptional from the perspective of both territorial and economic expansion, together with the quality and quantity of art originating from the Imperial Workshops. Regulated court costume, plus informal dress, were vital in establishing an individual's status and position at court, and in society in general, through textile design and iconography.

Lecture 1: A Journey through the Imperial Wardrobe

This lecture begins with an exploration of Chinese Imperial Court life in terms of structure, protocol and the impact of regulated formal Court Costume worn by the Chinese Imperial Clan, together with the nine ranks of both Civil and Military Officials.

Lecture 2: Non-Official and Informal Costume and Dress Accessories “Dressing to Impress”

This will consider the costume and dress accessories worn by Chinese High Society when no longer constrained by the Court Costume Regulations. The main focus will be female costume accessories such as jewellery, hats, shoes and belt hangings.

Lecture 3: The Emperor Qinlong (1735-1796)

The Emperor Qianlong was the most influential individual of the dynasty. Our third lecture looks at his impact and legacy on the patronage of the arts, cultural development and evolution of Court Protocol.

Display

There will be a display of relevant items from the Wendy and David Rosier Collection of Qing Dynasty Textiles and David will review any items of Chinese textiles members bring along. 

The Special Interest Day this autumn is unusual.  Our lecturer and demonstrator, Julia Korner, trained in art history, sculpture and graphic illustration in Cambridge before working for Christie's as a paintings specialist.  She now works in her own studio in West London where she applies her personal and expert attention to specialist conservation work.  Damaged paintings, polychrome statues, frames, over-mantles, traditional gold leaf and gesso frames all emerge restored and transformed under her expertise, knowledge and care.

The Day will comprise three sessions: two in the morning, the second of which will extend through the lunch break; and one in the afternoon.  The first is a lecture on conservation.  The second is a demonstration of oil painting conservation and frame restoration, including a discussion of gilding techniques.  During the lunch break, Julia will continue her demonstration giving the opportunity for members to gather round and watch her working close up and to ask questions one-to-one.  The final session is a ‘Road Show’, in which Julia will give advice on the condition and conservation of a number of originals selected from those brought in by members.  After the formal end of the Day, Julia will continue advising or demonstrating for those who are able to stay a little longer.

More information will be circulated in August.

Tickets cost £32 (including lunch) and will go on sale at 9.30am on 7th September 2016

This Special Interest Day will explore some of the finest manifestations of Greek Art and Architecture with an eye to the influences on, and the influences of, that art. The focus will be on temples, theatres, vase painting and sculpture, and will touch upon the social, religious and historical background to these astonishing artistic achievements. Plutarch wrote, ‘a bloom of eternal freshness hovers over these works and preserves them from the touch of time, as if some unfading spirit of youth, some ageless vitality had been breathed into them.’ We will explore why this is.

Lecture 1: Temple Architecture and Sculptural Decoration

A casual glance down any modern high street will probably provide a reminder of the influence which ancient Greek architecture, and Greek temple architecture in particular, still has. This talk aims to allow the audience quickly to become familiar with the intrinsic qualities of Greek temples - firstly, by looking at how temples were constructed and ‘building’ a generic Greek temple, and then, by surveying some of the finest works of world sculpture from the metopes, friezes and pediments, we will see how the ancient Greeks rose to the challenges of ‘decorating’ their buildings.

Lecture 2: Artistic Developments in Vase Painting

Ancient Greek painted pottery is greatly admired, and with good reason. This talk, lavishly illustrated with both slides and video, will attempt to make the beauty of Greek ceramics more readily accessible and comprehensible. It will concentrate on gaining knowledge of the physical forms, stylistic features, subject matter, composition, emotional content, function and development of ancient Greek pottery, along with examining the relationship between artistic developments and historical circumstances. Emphasis will also be placed on the relevant social, political and religious contexts, and, given that many scenes from Greek drama are depicted on vases, we will also take a brief look at the Greek theatre.

Lecture 3: Free Standing Figurative Sculpture and the Birth of Portraiture.

If a portrait is ‘an intentional representation of a person containing a sufficient number of specific features to make the representation recognizable to others’, then the artists of Ancient Greece were the first ones in the history of Western Art seriously to attempt to make portraits. Moving from the first ‘daedalic’ style statues, through Archaic korai and kouroi, into the stunning works of the Classical era, and on to ‘role portraits’ and the new type of ‘psychological portraiture’ that was developed early in the Hellenistic period, we will see, on both slides and video, how the artists of the Greek world left this important legacy.

