This study day focuses on the transformation of Istanbul from its conquest by Sultan Mehmed II through to its Golden Age under Süleyman the Magnificent and beyond. 

Sicily has long been the crossroads between Europe,North Africa and the Middle East. This Special Interest Day looks at the rich and varied cultural influences brought to the island by Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Visigoths and Islamic tribes from North Africa. It goes on to explore how these were woven together by the Normans during their remarkably enlightened rule, which saw Palermo become one of the most important cities in Europe. 

Our Special Interest Day will be at Boringdon Golf Club starting at 10.30.

Please go to Our Society - Documents for the Booking Form.

THE ARTS SOCIETY

SW AREA

Decoding History’s Art Course

Oct/Nov 2025

The Box Plymouth, Tavistock Place, Plymouth PL4 8AX  

An Artistic Journey through Europe from the 7th to 16th Centuries

led by our own Dr Geri Parlby.

The SW Area Support Team is delighted to announce that a History of Art course is to be held in Plymouth. For many years our SW Area has had a formidable reputation of coordinating these events with Taunton and Exeter keeping up the tradition and it is time for Plymouth to shine again.

A most informative, exciting, and entertaining programme awaits you. There will be 5 one day sessions spread throughout the Autumn 2025.

The venue is The Box (formerly Plymouth’s Museum and Art Gallery).  Travelling  here can be by train, bus or car.

Please do join us.  Who could resist.... to start, ‘The Art of the Not So Dark Ages’ and to finish, ‘Leonardo to Michelangelo’.

 Please see the flier for details and do contact Barbara Beadle, the course organiser to book you place or to answer your questions. 

barbarahistorysart@gmail.com 

Embark on a journey through the rich tapestry of Medieval music, where art and melody intertwine. Delve into the evolution of wind instruments in the morning, from ancient reedpipes to whimsical crumhorns, adorned with captivating images from Medieval art. Then, let the afternoon serenade you with cow horns, lyres and more.

Jonathan was born into a farming family in Buckinghamshire and was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School. While studying archaeology at Reading University he developed an interest in Medieval Musical instruments. After 15 years working on the farm Jonathan moved to Somerset and began lecturing in earnest, principally on the instruments, but also on late Medieval paintings. 

The  Booking Form for this Discovery Day can be found by going to Our Society and then click on Documents.

For 300 years Venice was the most powerful city-state in the Mediterranean and much of its wealth was put towards ornamenting itself with works of art. Paintings were frescoed onto the ceilings of churches, on the facades of palaces, along the Ground Canal; canvases were set into gilded altar pieces on the ornate walls of the council chambers. Art, was the outward proof of status, the symbol of the cities prestige and influence. These golden years of Venice's history were to produce the works of Titian, TIntoretto and Veronese.

Then, when the Republic collapsed and the city fell into decay, it became a treasure house for the artistic imagination.

This study day investigates the artists who have lived and worked in Venice, their styles, and contributions.

10:00-11:00

The origins of Venetian art

11:00-11:15

Tea, Coffee, and Pastries

11:15-11:30

The Golden Age

11:30-12:30

Lunch

12:30-13:30

Poets, painters, and private lives

13:30-14:30

Covering 400 years of international jewellery design examining the changes of styles from the pomp of High Renaissance enamelled gold work to the glamour of Harry Winston diamonds. This presentation covers many of the key elements of manufacture and design, including the progress of diamond cutting, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, 19th century Archaeological and Renaissance Revivalism. And much, much more.

Boringdon Park Golf Club, 55 Plymbridge Road, Plymouth,
PL7 4QG.

