10am to 12noon
The course takes place over 9 sessions on the following dates: 15, 22 & 29 January, 5, 12, 19 & 26 February and 4 & 11 March.
The sold out second series of talks returns for anyone who missed it the first time. Combining art history, biography and critical analysis you will learn about the lives and works of some important artists and topics.
What did these artists do? Why did they do it? Why does it matter? These are the key questions to which we will be looking for answers and ideas. Artists and topics to be discussed include Gauguin in Brittany, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde, Augustus and Gwen John, Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Warhol and Lautrec and Richard Diebenkorn.
Each session will incorporate discussion, PowerPoint presentations, handouts and recommendations for further study.
This short course is suitable for beginners and/or intermediate students, learning will take place in a relaxed and friendly environment, without formal assessment.
Course tutor, Richard Dean MA, is a practicing artist and experienced lecturer who has lectured at universities and art colleges in London and the southeast and at Tate Britain.
15 January
Gauguin in Brittany
The paintings that Gauguin and his colleagues began to make in an obscure Breton village in 1888 would become a template that modern artists would learn from and build upon. This is a story of invention, collaboration, achievement – and betrayal.
22 January
Edvard Munch
Munch lived in a big house on the edge of town, alone with his art and his memories. And what art! But what memories! “From birth, the angels of fear, sorrow and death have stood by my side and followed me…” he wrote, because they always had and they always would.
29 January
Emil Nolde
His painting is full of colour and joy. His life, as a German nationalist who admired non-European societies and a committed Nazi who became a victim of Nazi cultural policy, is full of contradictions. We take a look at the man who remains Germany’s most popular artist.
5 February
Gwen & Augustus John
Augustus John was England’s most recognised and successful artists but he said “In fifty years I shall be remembered only as Gwen John’s brother”. This talk is about why he was right.
12 February
Alberto Giacometti
To represent the person or object before his eyes on a canvas or in a sculpture as he saw it was Giacometti’s joy, agony and compulsion for thirty years. We look at the life and work of this most obsessed of artists.
19 February
Francis Bacon
Bacon described his worldview as one of “exhilarated despair”. But why the exhilaration? And why the despair? We look at the who, how and why of this unique artist.
26 February
Willem & Elaine de Kooning
Mother, wife, lovers, models: women dominated de Kooning’s art and life. This is a talk about the women who inspired his recurring subject and his exceptional wife, the painter Elaine de Kooning.
4 March
Warhol & Lautrec
He was a social outcast, a misfit, a commercial artist, who lived on the fringes of society but became a celebrity and a popular culture icon. So did the other guy.
11 March
Richard Diebenkorn & Californian art
Diebenkorn’s career path led him from Realism to Abstraction then to Realism again and back to Abstraction. He painted some of the most beautiful works created by a 20thC American artist. This is his story.