With the exception of Munch, it’s only in the last forty years that Nordic art from 1880 to 1920 has made an impression on the wider world. Exhibitions and books have traditionally focused on the supposedly unique Nordic light and evocative national landscapes painted in this era.  But this was also a period of heady experimentation, of vastly different genres and painting styles, influenced by wave after wave of the French avant-garde.

Biography
James Vaux is a researcher and lecturer specialising in Nordic arts, culture, design and history. For the past two years he has been travelling across the Nordics, visiting and researching the homes and colonies of artists, writers, designers and musicians to provide first hand insights into their lives and works. 

James took a law degree at Oxford with First Class Honours and qualified as a solicitor before switching career. As a managing director of the international bank Rothschild & Co, he set up and ran the bank’s Nordic operations, living and working in Scandinavia and immersing himself in the countries’ arts, culture and history. James then gained an MA (Distinction) at UCL in Scandinavian Studies.

He studied interior design and art history at the Inchbald School, Mid-Century Modern at Sotheby’s Institute and electronic music at Point Blank. He has also been a DJ, promoter, record label owner, hosted a local radio show for four years and ran a community cinema.

He is now a popular lecturer on Nordic arts and design - as well as abstract expressionism - delivering 50 talks in 2025 alone. His focus is on placing works in their historical context and sharing inside knowledge from his extensive research trips and visits to artists' homes and colonies across the Nordics.

Awards, Qualifications & Memberships
MA (Oxon); MA (UCL)
Chairman of the Oxford University Society of West Sussex
A member of Euroart (the confederation of European artists' colonies), the Anglo-Swedish Society, the Anglo-Finnish Society and the Oxford & Cambridge Club.

This lecture focuses on the work and achievements of, and challenges faced by leading sculptors based in Britain in the 20th century. They comprise Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Caro, Elisabeth Frink and Antony Gormley. In their different ways, they all embraced modernism, but some more than others. Some looked to African, Oceanic and pre-Columbian cultures, while others looked to Paris. Some embarked on direct carving, while others modelled or shaped their materials. Some embraced social and humanitarian themes, while others opted for abstraction.

Biography
Ray has had a life-long love of art. However, in his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. These studies led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. But all that changed in 2011, when Ray became a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Then from 2014 to 2017, he studied art history at the Open University, and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he gained an MA in the History of Art. And to cap it all, Ray became an Arts Society lecturer in 2017. Ray also knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of lectures as he is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

This talk is a celebration of how the Ancient Greeks and Romans created our love of wine.  How wine's popularity spread, how wine production has and has not changed, what wine connoisseurs 2,000 years ago thought made a wine great!    

As an archaeologist who has excavated a Roman wine-producing warehouse, I promise that this talk will refresh your palette!

Biography
BA (Hons) Latin and Ancient History, Exeter University, and then branched out into archaeology. Ex-BBC, lecturer for British Museum and York University, an award winning writer and author who specialises in relating the ancient world to our modern lives, in person, in the field, on line and in the media (most recently on BBC News Channel, Radio 4 Today programme and BBC World Service).

Publications include Visiting the Past: A guide to finding and understanding Britain's Archaeology and Roman Britain. Forthcoming Latin Yesterday, Today and For Ever, and A Mediterranean Tour: Not just a Load of Old Stones. Teaches adult education courses in Latin, archaeology and ancient history and has publicly lectures widely and passionately, on cruises and tours and for museums such as the British Museum & Ashmolean, national press, universities, literary festivals, and diverse societies including Classical Associations, the U3A and the National Trust.

