The vast majority of historic buildings have never been researched. Many well-known or high-status structures have not been studied in depth. There are literally thousands of mediaeval and early modern timber-framed buildings which are hidden in plain sight. This talk will use buildings archaeology to open the doors of ordinary-looking houses standing in towns, villages and the countryside to show how there is a fabulous wealth of unknown or unidentified historic buildings standing in virtually every settlement. We will look at why so many ancient buildings have gone unnoticed, the evidence for later facades masking much earlier fabric and how to date historic structures.

About the Lecturer

Dr James Wright FSA (Triskele Heritage), is an award winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the past. He is the author of Historic Building Mythbusting and The Buildings Archaeologist.

In the 19th century Denmark lost its territories and global power…but produced its finest art. This lecture looks at how landscape painting was used to restore a sense of the nation and what a powerful political and emotional tool it can be. Paintings examined range from plein air works, painted decades before the France’s Barbican school, to meticulous idealised vistas of the Danish Golden Age. We will look at late 19th century works from the artists' colony in the remote Danish fishing village of Skagen, which are highly reminiscent of the Newlyn School. We’ll see how the two, whilst growing in parallel, are linked not only by Barbizon influences, but the painters Marianne Stokes and her husband Adrian Scott-Stokes. Fin-de-siècle symbolist paintings will prove a revelation to those unfamiliar with Danish fine arts. And the talk will show how Jutland, Denmark’s peninsula bordering Germany, became a new motif, suggesting agricultural possibilities and a sunny northern Riviera. Nordic art from this period has only been rediscovered outside Scandinavia in the last 40 years, and this talk provides a great taster of what to expect from the region’s superb art treasures. 

About the Lecturer

James Vaux is a researcher and lecturer based in Chichester. He specialises in Nordic arts, culture, design and history, and Modernism more generally. An Oxford graduate, he had a career in law and banking, living and working in Scandinavia. James holds an MA (Distinction) from UCL in Scandinavian Studies (Culture and History). He has also studied interior design and art history at the Inchbald School and Mid-Century Modern at Sotheby’s Institute. 

Cindy Polemis explores the discombobulating world of Op-Art  art- how artists like  Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely used shapes, patterns and eye-popping colours to  create artworks which bedazzle our eyes.

They say seeing is believing—but as Op-Art reveals, you can't always believe your eyes. Short for "Optical Art," Op Art is characterized by geometric patterns that seem to vibrate, swirl, or bend as you view them. In some cases, viewers reported experiencing vertigo and nausea, proving the power of images to bring on physical responses.  Artists have long been interested in the nature of perception. The 1950s saw advances in psychology and technology and new insights into the relationship between the outside world, our vision, our brain, and our experiences. Op Art was established as a movement  which was rooted in the very experience of seeing.

Cindy Polemis is an art historian and an independent lecturer. She has a B.A in History from Oxford University  and as a mature student she graduated from Birkbeck College, London University with a B.A  and then M.A.  in History of Art. She spent many years as a radio producer and presenter for BBC World Service. Since 2016 she has been a lecturer and official art guide at Tate Modern and Tate Britain. She is a specialist guide at Frieze Masters London and an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society along with several other independent organisations. Cindy has accumulated a wide range of art historical knowledge ranging from 18th century European and British art to the contemporary.

Was Napoleon killed by his green wallpaper? 

This story begins in 1775 with a German chemist and his experiments with arsenic. The resulting powerful green reached its height of popularity when worn by "Queen of Fashion", Empress Eugénie. It was printed on wallpaper by Morris & Co. and was a favourite of plein-air artists, such as Monet, Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh, keen to capture the freshness of nature. But a century later, it was rebranded as rat-poison.

In 1856 a chemistry student took home a school project to make synthetic quinine. He failed his home-work, but accidentally invented a vibrant purple dye. Queen Victoria and Empress Eugénie wore dresses in the season’s must-have shade. Punch magazine dubbed the craze: “the mauve measles”!

Scheele’s Green and Perkins’ Mauveine were forerunners of hundreds of synthetic dyes and pigments. You will hear fascinating stories – of serendipitous discoveries, industrial enterprise, and some very sinister secrets.

Early experiments with arsenic resulted in a powerful green colour which became popular for dress fabrics, wallpaper and artists’s paints in the 19th century.  

You will hear other fascinating stories of serendipitous discoveries - along with some very sinister secrets.

 Lynne Gibson:

Now working as a freelance lecturer in the History of Art, Lynne originally trained as a fine artist and has taught painting, drawing and printmaking in higher and adult education. She lectured as an art historian for the universities of Sussex and Bristol where she introduced 'Understanding Art' to the Lifelong Learning programme and residential summer schools. Gives talks, lectures and guided tours to a wide range of organisations and institutions including ARCA colleges, the National Trust, Art museums and Art societies. She has worked as a professional artist specialising in oil painting and etching. Solo and group shows have included the RWA, British Museum and the Barbican. All titles available as lectures or study days.