10:00am Tea, coffee, pastries

10.30 -11.30 Lecture

11:30 - 11.45 Tea, coffee

11.45 - 12.45 Part 2 Lecture

12:45-13:45 Lunch

13:45-15:30 Antiques Roadshow theme with audience participation

AN OPEN DISCOVERY DAY
with GAVIN PLUMLEY
Wednesday 7th JUNE 2023
10.00 – 1500
Boringdon Park Golf Club, 55 Plymbridge Road, Plymouth,
PL7 4QG.
Price £36 including morning coffees, teas, biscuits, and pastries.
With a ‘Viennese’ lunch at £8 To be paid on the day.
Please use the booking form for tickets, this can be found in Documents under the Our Society tab
 or Available at
Evening live lectures
or
– celia.bean47@gmail.com
suedunn934@gmail.com

Gavin Plumley
A writer and broadcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, contributing
to newspapers, magazines, opera and concert programmes worldwide. Lectures
include the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. Recent
talks cover: the Royal Opera House; the National Gallery; the National Trust; the
National Theatre; the British Museum; the V&A; the Southbank Centre; the Tate,
and, the Neue Galerie, New York. His first book, A Home for All Seasons, was
published in June 2022.
The day comprises three lectures: two in the morning and one after lunch.

Vienna
At the turn of the last century, Vienna was the capital of a vast empire and one
of the most exciting artistic laboratories in the world. It produced painters such
as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, architects like Otto
Wagner, Adolf Loos and Josef Hoffmann, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud,
the composer Gustav Mahler, and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Looking at these and others figures in the context of the society in which they
worked, this talk asks how and why the City of Dreams became a cultural hotbed
around 1900.

Gustav Klimt
Klimt was one of the most prominent figures in the Viennese fin de siècle,
creating paintings whose sexual themes and bold use of colour and gold
shocked an unsuspecting populace. Less is known about his early years as a
muralist for the grand municipal buildings and royal and aristocratic palaces of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This lecture looks at the many changes in Klimt's
life, his rejection of public pomp and the impact on his style and works.

Egon Schiele
Born in a railway station north of Vienna, Egon Schiele became the imperial
capital's most shocking artist. Defying the authorities, the Academy of Fine Arts
and the curvilinear lines of his idol Klimt's art nouveau, Schiele created his own
brand of artistic expression. He got to the very core of human emotion and the
restive experience of life at the beginning of the 20th century. Looking at
strained portraits, cramped cityscapes, and sparse landscapes alike, this talk
surveys 28 years of tenacious creativity, as well as the impact Schiele would
have on artists such as Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lucien Freud and
Tracey Emin.

 Louise Schofield is an archaeologist who was Curator of Greek Bronze Age and Geometric Antiquities at the British Museum from 1987- 2000. Her book, The Mycenaeans, was co-published by the Getty Museum and the British Museum in 2007. She now writes, lectures and runs international archaeological projects - previously in south-eastern Turkey, Greece and Albania and currently in Ethiopia. And rather wonderfully she has just been appointed Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the American University of Rome. Louise is not completely new to us. Last year she knocked our socks off with an enthralling lecture full and deep in knowledge underpinned by hands-on field experience. She does not just talk about her subject in a vicarious manner, she takes us by the hand and shares what she has done at first hand in discovering the finest of ancient treasures. But there’s more. She informs with great vivacity, and humour in a stunningly entertaining manner. There are many nuggets of interest imparted in the by-the-way manner of someone without peer in her profession and who has the confidence to handle all manner of subjects thrown at her. Her audience vote last year was one of the season’s highest. So, we are delighted to offer the opportunity of being entertained yet again by Louise’s new lecture telling us about her experiences as curator in the British Museum followed by her adventures in Albania, Mesopotamia and on to Ethiopia in search of the Queen of Sheba. Not to be missed, but hang on to your socks.

Discovery Day 

With Valerie Woodgate 

Lecturer at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, also at many other London galleries. Former member of the teaching team at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Lecturer and runs courses at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.

Artists can manipulate colour, form, composition and subject-matter (even facts!) in order to explore universal themes such as life, death, feelings, politics, and to engage our emotional participation in the work.  

