1.30 - 3.30pm
The course takes place over 9 sessions on the following dates: 4, 11, 18 & 25 April, 2, 9, 16, 23 & 30 May.
The talk on 23 May will run from 1 - 3pm
The popular series of talks returns with a new programme. 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 Matisse, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Chagall, Old Masters, Young Masters, Bob Thompson, The School of London, Flowers in art and Philip Guston.
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.
4 April
Artist and teacher: Matise and his students
Matisse was a great artist and not a few of his students were exceptional too. What did he teach them and what did they do with what they learned?
11 April
Paula Modersohn-Becker
For a couple of years at the beginning of the last century a young woman working in obscurity was the most original, most modern artist in Germany. Who was Paula Modersohn-Becker and what was her achievement?
18 April
Chagall escapes
In 1941 Marc Chagall and his wife were under arrest and awaiting deportation to a concentration camp. They should have shared the dark and obscure fate of many of Chagall’s colleagues. This talk is about how they were rescued and what Chagall did with the rest of his long life.
25 April
Old Masters
Some artists are given long lives and careers. How did they cope with age and how did it change their art? We’ll look at the lives and late work of Titian, Rembrandt, Renoir, O’Keeffe and contemporaries like Richter, Auerbach and Yayoi Kusama.
2 May
Young Masters
And some artists have only brief lives but still create a legacy that endures. Artists under discussion include Amrita Sher-Gil,Gaudier-Brzeska, Gericault, Fabritius, Masaccio, Pauline Boty, Caillebotte and Keith Haring.
9 May
Bob Thompson
How did an unknown young black artist crash the New York art scene of the 60s, achieve recognition and success and then fade from history until recently? A look at the short life and amazing work of an exceptional talent.
16 May
The School of London
The phrase was invented by the painter RB Kitaj to describe what he saw as London’s vibrant painting culture: Hockney, Bacon, Auerbach, Freud -and more. Was he right or wrong?
23 May (1 - 3pm)
The Temple of Flora: Flowers in art
Spring is the season to talk about the history of floral art and Jim Dine, one of its foremost contemporary exponents.
30 May
Philip Guston
Guston first achieved recognition as a figurative painter, then fame as an Abstract Expressionist and then almost ruined his career with a new style of personal, political and highly original figuration. Now he’s considered one of the most important artists of the last fifty years.