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Thursday 26 April 2012

Lytham Hall

The ‘Can -Can to Soup Can’ study day contains a lot of art history and sets out artists and their work within their time – and within the lively Paris of the Jazz Age.

Linda Collins

Our lecturer is Linda Collins, who has been employed by the Historic Royal Palaces for the past 21 years as a Guide/Lecturer at Hampton Court Palace.

She lectures regularly for NADFAS, both home and abroad and also for the National Trust, U3A and variuos UK universities. Linda has a special interest in Paris and French Art. Linda is a freelance lecturer at Tate Modern & the National Gallery and an independent lecture organiser.

The day will include three sessions:

At the beginning of the second session, we revisit Paris once more. After World War 1 and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, there was rejoicing in Paris. In this lecture, Paris of the time is considered – the eccentric personalities, the visiting American jazz musicians and home grown talent such as Stephane Grappelli. Five major artistic movements of the era will be considered.

In the third and final session, we will look at how the course of avant garde art moved from Paris to New York in the years just before World War 2.

Tickets cost £30 per Fylde DFAS member (non-members, £32 each), which includes a light French-style lunch.

A booking form is available to download/print here

For any further information please contact Kate Cartmell on 01253 733414.

Thursday 13th October 2011 at 10 am

United Reformed Church, St Annes

Andy McConnell

(Photos of this event are now available on Flickr)

Andy McConnell is one of Britain’s leading authorities on glassware of all types, and his books have covered the subject from 1650 to the present. He is the first glass specialist recruited to BBC TV’s Antiques Roadshow, for which he has now recorded five series. He lectures widely on glass and has written for journals as diverse as The Times, Country Life, BBC Homes & Antiques and Glass Circle.
The day will comprise of the following sessions

• Introduction: The Dawn of Glass; The Spread of Glass to Venice then across Europe to Britain
• Georgian And Victorian Glass
• 20th Century Glass
• Appraisal Of Pieces Brought In By Attendees

There will be refreshment and and a lunch break throughout the day and guests will be encouraged to handle to contents of several packing cases full of examples from Andy’s 30,000 piece collection.

We are encouraging those attending to bring along their own glass possessions for discussion and appraisal during the final session.

The day will finish around 3.45pm

Wednesday 13th July 2011

Lytham Hall

Dr David Bostwick BA (Hons),  MA,  PhD,  ALA,  AMA

Fylde DFAS  Members – £30 each.
Guests, friends and visitors – £32 each.

We welcome back David, a much appreciated lecturer from the Inaugural Year of Fylde DFAS.  David is an Art Historian who finds delight in sharing his immense knowledge and understanding of life during the 15th and 17th centuries.   A former Keeper of the Social History Collections at Sheffield City Museums, David is a specialist advisor on decorative plasterwork, woodwork and furniture of the period.  He works as a consultant on historic buildings and their interpretation to the National Trust, English Heritage and Historic Scotland.  David is also a Tour leader for ACE Study Tours, Cambridge and is ever in demand for his memorable NADFAS Lectures and Special Interest Day events.

This Special Interest Day is to be our closing event of the Fylde DFAS year.  We envisage an enjoyable, informative and relaxed day at Lytham Hall, set in its beautiful grounds at the height of the summer season.   Three lectures will be included during the day:

GARDENS OF GOODLY DELIGHT

A closer look at the evident delight which Elizabethans and Jacobeans enjoyed from their pleasure gardens, especially in developing arbours, pergolas, curious ‘knots’ and mazes; in their collecting of rare plants, and in clipping others into wondrous shapes.  Later came a craze for fountains and water features, mounts and extravagant gateways, and eventually, the inclusion of grottos.

THE ENGLISH KITCHEN and KITCHEN GARDEN

Looking at evidence through still-life and genre paintings of the time, momentous changes in kitchen gardens and orchards will be seen, especially following the discovery of strange new foods such as sweetcorn, potatoes and tomatoes from the Americas.

BANQUETING HOUSES AND THE BANQUET

Throughout the Tudor and Stuart period a banquet was not a feast but, rather, an intimate meal or dessert of candied fruits, syllabub, jellies, biscuits, sticky sweets and fine wines, as shown in a multitude of Old Masters still-life paintings.  Architecturally extravagant garden pavilions, summer-houses and roof-top rooms were designed, and elegantly furnished with marble tables, agate cutlery and Venetian glasses exclusively for the enjoyment of this pastime – and that which, on occasion, followed!

We invite you to join us on this special occasion – undoubtedly, a day of special interest!   Currently, there is considerable interest in Lytham Hall, as more of the history of the period is discovered, both in the Hall and within the grounds.

We are aiming to keep the cost as low as possible, and hope that you might like to bring your own picnic-hamper lunch  which can be enjoyed in the beautiful grounds at leisure – or, if wet, in the Courtyard or West Wing. Tea and coffee will be served at the lecture sessions and we intend to offer some sweetmeats and delicacies of the period during the afternoon lecture.  Alternatively, a light lunch of a savoury tart (using a recipe of the period) and salad will  be available at a minimal additional cost.

Download a Booking Form

February 2011

The YMCA St Annes

The Grundy Art Gallery  delivered a day of practical workshops and discussions for Fylde DFAS members led by Kerry Hunt. We explored their past exhibitions programme, alongside many of the artists who have dominated the headlines in recent years. The day consisted of three sessions.

The first session was very hands-on involving the use of ceramics and clay.