1. The Language of Feeling: the use of colour, composition and subject matter. (Artists include: Delacroix, Turner, Renoir, Matisse, Kandinsky)  
2. The New Face of Tradition: modern treatments of traditional genres, the effect of the differences and how they add to, or change, our understanding of the subject and its message.  (Artists  include:  Rubens, Reynolds, Manet, Renoir).  
3. The Liberation of Form: the manipulation of perspective, composition and reality to convey more than meets the eye.  (Artists include: Raphael, Degas, Picasso, Hopper, Mondrian) 

Venue: Boringdon Park Golf Club, 55 Plymbridge Road, Plymouth, PL7 4QG.
Timings: 10.00 for 10.30 start (Close 3.00pm)
Cost: £35, including morning coffees and finger buffet lunch.

For a booking form go to 'Our Society’ above and then click on 'Documents'                                                                                                 

 Or contact: Roger Beasley – rogerbeasley05@aol.com or 07894-521414

Discovery Day With Antiques Roadshow expert Lars Tharp 

Wednesday 24th November 2021

‘The Gate of Heroes: On the China Trail’  

Session 1:           From the mountains of Jiangxi province in far-off China, down river, over lake and mountain, and finally across oceans, nearly all the Chinese ceramics on display in European museums, stately homes, palaces and personal collections are survivors of an epic journey and of monumental human labour.

Luxury created in the labour of millions. Each year in the 1600s and 1700s millions of pieces - services, vases and ornamental wares - were portered over the mountain border into Guangdong province, passing through the  aptly-named ‘Gate of Heroes’. I take you on the same journey and, knowing the great human labour involved, you will never again pass or look at a piece of Chinese porcelain without this journey coming to mind. 

Session 2:           Hogarth brings pots, crocks and all manner of•chinaware onto his stage as bitpart players in his social dramas. From the Harlot’s dingy garret to milord’s swanky mantelpiece, ceramics teeter, tumble, or merely stand helplessly by, symbolic commentators on the goings-on around them. We delve into the stories, we reveal and even identify particular ceramics and show how Hogarth’s images themselves became sources for the ceramic workshops of Europe and China. A unique and stimulating talk colliding material culture and moral commentary. You will look at Hogarth and ceramics with new eyes. 

Session 3:           Bring an Object Talk: A captivating and spontaneous talk based on objects brought in by the audience which, in true Antiques Roadshow style!

Venue: Boringdon Park Golf Club, 55 Plymbridge Road, Plymouth, PL7 4QG.
Timings: 10.00 for 10.30 start (Close 3.00pm)
Cost: £35, including morning coffees and finger buffet lunch.

For a booking form go to 'Our Society’ above and then click on ' Documents'

 Or contact: Roger Beasley – rogerbeasley05@aol.com or 07894-521414

The Arts Society Torbay is holding a Special Interest Event on Monday the 15th and Tuesday the 16th March 2021 and can be enjoyed on Zoom. The details of the event are as follows:

A study morning starting at 10.30am on the Monday looks at the twin ends of Mozart's life, and ends at 12.45pm. Music will be played throughout. 

On Tuesday afternoon starting at 2.30pm there will be a one hour live concert celebrating the music of Mozart and his contemporaries. These pieces will be played on the historic organ in Peter's music room in London. 

Cost £20 per person.

To book please send a cheque made out to The Arts Society Torbay addressed to

M Leggott, 4 Forgeway Close, Torquay, TQ2 6SH.

Please include your email address and telephone number.

For any further information please contact Elizabeth Rae on 01803 200703

Great collectors and their collections, fakes & forgeries plus personal appraisals of members’ own objects with Marc Allum, Antiques Roadshow Specialist

Session 1: The Anatomy of Collecting – The History of Collecting
and Great Collectors Through History. An intriguing journey through the history of the ‘cabinet of curiosity’ and the origins of our modern museums. Based on decades of personal experience - as both a collector and auctioneer - Marc’s talk will explore some of the great collectors from history, including John Tradescant, whose collection founded the Ashmolean in Oxford, together with a fascinating insight into the alchemy, myth and folklore which inspired their curiosity.