Before Van Dyck was the great portraitist of the English aristocracy he was a child protégée. In this lecture we will look at his early career, from his relationship with Rubens, a mentor turned rival, to his travels in Italy and first brief trip to England. During this time he produced some of his most daring, experimental and impressive works, and developed a style that would come to define European portraiture for generations to come.

Isabelle Kent

Isabelle is an academic and educator specialising in the art and culture of Spain. After reading History of Art at Cambridge she worked at The Wallace Collection where she fell in love with adult education and teaching in front of the object. Since then, she has taught widely for museums and universities including V&A, Cambridge, NYU and Cornell. She has published on the art of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Diego Velázquez and Francisco Goya, and she is currently completing a PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge.

You will see the work of Margaret Calvert every day around Truro, and the whole of Britain: she designer our road signs, from the quirky ‘Men At Work’ to the 'Farm Crossing' cow sign and the typeface so familiar to Brits. She also designed the lettering used by Gatwick and other airports from the 1950s, British Rail from the 1960s, the NHS in the 1970s...and she’s still working today in her 80s, believing that it's better to use a pencil than a computer! She is quite literally the Woman Who Told Us Where To Go!.

Fascinated by design since childhood, Mark Ovenden is an author, broadcaster and lecturer whose best-selling books have been translated into many languages.  Critics say Mark brings “joyful insight and accessibility” to what might may appear dry or technical subjects. His “infectious enthusiasm enthrals audiences”. His books focus on the design, architecture, signage and typefaces of public transport networks. His TV and radio work includes presenting documentaries on maps, typefaces, and also on skyscrapers. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Master of Arts (M.A.), and has a sizeable social media following. 

On a February day, come and immerse yourself in a world of spring flowers as you discover the history of the famous Turkish Iznik ceramics. Carnations, tulips, hyacinths and roses were among the most popular decorative motifs. We will trace the history of Iznik ware from its origins imitating Chinese porcelain to its 16th-century heyday and subsequent decline. 

Dr Antonia Gatward Cevizli is an independent art historian specialising in both Italian Renaissance art and Ottoman art. She gained her PhD from the University of Warwick. Her publications focus on cultural and diplomatic exchange between the Italian city-states and the Ottomans. Antonia has lectured for a number of institutions including Sabancı University, Istanbul; Sotheby’s Institute of Art; the National Gallery; the V&A Academy and The Courtauld summer school. Her interests are wide-ranging and she also worked across the collections of both Tate Modern and Tate Britain as a professional guide. She has lived in Siena, Venice and Istanbul.

Despite its superb location, beautiful harbour and quaint buildings having made it one of the most painted spots in Britain, Polperro is the forgotten art centre of Cornwall, and the story of Art in Polperro had not been told before David's two volume history in 2021.  

This lecture examines why Plymouth based artists were the first to paint in the village and why the coming of the railway had little impact.  It also looks at why Polperro never really developed into a colony.  Despite this, the picturesqueness of the village has ensured that countless artists from around the world have painted its charms.  Indeed, it is the international element that is of particular interest and the talk will showcase a range of American, German, Dutch, Austrian and French artist vistors, as well as the first Chinese modernist painter, Teng-Hiok Chiu.  There will also be a reference to “the Polperro Polemicists”, led by Arthur Wragg, whose biting satirical works during the 1930s were felt to have led to an increased awareness of the need for a more caring form of Government and, ultimately, to the introduction of the Welfare State.  The talk will be illustrated with a wide range of paintings in varying styles.

“Surely there cannot be another place of such quaint rarity - medieval charm set in a gem of Cornwall’s most rugged rock scenery - unique and inimitable.”
(Western Morning News, 12/8/1925)

“Polperro would be hard to beat for strong-smelling picturesqueness....
Inevitably, therefore, it is invaded each summer by long-haired artists, mostly foreign.”
(The Bystander, 12/4/1911)

“An artist need not go out of his way to find material for his brush and pencil as everything is near at hand  
- there are pictures at every turn.  It is simply magnificent in every way
and someone wishing for models will find the Polperro children superb
and the Cornish fisherman a splendid type of manhood, picturesque and courteous to strangers.”
(Letter from Paris atelier master Auguste Delécluse from Polperro to his American colleague, Edward Ertz, 1894)

About the lecturer
David Tovey is an independent art historian, who specializes in Cornish Art, particularly the art centres of St Ives, Newlyn, Lamorna and Polperro. Since 2000, he has curated numerous exhibitions on Cornish art for art galleries around the country, working particularly closely with Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance and St Ives Museum.  These exhibitions included Polperro - Cornwall's Forgotten Art Centre at Falmouth Art Gallery in 2022.  He has also written numerous books, including a series of ground-breaking detailed studies of both the artistic and social history of the St Ives art colony, a two volume history of art in Polperro (a subject never previously researched) and a two volume artistic, social and literary history of Lamorna.  David produces a regular newsletter, The Siren, with details of his latest research into the St Ives colony, which can be viewed on his website www.stivesart.info.  He is also Editor and chief contributor to The Flagstaff, the six monthly magazine of the Lamorna Society,  His own collection of St Ives art is currently being exhibited over a four year period at St Ives Museum.

