1.30pm - 3.30pm
The course takes place over 9 sessions on the following dates: 18 & 25 September, 2, 9, 16, 23 & 30 October and 6 & 20 November.
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?
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.
18 September
Vincent Van Gogh: 70 Days
The last weeks of Van Gogh’s life were spent in a small town outside Paris. He made a new painting every day, including some of his most iconic. Let’s take a look. Note: this talk includes references to mental ill health and suicide.
25 September
Native American Art: Then and Now
We’ll look at how Native Americans have been represented by the dominant culture in art and on film and how some contemporary Native American artists have responded to life between two worlds.
2 October
Florence 1504: Art's Big Year
Michelangelo has just finished his David, Leonardo has just begun the Mona Lisa, Raphael has just arrived in town and soon the two greatest artists of their time will face each other in a painting showdown. What could go wrong?
9 October
1891: A Year in Modern Art
Monet paints haystacks, Cezanne paints apples, Lautrec makes a poster, Mary Cassatt has her first solo exhibition, Van Gogh has a memorial show, Seurat dies and Gauguin leaves for Tahiti. It was a busy twelve months.
16 October
'In the matter of Mark Rothko'
The world’s most powerful and prestigious gallery and the young children of an Abstract Expressionist master face each other in an epic court fight over his legacy.
23 October
Two British Artists: Celia Paul and Michael Armitage
Paul’s art is autobiographical and confessional. Armitage’s work is political and public (he designed that pound coin in your pocket). We’ll look at these two important and very different painters.
30 October
Oskar Kokoschka: Portraits of a Century
Artist, writer, humanist, refugee; Kokoschka’s long life carried him across Europe, painting the people, some famous, some not, with whom he shared a turbulent time. Let’s see them.
6 November
Picasso and the Poets
There seems to be a natural affinity between painters and poets; none more so than between Picasso and his poet friends like Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob. This talk looks at some of those friendships and what they meant to Picasso and his art.
20 November
Pierre Bonnard: Public and Private
Bonnard’s life was spent making beautiful pictures. His posthumous career, though, involved forged documents, surprising revelations, lawyers, judges and litigation - plus a protracted critical debate over his place in art’s history.