PAST LECTURES AND EVENTS

How do auction houses function? What goes on behind the scenes and what is required for a successful sale to take place? Simon Cottle reveals all......

Through Italy and Europe to Africa and the South Seas, in this Discovery Day we explored the lure of travel and its impact upon the work of a wide range of artists from the Renaissance to the 19th Century.

This major exhibition at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum explores the place of money in our world through different artistic lenses and features work by famous artists, from old masters to modern.  An introductory talk precedes our visit to the Exhibition and afterwards there will be free time to explore the historic city of Oxford at your leisure. The excursion includes coach travel, tea/coffee on arrival, exhibition entrance fee, introductory talk and coach driver gratuity.

Oleksandr Bohomazov was an artist of revolutionary ideas and unique style, a pioneer of early 20th-century Ukrainian avant-garde. Our expert James Butterwick examined the legacy of the genius who many consider the national artist of Ukraine and how his work is finally moving into the light.

Lucy Kemp-Welch's painting Colt Hunting in the New Forest caused a sensation at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1897.  This lecture explored her life and work.

A five day escorted tour to Normandy, staying for four nights half board at the 4* Radisson Blu Hotel, Rouen.  Travel by Executive Coach and P&O Club Class Dover-Calais.  All excursions, entrance fees and gratuities included.

Jacqueline Hyman's personal experience in conserving these tapestries enabled her to give us a rare insight into their design and construction and the artistic skill with which they were made.

We visit Elton Hall, an extraordinary part-Gothic house with award winning gardens and a fine and varied art collection, which has been home to the Proby family since 1660. Then our coach takes us the short distance to Peterborough, where we will have a guided tour of Peterborough Cathedral, burial place of queens, to explore the architecture and history of this magnificent building. 

This Discovery Day explored the exceptional art created in the reigns of three pharaohs all remembered for being in some way extraordinary - an astounding body of awe-inspiring sculpture, relief and painting, expressing complex ideologies and often used as propaganda: the social media of Ancient Egypt.

A full day visit with guided tours of Hoglands, the Moore family's much-loved home, and the studios where much of his greatest work was created.

Set within 70 acres of beautiful gardens, these give a fascinating insight into Moore's creative process. We will have ample time to experience his iconic sculptures in this superb country setting.

The Huguenots came to England in huge numbers in the late 17th century, bringing with them a wide range of skills - as silk weavers, silversmiths, clock makers, opticians, bankers, gilders, ironworkers, etc.

This lecture explored their lasting legacy.

A five day escorted tour to Norfolk, staying for four nights half board at the 3* George Hotel, Norwich. Travel by Executive Coach. Blue Badge guided tours. All excursions and gratuities included.

Investigating the collaborative process of A A Milne and E H Shepard in creating the iconic images for one of the world's most beloved children's books.

In this Discovery Day we examined 400 years of international jewellery design, from the pomp of the enamelled gold work ot the High Renaissance to the glamour of Harry Winston diamonds. And after lunch our Speaker ran a private mini 'Antiques Roadshow' for us, in which he assessed and valued the pieces of jewellery our attendees had been encouraged to bring along on the day.

Gainsborough transformed British art.  Portraiture and landscape painting were different things at the outset of his career in the 1740s to what they were at his death in 1788. This lecture traced how the son of a bankrupt Sudbury weaver become a national treasure and one of the greatest painters of his age.

The New Members' Reception is a great opportunity for new members to meet other new members and begin making new friendships over a buffet lunch.  

Shrines, stupas, cave temples, colonial grandeur and modernist architecture - a look at the history of the beautiful island of Sri Lanka through its intriguing art and culture. 

The lecture was followed by Afternoon Tea in the Dining Room of Moor Park Mansion.

This lecture provided a colourful introduction to the secret world of our 2000-mile inland waterway network and looked at all aspects of its exceptional artistic, architectural and engineering vernacular.

We live in an increasingly visual environment. Images are all around us, not just in art galleries and museums but from the media and the world in general. But how well and how accurately do we interpret our visual world? 

What is colour? Can we believe our own eyes? This Discovery Day explored how colour and illusion affect our appreciation of art and showed us how deeply both influence our day-to-day lives - and in far more ways than we may realise.

The Pre-Raphaelites sought to return to art in a purer, simpler form, emphasising the natural world in an almost religious-like devotion to 'truth'.  Many of them were fascinated by the night sky and this lecture explored how they used astronomical imagery and symbolism to express their ideas.

Welcome 2024 in style at Moor Park Mansion at another Gala Evening of superb musical entertainment organised through our Young Arts programme.

Drinks Reception at 6.00pm

Dinner at 7.00pm

Carriages at 10.30pm

Dress Code: Black Tie optional

A pre-Christmas visit to Bath, including a visit to the Holburne Museum, home of a permanent art collection which features many Renaissance treasures and painting masterpieces including by Gainsborough and Stubbs. 

It is just an easy 10-minute walk from there into Bath city centre, where you may choose to have lunch, explore Bath or visit the Christmas Market. 

