STUDY DAYS 2025-26

Members are welcome to invite guests for an additional charge. Where demand exceeds places, however, Members will continue to have priority.

Our study days offer a more in depth examination of a particular topic.

Full days begin at 10:00am for a 10:30am start and finish at 3.15pm. Half day sessions run for approximately two and a half hours morning or afternoon. Refreshments will be provided.

An extra fee is charged to cover the cost of the Study Day.

Merchants and Magnificence: The Art of Venice's Golden Age

with Antonia Gatward Cevizli

Tuesday 18th November 2025

Study Day - 10 am for registration and coffee, Lectures from 10.30 am to 3.15 pm

This special interest day will transport you to Venice in its heyday; a city whose territories extended far beyond the lagoon with enormous wealth gained through maritime trade. This abundance of money made overseas provided the funds for beautifying the city.

The first talk explores the major architectural monuments of the city. We begin in the 11th century with the rebuilding of the iconic St Mark’s Basilica, and progress to the ornate 14th century waterfront of the Doges’ Palace and on to the economic heart of Venice; the Rialto. Architecture is a great communicator. What did these buildings have to say about Venice, its self-identity and its place in the world?

The second lecture takes us into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries where our focus will shift to paintings and sculpture. We will join Carpaccio and some Venetian ladies on a balcony, enjoy a moment of tranquillity with Giovanni Bellini, be puzzled by Giorgione, bowled over by Titian’s Frari Altarpiece and moved by Tintoretto in the Scuola di San Rocco.

The final lecture of the day brings you face to face with some of the inhabitants of Venice as we explore the development of portraiture.

A Courtyard in the Doges’ Palace, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Eric Ravilious and the Lure of the Everyday

with Jo Walton

Tuesday 4th February 2026

Half Day - 10 am - 1.15 pm

Ravilious has been described as the greatest English watercolourist of the 20th century and his images of the landscape and of everyday objects attract passionate devotees. A prolific painter, printmaker and designer, he became an Official War Artist in 1939, and was killed in 1942 but his legacy is a body of work reflecting deep delight in the world in which he lived. This talk looks at his work and that of some of his contemporaries working on the Home Front in the Second World War.

The Tractor, 1933, Eric Ravilious (d.1942), Public Domain, Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust, licensed under CC0