Kandinsky Tuesday Evening Lecture

What's On

Tuesday Evening Lecture Series

7.45 – 9.15 pm/Linbury Room

Series of six lectures £50,£40 Friends

Single lectures £10, £8 Friends

Bar beforehand and in the interval

Crossing Frontiers: a Journey through Art

This series examines art from around the world and will show that although art from different countries and periods varies, there can be surprising similarities

Art Down Under: Australian Art from the convict years to the modern era

Tuesday 21 September

Dreamtime, convicts and early settlers – artistic responses to life in the strange new continent were seen initially through European, and especially British, artistic traditions. In the 19th century, Australian Impressionism and the ‘Heidelberg School’ challenged the dominance of the ‘Victorian’ style, with Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and others producing works which became Australian icons. The First World War was a watershed in Australian and New Zealand history. No longer subservient to Europe, artists now found their own language to depict the unique landscape and culture of ‘Down Under’. At the same time, indigenous artists began to respond to contemporary life, while retaining many of the traditions of their ancestors.

Lecturer: Val Woodgate

Travellers’ Tales: Italian Art through the eyes of Victorian Travellers

Tuesday 28 September

Italy in the mid-nineteenth century may have been a collection of poor, fragmented states, but it was also the destination for many English travellers. Byron, Ruskin, the Brownings and Dickens all travelled there, along with many others, and wrote of the art and culture they discovered. This talk will explore the history of Italian painting through theeyes of such travellers, revealing how they reacted to the early Renaissance beauty of Fra Angelico or the turbulent exuberanceof Tintoretto. We shall hear also what they thought of Italy at large, in an age when crossing the Alps was a major – and possibly dangerous – undertaking. This sort of cultural travel was not for the faint-hearted!

Lecturer: Jo Walton

Degenerates and others – German Art in the 20th Century

Tuesday 5 October

Many major German artists, along with others from elsewhere in Europe, were reviled by the Nazis and included in the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition in Munich in 1937. However, innovative and exciting German art started much earlier, with the Expressionist Die Brücke group in 1905 and Der Blaue Reiter in 1911. This lecture examines these early modern movements, looks at the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) of the 1920sand anti-Nazi art, coming right up to date with controversialand imaginative artists such as Joseph Beuys, Rebecca Horn and Anselm Kiefer.

Lecturer: Frank Woodgate

‘Constructing the Future’: Early 20th Century Russian Art

Tuesday 12 October

After the break-up of the Soviet Union and with the re-invigoration of Russia as an economic and political force, interest has grown in Russian art. Russian buyers have made great efforts to ‘repatriate’ their artistic heritage. Moreover, recent exhibitions in London have underlined the importance of the Russian avant-garde in the development of modern art in the early 20th century. This talk will explore the work of some of the key figures, such as Kandinsky, Malevich and Goncharova, and will then discuss how artists were required to use their talents in the service of the Party and the State and in the dissemination of the ‘progressive ideas of socialist realism’.

Lecturer: Peter Scott

Futurism, ‘Poor Art’ and Provocation: Italian 20th and 21st Century Art

Tuesday 19 October

Italian artists of the 20th century sought to break with the art of the past, to provoke and challenge notions of what art should be. At the beginning of the 20th century the Italian Futurists celebrated industrialism, encouraged radicalism and later supported Mussolini. It was a hugely influential movement. This talk will look at other important and innovative Italian artists, including Modigliani, Morandi and the ‘Arte Povera’ group who used inexpensive, everyday materials to create their art works. It will explore also how Italian artists are still continuing to shake things up today.

Lecturer: Melanie Paice

A Highland Thing? 18th to 20th Century Scottish Art

Tuesday 26 October

For many years Scottish artists found it necessary to travel south to make their names and careers in art, but with the increasing importance of the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow from the end of the 18th century, an independent Scottish art scene emerged. These developments will be traced through individuals such as Sir Henry Raeburn, the first artist to find success whilst remaining in his native Scotland, and Sir David Wilkie, important as one of the first to export Scottish art. This lecture will look also at the parallels between Scottish and other European art, as well as periods of divergence, touching on art movements such as the Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists.

Lecturer: Rosalind Whyte