Session 2: Fakes and Forgeries
Marc’s personal interests extend into many areas and his reputation for divining the unusual is well known. His passion for collecting ‘fakes’ forms a wonderful insight into the history of forgeries and reproductions and encompasses examples from many famous cases, including paintings, antiquities and silver, whilst also exploring the       all-important subject of provenance.

Session 3: Bring an Object Talk
A captivating and spontaneous talk based on objects brought in by the audience, which in true Antiques Roadshow style, will test Marc’s ‘miscellaneous’ skills in translating all manner of artefacts into an entertaining and informative journey through history. From ceramics to silver, ethnographic items to militaria, Marc will bring the objects to life with a mixture of anecdotes, humour and solid facts.

Venue: Boringdon Park Golf Club, 55 Plymbridge Road, Plymouth, PL7 4QG.
Timings: 10.00 for 10.30 start (Close 3.00pm)
Cost: £35, including morning coffee and finger buffet lunch.
For a booking form please contact:
Jim Stevens – jst74@hotmail.co.uk or 01752-930339. Otherwise please go to our website - the booking form can be found under ' Our Society and then click on Documents'. 

The Arts Society South West
SPECIAL INTEREST DAY
Thursday 17th October 2019
Best Western Tiverton Hotel
The Anatomy of Collecting:
Great collectors and their collections, fakes & forgeries plus
personal appraisals of members’ own objects
with
Marc Allum, Antiques Roadshow Specialist
Session 1: The Anatomy of Collecting – The History of Collecting
and Great Collectors Through History
An intriguing journey through the history of the ‘cabinet of curiosity’ and the origins of our
modern museums. Based on decades of personal experience - as both a collector and auctioneer
- Marc’s talk will explore some of the great collectors from history, including John Tradescant,
whose collection founded the Ashmolean in Oxford, together with a fascinating insight into the
alchemy, myth and folklore which inspired their curiosity.
Session 2: Fakes and Forgeries
Marc’s personal interests extend into many areas and his reputation for divining the unusual is
well known. His passion for collecting ‘fakes’ forms a wonderful insight into the history of
forgeries and reproductions and encompasses examples from many famous cases, including
paintings, antiquities and silver, whilst also exploring the all-important subject of provenance.
Session 3: Bring an Object Talk
A captivating and spontaneous talk based on objects brought in by the audience, which in true
Antiques Roadshow style, will test Marc’s ‘miscellaneous’ skills in translating all manner of
artefacts into an entertaining and informative journey through history. From ceramics to silver,
ethnographic items to militaria, Marc will bring the objects to life with a mixture of anecdotes,
humour and solid facts.
Venue: Best Western Tiverton Hotel, Blundells Road, Tiverton EX16 4DB
Timings: 10.00 for 10.30 start (Close 3.30pm)
Cost: £39, including coffee on arrival and two course buffet lunch
For a booking form please contact:
Sarah Merchant – sarah.swstudydays@gmail.com or 01398 341973
www.theartssocietysw.org.uk or look on our website in Documents under Our Society.

CHINOISERIE IN EUROPEAN ART AND DESIGN

Buckfast Abbey Conference Centre TQ11 0EG

10.00 for 10.30 am 

Coffee on arrival

Two course buffet lunch and coffee

Cost £39

Applications to:

sheilaswstudydays@gmail.com

or

Telephpone 01395 516373

Date and Time:  Wed 21 November 9.30 - 3pm

Venue:  The Arundell Arms Lifton PL16 0AA

Cost:    £40 to include coffee on arrival; buffet lunch in the hotel restaurant, and three lectures.  Wine available to purchase.

Synopsis of the lectures: as outlined below.

If you are are interested, please  email Caroline Taylor at caroline@clifford-taylor.net (phone 01837 849270).

The Lion of the Sea.

A Study Day on the Art of Venice

 
For three hundred years Venice was the most powerful city-state in the Mediterranean, and much of its wealth was put towards ornamenting itself with works of art. Paintings were frescoed onto the ceilings of churches and the facades of palaces along the Grand Canal; canvases were set into gilded altarpieces and the ornate walls of Council Chambers. Art was the outward proof of status, the symbol of the city’s prestige and influence. These golden years of Venice’s history were to produce the works of Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.

