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03 November 2026Luncheon at the Moat House. Bottoms Up. The Story of Alcohol in Art
20 October 2026Beauty in Truth - the past, present and future of Botanical Illustration.
15 September 2026The Antiquities Market and Problem of Provenance.
21 July 2026The Enigma of Edward Elgar
23 June 2026Cartoons and Contraptions! The wonderful world of W Heath Robinson
19 May 2026Icons and the Art of Byzantium
21 April 2026The nature of the Beast! Understanding Fabulous Animals in Medieval Art.
17 March 2026Queens, Consorts and Courtiers: Female Art Patrons in late Stuart England
17 February 2026A Bit of a Carry On
20 January 2026The Royal Academy - Guardians of British artistic taste?
11 November 2025All About Icons
14 October 2025Gender and 20th Century British Sculpture: The Lives and Times of Hepworth and Frink
16 September 2025An English Idyll. Arts and Crafts gardens from Allingham to Lutyens
22 July 2025Mad Bad and Dangerous to know. The Colourful Ancestors of the Dukes of Bedford.
24 June 2025The Age of Jazz in Britain
20 May 2025Paint Brushes at Dawn: The World’s Greatest Artistic Feuds, Rows and Quarrels
15 April 2025Greek Myths and Legends In Art
18 March 2025Medieval Barcelona: A World Apart
18 February 2025What is a Painter Stainer? Inside an Ancient City Livery Company
21 January 2025Caravaggio, Painter Extraordinaire, A Flawed Genius.
12 November 2024L S Lowry. A Visionary Artist
15 October 2024The Forensic Eye. Find your Inner Connoisseur
17 September 2024Canal History and Heritage
30 July 2024The Post War Textile Visionaries of Modern Art
18 June 2024The Athletics Aesthetic- Your Art Society Guide to the 2024 Olympics
21 May 2024The Divine Sunflower in Art and Culture
16 April 2024Island Sanctuary: Refugee Artists in Britain from Huguenots to present day
20 March 2024Northern Lights - Edvard Munch and the Art of Scandinavia.
21 February 2024Charles Dickens; the man, his life and his characters.
17 January 2024Victorian Carte de Visite
15 November 2023Graveyards to Die for. How 19th Century London buried its dead.
04 October 2023The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds
13 September 2023Art UK: Uncovering the UK’s Hidden Oil Painting Collection
26 July 2023Roland Penrose The Friendly Surrealist 1900-1984
28 June 2023Life on a Harpstring
17 May 2023The Bayeux Tapestry. 950 years of Propaganda, Intrigue and Spin
19 April 2023Where have all the women gone? Putting Self-Portraits of Women Back into the Frame
08 March 2023Change of lecture The Architecture of the British Raj is remarkable: let's celebrate it.
15 February 2023Misshapen Pearl. An overview of the music of the Baroque era
18 January 2023Murder, Mystery and Paint. The disturbing Story of Walter Sickert
23 November 2022io Saturnalia! Happy Christmas the Roman Way.
19 October 2022New York, New York. The Ashcan experience
21 September 2022City of God, City of Gold
20 July 2022Seaside Modern: Art and Life on the Beach
15 June 2022John Betjeman's London
18 May 2022Holy Mother and Sacred Cows
20 April 2022Art after Windrush
16 March 2022Great Railway Stations Evoking the spirit of Romance and Adventure
16 February 2022The Life and Art of Amedeo Modigliani - a flawed genius?
19 January 2022Painting Manchester: Views of the city and its inhabitants over the centuries 
17 November 2021Unravelling the Silk Road, a textile journey:
27 October 2021First, catch a squirrel… "Discover some of the surprising materials used by the earlier masters"
15 September 2021Tulipomania .........the history of a flower of fortune, beauty and desire
21 July 2021Great Lengths
23 June 2021Beethoven
12 May 2021Selfies, self expression, celebrity and the Victorian Carte de visite.
14 April 2021Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson - Life and Loves.
