Textiles (11th century Romanesque art/ post-conquest)

Bayeux Tapestry on display at the British Museum from September 2026 to June 2027

For the first time in almost 1,000 years, the Bayeux Tapestry will come back to Britain; a landmark cultural partnership with France while the museum in Normandy is closed for construction

What is the Bayeux Tapestry really all about? A power struggle, dynastic rivalries, broken promises, diplomatic relations in peril, military prowess and the building of a superpower? How was this amazing document in stitch made, when and possibly why? What has been the history of this brilliant but fragile object throughout its life? Its conservation has brought new data to light. How important is this piece of history as an object to foster 'entente-cordiale' and to link nations today?

Biography

Formerly a curator and Print Room Superintendent at the British Museum, is now Art History Education Officer in the Department of Learning & National Partnerships at the Museum. Hilary lectures for British Museum and the Wallace Collection. She was a founding Artistic Director of The Arts Society of North Kent Evening. As a specialist in 17th century art, she has published on Rembrandt and has vast experience of giving gallery talks, of lecturing and of leading art history tours in UK, Europe, New York and Boston. For the Royal Collection Trust, she has guided Special Interest Private Tours of the State Apartments at Buckingham Palace.

Image Harold Godwinson is slain, Bayeux Tapestry Wikimedia Commons

A pictorial history of drinking glasses through the ages, studied through images of actual objects and through paintings. The lecture will focus particularly on the development of the wine glass, but will also look at glasses designed for other beverages, such as: beer, cider, ale, cordial etc. It will consider the drinking habits of different countries and the types of glass associated with those countries, e.g. the Venetian wingstemmed glass, the German roemer, the Dutch flute and the English balusterstemmed glass; and will discuss the association of fine glass drinking vessels with feasting and conviviality.

Biography

MA History of Art, University of London. Trained at the V&A and continues to lecture there. Was Senior Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art for 17 years, becoming a Deputy Director of Sotheby's, UK. Has also lectured for the National Trust, the Art Fund, London University, Buckingham University, l'Institut d'Etudes Superieures des Arts in Paris, a private women's college in Saudi Arabia, on cruise ships and at antiques fairs and interior design conferences in America.

Image credit: WeTransfer

1685 was an extraordinary year for music. Two of the world’s greatest composers were born 130 km and just one month apart. Much of their childhood development mirrored the other including the tragedy of losing their fathers at the age of ten. Their careers took very different directions, and they never met, despite several near misses. Patrick will reunite these two giants, tracking their lives across six decades, with a special focus on their vocal music, which has inspired his career as both a countertenor and a conductor. 

Image Wikipedia public domain

Late 19th and early 20th century painting (Impressionism)

Major Renoir Exhibition 3rd October 2026, to 31st January, 2027, entitled Renoir and Love – see description from National Gallery below

In the centenary year of the death of Auguste Renoir this lecture will consider his early training and influences as a boy copying painters in The Louvre. We will examine his extraordinary use of vibrant colour and loose brushstrokes as well as his sometimes-flamboyant lifestyle and warm sensual approach to painting a variety of different subjects. Attention will be paid to his loves, muses and to his children. One of whom will go on to be a famous French film maker. We will explore his exotic travels to Algeria, Spain and Italy and end with a consideration of his paintings in later life despite progressive deformities in his hands.

Biography

Jacqueline is Managing Director of Art and Culture Travel, running residential courses in Andalucía, Southern Spain in the art and culture of the region as well as curated tours to Madrid, Tangiers, Barcelona, Paris and Venice. Jacqueline is a course director and lecturer at the V&A and also lectures at The Royal Academy, She has toured New Zealand and Australia for The Arts Society. Her specialist field is Spanish Art, but she also lectures on European Art 1790-1950. She is currently working on a Monograph on Goya (Prestel, Spring 2024)

(The National Gallery major new show entitled Renoir and Love

3 October 2026 – 31 January 2027

Fall in love with Renoir and his Impressionist paintings at the National Gallery. 

Discover Renoir’s gift for showing love, friendship, and everyday emotion in this Impressionist exhibition. See couples waltzing in the summer air and lovers stealing a glance, families sharing a quiet moment and friends raising a glass, all through the eyes of an artist unmatched in capturing the complexities of how people connect. Experience Renoir at his peak in the 1860s to 1880s, experimenting with style and theme to become an innovator of Impressionism.  

Walk with him through Montmartre in his iconic painting 'Bal au Moulin de la Galette' (1876) from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, on display in the UK for the first time. Explore the sun-dappled gardens and swirling dance halls of Paris through 40 paintings, brought together from collections across the world. 

Linked through friendship and love, enjoy the tenderness and joy of some of Renoir’s most modern, uplifting and admired paintings. 