Louis Comfort Tiffany is best known as a designer of Art Nouveau glass, but this was only a part of his contribution to American design. Inspired by the English Aesthetic Movement he founded ‘Associated Artists’ who provided the interiors commissioned for the most opulent American houses of the 1880s. His ‘Tiffany Studios’ in the 90s took the idea further with a ‘factory’ of talented makers working under his direction. This special interest day is about Louis Comfort and his designers who gave American design international prestige at that time.

Lecture 1: The British are coming!

The British Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements had a huge impact in America and influenced designers and manufacturers there. Charles Tiffany, the premier jeweller in New York was quick to employ Christopher Dresser and he and other British artists working for the firm were instrumental in shaping the ideas of Charles' son Louis Comfort Tiffany when he abandoned a career as a painter to become a designer.

Lecture 2: Associated Artists

In 1879 Tiffany began his new career when he, the textile designer Candace Wheeler and the painter Lockwood de Forest, formed Associated Artists. Together they created innovative and sumptuous interiors for the New York's Seventh Regiment Armoury, the Mark Twain House, the White House and the Vanderbilt mansions. After the partners separated each went on to make important contributions to the visual arts in America.

Lecture 3: The Tiffany Studios

In 1892 Tiffany began working with teams of talented male and female designers and makers. Until the 1930s working under the name of Tiffany Studios they produced everything from Favrille art glass, lamps and exquisite decorative objects to stained glass windows and mosaics for the most prestigious buildings in America.

Special interest day at Big School, Epsom College, College Road, Epsom from 10.00am to 3.30pm

Special Interest Day at Epsom College Three lectures on the House of Medici

She will cover the history of Florence and the Medici family from the 1390s to the 1730s through the paintings, sculptures and architecture that they commissioned, set against the background of the colourful (& at times hair-raising) history of Florence and Italy at the time. The first lecture looks at the beginnings of the Medici family and their Bank and considers Giovanni di Bicci de Medici and Cosimo, his son (certainly the most important and brilliant of the family). The second lecture looks at Piero de Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent and his son, Giovanni - who became Pope Leo X. Cosimo Medici Pope Leo X Duke Cosimo I The last lecture looks at the decline of the family, the creation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany under Duke Cosimo I and (very briefly) considers some of his descendants. The lecture finishes with the last of the family giving their treasures to the city of Florence in the 1730s.

–TICKET REQUIRED (on sale from 5th February) at Big School, Epsom College, College Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT17 4JQ from 10:00 am – 3.30pm

Dresden is often referred to as the "Florence of the North". The study day will trace the history of the architecture and collections in Dresden, describing the riches of the paintings, drawings, sculpture, porcelain and the other glories of the decorative arts to be found in this wonderful small city. Tickets will cost £27 (including lunch). Tickets will go on sale on Wednesday 5th February 2014.

AUTUMN SPECIAL INTEREST DAY –TICKET REQUIRED (on sale from 4th September) How Time Was Told Through the Ages: Some of the most beautiful devices that tell time at Big School, Epsom College, College Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT17 4JQ from 10:00 am – 3.30pm

Throughout history, mankind has been absorbed with understanding the concept of Time. An extraordinary variety of devices have been developed, either to tell when something should happen (“It’s 10 o’clock.”), or how long it should take (“You’ve got 20 minutes.”), or to alert us to do something now (“Wake up, it’s time to go!”). Such is our interest in the subject of Time, that for centuries, craftsmen have found commissions to create beautiful things from Chinese incense burning clocks, Indian water clocks, graceful Japanese bells, sundials, Renaissance pocket sundials, Faberge clocks and more. The lectures chart how the use of these devices has risen and fallen as history, fashion and technology have progressed.

Tuesday, 26th March 2013 from 10.00 am to 3.30 pm at Big School, Epsom College, College Road, Epsom, KT17 4JQ: “Cities of Vesuvius: Art, Architecture and Everyday Life in Ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum” Lecturer: Dr Neil Faulkner. During the day we will have 3 lectures: • 1: The Municipal Elite – the politicians, landowners and businessmen and the public buildings • 2: Patrons and Clients - the architecture and decoration of their buildings which reflect the graded network of relationships within Roman society • 3: Bars, Bedsits and Bordellos – a reconstruction of the world of the ancient poor and their ‘street corner’ culture. Tickets £25 including lunch On sale from 6th February 2013

Big School, Epsom College, College Road, Epsom Tickets on sale before the lecture on September 5th

