The Arts Society Enfield: Monthly lecture

Jeremy Mainwaring-Burton;  The Queen Mother at the Castle of Mey  

The Castle of Mey was the only property the Queen Mother ever owned and she would spend every August there surrounded by members of her Household and staff, and a number of guests. Jeremy first stayed there in the late 1970s while serving as Her Majesty’s equerry and on many occasions thereafter as one of her guests.  

This presentation is based on personal experience and cannot be described as an academic study. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating account of what it was like to stay at the Castle of Mey, not just for those of us lucky enough to be invited as guests but also for our royal hostess.  

On leaving Durham University with a degree in geology Jeremy decided to join the army. He then spent five years in the Irish Guards, the last two and a half of which were on secondment to Clarence House as the Queen Mother’s equerry. Being a geologist he couldn’t help but notice the magnificent gemstones in the Queen Mother’s jewellery.  This inspired him to study gemmology and on leaving the army he qualified as a Fellow of the Gemmological Association. Then, in addition to working as an exploration geologist in South Africa and a gold miner in California, he spent several years as a jewellery and precious stone dealer in London’s Hatton Garden. When the Queen Mother died in 2002 he helped open the Castle of Mey to the public and what was supposed to be a six-week appointment turned into six years. As a result he spent more time at the Castle of Mey than its royal owner ever did, and developed it as one of northern Scotland’s most popular visitor attractions.

Alan Silman; Henri Matisse: cut up, cut down and cut outs!  

Henri Matisse ranks with Picasso as one of the real blockbuster artists of the 20th century. This lecture will focus on his health especially the  continued series of psychological and physical challenges. From early childhood he 'suffered' ill health, with what today could be referred to as neuroses. Multiple lifestyle and psychiatric interventions did little to give him peace but did not prevent him producing his magnificent series of post-impressionist works. In addition, a well-documented series of surgical mishaps, against the background of the Second World War, left him, if not bed bound, but chair bound.

Currently Alan Silman is a Professor of Medicine at Oxford University and Senior Research Fellow at Green Templeton College Oxford. Prior to this for 8 years he was Medical Director of the charity Arthritis Research UK (ARUK - now called Versus Arthritis). He is an epidemiologist with a particular interest in diseases of bones, muscles and joints.  He has authored over 700 research publications and a number of textbooks.  He is amongst the top 100 published scientists across all disciplines in UK universities.

He has been an advisor on several government committees including chairing the Appeals Panel for NICE, which sits when there is an appeal if NICE had rejected the use of a drug for the NHS. He has also appeared before a number of UK Parliamentary Select Committees.

In his role at ARUK he was responsible, not only for the charity’s research portfolio, but to be ‘the voice’ to both the general public as well as all broadcast and print media on matters related to arthritis.  He has received substantial media training in that role.

Imogen Corrigan;  Crowds and Clouds of Angels   

There are so many angels there could seem to be an avalanche of them. It’s unusual for there not to be an image of at least one angel, if not many in our churches and cathedrals and yet passers-by know very little about them. We hear of tens of thousands in the Bible and other early texts but a surprise is how many of their names are known to us. Where do they come from and what are they for? We can see a hierarchy in the Nine Orders of Angels but that’s rather general and was devised in the 6th Century. What about the rest of them? Are they male or female? And what do they look like?

After nearly 20 years in the British army, Imogen went to the University of Kent to study Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History and Art, graduating with 1st class honours, followed by an MPhil from the University of Birmingham. She now works as a freelance lecturer across Britain and Europe as well as lecturing on small cruise ships and running study tours and courses on land. She has written Stone on Stone: the Men Who Built the Cathedrals, published 2019. 

John Ericson; Norman Rockwell: Great American artist or mere illustrator?  

A celebrated and prolific twentieth century painter and illustrator whose work has probably been seen by a larger audience than any other artist in History simply because it was published.

Rockwell painted more than 50 covers for ‘The Saturday Evening Post', a hugely popular and widely distributed weekly magazine.

Norman Rockwell died in 1978 but his work still enjoys broad popular appeal and his original paintings sell for many millions of dollars.

Many of his paintings tell us whimsical stories that invariably make us smile and often referred to as: A story teller with a brush.

