THE ARTS SOCIETY NADDER VALLEY
Our 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 2025-26
Inform, Educate, Entertain
Friday 25th April 2025
The Art of the Japanese Garden: from Tradition to Modernity
with Marie Conte-Helm
This lecture introduces some of Japan’s most famous gardens and provides a context for understanding the principles of Japanese garden design as it has evolved through the ages. The Japanese love of nature and the changing seasons has manifested itself in the subject matter of paintings and in the intimate and grand-scale gardens surrounding aristocratic palaces and Buddhist temples, as well as Zen-inspired dry landscape gardens with their strikingly symbolic content. Nature and artifice are intriguingly combined in such examples to capture the very essence of the landscape.
Kinkaku-ji, Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoto, 1398. Photo: M Conte-Helm.
Friday 16th May 2025
Faber & Faber -
90 Years of Excellence in Cover Design
with Tony Faber
Since its foundation in 1925, Faber and Faber has built a reputation as one of London’s most important literary publishing houses. In part, this relates to the editorial team that Geoffrey Faber and his successors built around them - TS Eliot was famously an early recruit - but it is also due to the firm’s insistence on good design and illustration. Early years brought innovations like the Ariel Poems – single poems, beautifully illustrated, sold in their own envelopes - and contacts with some of the great artists of the inter-war years. From the 1940s, there was an emphasis on typography, led by the firm’s art director Berthold Wolpe; his Albertus font is still used on City of London road signs. In the 1980s, the firm started its association with Pentagram, responsible for the ff logo. Along the way, it has employed some of our most celebrated artists as cover illustrators – from Rex Whistler and Barnett Freedman to Peter Blake and Damien Hirst.
In this lecture, the founder's grandson tells the story of the publisher and of the art used on its books, from its beginnings to the present day.
First edition cover of The Spire by John Piper, 1964, courtesy of Faber
Friday 16th June 2025
The Age of Jazz
with Sandy Burnett
Jazz is one of music’s most important genres: a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free-wheeling creativity, close-knit ensembles and imaginative improvisation. Drawing on his experience both as musicologist and gigging musician, Sandy can shed light on jazz from the inside. His talk covers the early years of jazz up to the Second World War and touches on the disparate influences which lay behind the emergence of jazz. Musical illustrations range from the blues, ragtime and the very first jazz recordings through to classics by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and the dawn of the Swing Era.
All Star Jazz Group, 1944. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Friday 18th July 2025
Scandinavian Modern: Behind the Scenes
with James Vaux
Just why did Scandinavian Modern design become so popular internationally in the mid-century? Behind it stood a Nordic political project to change consumer taste and shape the model citizen, using scientific experimentation and social engineering. This lecture concentrates on the height of Scandinavian Modern design between the 1930s and the 1960s. It charts how the Nordics broke away from Bauhaus and International Style to create softer, more organic furniture and graceful ceramics, glassware and textiles. Featuring designers and architects including Bruno Mathsson, Josef Frank, Astrid Sampe, Tapio Wirkkala, Alvar Aalto, Hans Wegner, Finn Juhl and Arne Jacobsen, the talk looks at three ground-breaking exhibitions to show how the movement turned from a functionalist movement into a luxury style. It also examines its current revival and legacy.
The Magic of Form exhibition of Danish modern design, Design Museum Denmark, Copenhagen 2023. Credit: James Vaux, courtesy of Designmuseum Danmark.
Friday 19th September 2025
John Singer Sargent: The Private Radical
with Gavin Plumley
Whether drawing duchesses or portraying princes, John Singer Sargent – who was born in 1856 and died a hundred years ago in 1925 – was high society’s leading portraitist. Flaunting a consummate technique, his luxurious canvases mirrored his subjects’ wealth. Yet beneath the high fashions and dazzling veneer of works such as Madame X, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw lurks a much rawer world. Sargent scandalised Parisian society and the city’s Salon with his frank depictions of human sexuality, but he was even more modern than they might have feared. This talk charts the artist’s life and his prolific output, showing that, like the era he came to represent, Sargent was always on the cusp of seismic change.
Lady Agnew of Lochnaw by John Singer Sargent, 1892, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Friday 17th October 2025
The Legacy of Tea
with Emma Watts
The British panacea for everything - but the legacy of tea has strands that are woven deep into our culture. This lecture will explore the highlights of this fascinating history. A history that spans the globe and has had a significant impact on the styles and designs of much of what we consider British. From legends to country houses, silver to ceramics and of course the cup of tea.
This is a story of fashion, trade, commerce and progress which collectively presents a legacy that has endured for 500 years.
Tea caddy, Meissen porcelain, Germany circa 1735 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Friday 21st November 2025
The Brilliance of British Architecture
with Ian Swankie
In the field of world class architecture, British talent has always been at the forefront, and we have much to celebrate. In this talk, Ian tours around the UK and overseas showcasing the brilliance of some of the designers who have made huge improvements to the built environment and enhanced the lives of those around them. Famous names like Lutyens, Gilbert Scott, Foster, Hadid and Rogers are joined by several lesser known but equally creative architects.
The Scalpel (2018) by Kohn Pederson Fox with a reflection of The Gherkin (2004) by Foster + Partners, the Willis Building (2008) by Foster + Partners and Lloyd’s building (1986) by Richard Rogers & Partners, Credit: Ian Swankies
Friday 16th January 2026
The Bloomsbury Group: The Art of Vanessa Bell
with Julia Musgrave
Avant-garde painter, designer, decorator, inspired colourist, mother and muse, Vanessa Bell was the warm heart of the Bloomsbury Group, a set who Dorothy Parker once described as “living in squares and loving in triangles”. Navigating the tides of sexual and artistic revolution with tolerance, irreverence and wit she had a central role in the social and aesthetic life of Bloomsbury; alive to their love affairs, romances, passions and pleasures, and refreshingly uninterested in politics. She was the sister of the writer Virginia Woolf, wife of the critic Clive Bell, and counted the painter Roger Fry and the artist Duncan Grant among her lovers.
Vanessa Bell in a Deckchair by Roger Fry, 1911 © Philip Mould & Company, London
Friday 20th February 2026
Kettle's Yard: A Masterpiece of Curatorship
with Sarah Burles
Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge has been described as “one of the country’s most intimate and spellbinding museums, the collection of one man and his unerring eye; restorative, homely yet life-changing”. This man was H.S. ‘Jim’ Ede, curator, writer, collector and friend to artists. In 1957, he opened his Cambridge home to university students as “a living place where works of art could be enjoyed… unhampered by the greater austerity of the museum or public art gallery.” His collection included works by Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska which were carefully placed alongside pieces of furniture, ceramics and natural objects. His curated home remains, by and large as he left it, characterised by its unique atmosphere, fascinating juxtapositions and personal connections.
Spiral of stones Credit: Kettle’s Yard
Friday 20th March 2026
Women Behind the Lens: Outstanding Female Photographers and their contribution to the Art of Photography
with Brian Stater
The work of women photographers has often been unfairly neglected. This lecture seeks to correct that by examining the contribution of three outstanding British practitioners: Julia Margaret Cameron, a Victorian pioneer; Jane Bown, a brilliant portraitist; and Fay Godwin, who excelled in landscape photography. We also explore the work of two highly influential Americans: Dorothea Lange, who produced brilliant documentary images and Annie Leibovitz, who continues to both surprise and delight her audience.
Sir John Herschel (1792-1871) photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron 1867 Public Domain (Metropolitan Museum of Art)