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LECTURES & EVENTS

UPCOMING LECTURES & EVENTS

  • Arts & Crafts of Mexico, Past and Present
    Arts & Crafts of Mexico, Past and Present
    Mon, 06 Jan
    Widcombe Social Club
    06 Jan 2025, 11:30 – 12:30
    Widcombe Social Club, Widcombe Hill, Bath BA2 6AA, UK
    After the Spanish conquest of 1521, the raw materials, techniques and art styles of Europe merged with those of the New World. Drawing on skills inherited from Aztec, Maya and Spanish predecessors, makers bring a modern vision to ancient traditions: exquisite textiles, silver jewellery, and more.
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  • Two Hundred Years of British Surrealism
    Two Hundred Years of British Surrealism
    Mon, 03 Feb
    Widcombe Social Club
    03 Feb 2025, 11:30 – 12:30
    Widcombe Social Club, Widcombe Hill, Bath BA2 6AA, UK
    What is ‘surrealism’, where did it come from, and how did it influence 20th century British art? Looking at artists as diverse as William Blake, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore and Paul Nash - as well as writers such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lewis Carroll - this lecture answers all those questions.
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  • 17th Century Dutch Painting - Art in the Garden of God
    17th Century Dutch Painting - Art in the Garden of God
    Mon, 03 Mar
    Widcombe Social Club
    03 Mar 2025, 11:30 – 12:30
    Widcombe Social Club, Widcombe Hill, Bath BA2 6AA, UK
    Dutch art in the 17th Century dealt with the lives of real people: at times ordered, at others bawdy or self-important, and occasionally tragic. The new Protestant mentality allowed astonishing advances in society as shown by Rembrandt, Vermeer and more.
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  • The Silk Road: The First Global Highway (Special Interest Day)
    The Silk Road: The First Global Highway (Special Interest Day)
    Wed, 19 Mar
    Widcombe Social Club
    19 Mar 2025, 10:30 – 15:30
    Widcombe Social Club, Widcombe Hill, Bath BA2 6AA, UK
    This Special Interest Day will consist of three talks about the Silk Road, a melting pot of religions, science and the creative arts for over 3,000 years.
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  • The Art of John Piper
    The Art of John Piper
    Mon, 07 Apr
    Widcombe Social Club
    07 Apr 2025, 11:30 – 12:30
    Widcombe Social Club, Widcombe Hill, Bath BA2 6AA, UK
    From cathedrals to churches, cottages to coastlines, we are never very far from a place John Piper has painted, written about or for which he had undertaken a commission. One of the most versatile British artists of the 20th Century - painter, designer, stained glass artist, photographer and writer.
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  • Art Behind Bars: The Role of the Arts in Breaking the Cycle of Crime, Prison and Re-offending
    Art Behind Bars: The Role of the Arts in Breaking the Cycle of Crime, Prison and Re-offending
    Mon, 12 May
    Widcombe Social Club
    12 May 2025, 11:30 – 12:30
    Widcombe Social Club, Widcombe Hill, Bath BA2 6AA, UK
    The lecturer offers a deeper understanding of the minds, lives and challenges of offenders.
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  • The Crack’d Visage: The Conservation and Preservation of British Portraits
    The Crack’d Visage: The Conservation and Preservation of British Portraits
    Mon, 02 Jun
    Widcombe Social Club
    02 Jun 2025, 11:30 – 12:30
    Widcombe Social Club, Widcombe Hill, Bath BA2 6AA, UK
    This lecture describes traditional portrait painting materials and techniques, beginning with Tudor and Jacobean workshop practices of the 16th and early 17th Centuries.
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Lectures