  Then, when the Republic collapsed and the city fell into decay, it became a treasure house for the artistic imagination. Painters from all over Europe came to Venice to paint its quiet back waters, its crumbling plasterwork, shadowed doorways and sunlit reflections, and the city was reborn as a romantic vision.
  This Study Day look into the artists who have lived and worked in Venice, their styles, their techniques and how each added his own unique contribution to the artistic legend of the city.
 

• The first: “The origins of Venetian art” looks at the dawn of the Venetian style from the gemlike paintings of Carpaccio to the serene altarpieces of the Bellini. From their studio emerged the enigmatic Giorgione, the most poetic of Venetian artists, and then Titian, whose powerful brushwork and vivid imagination had a profound influence on generations of artists after him.

• The second “The Golden Age” looks at the high years of Venetian art when Titian’s works were commissioned by every patron in Europe, from the Pope to the Holy Roman Emperor. How his style was then turned and reformed by Tintoretto into turbulent flights of fantasy, the paintings he made for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco flickering with an eerie light. And how the last glories of the republic glow in the ceiling paintings of Tiepolo and the crystal clear cityscapes of Canaletto.

• The last “Poets, painters & private lives” looks at the years of decline when the faded beauty of the city was rediscovered by Turner who painted it lost in shimmering light, by James Whistler, Bonnington and John Singer Sargent, by Henry James who set stories of delicate melancholy in Venice, and by John Ruskin who measured every building of the city and published his report in the “Stones of Venice”, one of the most influential books of the 19th century.

Fee £38 to include coffee and a good lunch

The Best Western Hotel, Tiverton.

The art of the three main ‘Bloomsbury’ artists (Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry) cannot be separated from their astonishing lives. They, along with their literary and other intellectual companions (Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and John Maynard Keynes, amongst others) were part of a movement, the popular name for which became widely used only after the death of around half its members.
The Study Day looks at their work and reviews the multi-faceted relationships between Bell and Grant, Bell and Fry, Grant and Lytton Strachley and several others. In addition, it covers what many consider the most important contribution of the groups to the visual arts in Britain, the so called ‘Art-quake of 1910’ when Roger Fry, assisted by Virginia’s husband, the art critic and writer Clive bell, mounted the ‘Manet and the Post Impressionists’ exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in London.
The Day will include a session on Charleston, the house in Sussex where Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and others lived from about 1916.
10:00 Meet for coffee
10:30 Early day, relationships and the ‘Manet and the Post Impressionists’ exhibition
11:30 Break
11:45 Effects of the exhibition on the groups. Later exhibitions and the Omega workshop
12:45 Lunch
13:45 Post WW1, living at Charleston. The decoration of Berwick Church, and other works
14:45 Event finishes
THE COST OF THE STUDY DAY IS £30, TO INCLUDE COFFEE ON ARRIVAL AND BUFFET LUNCH 

PLEASE SEE UNDER 'DOCUMENTS' FOR BOOKING FORM (Click on 'Our Society' for dropdown menu  and then click 'Documents' for access to booking forms)

Day of Special Interest - The Conference Centre, Buckfast Abbey.

Thursday 15th March 2018, 10am for 10.30am.

WINDSOR CASTLE - its history and occupants, The 1992 fire and restoration, and how the Queen entertains there.

Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest continuously occupied castle in the world. It has been enlarged and modified throughout its 900 year history to reflect the needs, ambitions and styles of various monarchs. As such, the castle has evolved from an impregnable fortress into a royal country residence which as well as being the Queen's favourite home, is regularly used by her on special occaisons. The restoration of the castle after the 1992 fire allowed Her Majesty to build on the developoment of the structure. The lecture shows how today's castle has grown from its 11th century origins and how the evolution relates to the personalities, tastes and foibles of its Royal occupants and to the history of Britain.

