Over the course of a morning, come on a journey to discover the story of the new Houses of Parliament, Britain's most famous building. We'll hear of the struggles of its architect, Charles Barry. who with his partner Augustus Pugin, created this extraordinary nineteenth-century masterpiece. We then move on to women and Westminster, with a look at the art of the suffrage movements and how the campaign for votes for women inspired the first modern art installation in Parliament. We'll finish with a brief update on the multi-billion-poundrestoration project to rescue Britain's most famous building from decades of neglect before it is too late.

This fascinating study morning will be led by Dr Caroline Shenton, former Director of the Parliamentary Archives and award-winning writer who spent nearly twenty years working inside the Palace of Westminster.

Doors Open at 1000

1030 First Session

1130 Coffee

1200 Second Session

1300 end of the study morning

Tickets are £25

Image - David Roberts PD

We shall consider the development of cooking firstly from an architectural perspective and then through the medium of art and literature. This will include the development of kitchen architecture from castles to country houses and examining how food and feasting are presented in art from the Medieval period to the modern era. We will also encounter historical personalities connected with cuisine, examining through art and literature how food, fashion and drama featured in their lives. 
Tickets are £25 and they are available at lectures or from Jill Sturgess jillianmsturgess@gmail.com

We hope you can join Dr Sarah Pearson to find out more on Monday November 10th  at the Maltings for a morning to whet the appetite!

The cheeky Image is by ChatGPT

Lee Miller's son, Antony Penrose will take us on a journey through his mother's extensive portfolio.

The first part will take a broader look at her work, not just her war photography which was the focus of the recent film. This includes how the the Surrealist artists, Man Ray, Picasso and her husband  Roland Penrose viewed her work. Observations too from David Sherman, her fellow photo journalist companion, Theodore Miller (her father), and Antony Penrose.

After that we delve into the Lee Miller Archive and hear how Antony compiled it and how he will be using it to put together the big retrospective exhibition which opens at Tate Britain in October 2025. 

The session will be in the Barley Room at the Farnham Maltings 1000 for a 1030 start ending at approx 1300

Tickets are priced £25 and are available from Jill Sturgess 

US Army Official photo. CC BY-SA 4.0

Attracting over 15 million visitors from all over the world, the six month long international Arts Décoratifs exhibition marked the culmination of an exciting style – the streamlined elegance of Art Deco – and its transmission to a new generation of artists and designers. The original concept was intended to showcase France to the world and confirm the pre-eminence of Paris as the leader in highest quality luxury goods.

Tickets £25.

More information from Jill Sturgess email 

The study morning looks at two kings and their artistic legacies.

No English king is as well-known to us as Henry VIII. Famous for his six wives, breaking with the Pope and creating the Church of England he was also an enthusiastic patron of the arts. His palaces, tapestries and paintings enriched the Tudor court and began the Royal Collection.

The following century Charles I may have come to a sticky end but the site of his execution was outside one of the artistic gems of his reign, the Banqueting House. Part 2 of the morning looks at the House, it's revolutionary architecture and Baroque style art and the Whitehall Palace, one of Henry's great buildings.

10 for 1030-1300

The Maltings, Farnham

Tickets £25 - more details from Rosie Rose studytasfarnham@gmail.com

Siobhan Clarke has a BA in Modern History and a Teaching Certificate. She has worked for Historic Royal Palaces for 20 years and is based at Hampton Court Palace, where she trained as a Costumed Interpreter before becoming an HRP Guide Lecturer.
She lectures abroad for luxury cruise lines and, within the UK, for the National Trust and U3A. Siobhan also works with best-selling historian, Alison Weir, on tours and events. She has featured on BBC Radio ‘Women's Hour’ and PBS Television's ‘Secrets of Henry VIII's Palace’. Her published work include A Tudor Christmas with Alison Weir (Jonathan Cape, 2018), The Tudors: The Crown, the Dynasty, the Golden Age with Linda Collins (Andre Deutsch, 2019) and Gloriana with Linda Collins.

Previous Study days 

An armchair tour of the wonderful collections housed in all the Tate galleries around Britain.

Starting outside Tate Britain we will hear about the foundation and collections from 1500 to the present day. It's a roll call of the greats from Hogarth to Hockney.

Our journey then takes us to Liverpool and St Ives and their collections before heading back to Tate Modern which opened in 2000 in the former Bankhouse power station. 
Now the most visited modern art museum in the world we can explore their artworks without the crowds.

Tickets £25

More information from Rosie Rose Studytasfarnham@gmail.com

Ian Swankie

Ian Swankie is a Londoner with a passion for art and architecture. He is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral, and gives tours at each venue. He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide and leads regular tours for various corporations and organisations. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his hometown of Richmond in West London, and he gives talks on a variety of subjects. He is an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society, and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City Livery Companies.

Image of Infinity Room Yayoi Kusama - Tate Modern 

The British Theatre represents one of the glories of world civilisation, but few people know much about its history and why theatres look as they do. We will embark upon a rollercoaster ride, from church drama & the mystery plays up to today's National Theatre. The study morning will also cover Sir Henry Irving, our first theatrical knight & the man who stopped talking to his wife. We will look at Victorian penny gaffs - 2 Shakespeare plays in 40-minutes;reflect on the 'Old Price' theatrical riots, the longest riots in British history. So why not come and join us & find out more!

Study Morning: ​26th September 2022 : 10am-1pm

Location:    Barley Room, Maltings, Farnham

Tickets:​​​£22.00 (in advance only) with coffee & tea 

Contact :​​​Rosie Rose ​​​​​​​​​​        studytasfarnham@gmail.com

A very succesful much enjoyed lecture by Douglas Skeggs on the rise and fall of Venice and the superb art that was created over the last five hundred years. He held his audience enthralled.
Photo of Douglas Skeggs and a previous chairman of The Arts Society Gillian Hudson.
 

