Upcoming Events › Art and Photography Events

In these years of World War 2 anniversaries the subject of this talk is hugely relevant. Relatively little is known in this country about Germany’s complex post-war process of remembrance and the counter memorial movement that started there in the 1980s 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 looked to creating art forms that would respond to questions of…

Lights, Camera, Action! – inside stories of the art and artifice of the early decades of Hollywood. This lecture covers the work of stills photographers, costumiers, publicists, actors, actresses and the movie moguls who made it all happen. Dr Geri Parlby, who will be hosting this talk, is a former Fleet Street journalist and film PR. She has a first-class honours degree in History and Theology, a Masters in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute and a Theology doctorate from Roehampton…

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. This lecture sets them head-to-head and examines their differences, their similarities, their battles and their shared triumphs. But who will ultimately be crowned star painter? As well as giving an overview of Turner and Constable, the subject provides an enjoyable…

A highly topical lecture, given the current arguments about the multi-billion pound restoration planned for Westminster! The Houses of Parliament is one of the most famous and staggering buildings in the world. It rises serenely from the Thames at Westminster, on a site which has been the centre of power and government in England from the earliest times. It is a masterpiece of Victorian architecture and a spectacular feat of civil engineering: but from the beginning, its design and construction…

We love standing in a museum gazing at a painting by Titian or Caravaggio, but we rarely question where it was before it came to be in that museum or who, in earlier times, stood in front of it and gazed nor by what practical means it got there. When Napoleon invaded Europe he had the best of Europe’s works of art sent back to Paris for his new Musée Napoleon. But how did they get four life -size bronze…