Application form available on SW Area website or contact sheilaswstudydays@gmail.com or telephone 01395 516373

The Art of North America; From the sublime to the real' gives an insight to the development of the art of a developing nation with strong links to European art turning to a more individual style as the developing nation developed more confidence.

See 'Documents' section for booking form. (Click on 'Our Society' and then on 'Documents' in drop-down menu.)

The Arts Society Liskeard

Catherine the Great:

Empress of All the Russias

Wednesday 15th November 2017

9.30 am - 3.30 pm

Public Hall, West Street, Liskeard, PL14 6BW

A discovery day with Rosamund Bartlett, a highly knowledgeable and approachable historian.

Discover how a modest princess became a supremely powerful empress.

£25 plus optional light lunch at £5.

Information/booking:

Caroline Petherick

carolinepetherick@gmail.com

or 01503 262671

The Arts Society Dartmoor Study Day

THE GRAND TOUR

Thursday 2 November 2017    10.00 a.m to 3.30 p.m.
 

Tom Duncan will be presenting three one-hour lectures on the Grand Tour.  
The overriding theme of this study day will be to recreate the perspective of a "Grand Tourist" of the eighteenth century. Who went? How did they travel? Which route did they take? What did they see? Who looked after them? What did they buy? Did the experience have any lasting influence on those who went? These and many other questions will be answered!
 

The day will be held at the Arundell Arms Lifton , PL16 0AA.  The cost is £36 per person to include tea/coffee, a buffet lunch in the hotel restaurant and the three lectures.   Wine will be available to purchase if requested.  Please contact Caroline Taylor on: 

01837 849270   or  caroline@clifford-taylor.net for further details and booking.

The South West Area spring study day is at Buckfast Abbey Conference Centre on Thursday 30th March. 

Diana Lloyd will be taking us through 'The evolution of English Porcelain from 1770 to 1900' This is in effect the birth of English Porcelain and should generate a lot of interest. The afternoon session will consist of an 'antiques roadshow' for participants to bring their treasured pieces of English porcelain of this period. This type of session always proves popular.  The usual price of £36 includes coffee on arrival and a good lunch. We are always looked after very well at Buckfast.

For full details and an application form, please go to www.nadfasswarea.org.uk

TO BE HELD AT 

Royal Western Yacht Club, Queen Anne’s Battery, Plymouth PL4 OTW 

Ever since nature discovered a way to capture its own image through photography in the early 18th century, we have been fascinated by the technological and stylistic expertise of photographers and their pictures.  Yet debate still rages today as to whether photography can be considered ‘art’. 

This richly illustrated study day, consisting of three lectures, tells the story of photography from an art historian’s perspective.  It begins with the very first grainy ‘heliograph’ image taken in France by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826 before discussing some of the key images in the history of photography from the 19th to the 21st centuries.  The lectures look thematically at portraiture,, art, photography, documentary ‘photo realism’ fashion photography, images of science and nature and modern contemporary digital images. 

Dr Sally Hoban has an Art history degree and has over twenty years’ experience in the antiques trade.  She has lectured extensively on art, design antiques throughout the UK and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham.  Numerous publications have featured her reports and she is the author of Millers Collecting Modern Design.

Tickets  £30 per person including tea/coffee and a light lunch

Please contact Mrs Margaret Carter on 01 822 855711 or by email: cartermargaret97@gmail.com) for information, non SDDFAS members are most welcome to join us for this most interesting day.

Venice and the Venetians, from Mud Flats to the Modern World Once again we will be in for a most interesting and enlightening day with Jo who specialises in Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture and this time showing us how Venice has become one of the world's most loved cities.

The day will start at the Royal Western Yacht Club, Queen Anne's Battery, Plymouth at 10.30 a.m. and the cost will be £30 per head including a light sandwich lunch.

To print application form please go to About Us on the front page, Documents and click Study Day 2015.

The day will start at the Royal Western Yacht Club, Queen Anne's Battery, Plymouth, at 10.30 a.m and the cost will be £30 per head including a light sandwich lunch.