THE ARTS SOCIETY NADDER VALLEY
Our monthly programme is available to members only. Guests of members are welcome for a fee of £10.00 per lecture or £5.00 for students (14-22 years of age)
Lectures are held at The Nadder Centre, Weaveland Road, Tisbury, SP3 6HJ and start at 6.30 pm unless otherwise stated.
Lecture Programme 2026-27
Inform, Educate, Entertain
Friday 17th April 2026
Antoni Gaudi i Cornet:
Master Builder of Barcelona
with Vivienne Lawes
Genius Spanish architect and designer Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926), a key figure in Catalan Modernism, stands as one of the creators of Barcelona’s urban identity. Inventor of new techniques and a magpie enthusiast of all things botanical and sacred, Gaudí’s most famous building, the Barcelona church of the Sagrada Família, is Spain’s most-visited monument and one of seven of the architect’s works listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Building works on Sagrada Família were begun in 1882 and are still ongoing, a fact that stands in stark contrast to contemporary building projects and brings to life the nature of cathedral building in medieval Europe. This lecture examines Gaudí’s work and legacy.
Image - The Serpentine Bench in Park Güell, Barcelona by Antoni Gaudí. Photo by Rosy Ko/Unsplash
Friday 15th May 2026
From Venice to Sheffield - John Ruskin's
Passion for Art, Craft and Social Justice
with Simon Seligman
Inspired by the bicentenary of the birth of John Ruskin (1819 -1900) in 2019, this lecture celebrates the extraordinary life and work of this visionary Victorian. As writer, teacher, artist, collector, patron and critic, Ruskin was perhaps the most complete polymath of the 19th century. He left behind a dazzling range of writing and collections that continue to inspire and generate debate around the world. Perhaps most famous today as a champion of Turner and admirer of Venice, Ruskin’s impact ranged far and wide; his ideas inspired the Arts and Crafts Movement and the founding of the National Trust, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and the Labour Movement.
Image - Study of Moss, Fern and Wood-sorrel, upon a rocky River-bank by John Ruskin. Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust, licensed under CC0
Friday 19th June 2026
The Opera Singer Phenomenon -
How do they make that noise?
with Tim Mirfin
That strange noise that opera singers make - is it really necessary? And, if so, why do they make it? How do they make it? Is it something anyone can do or are they some race apart? This lecture is liberally illustrated with pictures, video, sound, both live and recorded, and a small (unstressful) amount of audience participation. This talk is designed to appeal to opera fan, opera sceptic and opera ignoramus in equal measure, given by an opera singer.
Image - Renata Scotto performing in Manon Photo: Bernard Gotfryd rawpixel.com CC0 license
Friday 17th July 2026
Caravaggio: The Bad Boy of the Baroque
with Dan Evans
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) has shocked and awed audiences since he first painted himself as Bacchus with a hangover. This scandalous and sometimes vicious painter produced work with cinematic compositions and intensely visceral details. The lecture will cover his astonishing life story, using selected works to show how he both conformed and disrupted Church and societal expectations. From his earliest commissions in Rome to his final masterpieces, the lecture seeks to analyse his paintings through his gritty background, showing how his personality infiltrated his artistic choices and helping to explain the man behind his masterpieces.
Image - The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin/Wikimedia Commons
Friday 18th September 2026
The Garden in Ancient Egyptian Art
with Lucia Gahlin
"I wish that each day I may walk unceasingly on the banks of my pool … that I may refresh myself in the shade of my sycamore tree”
Ancient Egyptian tomb inscription, c.1450 BC
A leafy garden with a pool, fruit trees and flowers epitomised the ancient Egyptian idea of paradise. In this lecture Lucia will explore images of gardens in Ancient Egyptian art to discover all we can about the gardens associated with ancient palaces, élite houses, temples and tombs. We will consider what a garden meant to the ancient Egyptians; its significance within their belief system, particularly concerning the afterlife. Illustrations for this lecture will include detailed tomb scenes, funerary models, and fragments of ancient palace decoration – a vivid array of representations of ancient gardens.
Image - Painted scene of a tree goddess in the Tomb of Sennedjem, c1250 BC, Luxor © Lucia Gahlin
Friday 16th October 2026
Indians, Buffalo and Storms:
The American West in 19th Century Art
with Toby Faber
Artists were never far behind the explorers who opened up the west of America in the 19th century. Sometimes they painted what they saw. Sometimes they painted what they wished they saw. Either way, painters like Alfred Miller, Frederick Church and Albert Bierstadt have left us a powerful, if romanticised, record of the country and people that the settlers found. Now we can use their pictures to chart the history of the opening of America’s West - the arrival of the railroad, the confinement of Native Americans to reservations, and the extermination of the buffalo. This is a story on a big scale and it seems appropriate that among the pictures illustrating the lecture are some of the largest and most grandiloquent paintings of the era. After a period of deep neglect, they are now very much back in vogue, but whatever one thinks of their artistic merits, hopefully the audiences will agree that they do, at the very least, tell a story.
Image - The Last of the Buffalo, Albert Bierstadt, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Friday 20th November 2026
Winter Wonderland in Paintings
with Sarah Ciacci
Snow transforms places that we know, and makes them strange and magical, so it is no surprise that snowy winter scenes have fascinated artists throughout the ages.
In this lecture, we will look at how different artists have depicted snowy and wintery scenes to explore the landscape as they saw it, or human emotions, or ideas about painting. We may not get our own winter wonderland this year, but we can look at paintings of them together and explore how artists have responded to them over the centuries.
Image - Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters, c.1608 Hendrick Avercamp, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Friday 15th January 2026
A Bit of A Carry On
with Tyler Butterworth
The remarkable untold story of Carry On actor Peter Butterworth and his wife, Britain’s first female TV impressionist, Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher. Using classic film and TV clips, personal mementos, and rare photographs and letters from his family’s unseen collection, Tyler reveals the private story behind his parents’ public lives. It’s a journey that takes in MI9, the building of a theatre in the notorious WWII prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III, nights at Chequers with a prime minister, This Is Your Life and many more moments in their long, shared life in the theatre.
Image - Tyler Butterworth
Friday 19th February 2027
A History of Colour: Blue
with Alice White
Loaded with symbolism, the colour blue creates meaning, provokes emotion and ignites memory on a personal, and a cultural level, throughout the world.
From the sacred shade of ultramarine, to the ancient roots of indigo, to the startling alchemy of Prussian, blue has been used to venerate icons since the earliest human civilizations.
Enjoy this rich history of colour via two powerful forces: Impressionism and Japanese print. When Monet’s Water Lilies met Hokusai’s Great Wave, the values of art changed forever.
Image - Lapis lazuli embedded in rock. Photo by Geert Pieters/Unsplash
Friday 19th March 2027
The Dancing Faun - A Personal Story of a Masterpiece
with Bertie Pearce
In this lecture Bertie recounts the extraordinary tale of how a small bronze statue, which had stood in his grandfather’s garden for 40 years, was discovered as a masterpiece and ended up in the Getty Museum, California. Adriaen de Vries (c.1556-1626) was a Northern Mannerist sculptor born in the Netherlands. A technical virtuoso, he created spectacular bronzes for the most discerning patrons of his time, including the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II of Prague. He excelled in refined modelling and bronze casting and in the manipulation of patina and became the most famous European sculptor of his generation.
Image - Juggling Man, about 1615 by Adriaen de Vries, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 90.SB.44 CC0 1.0 Universal
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