The Arts Society Woking's Talk Programme 2017
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| All Speakers are carefully chosen
based on their reputation for attractive
and well-presented talks with good
pictures. Talks take place on the
second Wednesday of each month except
July and August. |
| Talks commence promptly at
10.30am at
The Lord Roberts Centre,
Bisley Camp,
Brookwood,
Woking
GU24 0NP |
| This
website includes an
Interactive map. |
| Coffee and biscuits are served from
9.45am. |
| Members may bring a visitor, but
the same person may not be a guest more
than twice a year. While we do not
charge a Visitors fee, Visitors may want
to make a donation to the Society of
(say) £5. |
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For the 2016 Talk
Programme, please click here |
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January
11th 2017 |
Talk:America’s Realist:
The Art of Edward Hopper
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Speaker:
Eric Shanes |
Eric Shanes is a painter and has
various works in public places.
He is also an Art historian, a
speaker and an author of 11
bestselling books. |
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Edward Hopper
(1882-1927) was the
most important representational
painter the United States of
America produced in the
twentieth-century. His work
wholly captures the loneliness,
alienation, stagnation and
spiritual vacuity of modern
urban and rural life. The
talk will explore Hopper’s
development, from his training
in France as a minor
impressionist artist, through
his career as a commercial
illustrator, to his emergence
and triumph as the supreme
realist artist of the American
scene in modern times. |
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February
8th
2017 |
Talk: Mille Miglia Cars
and Culture
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Speaker: Dr Libby Horner |
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Libby Horner has been an Arts
Society
speaker for 15 years. She is a
freelance art historian,
curator, film producer, speaker
and writer and has a PhD in
Victorian Art & Architecture;
has worked as a graphic designer
in the Middle East and in Hong
Kong. |
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In 1955 Stirling Moss and Denis
Jenkinson (above) won the 1000
mile open-road endurance race
round Italy in a Mercedes Benz
300 SLR with a staggering
average speed of 98.53 mph. In
2014 Libby, driving a red Alfa
Romeo followed the route in a
more leisurely fashion. In a
multi-media talk combining
photographs, film, songs, and
quotations from writers and
poets she offers a kaleidoscopic
view of the cars and characters
involved in the race from its
inception in 1927.
It is a light-hearted,
end-of-season tour around some
of the iconic hill towns and
villages of Italy; beautiful
Soave, Palladian Vicenza,
Henriques’ sculptures at
Peralta, Giotto murals in Padua
and so on. |
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March
8th 2017 |
Talk: A Portrait Of
Nelson
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Speaker: Peter Warwick |
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Peter Warwick has been chairman
of 1805 Club commemorating
Nelson and played a key role in
the planning of the Trafalgar
Festival and Sea Britain in 2005
and has written articles on
Nelson and naval history. It is
his sixth visit. |
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Admiral Horatio Lord
Nelson (1758 - 1805)
sat for more artists and
sculptors than most famous
people, other than royalty.
Their works tell his life’s
story and reveal a man of many
parts and moods that reflect on
his public and private life,
including the ménage a trois
with Sir William and Lady
Hamilton. Who was the real
Nelson? |
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April
12th 2017 |
Talk: Roland Penrose
(1900-1984 and Lee Miller
(1907-1977)
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Speaker: Antony Penrose |
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Antony Penrose, son of Roland
Penrose & Lee Miller, is a
photographer and director of Lee
Miller Archive & Penrose
Collection at Farley Farm
Sussex. This is his first visit. |
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Lee and Roland spent their last
decades of their life together
there where many prominent
Surrealist and Modern artists
frequented. This is the story of
Roland Penrose, British
Surrealist artist and biographer
of Picasso and Lee Miller, the
American Surrealist
photographer, who shot fashion
and combat with equal talent
seen through the eyes of their
son Antony Penrose, who is also
their biographer. We look at how
their early lives formed their
motivations and how they strove
to use art to make the world a
better place. |
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May 10th 2017 |
Talk: Vivaldi in Venice
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Speaker: Peter Medhurst GRSM
ARCM |
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Peter Medhurst is a
speaker-recitalist who is on
his 7th visit to Woking. |
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Antonio Vivaldi
(1678-1741) is the one
Baroque composer whose music is
a direct reflection of the city
in which it was composed. Listen
to a Vivaldi concert and, hey
presto, you are transported
directly to the heart of 18th
century Venice. There are many
reasons: Vivaldi’s passion for
colour, display and spectacle in
his music; the unusual way in
which Venice solved its problems
with the poor and the homeless;
Vivaldi’s health problems and
his eccentricities as a man and
a priest. Against the luxurious
backdrop of 18th century Venice,
& with live musical
performances, the talk
explores the amazing world of
Vivaldi’s music that is
intrinsically Venetian as
Canaletto’s art. |
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June
14th 2017 |
Talk: As if by Magic: The
Secrets of Turner’s Watercolour
Techniques
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Speaker: Nicola Moorby BA |
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Nicola Moorby BA MA. Nicola is a
freelance art historian
specialising in British art of
the 19th & early 20th centuries.
