We have had to make urgent changes to our venue and programme for the remainder of this season (March-May 2026). Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are changing the venue for our meetings to the Palace Hotel in Buxton from 24 March 2026 at least until the end of this season. To make parking easier for local residents we are also starting half an hour earlier at 10:30 so people do not have to rush to get their cars at the end of free parking.
Andy Goldsworthy – revealing the beauty of nature
29th September at 10:30
Andy Goldsworthy is one of the most interesting and innovative landscape artists working in Britain today. He mostly works in the open air, using natural materials such as leaves, ice, stones or trees to make exquisitely beautiful but usually ephemeral images in the great Romantic landscape tradition. Fortunately, although most of his works eventually disintegrate, melt away or fall over, they are all carefully photographed and included in extremely desirable and lavish ‘coffee-table’ books.
Frank Woodgate
Tickling the Ivories: a Short History of the Piano (Music)
27th October
Both a mark of social status and an indicator of cultural interest, the piano, and its predecessors, was a fixture in most homes for nearly five centuries. It served to entertain and to edify in equal measure and to act as the work-horse for musicians throughout that period. But the instrument that we know and love today, and the music written for it, was slow in its genesis and grew from very humble beginnings. The clavichord, spinet, harpsichord, forte piano, pianola and reproducing piano were all important milestones in the journey that the modern pianoforte took. Using carefully selected sound examples, film clips and other performance artifacts, this lecture will chart the rise of the piano and explore some of the approaches that great artists took when coming to terms with it.
Raymond Holden
Going to the Ball – Fashion to impress
17th November
During the Victorian Era, magnificent fancy dress balls became one of the grandest and most fashionable ways for a society hostess to make her mark. These balls were reported in newspapers and magazines in great detail. Importantly, who was there, what they were wearing, who designed their gown and the historical figure they represented. Today’s social media and influencers would literally have had a ball. No expense was spared and these balls became the elite event of the year. Queen Victoria was a great fan along with Daisy, The Countess of Warwick and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire whose 700 invitations to their ball in 1897 summoned guests to appear “in a historical costume dated earlier than 1820’’. What an open field and the guests dressed to impress!
Jacqueline Hyman
The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Midlands
26th January 2027
Many people are familiar with the national designers of the 19th century Arts and Crafts Movement such as William Morris and Charles Ashbee. But the Midlands made a huge contribution to the movement as well. Designers at The Bromsgrove Guild of Handicrafts for example produced the exquisite wrought iron gates for Buckingham Palace. This lecture sets the work of these Midlands designers in the context of the national Arts and Crafts Movement using examples of jewellery made by Arthur and Georgina Gaskin, stained glass by Florence Camm, ceramics from the Ruskin Pottery and more. It also reveals the best locations in the region to see examples of local Arts and Crafts Movement design.
Sally Hoban
The Royal Collection: the Reign of Elizabeth II
23rd February 2027
Coming to the throne in 1952, Elizabeth II inherited a Royal Collection which was buffeted by the upheavals of the Second World War. From Buckingham Palace, particularly, the collections had been removed to safe places and by the time that peace came in 1945, the palace had suffered from bomb-damage and was in a parlous state. Throughout her reign, over sixty years, not only has this sad state been completely reversed in Buckingham Palace, but it, and every other Royal Residence has been totally refurbished and made available to a wide public. Under a succession of highly skilled curators the collection has been extensively catalogued, recorded, and conserved and is certainly far more accessible to the world than it has ever been before. That this is so is due to modern technology, and the constant lending of works of art to exhibitions from Moscow to Melbourne. Furthermore the building in 2002 of the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace has created a center where varied objects can been seen and studied at close quarters, in the most advantageous surroundings. In short, the reign has seen this world-beating collection brought to the peak of condition. It has seen new acquisitions both of contemporary and historical pieces, it has seen works conserved and re-displayed, and most importantly it has made the collection available to the world.
Nicholas Merchant
Gertrude Stein and her Circle 1900s-1920s
23rd March 2027
Gertrude Stein was an American Jewish intellectual and writer, whose heart was in Paris. Her sister-in-law, Sarah and brothers, Leo and Michael, also supported highly contentious artists by buying works such as Matisse’s Woman in a Hat from the first exhibition of the Fauves in 1905, and Picasso’s Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon from his studio in 1907. Gertrude Stein’s relationship with Picasso is legendary, as is his Cubist portrait of her. But the real richness of her story is found in the fascinating human stories, the fights, relationships and scandals. These are all ‘told’ by Gertrude Stein’s life-time lover, friend and companion Alice B Toklas in her fake biography.
Hilary Guise
The Changing Face of Contemporary Glass Art
27th April 2027
An in-depth introduction to the work of three very different artists, American Dale Chihuly, English James Maskrey and Ghanaian Anthony Amoako Attah. Chihuly made the headlines in London with the V&A chandelier (2001) and his enormous boundary-pushing outdoor glass sculpture installation in Kew Gardens (2019). Maskrey not only works with artists in other disciplines but also produces outstanding work in his own right. Ghanaian-born Amoako-Attah is inspired by Ghanaian Kente textiles which he recreates using the medium of screen-printed glass, In 2022 he was Artist of the Fair at Collect, London.
Susan Wood
Queens, consorts and courtiers: female art patrons in late Stuart England
25th May 2027
In an era when married women’s property automatically belonged to their husbands, could women still play a role as patrons of the arts? Female patronage has often been hidden within the historical record, but new research has shown that the patronage of these women has been considerably underestimated. From Queen Catherine of Braganza’s patronage of Catholic artists, to the Duchess of Marlborough’s politically-charged London mansion, we will look at some of the most important works of art and architecture commissioned by women in late Stuart England, and consider how they used art to carve out their position in society.
Amy Lim