Tirzah Garwood, wife of Eric Ravilious, was an English surrealist to whom Lewis Carroll would have felt akin. Before she was twenty-two she was making bold, intricate wood-engravings. When Eric died in 1942, Tirzah began making collages and oil paintings. Colourful, fantastical, and strange as Richard Dadd's fairy paintings,  they show toy soldiers and giant hornets, tiny houses and huge kittens. Unseen in public for decades, in 2024 they were shown to great acclaim at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. 

As a student at the Grosvenor School in the 1930s, Suzanne Cooper was exhibiting wood-engravings and paintings in West End Galleries.  Then came the war. Cooper volunteered as a nurse, married, and laid aside her artistic ambitions. Her first solo show, 25 years after her death, at the Fry Art Gallery in 2018, was greeted by critics as ‘revelatory’, and a ‘rare and exciting event’. It’s a joy to celebrate her lively, strikingly original work, especially as she was my mother-in-law. 

Evelyn Dunbar was another outstanding student, described by Sir William Rothenstein as 'exceptionally gifted', whose artistic career stalled when, like Garwood, she fell in love with her teacher.  Then came the war, and she discovered new energy as  an official war-artist.  Working in the tradition of English visionaries like William Blake and Stanley Spencer, she recorded the work of the  Women's Land Army in a series of hauntingly beautiful paintings.  They languished in an attic for decades before being found, and shown to great acclaim at the Pallant House Gallery. 

The UK provides some of the biggest Ceremonial Events

in the world. How do the military prepare for major events

such as State Opening of Parliament, State Visits, Royal

Weddings or even a State Funeral?

The architecture – domestic, commercial and spiritual – of Whitechapel and Spitalfields closely reflects the characteristics of its communities. This talk takes in three hundred years of East London history by exploring the fascinating and enduring legacy of the Huguenot and Jewish communities. At the heart of the story are wondrous buildings like the Nicholas Hawksmoor gem Christ Church Spitalfields, the new model dwellings built for the poor of the area, and the exotic Moorish arcades of Fashion Street.

Step into the shadows of the 18th and 19th centuries with Women of Ill Repute, a lecture exploring four women who turned infamy into an art form. Meet Anne Seymour Damer, the high society sculptor who used a chisel to fight back against 'Sapphic' slurs and tabloid satire. Witness the 'Mabelmania' of Mabel Grey, the Victorian courtesan who capitalised on scandal to become the world’s first viral photographic brand.

Evening Meeting

Four humble Liverpool lads who conquered the pop world. Discover how. Their legacy remains here, there and everywhere. A fully illustrated talk with musical examples and excerpts of the exceptional moments of the fab-four's extraordinary career. This talk highlights the many unsung heroes, without whose involvement the Beatles would not have been the band we know today. Their success and legacy remain unrivalled by any other pop band in the world. Re-live their greatest moments and their greatest music. Some pop groups are not just of their time; some are for all time. 

The most significant proof of the power of art is the fact that some people feel the need to destroy it. Attacks and acts of destruction have gone on for as long as art has existed, from the iconoclastic riots of the Protestant Reformation to climate protesters’ defilement of historical paintings in national museums. This lecture will explore artworks that have survived despite attacks, the appeal of ruins and the practice of using destructive strategies to create art.

India’s royal palaces are magnificent, historic residences reflecting a blend of Rajput, Mughal and European architectural styles. This lecture takes you inside numerous stunning examples, including the incomparable Laxmi Villas Palace in Baroda (the largest private residence in the world) and the striking art deco Umaid Bhawan. As well as exploring the sublime architecture of the buildings and the beautiful works of art they contain, the lecture also looks at the historical contexts of their construction and the fascinating lives of their most notable residents.    

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of her birth in 1876, this lecture considers the refined beauty of Gwen John’s paintings and examines the enigmatic life that she led.  She is best known for her small, low-toned canvases, typically of lone female sitters, cats and corners of empty rooms.  But her reclusive reputation belies a passionate and unorthodox life and her standing today confirms the prediction made by her fabulously successful brother Augustus: ‘In fifty years’ time I will be known as the brother of Gwen John”.

Elsa Schiaparelli is seen as the undisputed queen of fashion of the Roaring Twenties and her artistic collaborations with many of the surrealist artists of the day, such as Dalí, Cocteau and Giacometti, were groundbreaking. Hats like lamb cutlets or high heeled shoes, pockets like drawers, buttons like lips and eyes, gloves with red python nails and the legendary dresses including the iconic lobster dress as worn by Wallis Simpson for Vogue. Schiaparelli wanted to shock, and she did!