Lectures Plus

NBAS LECTURE:  30 APRIL 2024 BY ANNA MOSZYNSKA FRESH ENCOUNTERS:  CONTEMPORARY SCULPTURE AND THE PUBLIC SPACE

Sculpture by Antony Gormley, 'Another Time XXI 2013 (Coronation Parade)', 2017 (photo taken by Anna Moszynska)

The role of outdoor sculpture has changed substantially in recent times. Here I consider how the concept of elevated monument and memorial, familiar since classical antiquity, shifts now to a desire to engage the spectator in often surprising ways. In this talk, I look at different approaches to sculpture in the city; the emergence of the Sculpture Park across the globe; how artists make new works involving water; and how recent sculpture often involves exciting and unusual encounters with the public. Among the international figures discussed are Louise Bourgeois, Antony Gormley, Simone Leigh, Maya Lin, Richard Serra and Do Ho Suh - artists who also feature in my book, 'Sculpture Now'.

NBAS Lecture:  26 March 2024 by Vivienne Lawes - Clarice Cliff:  the doyenne of Art Deco.  A great innovator, how the bar was set for ceramics as a commercial art form

The Crocus Pattern – 1928 to 1963

This lecture explores an artist whose work, inventiveness, and ability to catch the zeitgeist is still admired a century after her bold 'Bizarre' wares were launched in 1927. These Art Deco masterpieces are the products that most vividly signify Clarice Cliff's legacy. She spent a lifetime innovating. Born in 1899, she was a working professional whose lifespan covered the period in which women broke through the barriers of the art world. While the Royal Academy barred women from accessing the full training and privileges of their male counterparts, the pottery industry was one that had traditionally offered female artists the opportunities to excel. Cliff's talents were recognised when she was still a teenager, and she went on to produce designs that keyed into the cutting-edge trends of the period, setting the bar for ceramics as a commercial art form.  

Fantasque ‘Melon’ vase, shape 14; Fantasque ‘Circle Tree’ Eton shape coffee pot, 1930. Wikimedia Commons by Leonard Griffin. 

DETACHMENT: GOYA’S BLACK PAINTINGS

When Goya moved to the so-called house of the deaf man, he began painting the walls with some of the most extraordinary art ever seen and subsequently dubbed The Black Paintings not just for their dark colour but for their often dark and disturbing subject matter. This lecture considers the laborious yet not always careful process of taking Goya’s Black paintings off the walls of his home and eventually transferring them to the Prado in Madrid. It charts the extraordinary difficulties of removing them, considers why he painted such black visions and whether he wanted them ever to be seen. It considers his state of mind at the time; removed from the court, deaf and isolated.

Jacqueline Cockburn, our lecturer, is an art historian and linguist. After a career in academic teaching at Birkbeck college, University of London and Westminster School, she is now a freelance lecturer. She is course director and lecturer at the V & A and also lectures at The Royal Academy, The Art Fund, Artscapades, The London Art History Society, The Arts Society and a number of private institutions. Her focus is European Art 1850- 1950. Jacqueline is Managing Director of Art and Culture Andalucía running residential courses in Andalucía, Southern Spain in the art and culture of the region. She has recently published ‘A Taste of Art, London’ (Unicorn Press 2019).

How CalcuttA (Kolkata) played a major role in shaping the arts and culture of modern India. 

Our lecturer, Dr John Stevens, gained his PhD in History from UCL, before going on to teach British Imperial History, Indian History and Bengali Language at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London). His biography of the Indian guru Keshab Chandra Sen – Keshab: Bengal’s Forgotten Prophet - was published by Hurst and Oxford University Press in 2018. He is a regular visitor to India and Bangladesh and has lectured at numerous Indian universities. He also works as a consultant on Indian affairs and teaches the Bengali language to private students. He has appeared many times in the Indian media, and was a guest on BBC Radio Four’s In Our Time, discussing the poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore.  John lived and worked in Kolkata for fifteen years so is in a wonderful position to illuminate our understanding of this great and important city.

Resurgam:  The music of st paul's cathedral - patrick craig - 31 October 2023

The last time St Paul’s Cathedral was deprived of music for a long period was after the devastating Fire of London in 1666. But in 1697 Christopher Wren was able to triumphantly declare RESURGAM as the phoenix rose from the ashes. Our lecturer, Patrick Craig, Vicar Choral at St Paul’s Cathedral, conductor and singer with the Tallis Scholars, looked at music from either side of this momentous event. He guided us through the finest repertoire from across the Cathedral’s liturgical year. Escorted by a selection of his favourite photographs, music and videos he set out to convey the glories of twenty-five years of singing in this extraordinary building. 

STANLEY SPENCER'S COOKHAM - DR AMY LIM

The lecture looked at Cookham's place in Spencer's art, and how it was central to his unique vision of English domestic and spiritual life. Dr Amy Lim is an art historian and curator, specialising in British fine and decorative arts from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. She is curator of the Farringdon Collection at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, and of the  Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham. She is also an exhibition researcher at Tate, contributing to British Baroque: Power and Illusion (2020) and the forthcoming Women Artists in Britain. Amy has degrees in History and Literature & Arts from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. She runs an online art dealership, and has published articles and essays on a variety of art-related topics from gothic garden monuments to female patronage.  Click here for more information about Dr Amy Lim. 

WEAVING CULTURES OF THE AMERICAS: THE CONTINUOUS THREAD – CHLOË SAYER

A common thread links the Incas of Peru, the Maya of Central America, the Aztecs of Mexico and the Navajo of the American Southeast. Artists in cloth, they have created some of the finest textiles in the history of the world. Our lecturer, Chloë Sayer is a freelance specialist in Latin American art and culture. She is a Research Associate with the Department for World Cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, and curated their recent exhibition¡Viva México! Clothing & Culture (2015-2016). She is the author of the accompanying book, published in 2015. Her other books include MEXICAN TEXTILES (British Museum Press, 1990), THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF MEXICO (Thames & Hudson, 1990), THE INCAS - THE ANCIENT WORLD (Wayland Publishers, 1998), TEXTILES FROM MEXICO  (British Museum Press, 2002) and FIESTA: DAYS OF THE DEAD AND OTHER MEXICAN FESTIVALS (British Museum Press, 2009).