Awards, Qualifications & Memberships
BA(Hons) Latin & Ancient History
Winner of the British Library/RHS international 'The Writer in the Garden' writing competition
Member of the Society of Authors

Marking the 300th anniversary of his birth (1727) this lecture will look at the life and works of Thomas Gainsborough. Justly considered one of this country’s greatest ever portrait painters, along with his rival Joshua Reynolds, he created what has been called the Golden Age of British Art.  Despite achieving great artistic and financial success he actually hated his ‘day job’: “I am sick of portraits,” he said, “and wish very much to take my viol da gamba and walk off to some sweet village where I can paint landskips and enjoy the fag end of life in quietness and ease”.  Find out how he achieved acclaim and financial success…and what he would have preferred to be doing.  He was, indeed, a dissident at the top of the art world.

Biography
Alan has a masters and first-class honours degree in History of Art from Birkbeck College, University of London. He is a gallery guide at Tate Britain and regularly lectures at both London Tates. For twenty years he was a gallery guide and lecturer at the National Portrait Gallery and the Dulwich Picture Gallery. He also works as a London Blue Badge Guide.

The men of Captain Scott’s Polar Party were heroes of their age, enduring tremendous hardships to further the reputation of the Empire they served by reaching the South Pole. But they were also husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. For the first time, the story of the race for the South Pole is told from the perspective of the women whose lives would be forever changed by it, five women who offer a window into a lost age and a revealing insight into the thoughts and feelings of the five heroes.

Katherine MacInnes talk discusses five heroines - lives, loves and losses of five women shaped by the unrelenting culture of Empire and forced into the public eye by tragedy. 

Biography
Katherine MacInnes (MSt Oxford University, MA Hons St Andrews) is a public speaker and the non-fiction author of Snow Widows – Scott’s Fatal Antarctic Expedition Through the Eyes of the Women They Left Behind (HarperCollins 2022) and Woman with the Iceberg Eyes: Oriana F. Wilson (History Press 2019). Writing as Kate Nicholson, she published Behind Everest: Ruth Mallory’s Story (Pen & Sword, 2024), which was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Mountain Literature Award.

Katherine first started researching polar history when her husband climbed Everest in 2006 and her children were 10 months, 3 and 5. She looked to history and found inspiration from the invisible women – mothers, wives, widows – throughout exploration’s history.

Katherine has been shortlisted for the Biographer’s Prize and is a sought after public speaker on polar history around the globe, from Norway to the Royal Geographical Society. She is currently penning THE SHORTEST HISTORY OF ANTARCTICA for Old Street Publishing’s Shortest History series with publication planned for 2026. 

This Lecture looks in brief at the leading makers, designers and artists covered in the four Post War Textile Visionaries. Post war, the worlds of fashion, interiors and modern art fused with dynamic results. The Modernist aesthetic took London fashion by storm. An ideal introduction to 50 years of textile design and its fusion with modern art.

Biography
Ashley Gray is a leading specialist and curator in the key art discipline of Modern Textiles and their history. He is a regular vetter at international fine art fairs and has served on the Fair Committees of BADA, The Works on Paper Fair and on the BADA Council. He is regularly invited to lecture on the subject both in the UK and the US. As a curator and archivist, he works with institutions and foundations on conservation and exhibition projects. Most recently he curated Styled by Design at Cromwell Place in London, an exhibition that celebrates the innovation of Modernist textile design. He co-curated Material Textile: Modern British Female Designers and Material Textile: Creativity, History & Process, both with Messums Gallery, Common Thread at New Art Centre and From Bauhaus to our House also at Cromwell Place. He is currently researching the role David Whitehead Ltd in Lancashire played in commissioning innovative modern designs in the Festival of Britain era. An exhibition is planned for 2027.

An overview of the British Studio Pottery movement, exploring handmade pottery in Britain from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the present day, including the work of the Martin Brothers, Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, Alison Britton and Grayson Perry.

Biography
Helen Ritchie is Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Applied Arts at The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Her research interests include contemporary crafts, European design post-1850, British Studio Pottery and Artist/Designer metalwork and jewellery.

Helen was the sole curator of the exhibition Designers and Jewellery 1850-1940: Jewellery and Metalwork from The Fitzwilliam Museum (2018) and author of the accompanying catalogue. She was the organising curator of exhibitions, Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge (2021-22), Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery, in partnership with Yale Center for British Art (2018) and Flux: Parian Ware at The Fitzwilliam Museum, in partnership with artist Matt Smith (2018). She has worked with a number of contemporary artists, including Jennifer Lee OBE, Elspeth Owen, Magdalene Odundo DBE and Matt Smith. 

She is also a part-time doctoral student in the Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge, researching the studio ceramics of Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie and Norah Braden.

Before joining the Fitzwilliam in 2016, Helen worked with a broad range of applied arts at the Royal Collection Trust, Christie’s, Harrogate Museums and the British Museum. She studied at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge and the University of the Arts London.

Helen is a Trustee of the North West Essex Collection Trust (on display at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden).

According to one leading architect, “the modern architectural drawing is interesting, the photograph is magnificent, the building is an unfortunate but necessary stage between the two.”  Architecture + Photography = Art introduces photographers who crystallised the architects’ vision in images that are both works of art in their own right and shape our opinion of the buildings they depict. These photographers include Dell and Wainwright from Britain, Julius Shulman in the United States and Lucien Hervé in France. The lecture also examines photographers who recorded rural churches, barns and cottages to create a lyrical vision of Britain. Prominent in this group are Edwin Smith, Frederick Evans and Eric de Maré, a friend and drinking companion of John Betjeman and widely considered to have been the poet’s favourite photographer.

Biography
Brian has lifelong interests in both architecture and photography. He exhibited at the Royal Academy summer show in 2025 and lectured at the Bartlett School of Architecture for 25 years, retiring as a Senior Teaching Fellow. He has written on architecture for a wide range of publications. An exhibition of his own photographs was held at UCL and he is a former member of the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography. Some of his work is with a pre-War Leica camera, as used by his great hero, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others. Brian is an engaging and amusing speaker who seeks to entertain as well as inform his audience.

By 1960 interest in rock ‘n’ roll had started to fade, its biggest star was moving on and a new generation of teenagers were seeking something different. It came in the form of the Beatles, who broke all the rules and all the records. This is the story of the first five years of the 1960s, one of the most creative and innovative periods in the history of music, featuring all the major artists, important songs and principle musical genres. 

Biography
Steve King has spent 40 years working in the radio industry as a Broadcaster, Programmer and Events Director. He has managed some of the biggest radio brands in the UK and has interviewed and worked with many well-known popular music artists. He has also directed over 50 multi-artist events at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, London Palladium and Manchester Arena. His work in the broadcasting industry has been recognised on numerous occasions.    

Steve is an engaging public speaker and has produced a series of highly entertaining lectures based on his extensive knowledge of popular music, and his experiences in the radio business. He has lectured at various media conferences, industry events and for several cruise lines.

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.

Biography
Aliki studied at The Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford, The Slade School and The Courtauld Institute where she was awarded a distinction for her masters in 17th century painting. She has been working for The National Gallery for 25 years and teaches for Christie’s Education, The Wallace Collection and numerous private clients. Aliki is also a practicing artist who regularly exhibits her photographic work internationally and has taught at Camberwell College of Art.

Awards, Qualifications & Memberships
MA in History of Art (Distinction), Courtauld Institute, London, (2006-2007)
Honorary Research Assistant, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, (2001-2003)
MA in Fine Art Media, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, (1999-2001)
BFA Hons in Fine Art, Ruskin School, Oxford University, (1995-1998)

Like most Indigenous cultures, the Mayans (c. 200-900) developed a complex, multi-faceted explanation of their relationship to the natural world and the cosmos. This talk introduces (in very basic terms) the elements of the Mayan calendrical system as a way to begin to understand Mayan culture. After this introduction, we delve into artworks and architecture that give visual form to their concepts of time, the creation of the Mayan cosmos and the afterlife. We'll come to understand how Mayan people, like all ancient civilizations, created exceedingly complex systems for explaining our world that may still feel very relevant today.

Biography
Sarah is an art historian, educator, curator and writer based in London. 

Before her current position as head of art history at City Lit, London's largest adult education college, Sarah was a curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. For six years, she was the lead educator for the Bridget Riley Art Foundation and has also worked at Wellcome Collection exploring the connections of art, medicine and human experience. Prior to relocating to London for family, she was as a tenured professor of Art History based in Los Angeles. Sarah has been an art history lecturer since 2003.

Her first MA in Art History focused on the links between poetry and painting in late 19th century France while her second MA in Cultural Studies focused on photography and political protest. 

Sarah lectures on a variety of topics and prefers to place artworks and objects in their wider social and cultural contexts, from the European Renaissance to the contemporary, emphasising new narratives and approaches to Western Art History. Her art historical research emphasises modern art, the politics and philosophies of the 19th and 20th centuries and how they are related to artistic process: drawing, printmaking, painting and photography.

Awards, Qualifications & Memberships
MA Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London (2013) Merit
MA Art History, California State University, Long Beach (2006) Distinction
BA Art History, California State University, Long Beach (2002) First
Member: Association for Art History
Member: College Art Association

The invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 711AD by the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, aided by Berber tribesmen, quickly overthrew the ruling Christian Visigothic kingdom and began the nearly 800-year Islamic occupation.  This lecture tells the epic story of the creation of the kingdom of Al-Andalus, and the development of its spectacular architecture, beginning with the Great Mosque of Cordoba, as well as introducing other areas of the kingdom’s rich material culture, such as exquisite silk textiles, elaborate carved ivory caskets and rare bronze sculptures. It ends however with the highly symbolic Christian reconquest of the old Visigothic capital of Toledo in 1085, and the subsequent development of the so-called 'Toledo School of Translators'. 

The translation of the exceptional knowledge held in the Arabic libraries of this highly sophisticated kingdom directly facilitated the philosophical, theological and scientific renaissance, first of Spain and then of the entire Christian West - an intellectual renaissance that was fundamental to the development of the Italian artistic renaissance.

Biography
Ian is art historian specialising in the nearly 800 years of Islamic occupation and Christian reconquest of medieval Iberia. He also cover some areas of Italian and Northern Renaissance art. He has a BA (Birkbeck College) in art history and an MA (Courtauld Institute of Art) in medieval Spanish art history. 

As an accredited lecturer of The Arts Society, he regularly delivers lectures to local societies around the UK and in Spain. He also gives occasional guest lectures at institutions such as the V&A, and has delivered lectures at SOAS and the London Art History Society, as well as presenting papers on art history topics to conferences at Christies Education and at the Complutense University of Madrid.

He is a co-founder and director of Art & Culture Travel Ltd, which specialises in organising and delivering guided art history tours in Europe.

Sandy Burnett’s close relationship with Bach’s music stretches back for decades; between 1997 and 2010 he directed a complete cycle of Bach’s sacred cantatas. In this lecture he takes a detailed look at the Christmas Oratorio that Bach wrote for his Lutheran congregations in 1730s Leipzig. After surveying Bach’s life and achievements, Sandy moves on to explore this magnificent work by focussing on six key moments; they draw on various forms ranging from recitative, arioso, aria, chorale, and instrumental sinfonia through to full-blown choruses which harness the power of music and deploy it in the service of God.

Biography
Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. Combining engaging scholarship with hands-on expertise, he devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season. He has directed a complete performing cycle of Bach’s sacred cantatas, conducts the Chiswick Chamber Orchestra and is a first-call double bass player on the London jazz scene. Since 2013 he has devised and led cultural holidays all over the world, taking music lovers to venues as diverse as the opulent Leipzig Opera House and the intimate jazz clubs of New Orleans. He runs an online classical music appreciation Listening Club, and is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music. 

Awards, Qualifications & Memberships
MA (Cantab)