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Previous Lectures
2010 - 2011
2009 - 2010
2008 - 2009
2007 - 2008
2006 - 2007
2005 - 2006
2004 - 2005
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Lectures 2010 -2011
Tuesday, October 12th,
2010
Controversial Art: Art that Shocked and Scandalised!
John Iddon
John Iddon is a lecturer and guide at both Tate Britain and
Tate Modern. He ran an MA course in Heritage Interpretation at
St. Mary’s University College and has lectured at the Peggy
Guggenheim Museum in Venice and to the National Trust. He has
also given art lectures on the Queen Mary II and on a Caribbean
cruise as part of the Tate’s collaboration with P&O.
Many now famous and revered works of art once shocked and
scandalised their contemporaries. The British public delighted
in the anger and embarrassments caused in France over
Gericault’s ‘The Raft of the Medusa”, with its implications of
incompetence, corruption and cannibalism. From Manet’s nudes
through to Whistler’s nocturnes and on to Karl Andre’s “Bricks”,
Chris Ofili’s ‘Black Madonna” and Tracy Emin’s notorious bed,
this lecture will examine why so many works have caused
controversy and outrage.
Tracy Emin's "My Bed"
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Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
Collecting Art
Jonkheer Jan Six XI
DFAS regrets that our planned lecture had to be changed. However
we are pleased to announce that Jonkheer Jan Six XI will be our
speaker on a new topic.
Jonkheer Jan Six XI is a descendent of the Amsterdam family whose
forefather was immortalised by Rembrandt and grew up in the family
home in Amsterdam amidst their 17th century art collection. He is
now an Art Dealer in Amsterdam and London.
How does one look at paintings ? What are the basic questions that arise when you are confronted with the actual object ?
How does one see the quality and esthetical value of an Old Master painting?
Our lecturer will guide us through the day to day steps that the art trade, museum curators and most private collectors
undertake when deciding to buy a painting for their collection.
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Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
“Blondes have more Fun”
- The Colourful World
of David Hockney
Frank Woodgate
This is a changed from our originally planned lecture.
Frank Woodgate is a lecturer and guide at Tate Britain and Tate
Modern, lecturer at Dulwich Picture Gallery and scriptwriter for the
living Paintings Trust (art for the blind and partially-sighted).
David Hockney has become a British ‘national treasure’. He is a fine draughtsman,
but first came to fame in the early 1960s for his graffiti-like paintings depicting coded scenes of homosexual love
at a time when the subject was somewhat taboo and homosexuality was still illegal in Britain. Since then he has painted in
many different styles, including the precise naturalism of Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, and also experimented with photography
and a wide variety of other media.
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Tuesday, January 11th,
2011
The Russians are coming:
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Take Paris by Storm
Thirza Vallois, MA Agrégation Sorbonne
Thirza Vallois has lived in Paris for 40 years and holds several
post-graduate degrees from the Sorbonne, including the agrégation (a
competitive doctoral-level teaching qualification). She is the
author of “Romantic Paris” as well as the 3-volume series “Around
and About Paris” which is a comprehensive in-depth cultural
companion to the city. She wrote the Paris entry for the Encarta
Microsoft Multimedia Encyclopaedia. She lectures throughout the
world and contributes to the international press, television and
radio programmes, notably the BBC, Travel Channel, Discovery, PBS,
CNN and the Cultural Channel in France. In addition, she wrote
“Three Perfect Days”, a video produced for United Airlines and
screened on cable television worldwide.
Costume for Sheherezade
No company had so profound an influence on 20th century ballet as
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Descending on the Théâtre du Châtelet in
1909 like “a great flaming comet”, their impact on Paris was
overwhelming. At a time when modernity was fighting its way into the
limelight, Diaghilev’s troupe dazzled, astonished and occasionally
scandalised, an essentially conservative society.
Modernity embraced novelty and innovation by its very definition,
and brought down the barriers between high art and the decorative
arts, and between art and functionality. Diaghilev added another
dimension to modernity when he brought down the barriers between the
different expressions of art. Drawing on the unique reservoir of
artists, composers and writers Paris had on offer, he took them to
task and wedded them all to his venture, making the Ballets Russes a
team project embodying the very spirit of modernity.
Focusing on the sets and costumes created for the company’s
productions, the lecture will look into their sources of inspiration
and into how, in turn, they became a source of inspiration to the
artists and craftsmen working in Paris at the time, in particular in
the world of fashion and design. Finally we shall examine their
contribution to the revolution in the art of ballet brought about by
Diaghilev and his troupe.
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Tuesday, February 8th,
2011
Banks, Burgundy and Piracy:
The Fifteenth Century Artists of Bruges
Rt. Revd. Dr. Christopher Herbert
Rt. Revd. Dr. Christopher Herbert, who retired as Bishop of St.
Albans in 2009, has gained a national and international reputation
as an authority on Christian art and its relationship with cultural,
political and ecclesiastical history. He was awarded an M.Phil. and
a Ph.D. by the University of Leicester for research regarding
“Images of the Resurrection in 15th century Northern European Art”
and “Medieval English Easter Sepulchres”.
He has been a guest lecturer at the National Gallery, King’s
College London, the Courtauld Institute and Westminster Abbey. He is
an honorary citizen of Fano, Italy, and has been awarded honorary
doctorates by the University of Hertfordshire and the University of
Bedfordshire.
He was a member of the House of Lords from 1999 until his
retirement.
Jan van Eyck's "Arnolfini"
This lecture explores what has sometimes been called the Northern
Renaissance; that flowering of art in Bruges in the 15th century. It
draws attention not only to the great artists of that age, such as
van Eyck and Hans Memling, but sets them in their political,
cultural and religious context.
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Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
DFAS The Hague 20th Anniversary Celebration.
The Golden Age of English and Dutch Furniture.
Janusz Karczewski-Slowikowski
To celebrate our 20th anniversary, our inaugural lecturer will
return to talk to us about his special interest furniture history.
A NADFAS lecturer for many years, he has lectured to many British
and European societies. As an antique dealer his interest in
collecting was such that he became known as the dealer who bought
but never sold. He also has practical experience in the
construction, decoration and restoration of furniture.
National Chairman, Gri Harrison
Janusz Karczewski-Slowikowski
A Dutch cabinet of the
late 17th century.
The art of Dutch furniture making and decoration climaxed in the
late 17th century and, not least because of the close political and
commercial connections between England and Holland at the time,
greatly influenced the furniture made in England.
Particular reference will be made to the development of cabinet making in both countries and
the use of marquetry as an exquisite method of decoration.
Mainland Europe Chairman Billy Dawson
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Gri Harrison, National Chairman, Billy Dawson, Mainland Europe Chair, and lecturer with present and former
committee members and original members
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Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
Gone With The Wind!
Plantation Houses of the American South
Roger Mitchell, MA Oxon
Roger Mitchell studied history at Oxford and fine art at Leeds
and was awarded the Churchill Fellowship to travel and study in the
USA.
A former college vice-principal, he now lectures for the
University of Liverpool and for adult residential colleges. He
describes himself as a social historian with a particular interest
in architecture, and most of his lectures focus on the interaction
between people and buildings.
The Plantation Houses of Virginia and the Carolinas provide some
of the finest examples of Colonial Architecture in America. Houses
like Shirley, Westover and Drayton Hall show all the Palladian
elegance of a Georgian Country House. George Washington's Mount
Vernon and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello are more personal houses,
entirely appropriate residences for their distinguished owners. In
the final part of the lecture we move from the Old South to the Deep
South and look at some of the spectacular houses of Louisiana and
Mississippi - Parlange, San Francisco, Nottaway and Longwood among
them.'
Thomas Jefferson's Monticello
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Tuesday, May 10th, 2011
Venice and the East:
Impact of the Islamic World on the Architecture of Venice
Professor Deborah Howard
Deborah Howard is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and
the Courtauld Institute of Art. She is currently a Fellow of St.
John’s College and Professor of Architectural History in the Faculty
of Architecture and History of Art at the University of Cambridge.
Previously she taught at University College London, Edinburgh
University and the Courtauld Institute, returning to Cambridge in
1992. A specialist in the art and architecture of Venice and the
Veneto, her books include “Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and
Patronage in Renaissance Venice” and “Venice and the East: the
Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture 1100-1500”.
She is also the coordinator of a major project funded by the AHRC
on “Architecture and Music in Renaissance Venice”.
At Professor Howard’s request, her fee for the delivery of the
lecture will be donated to the Cambridge 800 Campaign – a major
fund-raising effort to mark the University’s 800th Anniversary in
2009 and to provide an endowment to safeguard the University’s
future excellence in research and scholarship.
This lecture looks at the ways in which direct encounters with
Muslim culture through trade, diplomacy, crusades and pilgrimage
created channels for cultural exchange between Venice and the
Islamic world in the Middle Ages. It focuses on various sites of
difference, including clothing, domestic space, language and
religion. How were these differences perceived and negotiated in the
course of commercial interaction in the emporia of the Eastern
Mediterranean? Architecture is a particularly fascinating area of
investigation because buildings cannot be transported, with the
result that ideas are transmitted through images, portable objects,
oral and written descriptions, and memory.
St. Mark's Square, Venice
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