Arts Society lecturer, Rosalind Whyte, will explore depictions of literature on British Art and show how artists have brought great characters from books and poetry to life. She will then focus on contemporary artists.

She will examine how contemporary artists responded to the life and works of Charles Dickens and will explore artists’ interpretation of some of Dickens’ most popular characters, in paintings as well as the original book illustrations. She will also look at portraits of Dickens himself over the years and how images of him changed as he became an increasingly important and respected figure.

The link to buy a ticket is https://www.ticketsource.com/theartssocietyrichmond/t-mjrnekx

Meeting place - ​​​The study morning will be held upstairs in Duke Street Church, Richmond TW9 1DH so enter via the main door in Duke Street.

Meeting date - Wednesday 28th October 2026.

Meeting time - Please be there from 9.30am in time for a 10am start.

09.30 Registration

10.00 - 11.00 Our lectures begin

11.00 - 11.30 Break. Coffee and biscuits will be served.

11.30 - 12.45 Second lecture

The cost is £23. You will be emailed a ticket but you do not need to show it on arrival as we will have a list of names. You are most welcome to bring family and friends.

Our lecturer - Rosalind Whyte has a BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. She is an experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. Lectures at Tate. She lectures to independent art societies and on cruises.

If you have any questions about this study morning, please contact Val Williams at auntie.val@icloud.com; Mobile 07983 682368 or Tel 020 8546 4050.

If you have any questions about this study morning, please contact Val Williams at auntie.val@icloud.com; Mobile 07983 682368 or Tel 020 8546 4050.

The link to buy a ticket will be announced later.

Located at the northernmost point of the Jutland peninsula in Denmark, Skagen is an attractive spot in the summer for its unusual light. From the 1870s to the beginning of the 20th century this fishermen village was home to an artists’ colony. Some of its more famous members include Anna and Michael Ancher, Marie and Peder Severin Krøyer, as well as Laurits Tuxen. Reacting against styles enforced by the Academies and influenced instead by French modernism, they painted en plein air and represented scenes from ordinary life. Fishermen at work, social gathering and domestic scenes are common in their works. They are especially renowned for their depictions of the particular light of long summer evenings. In such sceneries their works often become more romantic and lyrical. 

Biography:

Dr Caroline Levisse is an art historian based in London. She was born in France where she studied art history before moving to Copenhagen. In Denmark, she focused on research work and completed a PhD on the relations between art and religion in contemporary Scandinavian art. After graduating in 2013, she moved to London and started teaching art history with adult education providers. She has since developed a range of courses focusing on 19th and early 20th century Western art. She has published articles in French and English in academic journals as well as magazines and newspapers, such as Church Times and Arts sacrés.

Meeting place - ​​​The study morning will be held upstairs in Duke Street Church, Richmond TW9 1DH so enter via the main door in Duke Street.

Meeting date - Monday 15 February 2027.

Meeting time - Please be there from 9.30am in time for a 10am start.

09.30 Registration

10.00 - 11.00 Our lectures begin

11.00 - 11.30 Break. Coffee and biscuits will be served.

11.30 - 12.45 Second lecture

The cost is £23. You will be emailed a ticket but you do not need to show it on arrival as we will have a list of names. You are most welcome to bring family and friends.

If you have any questions about this study morning, please contact Val Williams at auntie.val@icloud.com; Mobile 07983 682368 or Tel 020 8546 4050.

The link to buy a ticket will be announced later.

Meeting place - ​​​The study morning will be held upstairs in Duke Street Church, Richmond TW9 1DH so enter via the main door in Duke Street.

Meeting date - Wednesday 2nd June 2027.

Meeting time - Please be there from 9.30am in time for a 10am start.

09.30 Registration

10.00 - 11.00 Our lectures begin

11.00 - 11.30 Break. Coffee and biscuits will be served.

11.30 - 12.45 Second lecture

The cost is £23. You will be emailed a ticket but you do not need to show it on arrival as we will have a list of names. You are most welcome to bring family and friends.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – or ‘PRB’, as they signed themselves – consisted of seven young artists who formed a secret group in 1848.  They believed that current art was decadent; they wanted to return to the ideals of the age before Raphael, when (in their view) art was natural, truthful and deeply felt.

The three chief figures were John Millais, William Holman Hunt, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  They painted out of doors whenever possible, capturing every natural detail; they used their friends and families as models; and they achieved brilliant effects of colour.  Their subjects included scenes from Shakespeare, Dante, Keats, Tennyson, the Bible, and modern-day life.  They idealised the middle ages, and regarded the Royal Academy as their enemy.

Their first ‘PRB’ paintings were well received.  Then the secret of their society was leaked – and the press attacked them fiercely.  They were rescued by the young art critic John Ruskin, who defended their work and became their friend. 

The young PRBs enjoyed complicated personal and social lives, sharing models and lovers; Millais eventually married Ruskin’s ex-wife.  Before they went their separate ways they produced a number of masterpieces (The Carpenter’s Shop, Ophelia, The Awakening Conscience, Beata Beatrix, The Last of England) which still have the power to engage and intrigue us. Should we regard them as romantics, radicals, or both? This question is raised again by the ‘second wave’ of artists and designers, led by the multi-talented William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, who brought Pre-Raphaelite ideas into the decorative arts – furniture, stained glass, printing, wallpaper (‘Whatever you do, think firstly of your walls’, advised Morris). Their ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement has had a strong effect on the scenes and designs that we still appreciate and enjoy today.

Biography:

1970-71 Teacher at Marlborough College. 1975-86 Keeper of Fine Art at the Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery & Museums, Brighton. Since 1986 Director of the Martyn Gregory Gallery, London. Author of several books including Savage Ruskin, Oriental Architecture in the West and George Chinnery, artist of India and the China Coast.

If you have any questions about this study morning, please contact Val Williams at auntie.val@icloud.com; Mobile 07983 682368 or Tel 020 8546 4050.

The link to buy a ticket will be announced later.

Meeting place - ​​​The study morning will be held upstairs in Duke Street Church, Richmond TW9 1DH so enter via the main door in Duke Street.

Meeting date - Wednesday 2nd June 2027.

Meeting time - Please be there from 9.30am in time for a 10am start.

09.30 Registration

10.00 - 11.00 Our lectures begin

11.00 - 11.30 Break. Coffee and biscuits will be served.

11.30 - 12.45 Second lecture

The cost is £23. You will be emailed a ticket but you do not need to show it on arrival as we will have a list of names. You are most welcome to bring family and friends.

The Wallace Collection - surely everyone's favourite museum of art - contains an outstanding array of paintings, furniture, porcelain, arms and armour, and other works of art, brought together by five generations of one family between about 1760 and 1880. This lecture tells the fascinating story of the Wallace Collection’s formation and also presents many of its finest treasures. It's a story full of wonderful works of art and extraordinary characters, such as the 4th Marquess of Hertford, perhaps the greatest art collector of the nineteenth century, and his illegitimate son whose name (from the age of twenty four) was Richard Wallace. As we'll see, it was Lady Wallace, the widow of Sir Richard and formerly a perfume-seller in Paris, who bequeathed the Collection to the British nation in 1897. Few museums have such an interesting history, and few display such a superb range of works of art.

Biography:

Formerly Senior Curator of the Wallace Collection where Stephen had particular responsibility for exhibitions and nineteenth-century paintings. He has given countless tours of the Collection for visiting groups as well as many lectures on its art and other art historical subjects at home and abroad. His most recent publication, The Discovery of Paris, is a book on early nineteenth-century watercolour views of Paris by major British artists such as Girtin, Turner and Bonington. He has written many articles and reviews for art magazines.