She studied at the University of
York & Birkbeck College, London
and formerly worked at Tate
Britain as a curator and
researcher. She has curated and
published widely on J.M.W
Turner, including for the
current on-line updated
catalogue of the Turner Bequest,
and is co-editor and author of
How to paint like Turner.
This is her second visit. |
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July
2017 |
No Talk (Summer
break)
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August 2017 |
No Talk (Summer
break)
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September
13th
2017 |
Talk: Temples, Tombs and
Treasures: In search of the
Queen of Sheba
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Speaker: Louise Schofield BA
(Hons) Dip Class Arch. |
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Louise was for 13 years Curator
of Greek Bronze Age Antiquities
at the British Museum and was
responsible for the Mycenaean
collection. She has worked on
international archaeological
digs in Turkey, Albania & Greece
& since 2006 spent some time
living in a tent in a small
village in Tigray province,
north-eastern Ethiopia- Now
directing archaeological
conservation on a temple
probably dedicated to the moon
god dating to the 5 th century
BC- a time when this area formed
part of the Kingdom of Sheba.
Excavations undertaken there in
April & May 2015 have uncovered
a rich cemetery which includes
an extraordinary burial of a
2000 year old Ethiopian
‘Sleeping Beauty’. This is
Louise’s second visit to Woking. |
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October
11th
2017 |
Talk: The Book as Art:
Form and Function in Creative
Book Structures
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Speaker: Dominic Riley |
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Dominic Riley is a bookbinder,
artist and teacher. This is his
first visit to Woking. |
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This talk illustrates the
potential of the book as a three
dimensional object, from popups,
hidden fore-edge paintings,
peep-show books, to books with
hidden compartments and
intriguing surprises. Whatever
the reason for the creation of
these unusual books, playfulness
and humour is always a guiding
principle. Dominic will show
work from his favourite book
artists, including examples of
experimental book structures he
has collected and some he has
made himself as part of his
interest in this creative genre.
Seen together they represent
over two hundred years of
questioning the notion of ‘what
is a book’. |
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November
8th 2017 |
Talk: Art and Revolution:
Russian Art in the 20th Century
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Speaker: Dr Rosamunde Bartlett
BA (Hons) DPhil |
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Dr Rosamunde Bartlett returns to
The Arts Society Woking by popular demand
after many previous talks. |
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This talk explores the
revolution which took place
across the arts in Russia and
which predicated the political
explosion of the Bolshevik
revolution in 1917. It was
during this exciting time the
Russian painters, writers and
musicians –amongst them
Kandinsky, Malevich and
Stravinsky – came to the
forefront of the European
avant-garde for the first time,
and helped to change the
language of art. Some then went
on to play a leading role in
early Soviet culture, when
movements like Constructivism
seemed to chime in the utopian
ideals of the Communist state.
All experimentation was abruptly
curtailed in the early 1930s
however, when Stalin started
subjugating the arts to
ideological control, making
Shostakovich a public scapegoat.
Totalitarianism spelled the
death of the Russian avantgarde. |
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Talk: Fun and Games: Victorians
at Play
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Speaker: Felicity Herring BA MA |
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Felicity Herring has a BA in history and
economics and an MA in Fine Art
Valuation. She is an experienced
speaker to groups on cruise ships, The
National Trust, Yacht clubs, schools
sixth forms, U3A & Probus. This is her
first visit to Woking. |
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As people in the Victorian era gained
more free time they took up various
leisure pursuits, from cricket to tennis
and croquet. Artists such as Sir John
Lavery and James Tissot depicted young
people at play. For the working classes
there was time for fun and games too.
Artists such as Thomas Webster and David
Wilkie painted pictures of football
matches, people playing cards and
village fetes. |
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2018 Talk Programme
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Click on the image below to see our
exciting talks booked for 2018. |
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Prior Year's Talks |
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To see the activities in
previous years, click on the
year;
2024
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2023
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2022
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2021
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2020
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2019 /
2018 /
2017 /
2016 /
2015 /
2014 /
2013 /
2012 /
2011 /
2010 |
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Disclaimer |
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The Arts Society Woking cannot be held responsible for any personal accident, loss, damage or theft of members' personal property. Members are covered against proven liability of third parties. |
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