Liberty of London is far more than just a shop; it is also a byword for luxury and innovation.  Founded in 1876, at the height of the 19th century craze for all things Aesthetic and Japanese, it was an immediate success.  Its Oriental textiles, Middle-Eastern rugs, and Artistic accessories and dress were widely admired and the shop was beloved by connoisseurs such as the painter James McNeill Whistler and the critic Oscar Wilde as well as by the cream of London's fashionable elite.

Our speaker is Joanna Banham. 

Jo Banham is a freelance curator, lecturer and writer. From 2006-2016 she was Head of Adult Learning at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and before that Head of Learning and Access at the National Portrait Gallery, and Head of Public Programmes at Tate Britain. She has also been Curator of Leighton House and Assistant Keeper at the Whitworth Art Gallery. She has published on many aspects of Victorian and early 20th century decoration and interiors. She recently curated an exhibition on William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement for the Juan March Fundacion in Madrid and the Museu Nacional d’Art Catalunya in Barcelona and she is currently writing a book on the History of Wallpaper. She is also Director of the Victorian Society Summer School.

Take a gourmet's journey through the origins of festive fayre and the traditions we have adopted and adapted from Georgian and Victorian times. From the turkey stagecoach to the drinking of Port with Stilton cheese and the custom of wiping one's mouth on the tablecloth (!) - all revealed in the fascinating portrayal of our Christmas customs.

Our speaker is Jane Tapley:

Currently Special Events Organiser, Theatre Royal Bath. Interviews visiting actors, writers, directors. Lectures regularly to theatre going societies, NT and history and fine arts groups. West Country Tourist Board Registered Blue Badge Guide and Lecturer. Author and researcher of theatre programme notes on Hamlet, Sheridan's The Rivals and Jane Austen's Emma. Theatrical landlady! Home Economist. Consultant to various TV productions of Jane Austen adaptations on food in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hosts and cooks period meals in her Regency house in Bath for the Jane Austen Festival and other literary groups.

This lecture covers the life, art and times of one of Britain's greatest artists from the last hundred years: David Hockney. He truly made a bigger splash. He was essentially a figurative artist who painted or made artworks of subjects he loved. And those subjects ranged from people (his mother, Celia Birtwell and Peter Schlesinger) to places (California, Yorkshire and Normandy). Despite brief dalliances with Pop Art and Abstraction, the art movement that most captured his imagination was Cubism, with its ability to depict people and places from different perspectives at the same time.

Our speaker is Raymond Warburton

Ray has had a life-long love of art. However, in his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. These studies led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. But all that changed in 2011, when Ray became a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Then from 2014 to 2017, he studied art history at the Open University, and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he gained an MA in the History of Art. And to cap it all, Ray became an Arts Society lecturer in 2017. Ray also knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of lectures as he is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

Why did miners paint the mines? For almost 200 years coal was to power the industrialisation of Britain – the first nation to experience its ‘industrial revolution’. Coalmining changed landscapes, working practices, and the demography of towns and spawned the many other heavy industries that changed society for ever. The mines were a filthy cacophony of dangerous claustrophobic tunnels swathed in a blinding darkness, yet, from these desperate conditions emerged many men who found a beauty and a majesty both underground and in the pit yard that they wanted to express in art.

Our speaker is Robert McManners

A doctor by profession, Robert is a practising artist and book illustrator he regularly holds exhibitions of his work which is also held in many collections. His main interests are local history and mining art. He has delivered art lectures to, amongst others, the Friends of the Bowes Museum, the Art Fund, various U3As, Bishop Auckland Civic Society and Nunnington Hall, York, as well as to the Mining and Mechanics Institute, Newcastle and numerous Member Societies of The Arts Society. With writing colleague Gillian Wales, for the last 30 years Robert has researched, written about and collected mining art. In 2017, in conjunction with The Auckland Project, they opened the country’s first dedicated mining art gallery displaying their Gemini Collection. It receives great acclaim.   Publications include the books: The Zurbarans at Auckland Castle (2010) and with Gillian Wales - Tom McGuinness – the art of an underground miner 1997, Shafts of Light - Mining Art in the Great Northern Coalfield (2002), McGuinness – Interpreting the Art of Tom McGuinness (2006), Durham Portraits (2007), The Quintessential Cornish – the life and work of Norman Cornish (2009), A Way to the Better – the history of the Spennymoor Settlement (2011).  Robert was awarded the OBE in 2014 for his contribution to culture and the arts in the North East.

The long shadow of the Arts and Crafts Movement has hung over English gardening for most of the twentieth century. The dominance of Miss Jekyll and the enduring popularity of gardens at Hidcote and Sissinghurst have proved to be an enduring legacy. There were always subversive undercurrents of alternative styles and influences which, as the new century gets into its stride, have gained a greater importance and momentum.

Our speaker is James Bolton

He qualified at the Inchbald School of Design in 1990 (Dip ISD). James then worked as Head Gardener at the  Old Rectory Farnborough from 1990-92. He has been Faculty Director of  Design History at the  Inchbald School of Design and a  Garden Designer from 1992. He is organiser of The Arts Society's garden study days and tours in UK and Europe.  James organises tours to the best private gardens in the UK, Italy, France and South Africa. He has written the book - Garden Mania, a book on garden ornaments, published in 2000.

William Hogarth (1697-1764) was the first great British artist and we will revel in the range and quality of his work. A Harlot's Progress and The Rake's Progress show us Georgian London in all its highs and low. Industry and Idleness together with the series Marriage a la Mode also celebrate the diversity of human life. We admire too his gorgeous 'one-offs' such as The Shrimp Girl, The Heads of his Six Servants and other revealing portraits. Pugnacious, sensitive, large-hearted - how is Hogarth's character mirrored in his art?

Our speaker is  Andrew Davies

Andre is an Extra-Mural Tutor for London, Essex and The Open University. He is the author of 9 books, including The East End Nobody Knows. He is  frequent contributor to radio and television and has lectured all over the world. He organises walks to complement his lectures.

Uzbekistan in the heart of Central Asia boasts glittering mosques, madrassahs and minarets in the Silk Road cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. These contrast wonderfully with the brutalist Soviet buildings of Tashkent, Urgench and Nukus. This lecture is an overview of the country, and a primer for anyone thinking of visiting. We explore the Savitsky Museum in Nukus, with the second largest collection of Russian Avante Garde Art, collected at a time when these artistic styles were banned by the state.

Our speaker is Chris Aslan.

Chris Aslan was born in Turkey and was raised there and in war-torn Beirut. This set him on a course for an adventurous life and he has spent two years at sea, and lived in Central Asia for 15 years. He started off in Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, and becoming the largest non-government employer in town. He was deported as part of an anti-Western purge, and took a year in Cambridge to write A Carpet Ride to Khiva. Chris then spent several years in the Pamirs mountains of Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down. Next came a couple more years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut wood and establishing a wood-carving workshop. Since then, Chris has studied and rowed at Oxford and now divides his time between lecturing for the Arts Society, writing fiction and non-fiction in his mountainous home overlooking the sea in North Cyprus where he is overrun by cats, and returning to Central Asia to lead tours whenever he can, having left a large chunk of his heart there. His latest book is Unravelling the Silk Road.