17 March 2021Memorial for the Women’s Suffrage Movement
17 February 2021London Underground by Design
20 January 2021Healing Stitches: Therapeutic Needlecrafts at Times of Conflict
18 November 2020Journey of the Magi: Origins, Myth and Meaning. Two Millennia of Art & Belief
28 October 2020Fiction, Fallacy & Fake News. Spin and propaganda in art throughout the ages.
16 September 2020From Venice to Sheffield - John Ruskin’s passion for art, craft and social justice
12 February 2020A Child of Six Could Do It Cartoonists view of Modern Art
15 January 2020The Lords of Creation – Kingship in Maya Art
06 November 2019Contemporary Artists: Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor
09 October 2019Architecture + Photography = Art
11 September 2019Georgia O’Keeffe: In dialogue with the writings of D.H Lawrence and Aldous Huxley
17 July 2019Same Old, Same New…..
26 June 2019Chinese Takeaways
08 May 2019Art Behind Bars - The role of the Arts in the cycle of Crime, Prison and Re-offending.
10 April 2019Theatre Illusions
13 March 2019Bernard Leach and his influence on 20th century Studio Ceramics
13 February 2019Leonardo Da Vinci: Pathfinder of Science.
16 January 2019Lover, Teacher, Muse - or Rival Couples in Modern British Art
07 November 2018Modern Architecture
10 October 2018The influence of the Japanese Print on Western Painting.
04 October 2018Society Luncheon Celebrating our Golden Anniversary. As Good as Gold.
12 September 2018Master drawing Close up: Silver point to laser cut.
18 July 2018The Pre-Raphaelites in their time.
27 June 2018The Art of the steal: Nazi looting in World War two.
09 May 2018Handle and Rembrandt - two great Baroque protestants
11 April 2018Edward Burra
14 March 2018The Paintings of Hieronymus Bosch.
14 February 2018Emperor Qianlong (1736 - 1795) Ultimate Renaissance ruler and Fine Art Collector.
17 January 2018The Marvels of Modernism 1918 - 1960.
08 November 2017Frank Lloyd Wright.
11 October 2017Art Beat “A personal journey from beat officer to specialist art crime detective”
13 September 2017Grinling Gibbons: Carver to the crown.
12 July 2017An introduction to Ice age art.
21 June 2017Pots and Frocks. The World of Grayson Perry, from Essex punk potter to Superstar National Treasure.
10 May 2017Perfect Porcelains for Palaces. The magnificent and rare Imperial Porcelains made for the Chinese court.
12 April 2017Protest Art - Social Art: Politics and Art do mix.
08 March 2017Dale Chihuly: the world’s foremost glass artist (The Tiffany of the 20th Century
08 February 2017"Lest We Forget", the moving story of Britain's war memorials.
18 January 2017Every picture tells a story : a treasury of book illustrations, prints and the graphic arts.
09 November 2016200 Years of Art in Australia
12 October 2016The Genius of Wedgwood
14 September 2016The Russians Are Coming: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes take Paris by storm
13 July 2016Weave, Stitch, Dye
22 June 2016David Nash –one man and his wood
11 May 2016A little revolution – Eric Gill and Jacob Epstein and the revival of the Romanesque tradition of direct carving in stone.
13 April 2016Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and Humphrey Repton : English Landscape design in changing times 1738-1816
30 March 2016Oscar Niemeyer 1907 - 2012: Last of the Moderns
24 February 2016At Home Abroad: Caneletto in England
27 January 2016The Secret Language of Sacred Places: Religious Architecture of the World
25 November 2015David Hockney: Art as Biography

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Lecture: Luncheon at the Moat House. Bottoms Up. The Story of Alcohol in Art Lecturer: Ian Swankie Tuesday 03 November 2026

Since the early Romans and Greeks, alcohol has been an important subject for artists.