2025 Lecture Programme

Thursday 16th January 2025 - Mary Branson

New Dawn - A memorial to Women's Suffrage, Houses of Parliament

Mary Branson is best known for her large scale conceptual light installations, particularly the iconic New Dawn 2016 sculpture in the Houses of Parliament, which celebrates the centenary of the Suffrage movement and is the first permanent piece of contemporary abstract art in the Palace of Westminster.

Thursday 20th February 2025 - Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Gardens of the Restoration

The last splendid flowering of the formal Italianate garden in this country.  The Royalist landowners returning from exile on Charles II’s Restoration in 1660 brought with them, from Holland or France, new tastes in garden design, and a longing to put down roots.

Thursday 20th March 2025 - Stephen Duffy

The Incomparable Empress Josephine - Collector/Gardener

Napoleon’s Empress, Joséphine de Beauharnais, was a passionate gardener, patron and art collector. Her reputation for generosity, charm and gentleness of manner was of enormous value to Napoleon as a counterweight to the otherwise military and legalistic tenor of his regime.

Thursday 17th April 2025 - Joanne Rhymer

How to look Slowly - Impressionism

Looking slowly at an Impressionist painting might at first seem counter-intuitive, since one of the concepts associated with Impressionism is that the artist captures quickly in paint a fleeting, fugitive moment. Although their works frequently appear to have been painted speedily, in reality, this was not always the case.

Thursday 15th May 2025 - Anne Haworth

Blue and White Porcelain

Blue and white porcelain is exceptionally beautiful: decorative yet durable. It originated in China, and has been copied in ceramic workshops from Persia to Holland and Britain.