Early English furniture was extremely 'fit for purpose', reflecting the ever-growing skills of the artisans who made it.  We looked at its development from medieval to Tudor times, its construction, its decoration, its usage and the Continental influences upon it.

In this event we celebrate the lives and works of three of the greatest songwriters who ever lived - Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Come and enjoy their beautiful songs, as fresh and inspiring today as they were when they were first written, and hear about the lives of these musical geniuses who cast their spell on us all.

Fleshy models, furious drinking habits, fractious tempers and fabulous fame combined in the story of these two artists, whose life-long competition had a lasting impact on each other and the art world.

In this lecture we explored why the icon of French revolutionary fervour that is Delacroix's painting Liberty Leading the People continues to exert its fascination today.

Henry VIII can be considered the founder of the Royal Collection, using the arts to enhance his own personal image. In today's lecture we discover why certain works were created when they were, and how the King was viewed within his own lifetime.

Today we tour the once medieval Royal Palace of Eltham, transformed by the Courtauld family into a striking Art Deco mansion with extensive gardens. After lunch we visit nearby Ranger's House, a red brick Georgian mansion in the Palladian style now home to the Wernher Collection of art.

This Discovery Day looks at the lives and work of five women who in their different ways influenced the course of modern painting in Europe and America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. This lecture explored the images he created, charting the course of a year, which changed the way we view the world through art.

The lecture was followed by Afternoon Tea in the Dining Room of Moor Park Mansion.

In this lecture we explore not the painter Dalí, but Dalí the designer and science enthusiast - a Renaissance artist in the 20th Century.

Batsford Arboretum, near Moreton-in-Marsh, is a glorious sight in early May. From there we travel to Sezincote, a 200 year old Mughal Indian palace nestled in lush gardens full of grottoes, temples, waterfalls and canals, all set in 3,500 acres of rolling Cotswold countryside.

A five day escorted tour to Liverpool, staying for four nights half board at the 4* Crowne Plaza Hotel, Liverpool. Travel by Executive Coach. Blue Badge guided tours. Entrance fees to non-National Trust properties included. All excursions and gratuities included.

In this lecture Paula Nuttall evokes Bruges for us during its late-medieval heyday, when it was the richest, most vibrant city in northern Europe.

Today's Discovery Day casts light onto areas of our society where the Arts are not only visual, decorative or commercial, but absolutely vital, hugely relevant and potentially life-changing.

Some Stirling Prize winners have become enormously successful and appreciated by the wider public. Others have proved harder to love. In this lecture we look at some of the hits, some of the misses and also at several buildings that arguably should have won, but didn't.

Explore the photography, art and music of Texas and Oklahoma during the 1930s, when the arts flourished amidst drought and poverty. The soundtrack is provided by Woody Guthrie and Jimmie Rodgers.

In these three lectures Peter Medhurst examines some of the great works by Debussy, Fauré and Ravel, side by side with the world of late 19th century art (Monet, Degas, Renoir, Manet), to determine whether or not there is a link between impressionism in music and impressionism in art.

Join us in Moor Park's glittering Dining Room for an evening of fine dining, music and a warm farewell to past Chairman Lynn Peters.

Drinks Reception at 6.00pm

Dinner at 7.00pm

Carriages at 10.30pm

Dress Code: Black Tie optional

This lecture takes us into the Enlightenment - a social, economic and cultural history seen through the eyes of the talented female artist Georgiana Jane Keate, her parents and family. A plethora of artists, actors, socialites and military personnel come and go - among others Captain Bligh, Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington; notables such as David Garrick, the Chevalier D'Eon and Sarah Siddons, and artists including JMW Turner and John Russell. 

Mottisfont in Hampshire, a romantic house and gallery with a medieval priory at its heart, sparkles at Christmas. After our tour we lunch in the historic city of Winchester and visit the Christmas Market for some last-minute Christmas shopping.

This is the story of how the socialite and muse Peggy Guggenheim became one of the greatest collectors in the history of modern art.

The lecture was preceded by Dinner in the Dining Room of Moor Park Mansion.

Discover how the huge growth and popularity of Street Art is reflected in the transformation of once seedy, deprived areas such as Spitalfields and Shorditch into some of the most fashionable, most vibrant, most 'happening' areas of London today.

British Musicals dominated the West End stage during the 1920s and 30s - until, in 1948, Oklahoma! changed everything. This is the story of how the British Musical survived and then was reinvented, to reclaim its place on the world stage.

Style icon or ambitious seductress? Today we re-evaluate the life of this fascinating American, whose number one creative project was her son, Winston.

UK City of Culture in 2021, Coventry is a modern city with an ancient heart, 1000 years in the making. We visit Coventry Cathedral in the morning and after lunch take a walking City Tour with a Blue Badge guide.

Venice - 'La Serenissima' - has been the muse of great artists for four centuries. We explore this ever-beautiful city anew through their eyes.

A five day escorted tour to the Netherlands staying for four nights half board at the luxury 5* Grand Hotel Karel V, Utrecht and visiting Apeldoorn, Amsterdam, The Hague and Ghent. Travel by Executive Coach and P&O Club Class Dover-Calais. All excursions, entrance fees and gratuities included.