PAST LECTURES & EVENTS

  • The Christmas Story in Renaissance Art
    The Christmas Story in Renaissance Art
    Mon, 02 Dec
    02 Dec 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    02 Dec 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    The Christmas story is told through a selection of well-loved paintings and illuminated manuscripts by Italian and Flemish artists, including Botticelli, Fra Angelico and Jan van Eyck, together with many less well- known images. This lecture explores the rich symbolism of Christmas imagery.
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  • From the Renaissance to Neoclassicism - Developments in the Art and Architecture of Rome in the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s
    From the Renaissance to Neoclassicism - Developments in the Art and Architecture of Rome in the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s
    13 Nov 2024, 10:30 – 15:30
    This Special Interest Day explores three periods of art and architecture in Rome.
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  • David Garrick: Actor & Impresario
    David Garrick: Actor & Impresario
    Mon, 04 Nov
    04 Nov 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    04 Nov 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    Following the trauma of the English Civil War came the Restoration, a period of loucheness and scandal. With the return of a King and the arrival of the first English actresses, the foundations were set for a more modern theatre to emerge under the influence of the greatest actor/manager of the age.
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  • Turner vs Constable: The Great British Paint-Off
    Turner vs Constable: The Great British Paint-Off
    Mon, 07 Oct
    07 Oct 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    07 Oct 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    This is the story of the epic rivalry between the two giants of British art, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. As unlike in background and temperament as their paintings were in style, these two creative geniuses transformed the art of landscape.
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  • Elizabethan Houses and the Transformation of England
    Elizabethan Houses and the Transformation of England
    Mon, 03 Jun
    03 Jun 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    03 Jun 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    The Elizabethan era saw the transformation of Britain’s medieval dwellings into the basis of modern houses. Underpinning the story is the social change wrought by the end of the monasteries, the growth of cities and the discovery of a world beyond our shores.
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  • Sir Anthony van Dyck
    Sir Anthony van Dyck
    Mon, 13 May
    13 May 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    13 May 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    Sir Anthony van Dyck was the principal painter at the court of King Charles I and is regarded as the greatest painter in 17th century Britain. This lecture will examine the ‘Flemishness’ of his art and trace how it altered subtly to fit in with British tastes and expectations.
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  • Whistler
    Whistler
    Mon, 15 Apr
    15 Apr 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    15 Apr 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    James McNeill Whistler was a witty, irascible dandy who took pains to display his art in exactly the way he wanted. The lecture examines Whistler’s painting techniques from early ‘Rembrandtesque’ portraits of his youth, to his experiments with colour, form and texture.
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  • Colour in Art: From Giotto to Van Gogh (Special Interest Day)
    Colour in Art: From Giotto to Van Gogh (Special Interest Day)
    13 Mar 2024, 10:30 – 15:30
    The Arts Society Bath invites you to our Special Interest Day. Paintings and sculptures from the earliest times were very colourful. Pigments were used from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19th century: where did they come from and how did artists make them?
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  • Chihuly and American Art Glass Movement
    Chihuly and American Art Glass Movement
    Mon, 04 Mar
    04 Mar 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    04 Mar 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    The Studio Glass Movement dates from 1962, with its emphasis on the aesthetics of form and colour. Dale Chihuly became one of the foremost American Studio glass artists, and this talk considers his individual works and large-scale exhibitions, such as that in Kew Gardens in 2005 and 2019.
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  • Understanding Aboriginal Culture
    Understanding Aboriginal Culture
    Mon, 05 Feb
    05 Feb 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    05 Feb 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    The indigenous population of Australia occupied the land for over 60,000 years in relative isolation. Discover their ancient traditions and how they’ve adapted to modern times since the arrival of Captain Cook.
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  • Berthe Morisot ‘Une Finesse Fragonardienne’
    Berthe Morisot ‘Une Finesse Fragonardienne’
    Mon, 08 Jan
    08 Jan 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    08 Jan 2024, 11:30 – 12:30
    Impressionist Berthe Morisot is known for her light-filled canvases of modern life: after- noons boating on a lake, young women in ballgowns. This lecture traces Morisot’s engagement with 18th century culture, and highlights what set her apart from her predecessors and contemporaries.
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  • The Very Model of English Entertainment - Gilbert & Sullivan
    The Very Model of English Entertainment - Gilbert & Sullivan
    04 Dec 2023, 11:30 – 12:30
    These two very different men, W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, came together under the guiding hand of the impresario, Richard D’Oyly Carte. The Savoy operas, with their gentle satire, celebrate the quirks and foibles of the British nation, and are as alive today as in the 1880’s.
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  • The Art of Collecting (Special Interest Day)
    The Art of Collecting (Special Interest Day)
    Tue, 14 Nov
    14 Nov 2023, 10:30 – 15:30
    14 Nov 2023, 10:30 – 15:30
    Featuring three fascinating talks with Marc Allum (Miscellaneous Specialist on the BBC Antiques Roadshow): "The Anatomy of Collecting" on the historical origins of why we collect, "An Object Talk" on objects brought by attendees on the day, and "Fakes & Forgeries" looking at the history of fakery.
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  • A Photographic Odyssey – Shackleton’s Expedition
    A Photographic Odyssey – Shackleton’s Expedition
    Mon, 06 Nov
    06 Nov 2023, 11:30 – 12:30
    06 Nov 2023, 11:30 – 12:30
    On Ernest Shackleton’s third Antarctic expedition in 1914, his ship, the Endurance, was trapped and crushed in the pack ice. Frank Hurley's photographs are a visual narrative of an epic journey which capture the amazing landscapes, as a remarkable human drama is played out.
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  • Goya Portraits
    Goya Portraits
    Mon, 02 Oct
    02 Oct 2023, 11:30 – 12:30
    02 Oct 2023, 11:30 – 12:30
    Although better known for his famous social critique, the ‘caprichos’, Disasters of War series and the so-called Black Paintings, Goya’s position as Painter to the King meant that he was primarily a very prolific portraitist.
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  • Wedgwood
    Wedgwood
    Mon, 05 Jun
    05 Jun 2023, 11:30 – 12:30
    05 Jun 2023, 11:30 – 12:30
    This lecture explores the contribution of Josiah Wedgwood to the history of world ceramics: beginning with his early career as a potter; the development and marketing of cream-coloured earthenware; the opening of the Etruria factory and the development of encaustic painting.
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  • Special Interest Day - Scottish Art - A Powerhouse of Art & Design
    Special Interest Day - Scottish Art - A Powerhouse of Art & Design
    17 May 2023, 10:30 – 15:30
    Featuring 3 fascinating talks on the legacy of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald, The Glasgow Boys and their triumph over the Edinburgh ‘Glue-Pots’ and The Scottish Colourists - on four Scottish artists who brought Post Impressionism to Scotland.
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  • The Explosive World of Cornelia Parker
    The Explosive World of Cornelia Parker
    Mon, 15 May
    15 May 2023, 11:30 – 12:30
    15 May 2023, 11:30 – 12:30
    Contemporary sculptor and installation artist Cornelia Parker is best known for her large-scale installations like Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View where she took a typical garden shed, had it blown up then installed the debris around a light bulb creating the effect of an explosion frozen in time
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Events
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