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Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at the first lecture of the season on 8th October!

Until the end of the 19th century, when the Russians invaded Turkmenistan and destroyed the power and status of the Turkmen tribes, they were an immense presence in Central Asia. Their knotted carpets, rugs and dowry bags were highly prized and of considerable value. The Turkmen also produced fabulous jewellery; silver earrings, amulets and crowns, many fire-gilded and decorated in semi precious stones such as carnelians and lapis lazuli. 

Guests can purchase a ticket here for just £10 to join us in the Courtenay Centre or watch live on Zoom: Buy tickets for October lecture

Tony will talk about how classical music has recently grown in popularity and how it has enhanced the drama/ tension/romance/memorability of many feature films and TV commercials. Tony will also explore how classical music has been the inspiration for a huge number of popular songs.   

Guests can purchase a ticket here for just £10 to join us in the Courtenay Centre or watch live on Zoom: Buy tickets for November lecture

In the early seventh century a great ship was dragged ashore. It became the burial place of a powerful Anglo-Saxon warlord, buried with a mound of treasures from all over the known world. Fine weaponry, gold coins and exquisitely crafted jewellery revealed levels of sophistication which were a revelation.  

Guests can purchase a ticket here for just £10 to join us in the Courtenay Centre or watch live on Zoom: Buy tickets for December lecture

1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. The images, charting the course of a year, changed the way we view the world through art. Landscape had previously been a decorative backdrop to dramas both sacred and profane. 

At the lecturer's request, this lecture will not be available on Zoom. We hope to see you at the Courtenay Centre!                           

So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art.   

Guests can purchase a ticket here for just £10 to join us in the Courtenay Centre or watch live on Zoom: Buy tickets for February lecture

In reality Montmartre was little more than a rundown suburb overlooking the city, bristling with windmills. But the garden cafes, the dancehalls and cabarets, and the ramshackled studios that spilled down the hillside of Montmartre would become the inspiration and home to some of France’s greatest artists.      

Guests can purchase a ticket here for just £10 to join us in the Courtenay Centre or watch live on Zoom: 

The remarkable untold story of Carry On actor Peter Butterworth, and his wife, Britain’s first female TV impressionist Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher. Tyler reveals the private story behind his parents’ public lives. It’s a journey that takes in MI6, the building of a theatre in the notorious WW2 Prisoner of War camp Stalag Luft III, nights at Chequers with a Prime Minister.     

At the lecturer's request, this lecture will not be available on Zoom. We hope to see you at the Courtenay Centre!  

Occasionally sculptors let the materials express the character of the figure, releasing the ‘statue from the stone’ as Michelangelo put it. In this talk Justin discusses the developing realism in marble and bronze of archaic and classical Greece, Rome, the Renaissance and the Baroque, comparing this with the expressiveness of Gothic wooden sculpture, Michelangelo’s non-finito pieces, the abstraction of Rodin and the Modernists, and the experimental forms. 

Guests can purchase a ticket here for just £10 to join us in the Courtenay Centre or watch live on Zoom: 

By the middle of the 16th century, dowries in Italy were so expensive that most respectable families could not afford to marry off more than one or two daughters. The rest became nuns, entering convents at puberty and never leaving. Not surprisingly not all of them went willingly. But along with stories of enforced incarceration and horror, there was also unexpected space for creativity. As well, there was the possibility of another kind of fulfilment – and power – that of ecstatic union with the spiritual husband, Jesus Christ.   

Guests can purchase a ticket here for just £10 to join us in the Courtenay Centre or watch live on Zoom: