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PAST LECTURES AND EVENTS

A photograph of Simon Cottle conducting an auction at Bonhams Auctioneers
Morning Lecture

A Piece of the Auction - Behind the Scenes at an International Auction House

20 November 2024

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......

Parau api, oil on canvas painted by Paul Gauguin in 1892
Discovery Day

Travel Broadens the Mind - Artists and their Travels from Van Eyck to Gauguin

5 November 2024

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.

Image of the front facade and main entrance of The Ashmolean Museum Oxford
Outside Visit

Ashmolean Museum Oxford - Money Talks Art Society and Power

24 October 2024

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.

Self Portait by Oleksandr Bohomazov painted in 1914-15 in the Collection of James Butterwick, London
Morning Lecture

Oleksandr Bohomazov 1880-1930 - the Lost Futurist of Ukraine

16 October 2024

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.

Ladies' Army Remount, Rossley Park, Wiltshire, 1918 by Lucy Kemp-Welch
Morning Lecture

Lucy Kemp-Welch, Painter of Horses

18 September 2024

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.

Radisson Blu Hotel Rouen
Escorted Tour

The Chateaux and Gardens of Normandy

8 September 2024

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.

The Arming and Departure of the Knights, one of the Holy Grail tapestries.
Morning Lecture

Quest for the Holy Grail - The Tapestries of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones

19 June 2024

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.

Elton Hall, home of the Proby family
Outside Visit

Elton Hall and Peterborough Cathedral

13 June 2024

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. 

Nefertari being presented with the ankh, or key of life, by the goddess Isis
Discovery Day

Art of the Pharaohs

4 June 2024

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.

View of Hoglands, the home of the sculptor Henry Moore
Outside Visit

Henry Moore Studios and Gardens

23 May 2024

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.

A portrait by Joseph van Aken c. 1730 of a family taking tea and showing off their Huguenot silverware
Morning Lecture

The Cultural Heritage of the Huguenots

15 May 2024

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 photograph of the George Hotel Norwich
Escorted Tour

The History Heritage and Art of Norfolk

21 April 2024

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.

Early drawing in colour of Winnie-the-Pooh by E H Shepard
Morning Lecture

The Art of Winnie-the-Pooh

17 April 2024

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.

A prime example of the use of jewels to embellish clothes in Tudor power dressing
Discovery Day

A History of Jewellery from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth Taylor

4 April 2024

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.

The portrait of Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire by Thomas Gainsborough, painted in 1783
Morning Lecture

Gainsborough, Murder and a Small Fortune

20 March 2024

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.

Photograph of the Main Hall of Moor Park Mansion, looking towards the Carris Bar
Special Event

Reception for New Members

13 March 2024

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.  

Hanuman depicted fetching the herb-bearing mountain
Afternoon Lecture

Sri Lanka, Land of the Monkey God

7 March 2024

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.

Image of a traditional Canal Narrowboat
Morning Lecture

Canal History and Heritage

21 February 2024

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.

A magical illusion painting in blue and white where arches form into galleons and clouds become sails
Discovery Day

Seeing Is Believing

8 February 2024

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.

Painting by Edward Robert Hughes of Night with Her Train of Stars
Morning Lecture

Art and Astronomy in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites

17 January 2024

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.

Photograph of the glittering chandeliers in the Dining Room of Moor Park Mansion
Special Event

A Concert to Welcome the New Year

11 January 2024

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

The Holburne Museum front facade photographed in winter
Outside Visit

Bath Holburne Museum and City Visit

28 November 2023

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. 

An example of early English carved oak furniture
Morning Lecture

Early English Furniture

15 November 2023

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.

Black and white portrait photographs of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter
Discovery Day

The Golden Age of Song

7 November 2023

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.

Chaotic paint splashes in tones of white red and orange
Morning Lecture

The Painting Secrets of Freud and Bacon

18 October 2023

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.

Delacroix's painting of Liberty Leading the People
Morning Lecture

Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People - Harlot or Heroine?

20 September 2023

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 on horseback depicted arriving at The Field of the Cloth of Gold. British School, oil on canvas, previously attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497-1543). Royal Collection at Hampton Court.
Morning Lecture

Magnificence and Splendour - The Royal Art Collection in the Court of King Henry VIII

21 June 2023

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.

Colour photo of Eltham Palace shown across the moat
Outside Visit

Eltham Palace and Ranger's House

15 June 2023

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.

Clockwise from top left Mary Cassatt, Misia Sert, Luisa Casati, Berthe Morisot, Suzanne Valadon centre
Discovery Day

Five Extraordinary Women Who Influenced the Course of Modern Art

7 June 2023

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.

The Harvesters painted in oil on wood by Brueghel the Elder, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Afternoon Lecture

Bruegel - The Seasons and the World

25 May 2023

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.

Black and white photograph of Madelle Hegeler with Dalí’s 'Leaf Veined Hand', 'Ruby Lips with pearl teeth', and 'Eye of Time' watch brooch (Getty / 1959)
Morning Lecture

Salvador Dali - 20th Century Renaissance Artist

17 May 2023

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 showing cherry trees in blossom above a carpet of white daffodils
Outside Visit

Batsford Arboretum and Sezincote

11 May 2023

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.

The Crowne Plaza Hotel Liverpool photographed from Princes Dock and showing the Liver Building behind
Escorted Tour

The Art and History of Liverpool

23 April 2023

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.

Painting in oil on oak panel by Jan van Eyck of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife
Morning Lecture

The Bruges of Van Eyck and Memling

19 April 2023

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.

Discovery Day

Art as Rehabilitation Remembrance and Reform

5 April 2023

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.

Photograph of the top of 30 St. Mary Axe, London, known as The Gherkin
Morning Lecture

The Stirling Prize - British Architecture's Oscars

15 March 2023

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.

Black and white photograph by Dorothea Lange of a Migrant Mother, taken in 1936, for many the most recognisable image of the Great Depression
Morning Lecture

I Got the Dust Bowl Blues

15 February 2023

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.

The Rehearsal Onstage, pastel over brush-and-ink drawing by Degas
Discovery Day

Impressionism in Music and the Arts

2 February 2023

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.

An image of one of the three continental chandeliers in the Dining Room of Moor Park Mansion
Special Event

Gala Concert to Welcome the New Year

19 January 2023

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

A portrait in pastel of Georgiana Jane Keate by John Russell RA, made in 1792
Morning Lecture

The Life and Times of Georgiana Jane Keate (1771-1850)

18 January 2023

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. 

Colour image of Mottisfont in the snow
Outside Visit

Christmas at Mottisfont and Winchester

13 December 2022

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.

Colour photograph of the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice, home of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Evening Lecture

Peggy Guggenheim and the Birth of Mid-Century Modernism

24 November 2022

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.

The pointillist-style street art of James Cochran created in 2013 in Brixton, depicting David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust
Morning Lecture

Bombin' With Banksy and Co

16 November 2022

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.

Image of the record sleeve of the British musical Salad Days by Julian Slade
Discovery Day

Spread a Little Happiness

2 November 2022

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.

Photograph of Jennie Churchill, née Jerome, taken before her marriage
Morning Lecture

Jennie Churchill

19 October 2022

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

Colour photo of Coventry Cathedral showing the ruins of the old St Michael's Cathedral, left, and the new Cathedral on the right
Outside Visit

Visit to Coventry

11 October 2022

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.

The Mouth of the Grand Canal Venice looking west towards the Carità
Morning Lecture

Venice from Canaletto to Monet

21 September 2022

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

View of Grand Hotel Karel V from the gardens
Escorted Tour

Holland and the Dutch Masters

12 September 2022

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.

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