John Ericson was formerly a lecturer at the University of Bath where he was Director of Studies in the School of Education with responsibility for the professional development of teachers. He has worked extensively overseas as an educational consultant and this has given him the opportunity to give lectures and presentations at conferences all over the world. Over the last decade he has been a popular speaker on the Arts Society circuit in the UK and Europe as well as a frequent visitor to the societies in Australia and New Zealand. 

In his professional life he has developed a particular interest in presentation skills including the role of pictures in learning and the appropriate use of PowerPoint. This coupled with his ability to relate well to people of all ages and backgrounds makes him an impressive and confident public speaker. 

As well as the talks he has developed from his professional background, he offers presentations on an eclectic range of topics that are derived from his diverse interests and enthusiasms such as, Art Inspired by Wine, Visual Illusions in Art and The Shakers of North America. 

Roger Mendham: Doors to Manual - the evolution of flying from absolute luxury to modern day economy.  

Flying is something we take for granted these days - it is a very quick, easy and relatively economic way of travelling long distances, but in the beginning things were very different. 

The first scheduled passenger flight from the Uk was in 1919, when a two and a half hour flight would take you to Le Bourget, Paris.  The conditions and level of comfort were basic, no in-flight service and the seating was wicker chairs bolted to the floor of the cabin.

Biography:

A keen and accomplished photographer Roger has gained Distinctions from the Royal Photographic Society and has recently completed 3 years as President of the Surrey Photographic Association. His artistic taste is predominantly 20th century and he is particularly interested in the visual aspects of art. He has studied the evolution of photography from its earliest days in the early 1800s to becoming a major art form in the late 20th and now 21st centuries. An experienced public speaker, his talks are all richly illustrated with both his own and images from some of the leading photographers in history.

Robert Samuels; How symphonies were born in a London pub  

Today we talk of “symphony concerts” and “symphony orchestras”, but where did these come from? The answer involves a fascinating story stretching across the whole of the eighteenth century, as the new and strange idea of just sitting and listening to music, rather than singing or dancing to it, gradually took off in musical life across Europe. One of the most surprising aspects of this story is the part played in it by Britain: this talk begins Haydn’s five seasons in 1790s London, which he described as the happiest of his professional life. It then shows how Mozart and Beethoven, both friends of Haydn, followed his new idea of how to arrange concert programmes.

Biography:

Robert Samuels is a Senior Lecturer in Music at The Open University. He has written and taught on the music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Schoenberg, Weill, Shostakovich, Britten, Cage, Boulez and Birtwistle amongst others. His book Mahler’s Sixth Symphony: A study in musical semiotics was published by Cambridge University Press in 1995. He is currently writing a study of the symphony and the novel in the nineteenth century. Robert worked on the award-winning BBC4 TV series Symphony in 2012, has spoken on BBC Radio 3, has organised and spoken at study events for the Oxford Lieder Festival, and gives talks for The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Raymond Warburton; Paintings inspired by Poems  

This charming and insightful lecture will truly engage members, as some of you will play an active part! There has been, and always will be, a strong link between art and literature, and this unique lecture focuses on one aspect of that link: namely paintings inspired by poems. To provide a structure, 12 paintings and the poems that inspired them will be discussed. The paintings all date from 1800, and were painted by British artists. The poems were written by writers from across the eras and from a range of different countries.

Biography:

Ray has had a life-long love of art. However, in his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. These studies led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. But all that changed in 2011, when Ray became a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Then from 2014 to 2017, he studied art history at the Open University, and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he gained an MA in the History of Art. And to cap it all, Ray became an Arts Society lecturer in 2017. Ray also knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of lectures as he is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

Julian Richards; The car in art and the car as art  

Speed! Technology! Destruction! The battle cry of the Futurists WWI heralded the appearance of the car as a powerful symbol in avant-garde art. Soon the Art Deco masterpieces of the great car builders came to epitomise style, luxury and craftmanship, works of art in their own right.  The romance of speed continued to be a major theme in how cars were depicted in art, but, since the 1950s the car has become art, used as a canvas for artists as celebrated as Peter Blake, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst.   This lecture will showcase the beautiful and the bizarre, celebrating the dynamic, creative, and sometimes unsettling relationship between cars and art.

Julian Richards studied archaeology at Reading University and has since worked as a professional archaeologist, in commercial archaeology, for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992 and has an honorary doctorate. He has long been involved in teaching and outreach projects, lecturing widely in continuing education, to schools (with a focus on special needs pupils) and societies. His career in broadcasting involved researching and presenting Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4.