For three hundred years Venice was the most powerful city-state in the Mediterranean, and much of its wealth was put towards ornamenting itself with works of art. These golden years of Venice’s history were to produce the works of Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. Then, when the Republic collapsed and the city fell into decay, it became a treasure house for the artistic imagination. Painters from all over Europe came to Venice to paint its quiet back waters, and the city was reborn as a romantic vision. 

This Study morning looks into the artists who have lived and worked in Venice, from Titian, Tintoretto to Turner and Monet their styles, their techniques and how each added his own unique contribution to the artistic legend of the city. 

Time:  ​​​​10.30am to 1.00pm

Location:​Barley Room, Maltings Farnham

Tickets:​​​​£20.00 (in advance only)

Contact:​​ studytasfarnham@gmail.com

It was largely due to the impact of the Napoleonic wars that Germany finally established an artistic and cultural identity and became one of the leading figures in the early 19th century Romantic Movement. Peter Medhurst explores the effects that these wars had on writers, artists and musicians, including Goethe, Friedrich, Weber & Mendelssohn.
There will be opportunities to listen to a number of excerpts of music including Der Frieschütz – CM von Weber, Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär F Mendelssohn, as well as extracts from The Pastoral Symphony – L van Beethoven
   
10.30am to 1.00pm ONLINE
Tickets. £10 (in advance only)
Sarah Ann Hallett studytasfarnham@gmail.com 07949483166

As an architectural style, Baroque is not well-known in Britain (except for the English variants found in St Paul’s Cathedral and Blenheim Palace), but it has a fascinating history linked closely with the re-planning of Rome in the 17th century and the animated response to the Protestant Reformation. We will focus on the Baroque in Austria and we shall continue the Austrian theme by exploring the life and times of the Empress Sissi. A notable beauty, who loved England, was desperately camera-shy, but whose portraits reveal something of her mysterious and enigmatic life.

What she and Baroque Art have in common is a kind of emotional intensity and mysterious playfulness…as we shall see.

10.30am to 1.00pm
Barley Room, Maltings Farnham £20.00 (in advance only)

Limited availability with social distancing as required 
Sarah Ann Hallett studytasfarnham@gmail.com
07949483166

Photo.The Empress Elizabeth of Austria . 1865 .Franz Winterhalter  Public Domain 

Outsider art is the name given to work produced by artists from all over the world who are usually untrained and outside the mainstream of twentieth and twenty-first century art. Their output ranges from tiny drawings a few centimetres wide to the world’s tallest wooden house. The artists include at least two postmen, a coal miner, psychics, unskilled labourers, prisoners, psychiatric patients, a Russian ex-gangster and an Indian roads inspector. The one thing they have in common is a compulsion to make astounding art. Few of them are well known – but they all deserve to be.

1030 - 1300 Barley Room, Farnham Maltings 

Tickets £20 (in advance only) 

Sarah Ann Hallett 07949483166 studytasfarnham@gmail.com

SOLD OUT

2 artists both longing for Provencal sunshine. This study morning looks at Van Gogh’s time in Arles where he explored colour and landscape in ways which have shifted everyone’s perceptions and how less well known artist Raoul Dufy's time in Nice saw his unique joie-de-vivre shine through his creations.

Venue ​:​​​ Barley Room, Maltings

Time:  ​​​​10.30am to 1.00pm

Tickets:​​​  £20.00 (in advance only)

Contact:​​​  Sarah Ann Hallett 

Studytasfarnham@gmail.com

07949 483166

Charles Rennie Mackintosh is now regarded as Britain’s greatest architect, but it is well known that his potential was never fully realised during his lifetime. The role played by his wife, Margaret Macdonald, and his collaborators, Francis Macdonald & Herbert MacNair has also been obscured. This lecture will explore the Four’s work in Glasgow, through their major commissions for the Glasgow School of Art, the Hill House, Helensburgh, and Miss Cranston’s Tea Rooms.

Venue ​:​​​ Barley Room, Maltings

Time:  ​​​​10.30am to 1.00pm

Tickets:​​​  £20.00 (in advance only)

Contact:​​​  Sarah Ann Hallett 

Studytasfarnham@gmail.com

​​​​​07949 483166

​​​​​

This event is at the Lightbox in Woking.

Download the booking form here 

Eveline Eaton traces the development of Picasso’s long life and career from his early traditional style to the invention of a new way of seeing.

 20th century art cannot be understood without assessing his achievements. This study morning links to the Exhibition at Tate Modern.

Venue ​:​​​ Barley Room, Maltings

Time:  ​​​​10.30am to 1.00pm

Tickets:​​​  £20.00 (in advance only)

Contact:​​​  Sarah Ann Hallett 

​​​​​Studytasfarnham@gmail.com   ​​​​​07949 483166

Exhibition information

These two National icons died a week apart in January 1901 and both made major contributions to 19th century life.

Musician and historian Daniel Snowman looks at their lives and artistic influences and achievements.

This study morning is related to an exhibition called Opera - Power and Politics at the V and A .

https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/opera

This runs from September 30th to Feb 25th

Venue ​:​​​ Barley Room, Maltings

Time:  ​​​​10.30am to 1.00pm

Tickets:​​​  £20.00 (in advance only)

Contact:​​​  Sarah Ann Hallett 

​​​​​Studytasfarnham@gmail.com
​​​​​07949 483166