Lectures 2021 / 22 Lectures 2022 programme 10 February 2022 Shauna Isaac Art of the Steal - Nazi Looting during WW2 The Nazis looted over 20% of Western Art during World War II, confiscating art from Jewish families and emptying museums throughout Europe. This lecture will provide an overview of Nazi looting by setting the scene in Nazi Germany, discussing Hitler’s obsession with art and how the Monuments Men recovered art after the war. Several landmark cases will be discussed in detail, including Gustav Klimt’s celebrated Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer and the stash of over 1200 artworks found in possession of the son of a notorious Nazi dealer. 10 March 2022 Shirley Smith The Art of Durer, the Man and his World Albrecht Dürer was a painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician and theorist and is regarded as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. But he was also the first artist north of the Alps to paint a signed self-portrait while his watercolours are the first autonomous landscape paintings. This lecture will study the works of this master which remain icons to this day. 21 April 2022 Angela Findlay The Other Side, Counter Memorials - Germany's post WW2 culture of Apology and Atonement In the context of our World War centenaries, anniversaries and the current debate about statues and monuments, the subject of this talk is hugely relevant. In this country, relatively little is known about Germany’s complex post-WW2 process of ‘coming to terms with’ the atrocities of its recent past and the counter memorial movement that started in the eighties and continues to this day. Germany’s very specific situation rendered all traditional concepts of monuments and memorials irrelevant and inappropriate. Instead of commemorating their own losses, German artists created art forms that responded to questions of apology and atonement: How does a nation of former persecutors mourn its victims? How do you remember what you would rather forget? The idea behind counter memorials is to keep the memories and lessons of the past alive in the individual psyches of the people. The results are extraordinary, brave and inspiring. With her Anglo-German roots, artistic background and years of research, Angela is in an ideal position to give insights into Germany’s fascinating and on- going efforts to find artistic forms to remember and apologise for one of history’s darkest periods. 12 May 2022 Rosamund Bartle Tchaikowsky, Chekhov and Levitan Tchaikovsky was one of the first people to perceive Chekhov’s genius, and the admiration was mutual. The two became friends, aware they were kindred spirits. This lecture will discuss the elegiac and lyrical quality of their work, along with that of Isaak Levitan, who was Russia’s greatest landscape painter, and Chekhov’s best friend. Together their music, writing and painting provide a compelling and moving evocation of the autumnal atmosphere of late Imperial Russia. AGM 9 June 2022 Suzanne Fagence Cooper Mercy Bay, the Victorians and the Arctic After Franklin’s expedition disappeared in the Canadian Arctic in 1845, their plight was highlighted in paintings, plays and popular songs. This illustrated lecture draws on the journals of the men who sailed on HMS Investigator five years later in the hope of finding Franklin. In 1851 they did discover the fabled North West Passage, before becoming trapped in Mercy Bay for two more winters. Through their tale, we can explore the Victorian’s desire for Empire and their fascination with the Arctic. New Membership year.