During the Edo period of rule by the Tokugawa Shogunate (1615-1868), the arts of Japan gained in richness and diversity. With the rise of the merchant class and the growth of cities such as Edo (modern-day Tokyo), a new vitality was injected into traditional forms and an emerging middle class culture gave rise to exciting developments in the visual and performing arts. This lecture will consider the arts of the period including castle architecture, golden screen painting, ukiyo-e prints, textiles, lacquerware, and netsuke, as well as the emergence of the flamboyant kabuki theatre. It will provide a snapshot of both aristocratic and popular taste as Japan made the transition from feudal kingdom into modern state.

Professor Marie Conte-Helm is a long-established Arts Society Lecturer with a BA in History of Art and an MA in Asian Art and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011 and has held senior academic posts at various UK universities. She has most recently served as Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, and as a member of the Board of Governors of the University for the Creative Arts. She is widely published and has lectured throughout the UK and abroad. She is also an experienced cruise speaker and a Resident Historian with Viking Ocean Cruises, lecturing on many aspects of Asian Art and East-West Encounters. She was awarded an OBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to UK-Japan educational and cultural relations and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette by the Government of Japan in 2019.

Tickets on sale at meetings for this seasonal lecture, following a shared lunch together.

From Greek Mosaics in the second century, through weddings in the Bible, Renaissance allegories of refinement and excess, sixteenth century peasant parties out of doors, eighteenth century harlequins, to the celebratory styles of twentieth century painters, the depiction of parties has always been popular in the history of Western Art.  Alice Foster traces the variety of merrymaking, banqueting, dances and music in a feast of colour.

Alice has lectured for Oxford University Department of Continuing Education since 1998. She lectures regularly at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Her busy freelance career includes organising History of Art study days with colleagues, and regular weekly classes in Oxfordshire and Worcestershire. In 2004 Alice joined The Arts Society and has lectured in Britain and in Europe. In 2025 she undertook tours of Australia and New Zealand. Since 2003 Alice has been a tutor on study holidays in Italy. Currently, Alice is a residential tutor at the Argyll Hotel on the Isle of Iona, specialising in Scottish art. 

The lecture will explore the career of designer Marion Dorn and the wider avant-garde movement between the wars. This pivotal time saw a renaissance in textile design and began the process of democratising Modern Art. Marion Dorn & her husband artist Edward McKnight Kauffer were destined to play a central role in modernism and Interior design on both sides of the Atlantic. From Claridges Hotel in London to The White House in Washington DC. Marion Dorn was synonymous with style, design & beauty.

Ashley Gray is a leading specialist and curator in the key art discipline of Modern Textiles and their history. He is a regular vetter at international fine art fairs and has served on the Fair Committees of BADA, The Works on Paper Fair and on the BADA Council. He is regularly invited to lecture on the subject both in the UK and the US. As a curator and archivist, he works with institutions and foundations on conservation and exhibition projects. Most recently he curated Styled by Design at Cromwell Place in London, an exhibition that celebrates the innovation of Modernist textile design. He co-curated Material Textile: Modern British Female Designers and Material Textile: Creativity, History & Process, both with Messums Gallery, Common Thread at New Art Centre and From Bauhaus to our House also at Cromwell Place. He is currently researching the role David Whitehead Ltd in Lancashire played in commissioning innovative modern designs in the Festival of Britain era. An exhibition is planned for 2027.

The great Venetian artist Canaletto spent ten years living in London producing wonderful landscapes of the city and its surrounds. In this lecture, we explore his time in the capital and look at how his style changed during his long visit.  We look at some of the work he produced and explore how the views he captured have changed over the centuries.

Nick Salmond is a London Blue Badge Guide and a lecturer in History and the Arts. He qualified as a London Blue Badge Guide in 2019, winning the award as Guide of the Year. In 2021 he gave the annual Katrine Prince Lecture to members of the Institute of Tourist Guiding. Before guiding he joined the BBC where he worked for over 30 years in both television and radio. He helped cover some of the great events of History, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the terrible events of 9/11, from the fall of the Thatcher Government to the celebrations of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Caravaggio – one of the best known names today. A man of proverbial rebelliousness, painting in a style which he knew would drop a bomb on the art world he grew up in. He painted with startling immediacy, rejecting his peers’ obsession with highly artificial designs and stale quotations from earlier works of art. But he was also fortunate to be painting at a time when the Church wanted to harness the power of his art to enforce its message. This lecture considers the unlikely alliance of artist and patrons, considering why the establishment was prepared to accept him, outrageous lifestyle and all, and at the same time, examining why his art is so powerful for us today. 

Chantal has a MA in History of Art from Edinburgh, PhD from the Warburg Institute, London University. With 40 years' experience as a lecturer, Chantal 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 to her lectures and study sessions.

Join us for a fascinating exploration of jewellery in some of the most celebrated portraits of the 15th to 17th centuries, uncovering the stories and symbolism hidden in plain sight.

In the portraits, jewellery was rarely chosen simply for its beauty. A ring, necklace, gemstone or curious adornment could carry a secret message, revealing love, status, wealth, faith, mourning or political power. 

We know that rubies can symbolise love and sacrifice, emeralds suggest truth and fidelity, and diamonds are a ‘girl’s best friend’...
But why would someone wear a dead weasel with a jewel-encrusted mask?

Stella Grace Lyons is an art historian, writer and Arts Society accredited lecturer, known for bringing works of art vividly to life through storytelling. In her new book, she exposes a forgotten visual language hidden within early modern painting. From queens and courtesans to merchants, lovers and enslaved children, Stella reveals how the full gamut of human desires, aspirations and fears glittered in the smallest of details.