Charlie describes artists and photographers who have inspired him and shaped his work, especially Ansel Adams, the great American landscape photographer and the first to use the concept of ‘pre-visualisation’. 

Charlie Waite is one of the world’s leading landscape photographers.

He was born in 1949 and worked as an actor in British theatre and television for the first ten years of his professional life. Throughout this period, he became fascinated by theatrical lighting and design. Gradually, the landscape and the way it can be revealed to us through light and shade stole him away from the acting profession.

His style is unique in that his photographs convey a spiritual quality of serenity and calm. He has established a worldwide reputation for his particular approach to his work. His photographs are held in private and corporate collections throughout the world.

Over the last thirty-five years, Charlie has lectured throughout the UK, Europe and the US. He has held numerous solo exhibitions all over the world, including in London, Tokyo, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, New York and California.

He was awarded the prestigious honorary Fellowship of the British Institute of Professional Photographers and was invited by the Royal Academy to exhibit in 2015's summer exhibition.

Charlie is the owner and founder of Light and Land, the UK’s leading photographic workshop and tour company, running photographic tours, courses and workshops that are dedicated to inspiring photographers and improving their photography, both in the UK and worldwide.

In 2007, Charlie launched the UK Landscape Photographer of the Year, an annual international photography competition to find the UK’s ‘Landscape Photographer of the Year’, which ties in perfectly with his desire to share his passion and appreciation of the beauty of our surroundings through photography.

No English king is as well-known to us as Henry VIII. He is famous for six marriages, breaking with the Pope, dissolving the monasteries and creating the Church of England; and for his ruthless elimination of those who stood in his way.  But he was also an enthusiastic patron of the arts whose palaces, tapestries and paintings enriched the Tudor court and began the Royal Collection. The forces that influenced Henry’s life can be seen in the works he commissioned, by artists such as Pietro Torrigiano, Hans Holbein and Giralomo da Treviso. They tell us much about his kingship and (unintentionally) his insecurities. Ultimately, each of the works contained some aspect of one central story: the glorification of Henry and his England.

Siobhan Clarke

Siobhan Clarke BA Hons has worked for Historic Royal Palaces for 20 years delivering tours and lectures on Hampton Court, Kensington, the Tower of London and the Banqueting House, Whitehall Palace. Her experience includes education sessions and tours for schools, universities, corporate and private clients.  She has lectured for the British Museum, National Trust, National Archives and the Smithsonian and featured on BBC Radio 'Woman's Hour' and Television's 'Secrets of Henry VIII's Palace'. 

Her published work includes: 'A Tudor Christmas', in collaboration with Alison Weir, (2018), 'The Tudors: The Crown, The Dynasty, The Golden Age' with Linda Collins (2019), 'King and Collector: Henry VIII and the Art of Kingship' (2021) and 'Gloriana: Elizabeth I and the Art of Queenship' (2022).

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.

Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe has an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh,and a PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University. With 40 years' experience as a lecturer, she has taught at Sotheby's Institute of Art on the MA in Fine and Decorative Arts since 1989, and as a freelance lecturer for a number of societies and institutions in London, including the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection. Having also trained as a paintings conservator, she brings an understanding of the making and the physical painting of works to her lectures.

Ralph will bring some silver for the audience to handle and examine, and after discussing its manufacture and social relevance, he reveals the trials and tribulations that befell the original owners.

Because silver carries hallmarks it is possible to identify where it was made, who made it, and where. If heraldry has been engraved on it, then it is possible to identify the original owner. Ralph has collected a number of pieces that are good representations of mid eighteenth century rococo design and has been able to build stories around them having visited the properties where they were originally housed and researched the lives of their owners, who invariably got into trouble, either financial or marital. But thinking about the original critical importance of candlesticks for lighting, tea kettles for the provision of hot water for the all important tea ritual, sauce boats for newly imported dining habits from France all open a window to Georgian life.

Ralph Hoyle's interest in silver began as a schoolboy when he collected silver wine labels. Now he writes articles and gives talks concentrating on silver of the middle years of the eighteenth century.

Sarah Cove is an accredited paintings conservator and technical art historian.   
She has been instrumental in the attribution of three significant Constable oils for BBC 1’s Fake or Fortune? series. 

An epic tale of two extraordinary figures from the same valley in Yorkshire who were destined to change the world of fashion and design for all time.