Exhibition organised by the Musée d’Orsay, the National Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.) 

Image credit: Pierre-Auguste Renoir Luncheon of the Boating Party Google Art Project

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. 

Biography: 

A writer and broadcaster. Appears on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and contributes to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide. Lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe. Recent appearances include Klimt and The Kiss in cinemas worldwide, and talks for the Hay and Cheltenham Literature Festivals, the Royal Opera House, the National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum and the V&A. His first book, A Home for All Seasons, is out now.

Image The Kiss Gustav Klimt Wikimedia Commons

Century of Gold: Spanish Art in the age of Velazquez

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain rose as the great European superpower with an empire spanning the globe. This vast wealth, alongside the renewed catholic fervour of the counter reformation kickstarted the Spanish siglo d’oro – literally the century of gold - the great flourishing of painting, sculpture, literature and music. The lecture explores this period, looking at the historical moment and vast array of art before focusing on the work of the greatest painter of the age, Diego Velázquez.

Biography:

Isabelle is an academic and educator specialising in the baroque, with a particular focus on Spain and its empire. She received a BA and MPhil in History of Art from Trinity College, Cambridge, where she is currently completing her PhD on the art of Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán. From 2017 to 2019 she worked as the Enriqueta Harris Frankfort Curatorial Assistant at the Wallace Collection and in 2020 her book, Collecting Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in Britain and Ireland was published by CEEH. Alongside her academia, Isabelle is an expert guide for a travel company, leading groups around Spain and beyond, and she also teaches regularly for the V&A, Art Fund, Royal Academy, Chelsea Arts Club, Wallace Collection and University of Cambridge.

Image Creative Commons El Expoloio by El Greco

Whenever a major museum is robbed of its treasures, the BBC website reports the event under the heading, ‘Entertainment’. 

The implications of this are more interesting than they at first seem. Art thefts have been a constant presence in the news media since the early decades of the 20th century and Hollywood and international cinema were not slow to catch on to the general public's fascination with these dark developments.

Biography

Dr Tom Flynn is a UK-based art historian, writer and art consultant. He holds a First Class Honours degree in Art History from the University of Sussex, a Masters in Design History from the Royal College of Art and a doctorate from the University of Sussex. His interests include contemporary art; sculpture history; museology and the history of  museums; art crime; issues in cultural heritage; and the historical development and professional practice of the European art markets.   He is Senior Lecturer at Christie’s Education, Adjunct Professor at Richmond, the American International University in London, visiting Senior Lecturer at Kingston School of Art, and teaches at a number of other UK and European universities. He taught for many years on the summer Post-Graduate Certificate in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection Studies at the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art (ARCA) in Amelia, Umbria, Italy. A former Henry Moore Foundation post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Sussex, he has written for numerous international art publications and is the author of The Body in Sculpture (Everyman Art Library, 1998), and co-editor (with Dr Tim Barringer) of Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum (Routledge, 1997). He has written monographs on a number of British contemporary sculptors, including Sean Henry, Terence Coventry and Charlotte Meyer. His most recent book, The A to Z of the International Art Market was published by Bloomsbury Press in 2016 and published in a Chinese edition in 2019.

Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary in 1923 that she longed to escape ‘the damned egotistical self’ in her novels. Woolf’s own theories of elusive character in fiction suggest that it is harder to pin this iconic writer down than critics often make out. This talk combines close literary reading, biography, and discussion of the representations of Woolf in art and popular culture to show just how elusive Woolf remains.

Biography

Benedict Morrison is a lecturer in Literature and Film at the University of Exeter. He has recently published a book entitled, Complicating Articulation in Art Cinema, with Oxford University Press and is now producing works on post-war British comedy films, the response by the arts and humanities to Covid-19, and cultural narratives of extinction. He spent seven years studying at the University of Oxford, but finally traded the dreaming spires for the cultural bustle of London, where he lives with his partner. He loves nothing more than settling down in the darkness of a cinema to enjoy a great film.

Image Virginia Woolfe 

If you think of St Pancras International or New York Grand Central Terminus you imagine long romantic journeys. You know they are special places promising excitement and adventure. But there are dozens of other glorious stations in the UK and overseas. We will take a journey around some of the most evocative and splendid stations in the world. We will look not only at the magnificence of the architecture and brilliant engineering but will also discover numerous artworks within the stations and examine many depictions of stations in art: Claude Monet’s Gare St Lazare or William Powell Frith’s Paddington. It may sound a bit anoraky, but it’s definitely not.   

Biography:

A Londoner with a contagious enthusiasm for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern,Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is also a freelance London tour guide. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. He is an Accredited Lecturer of The Arts Society and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City livery companies.

Image: Creative Commons Antwerp Central Railway Station