PROGRAMME We meet at the Arts Centre Stamford, 27 St Mary’s Street, Stamford, PE9 2DL on the second Tuesday of each month (except July and August). Arrival and refreshments are from 10.00 am and the lecture starts at 11.00 am. New Membership year - Don’t forget to change your standing order. Membership fee is £50 April 9th The Overshadowed Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe Have you had this experience? You go to a gallery, an exhibition and are stopped dead by an unknown picture: you look at the label and find you have never heard of the artist. How does it come about that there can be such wonderful painters of whom we have never heard? This lecture will consider some of the many reasons for a good artist’s obscurity, from the brevity of his life to the misfortune of his being born and working in the shadow of a larger reputation, such as Leonardo or Rembrandt. But above all it is an excuse to spend an hour gorging on beautiful paintings, finding hidden treasures. May 14th (change to Programme) Morals in Hogarth’s London Lars Tharp (of Antiques Roadshow fame) How moral, or how moralistic was Hogarth, either in person or in his art? He calls his major narratives his Modern Moral Subjects. Is he a typical gent of louche times or a detached observer? How does his satire compare with that of caricaturists such as Rowlandson, Gillray and Cruickshank? Or his portraits with those of Reynolds and other contemporaries? What do we learn of the man from his paintings and prints? Where is Hogarth’s heart? ' Beer Street and Gin Lane June 11th Wild Men of the North: Tom Thomson and The Group of Seven Ross King In 1924 an exhibition in London of Canadian landscapes moved the critic C. Lewis Hind to celebrate them as ‘the most vital group of paintings produced since the war - indeed, this century’. These landscapes of Canada’s northern lakes and rugged backwoods, painted in a boldly Post- Impressionist style, had been produced over the previous decade by a collective of Toronto-based painters known as the ‘Group of Seven’, whose aim was to forge a national school of landscape painting. This illustrated lecture introduces the painters - including their talismanic colleague Tom Thomson, who died in 1917 - and examines how they stormed the conservative bastions of Canadian art to establish themselves on the international stage as practitioners of a distinctive avant-garde. Moose at Night, Winter 1916 Tom Thomson National Gallery of Canada Wikimedia Commons September 10th Tulip Mania in Golden Age Holland Tom Flynn This talk tells the story of one of the most fascinating investment “bubbles” in the history of economics. In the late sixteenth century, the humble tulip bulb made its way from China through to the courts and gardens of the Ottoman Empire where its beauty and rarity were admired by the wealthy sultans. In time, its fame spread, triggering a collecting craze in early seventeenth century Holland, which we now know as the beginning of the so-called Dutch Golden Age. The mania for tulip collecting and speculating meant that some rare varieties eventually reached staggering prices, becoming an example of what economists have called an “extraordinary popular delusion” or “the madness of crowds.” In many ways tulip mania can be seen as a parallel development to what has happened on occasions in the art market, where the relationship between the market price of the object comes to bear no credible relationship to its intrinsic worth. In Holland, the tulip market collapsed in 1637, leading to the impoverishment of many speculators, including a number of artists who had over-invested in the promise of untold riches. A tulip, known as "the Viceroy" (viseroij), displayed in the 1637 Dutch catalogue Verzameling van een Meenigte Tulipaanen. Its bulb was offered for sale for between 3,000 and 4,200 guilders (florins) depending on weight (gewooge). A skilled craftsworker at the time earned about 300 guilders a year. October 8th The Culture of Ukraine Rosamund Bartlett This lecture tells Ukraine's story through the shared culture which binds its proud people together. We will explore the sacred art and architecture of Kyiv and its links to Byzantium, as well as the distinctive characters and ethnicities of Odesa and Lviv. Tracing Ukraine's complicated multi-ethnic history also means looking at its rich folk culture traditions. These range from native song and the secret codes embedded in ancient embroidery, which have exerted a surprising impact on modern painting and contemporary haute couture, to Cossack dancing and borshch. November 12th Sir Stanley Spencer: an Autobiography in Pictures Carolyn Leder Endlessly autobiographical, Spencer (1891-1959) noted, ‘my longings became pictures’. One of Britain’s greatest painters, he was a visionary artist whose name became synonymous with Cookham, the picturesque Thameside village he immortalised, which for him was the scene of heavenly visitations. Cookham shaped his work throughout his career, as the setting for subject pictures as well as beautiful realistic landscapes. He also created remarkable images of two World Wars. His mural decorations at the Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, commemorating the First World War, are one of the great achievements of twentieth century painting. His turbulent private life can be traced through his figure paintings. Riggers - detail Workers in the rigging loft of a Glasgow shipyard. Stanley Spencer 1944 Public Domain Wikipedia Commons December 10th A Very Ceremonial Christmas Dr Graham Jones Find out, in this very light-hearted lecture, about the various ceremonial events that take place around Christmas time. Carol services, concerts and even Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace and Windsor all play their part. How do the Chelsea Pensioners prepare and celebrate the festive season? All will be revealed so, come along and feel wrapped in a blanket of Christmas loveliness.