Lectures please note change of venue - (click here for the new venue) All society lectures start at 11.00am. Members should apply to the Membership Secretary for PRIOR PERMISSION to bring guests as restrictions will apply to the numbers using the hall. A fee of £7 is charged for each guest and guests must be booked in by the Monday prior to the lecture. Coffee will be available as usual from 10.15 for an 11.00 lecture. ***This is a short notice change from the title on your membership card, as, unfortunately Juliet Heslewood cannot be with us. Her lecture will be on our 2027 programme instead.*** Thursday 23 April 2026 18th Century England through the eyes of Canaletto Nick Salmond The great Venetian artist Canaletto spent ten years living in London producing wonderful landscapes of the city and its surrounds. In this lecture, we explore his time in the capital and look at how his style changed during his long visit. We look at some of the work he produced and explore how the views he captured have changed over the centuries. Canaletto, Ranelegh 1754 Public domain. 28 May 2026 Mary Branson New Dawn: A Monument to Women’s Suffrage, Houses of Parliament This talk informs people about my artist process and what was involved in making this public work of art. I will start the talk with an introduction to my artistic practise, then go on to describe how I won the national competition to be artist in residence for Women’s Suffrage in Parliament. I go on to talk about the brief and how I came up with the concept for the monument and how the artwork was created. I will end with a video showing the piece being unveiled for the first time to the public. New Dawn. Artist Mary Branson 2016 Medium Metal and illuminated glass sculpture 2 July 2026 (a change from the previous date of June 25th) Alice Foster The Art of Partying – a feast for the eyes From Greek Mosaics in the second century, through weddings in the Bible, Renaissance allegories of refinement and excess, sixteenth century peasant parties out of doors, eighteenth century harlequins, to the celebratory styles of twentieth century painters, the depiction of parties has always been popular in the history of Western Art. Alice Foster traces the variety of merrymaking, banqueting, dances and music in a feast of colour. A late Roman-Republican banquet scene in a fresco from Herculaneum, Italy. Public domain July 2026 No meeting 28 May 2026 Mary Branson New Dawn: A Monument to Women’s Suffrage, Houses of Parliament This talk informs people about my artist process and what was involved in making this public work of art. I will start the talk with an introduction to my artistic practise, then go on to describe how I won the national competition to be artist in residence for Women’s Suffrage in Parliament. I go on to talk about the brief and how I came up with the concept for the monument and how the artwork was created. I will end with a video showing the piece being unveiled for the first time to the public. New Dawn. Artist Mary Branson 2016 Medium Metal and illuminated glass sculpture 2 July 2026 (a change from the previous date of June 25th) Alice Foster The Art of Partying – a feast for the eyes From Greek Mosaics in the second century, through weddings in the Bible, Renaissance allegories of refinement and excess, sixteenth century peasant parties out of doors, eighteenth century harlequins, to the celebratory styles of twentieth century painters, the depiction of parties has always been popular in the history of Western Art. Alice Foster traces the variety of merrymaking, banqueting, dances and music in a feast of colour. A late Roman-Republican banquet scene in a fresco from Herculaneum, Italy. Public domain July 2026 No meeting 27 August 2026 Raymond Warburton Basquiat and Banksy - Superstars of Street Art This lecture looks at the art of Banksy and Jean- Michel Basquiat. What binds them together is ‘street’ or ‘graffiti’ art? Banksy is British, out of Bristol, and emerged in the 1990s with a stencil-based approach to street art. His work pops up in the most surprising places. Most memorable are large rodents, girls with balloons and flower-throwing freedom fighters. Some see Banksy as a prankster but with increasingly serious cultural or socio-political points to make. The picture that shredded itself at Sotheby’s in 2018 is a good example. Banksy remains, anonymous despite his popularity. Born in Brooklyn in 1960, Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the neo-expressionism movement. He died in 1988. 24 September 2026 Brain Stater From negative to positive: photography’s long road to recognition as Art John Ruskin, the leading critic and aesthete, wrote in the 1850s that photography could never be Art. This lecture traces the struggle to overturn that view, beginning with the Pictorialist school of Victorian photographers and closing with the recent emergence of photographic art inspired by digital technology. Along the way we examine the contested virtues of colour images and the present revival of old- fashioned film cameras. I Wait. Model is Rachel Gurney. Albumen print, 327 x 254mm (12 7/8 x 10"). Photo: Julia Margaret Cameron. Public domain 22 October 2026 Cindy Polemis Miniature portraits: Tiny treasures close to our heart From diplomatic gifts to tokens of love, between the 16th-19th centuries miniatures were commissioned as small portraits which could be held in the hand or placed inside lockets creating an intimate relationship between the owner and sitter. I will look at the history of these tiny treasures of art. François Clouet - Henri II of Valois and Caterina de' Medici, Surrounded by Members of Their Family - Unknown author. Public domain The start of the new membership year 2026/27 26 November 2026 Elizabeth Gowing ‘The Silver Thread: silver filigree and traditional arts in Kosovo’ From the early Kosovan silver mines which are mentioned in Dante, through the twentieth century politics over Kosovo’s mines which resulted in both a war and a golf course, a silver thread winds through Kosovo’s history. Its most intricate tanglings are in the country’s cultural capital, Prizren, where a seventh generation of filigree artisans use ‘filum’ and ‘granum’, zigzags, ‘mouse- tooth’ designs and other twists and turns to magic lacy creations from dull sticks of raw material. The results – in boxes, buttons, jewellery, religious ornamentation and the talismans of superstition – are a fine narrative of Kosovo’s history and traditions. Medieval panagiarion Serbian. Photo: JohnGotten. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 December 2026 No meeting.