We were encouraged to look at things in new ways and produce our own works of art from what might loosely be described as ‘found objects’ (i.e. found by Kerry in the Charity Shops of Blackpool!). Here are some of the results….

I think the Turner Prize is safe for now, but we had a lot of fun in the process.

The second session involved looking at different aspects of photography and the third session made us think about how to use gallery space in creative ways.

The day offered quite a different experience from our usual lectures because of the level of interactivity and the way we were challenged to contribute to different ways of thinking about art rather than experiencing it in a more passive way.

Feedback from the members who attended was very positive and the catering was exceptional – we were spoilt with danish pastries and home-made cakes as well as the advertised soup and sandwich lunch. It also made us realise that we weren’t all getting as much as we could out of the gallery on our own doorstep which has featured some extremely innovative work in recent years, so I think many more of us will be making visits to the Grundy after this excellent day.

Thanks to Kerry Hunt for leading the sessions and thanks also to Kate Cartmell for organsiing such an interesting and enjoyable day.

Nov 2010 at Wrea Green Parish Church

Lecturer Michael Howard BA (Hons) MA

Our Special Interest Day  at Wrea Green Parish Church was based on the life and work of the popular artist L.S. Lowry, RA (1887-1976), well-known for his familiar pictures of Northern mills and life in the industrial landscapes of Manchester and Salford.

Lecturer, Michael Howard, is a senior lecturer in Art History and Design at Manchester Metropolitan University who has wide experience in lecturing and is author of numerous publications on several nineteenth and twentieth century artists. This includes ‘L.S.Lowry: A Visionary Artist’.

Michael also created the film now shown permanently at The Lowry, Salford, used as an introduction to the background of the artist and to the changing exhibitions of his work.

The Special Interest Day comprised of three lectures, firstly giving an overview of the life and work of the artist. After a lunch break, the other two lectures made reference to aspects of ‘The Loneliness of Lowry’, a recent exhibition at Abbot Hall, Kendall; the changing exhibitions on the artist at The Lowry, Salford; and also, as an artist, Lowry’s connections with Lytham.

Michael had many interesting anecdotes to share about Lowry and he talked about the mythology that has grown around the man and his work. He made us aware of the range and variety of Lowry’s painting and also of the intelligence and technical and creative ability of Lowry himself, who is often incorrectly stereotyped as a naive and untutored artist.

The room where the event was held was smaller than our usual lecture venue but this did make for a nice intimate atmosphere. Groups split up at lunchtime, some having sandwiches in the hall, and some going to DIzzie Duck’s Tearooms  where we had an excellent pre-booked hotpot. Others decamped to the Grapes Hotel.

All in all a really good day, the friendly informal atmosphere we have come to expect of Fylde DFAS Special Interest Days, and a great learning experience also.

Our thanks to Kate Cartmell once again for organising this.

April 2010 at Lytham Hall

Lecturer Linda Smith BA (Hons) MA (Lecturer at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and the Dulwich Picture Gallery)

The day comprised of three lecture sessions delivered by Linda Smith, a stimulating and very lively NADFAS lecturer. Her starting point was Rodin and the crucial role he played in influencing the development of this art form. She then moved us through to the twentieth century looking at the progression of ideas, significant trends and the works of key sculptors.

This was a hugely enjoyable day and very accessible whatever your level of knowledge. Linda warned that she would not deliver a comprehensive overview but instead offer something a little more idiosyncratic. She also pointed out that artistic change is not neat and tidy and strictly chronological. Nonetheless, her tour through a century of sculpture proved completely coherent.

As someone who is far from expert in this field I was bowled over by the way Linda made it all so comprehensible. She highlighted how, in the nineteenth century, sculpture was dominated by the classical idea of the idealised human body. Then in the early twentieth century, sculptors started to experiment with a range of different materials and ideas about what they could or should represent. She put everything in its social, political and historical context, and showed how sculpture could reflect the current zeitgeist. Jacob Epstein’s The Rock Drill, for example, created before the First World War, was a powerful and striking piece of work, mechanistic and on the surface full of machismo. Following the carnage of the trenches, Epstein hacked it down to size giving it a vulnerable, almost hangdog air in keeping with a more sombre post-war sensibility. She moved on to talk about the way political movements such as the Russian Revolution and Nazism used sculpture for their own ideological purposes: the idealised human body making a comeback in the form of magnificent Aryans in the service of eugenic theories about race, or toiling peasants with rippling muscles depicting the nobility of labour. Linda’s slides aptly illustrated her various points.

We were introduced to many different paradigms and ideas and Linda discussed how sculpture was influenced by and related to other art forms. She touched on many areas, including cubism, surrealism, abstract, and pop art, and helped us to understand how one perceived movement would grow out of another – sometimes as an organic development, but often as protest and rejection of the status quo. By the third session when we came to modern artists such as Jeff Koons and Tracy Emin, Linda had taken us on a journey that  helped us to understand how artistically and historically their approaches had been made possible.

The venue was wonderful, the sun shone and after enjoying a light lunch of soup and sandwiches we were able to go out for a stroll and enjoy the grounds. There was no need to be apprehensive about turning up on your own – as I and many other people did. Everybody was friendly and welcoming. There was more opportunity to chat to other members than there usually is at lectures, and Hilary was on patrol throughout the breaks, making sure nobody felt left out! At the end of the day the buzz coming out of the hall was all positive

Marie Riley