Lectures 2021 / 22 Lectures 2022 programme Place : Great Hale (Magna) Hall - postcode NG34 9LH Time : 2:00pm - Doors open at 1:30pm New membership year 2022/23 8 SEPTEMBER 2022 SARAH BURLES: Lord Fitzwilliam and his Bequest to Cambridge The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge was founded on the death of Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam in 1816, five years after the Dulwich Picture Gallery and eight years before the National Gallery in London. His bequest included paintings, drawings, prints, medieval manuscripts and books and, in addition, a sum of money to build “a good substantial museum repository for the increase of learning”. Who was Lord Fitzwilliam? How did he acquire his extensive collection? What prompted him to leave it to the University of Cambridge and why was Napoleon partly responsible for the founding of one of the great regional museums? These, and many other questions, will be answered in a lecture that will also discuss some of the key works in Lord Fitzwilliam’s bequest. 13 OCTOBER 2022 10.00am JACKY KLEIN: Alfred Cohen, a Lost Modern Master. American-born painter and printmaker Alfred Cohen (1920–2001) came to Europe after the Second World War, living in Paris and Germany before settling in London in 1960. A leading figure in the sixties art scene in Britain, his work sold to art cognoscenti and film stars. His distinctive expressionist paintings were made in dialogue with many of the key modern art movements – most notably, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism and Abstraction – and included dazzling panoramas of the Thames, jewel-like landscapes made in Kent, Norfolk and along the North Sea coasts, haunting pictures of characters from the commedia dell’arte, exuberant flower paintings, and witty, satirical drawings and collages that gently sent up friends and neighbours. We rediscover this lost modernist master in the light of his recent centenary exhibitions, his status as both insider and outsider in the British art world, and in the wider context of the renewed interest in mid- century artists who straddled the line between figuration and abstraction. 10 NOVEMBER 2022 KARIN FERNALD: The Shakespeare of Dogs: Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-73) In his heyday, the animal artist Edwin Landseer was hugely celebrated and loved for his dogs and Highland stags; later, for his lions in Trafalgar Square. He was a child prodigy; aged 5 years old he made a detailed study of a foxhound which astounded everybody; later he became known for his vivid and varied textures of animal skin, hair and fur, which he achieved with special brushes, keeping their design a secret. He was a party man, with party tricks; with his left hand he could draw a horse’s head and with his right a stag’s head complete with horns – at the same time! Most widely appreciated for his dogs, he could paint comic dogs, tragic dogs and in-between dogs, and he became known - with some justification - as the Shakespeare of Dogs. He was socially much in demand with the aristocracy and with Royalty, teaching the Queen and Prince to etch. But after awhile it all gets too exhausting; the celebrated artist feels happier up in the Highlands of Scotland. He ends up stressed, drunk and mad, comparing himself to one of his own hunted stags. Nobody can get him to behave except his neighbour Mrs Pritchard, an elderly widow said to look like “ a very small monkey, with bright blinking eyes and a merry mouth.” When Sir Edwin died they named a pub after him; they buried him in St Paul’s Cathedral, and someone put black wreaths around the necks of those lions in Trafalgar Square. Landseer’s Lions in Trafalgar Square Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 8 DECEMBER 2022 PETER MEDHURST Robed in Dreadful Majesty- music, poetry, and traditions of the Advent season It is not known exactly when Advent was first acknowledged as part of the Church’s calendar, but it appears to be a tradition that was started sometime in the late 5th century. Etymologically, Advent is derived from the Latin adventus – coming, arrival - and for many people today, as in the past, it is a time for reflection and spiritual preparation for the birth of Christ on 25th December. Over the centuries Advent has attracted many customs and traditions, and has also inspired a wide range of fine prose and poetry, as well as some first class music. The lecture follows the ever-evolving traditions of Advent and samples a range of inspired poetry and music. 2023 9 FEBRUARY 2023 SOPHIE MATTHEWS Music in Art (plays her instruments to demonstrate) So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted. 9 MARCH 2023 SHIRLEY SMITH Isabella d’Este, collector and patron of art: by fair means or foul Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, has been accused of being less than honest in her methods of acquiring her precious antiques, yet she became renowned as one of the greatest patrons of art in the early 16th century despite the fact that, unlike her male counterparts, it was not deemed fitting for a woman to commission vast buildings, decorated with magnificent fresco cycles. So how did this remarkable lady achieve this renown and how did she overcome the strictures of her gender and of her often somewhat limited purse? Isabella d’Este,1534-1536 Rubens copy of a lost Titian Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 13 APRIL 2023 COLIN DAVIES Zaha Hadid, architectural superstar. Dame Zaha Hadid died on March 31 st 2016 at age of 65. Architectural historians of the future will surely recognise her as one of the most important architects of the early 21st century. She was born in Iraq and her reputation was global, but she made Britain her home. This lecture tells the story of her career from the visionary projects of the 1980s, through the years of frustration when her designs were considered unbuildable, to the prolific crop of successful projects built all over the world in the last decade of her life. 11 MAY 2023 DOMINIC RILEY The Bible as Cultural Artefact The Bible is the most frequently printed book in history, and yet rarely are the actual physical books themselves ever considered. In this lecture, Dominic will talk about the extraordinary range of typographical, structural and decorative variations that have been employed in this most ordinary, everyday book. Taken together these remarkable books tell the story of the evolution of book production over the past four centuries. 8 JUNE 2023AGM RICHARD BURNIP Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers in London How the two great Queens of Crime brought the metropolis to life in the 1920s and 30s and how Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey found a home there. Both authors chronicled the rapidly-changing London of the 1920s and ‘30s, writing in the same genre but in radically different ways. They also had very particular views on where their characters should live and work; a revealing investigation in itself. Although Sayers gave up detective fiction, in Christie’s case, far from remaining fixed in one period throughout her long career, she charted the changes she witnessed, with her customary skill and insight, in later works such as Endless Night and At Bertram’s Hotel. Agatha Christie, Great Newport Street, Ecke Cranbourn Street, London CC Diagram Lajard Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication Bronze statue of Dorothy L. Sayers by John Doubleday. The statue is across the road from her home at 24 Newland Street, Witham, Essex. CC GeneralJohnsonJameson Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication