Having had access to the jewels designated Heirlooms of the Crown and with a spectacular collection of her own, the Queen Mother had so much jewellery to choose from over the course of her long life that it would be almost impossible to describe it all. So in this talk Simon chronicle her passion for jewels by concentrating on a selection of items which are of particular gemmological and historic interest ..… and have an intriguing story attached.

Join us for a personal tour of the studios of two Wiltshire artists. In the morning we will visit the studio of Roy Evans. Roy is a sculptor specialising in copper to create unique two and three dimensional pieces inspired by nature. In the afternoon we will visit the studio of Judy Boyt. Judy has exhibited her animal sculptures and drawings in galleries across the UK and has won many awards for her sculptures.

When Edvard Munch created The Scream in 1893, he was responding to an intense emotional experience. Today, we would call it a panic attack. Crippling and anxious making, this primal cry was also a rallying call: for Munch and for the wider world of art. It gave birth to a movement known as expressionism, showing life not at it is (realism) or as it might be perceived in a fleeting moment (impressionism), but as it is experienced within the unembellished core of our being. Explosive and emotive, the aftershocks of Munch’s vision were felt across the world: in art and music, literature, dance and film.

Since the 1980s the collector Charles Saatchi has become one of the most powerful figures in contemporary British art. The lecture examines Saatchi’s rise to prominence as an advertising magnate and as a tastemaker, charting the changing shape of his collection and his effect on artistic reputations. Although he is most closely associated with Britart – the label attached in the 1990s to the work of younger British artists such as Gavin Turk, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, the Chapman Brothers and Chris Ofili, his collection has changed considerably over the years because he sells as well as buys work.

Over one hundred years since she sank on her maiden voyage, RMS TITANIC continues to intrigue and fascinate us. Yet many of the stories about the ship contain errors and speculation that do not do justice to the ship’s design, and few combine the technical aspects with the social history of a family that actually took passage in the ship.

The remarkable untold story of Carry On actor Peter Butterworth, and his wife, Britain’s first female tv impressionist Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher.  Using classic film and tv clips, personal mementos, and rare photographs and letters from his family’s unseen collection, Tyler reveals the private story behind his parents’ public lives. It’s a journey that takes in MI9, the building of a theatre in the notorious WW2 Prisoner of War camp Stalag Luft III, nights at Chequers with a Prime Minister, This Is Your Life, and many more moments in their long, shared life in the theatre. 

This lecture is essentially an overview of the life and work of Salvador Dali. I begin by considering the painter’s early life and influences and the variety of styles he tried before developing and settling on his own idiosyncratic style. Dali came late to Surrealism and was ousted by its controlling leader Andre Breton before too many years had passed. Nevertheless Dali is often regarded as the archetypal Surrealist. I discuss this notion but also explain Dali’s personal response to Surrealism, in particular the approach he called his ‘paranoiac critical activity’, one which spawned works such as The Persistence of Memory and Metamorphosis of Narcissus

Darling’s daring rescue of steamship passengers off the Northumberland coast in 1838 brought her international fame. Discover more about her bravery and short life (died aged 26) and the artistic contribution that has helped to keep her in the public eye. Grace became the ‘poster girl’ of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and was the first woman awarded their medal for gallantry. This talk coincides with the commemorations to mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of the RNLI in 2024.

Women have worked as artists for hundreds of years, often struggling against societal expectations and institutional barriers. From the Stuart courts to the First World War, this lecture follows women artists in Britain on their journeys to becoming professionals. Determined to succeed and refusing to be boxed in, they daringly painted what were usually thought to be subjects for male artists: history pieces, battle scenes and the nude. These artists championed equal access to art training and academy membership, breaking boundaries and overcoming many obstacles to establish what it meant to be a woman in the art world.

Mankind has exploited the medicinal properties of plants for thousands of years, yet the role of plants in modern medicine is still considered to be peripheral by many people. This talk attempts to put the record straight and to show that plant products are used every day by all of us to relieve pain and suffering, to heal wounds and cure diseases. This is a talk with a very wide appeal and relevance.

Modern sculpture is mysterious to many people, notoriously difficult and inaccessible both to look at and in the endless critical expositions which complicate more than they clarify. The works of Epstein, Moore, Hepworth, Frink and their contemporaries stand at the heart of our time, yet too often we are intimidated where we should be enthralled. The story of sculpture through the 20th century shows form manipulated to explore emotion as well as appearance, materials dictating meaning as well as shape and a three-dimensional language used as expressively as any poet or novelist.

We are still living amongst the infrastructure created by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the 19th century. He changed the face of the English landscape with his ground-breaking projects including railways, bridges, tunnels, ships, and grand buildings such as the magnificent Paddington Station. He merged art with engineering and science and was a pioneer and a revolutionary. And he was brilliant. We'll look at the man, his background, his work, and his legacy.

Younger son of the famous Pieter Bruegel, Jan did not inherit the right to copy his father’s pictures as his elder brother Peter the Younger did. Instead he had to invent a different realm of subject matter for himself, and he turned what was doubtless his short-sightedness to good use, painting pictures of exquisite detail and entrancing miniature scale. His landscapes are microcosms of the known flora and fauna of his day, and we can feel his delight in discovering new species of tulip, say, or of parrot. The beautiful scenes he painted are analysed in this lecture, but above all, they are presented for the sheer enjoyment of the audience.