Following the success of our Social Event at Epsom College we have decided to use the same venue for our Autumn Special Interest Day. ‘From Riches to Rags: The Huguenots of Spitalfields’ Tuesday 30th October 2012 To be held in Big School, Epsom College, College Road, Epsom KT17 4JQ (Ample parking on site) Lecturer: Sue Jackson This study day will have 3 lectures: · The Cultural Heritage of the Huguenots · The Huguenot Silk Weavers of Spitalfields · The Huguenots¹ Influence on Tea, Coffee and the Social Revolution Timetable: 10.00 to 10.30: Registration and coffee 10.30 to 11.30: Session 1 11.30 to 12.00: Break 12.00 to 13.00: Session 2 13.00 to 14.30: Lunch 14.30 to 15.30: Session 3 Cost: £25.00 per ticket (includes lunch). Sue is a Fellow of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and has a background in Art and Art History. She leads visits to many important museums/art galleries and guided walks of London Tickets for sale on 5th September at 9.45am but not before.

The next Day of Special Interest will be on Saturday March 24th 2012 at Atkins' Conference Centre, Ashley Road, Epsom THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT AND THERE IS A WAITING LIST

Jennie Churchill was the first of the so-called Dollar Princesses yet she had neither dollars nor did she become a princess. The first lecture will examine Jennie’s life with all its difficulties and show her lasting legacy to English life. She was emblematic of a certain type of American woman making her way in Europe. She may have been a style icon but she was much more important than that. Having understood Jennie and why her ‘American-ness’ was often misunderstood we will then look at those who came in her wake, the so-called dollar princesses who, it was hoped, would shore up the crumbling estates of Britain, and why they mattered. Blenheim, Kedleston, Kimbolton all had American money with varying degrees of success. Should these women be remembered for their magnificent gowns, (many are now in the V and A), for their dollars that occasionally enabled central heating to be installed, or for the way they invigorated British aristocracy and are permanently represented in the literature of Wharton, Henry James and others? And what about the women themselves; did they marry for titles or jewellery or because their parents did a deal? Finally, looking at the story up to the 1930’s and at the woman tarred with the brush of being the brashest American of all: Wallis Simpson, or THAT WOMAN as the royal family called her. What did being American have to do with the way she was loathed and how should be remembered?

Dr Sam Newton, specialist in Anglo-Saxon and Viking culture, history and literature

After early experiences in archaeology and woodturning, Dr Newton graduated from the University of East Anglia with a first in English Literature in 1983 and went on to research into the Old English epic of Beowulf. Supervised by Professor Michael Lapidge at the Dept of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic at the University of Cambridge, hewas awarded my Ph.D. in 1991. Dr Newton published his first book, The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia, in 1993 and his second book, The Reckoning of King Rædwald, in 2003. Since 1986 he has been working as a free lance tutor in Wuffing and Early Medieval Studies (Old English Literature, Language, History, & Archaeology), running courses in and around East Anglia. He has also conducted guided site-tours to Sutton Hoo, Rendlesham, and sites throughout eastern England. More recently he has been contributing to Radio and Television programmes, including Time Team. In 2002 he was a co-founder of Wuffing Education, and they have been running study-days at Sutton Hoo ever since.

Includes lunch. Ticket Required

Daniel Snowman is a social and cultural historian. He was born in London, educated at Cambridge and Cornell, and at 24 was a Lecturer at the University of Sussex. For many years, he worked at the BBC where he was responsible for a wide variety of radio series on cultural and historical topics, and is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (University of London). A long-time member of the London Philharmonic Choir, he has always had a strong and informed interest in music and musicians, his books on the Amadeus Quartet and Plácido Domingo combining close-up portraiture of the artists concerned with the broader brush of the social historian. The Gilded Stage - a Social and Cultural History of Opera. In Mozart's day, who would have known who he was, and how? Why did the 'prima donna' get her fiery reputation? Which have been better for opera: dictatorships or democracies? Has opera ever been truly self-financing? When did opera audiences begin to turn up on time and remain quiet during performances? And how did a supposedly 'elitist' art form take root in such egalitarian societies as Australia and the USA? These are some of the questions addressed in a richly illustrated Lecture about the history of an art form that incorporates all the others. From the birth of opera in late Renaissance Italy we move to Louis XIV’s Versailles, Handel’s London, Mozart’s Vienna, Verdi’s Italy, Wagner’s Germany, Gilded Age America and the world-wide spread of opera in the 20thC. The Lecture concentrates on the 'demand' rather than the 'supply', and considers eg: patronage of the arts, the changing nature of the operatic professions, opera and politics, theatrical architecture and stage design, and the impact of new technologies from gaslight to digital downloads. By the 21stC, opera had become truly global in its appeal. Yet, with the core repertoire seeming to slip into an ever-receding past and the world plunged into economc recession, the question must be addressed: does opera have a future?