The lecture will be addressing some of the world’s greatest art crimes and heists in history. Leigh will delve into the murky world of fakes and forgeries, using his comprehensive, personal experience as both an auction assistant some of Australia’s most reputable Fine Art auction rooms, and as a successful secondary market art dealer, to […]
A general introduction to the history, art and culture of this extraordinary land, lying deep in the heart of Central Asia surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the world. Despite its geographical inaccessibility, it developed a rich and vibrant Buddhist culture and artistic tradition. This lecture gives a brief overview of Tibetan history […]
This lecture discusses the development of maps of the world from the earliest civilisations to the most recent digital creations. They show gradual improvement for purposes of shipping, trade and national sovereignty. This evolution of maps includes more accurate coastlines, the addition of longitude and latitude and the placement of a consistent North; however, maps […]
Steven Miller has published widely on art and his popular ‘Dogs in Australian Art’ is now into its third expanded edition. From colonial works through to contemporary installations, in this lecture he will show how dogs have truly been ‘the best friend’ to artists, not only as subjects, but also as companions and champions. As the […]
The pivotal role of leading art critic and historian Allan McCulloch in establishing the Mornington Peninsula Arts Centre is examined in this lecture. The Gallery moved to its current location at Civic Reserve in 1990 and now boasts a significant collection of over 1,900 artworks, including paintings, drawings , prints and sculptures, with a focus […]
“I collaborated with Academy Award-winning director James Cameron on a 3D Imax film that recounts our expedition to revisit the wreckage of the Titanic. I’ll recall the exhilaration and the initial apprehension of descending nearly 14,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface in submersible crafts. This talk features behind-the-scenes stories along with segments of my work […]
Pieter will share his techniques for capturing extraordinary images for Sir David Attenborough and National Geographic from playful macaque monkeys to majestic cassowaries in Australia. From playful Macaque monkeys in China to majestic Cassowaries in Northern Australia, the lecture will be illustrated with segments from Pieter’s nature documentaries. Dates and Locations Wednesday 1 April 2026 […]
This presentation traces NASA’s Space Shuttle program from its ambitious start to its final missions. Through Pieter's 12-week film shoot at Cape Canaveral and Mission Control in Houston, this documentary offers exclusive footage from unprecedented access to the Space Shuttle, Endeavour—a privilege never before granted. Pieter will share behind-the-scenes stories and delve into the missions and […]
Clarice Beckett is famed as much for her misty evocations of Melbourne as she is known for her tragically short life. Cold-shouldered by much of the art establishment due to her ties to the controversial art-theorist Max Meldrum, she nonetheless held twelve solo exhibitions between 1923 and 1933. Equally tragically, much of her output was […]
This presentation traces NASA’s Space Shuttle program from its ambitious start to its final missions. Through Pieter's 12-week film shoot at Cape Canaveral and Mission Control in Houston, this documentary offers exclusive footage from unprecedented access to the Space Shuttle, Endeavour—a privilege never before granted. Pieter will share behind-the-scenes stories and delve into the missions and […]
Film production took off in Australia in the 1970s, a period that came to be known as the Australian New Wave. Meet Australia’s greatest living playwright and discover some of the stars in award-winning movies made during this exciting period of cinematic renaissance. Dates and Locations Thursday 16 April 2026 Armidale (NSW) Monday 15 June […]
Of the approximately 1,400 people on the First Fleet of 1787–88, the handwritten journals of only 11 have survived. These provide eyewitness accounts of the voyage to Sydney and the first years here. They record the interaction with the Aboriginal people. Written by men of different ranks, each journal offers a unique perspective. Most were […]
For centuries, artists have engaged with an influenced fashion. So too have art forms such as painting, sculpture, printmaking and photography. Dates and Locations Wednesday 17 June 2026 Geelong (VIC) Click on the location above for more details and to book tickets.
Since its founding as an Academy of Art in 1871, the Art Gallery of New South Wales has evolved into a leading international art museum. Steven Miller’s publication The Exhibitionists is the first comprehensive history ever published of this much-loved institution. In his lecture on the subject he will delve into the intrigues and the […]
This lecture examines style icons in the inter-war years and the early 1950s: Grace Kelly, Fiana Vreeland, the Duchess of Windsor and others. Dates and Locations Wednesday 17 June 2026 Geelong (VIC) Thursday 18 June 2026 Melbourne (VIC) Click on your preferred location above for more details and to book tickets.
With her designs gracing the walls of hip nightclubs, homewares, travel goods and fashion, Florence Broadhurst has become a global phenomenon. Her vibrant wallpaper designs had all but been forgotten until her original silk printing screens were discovered by design company Signature Prints, languishing in a dusty warehouse. During her life she was the queen […]
This presentation traces NASA’s Space Shuttle program from its ambitious start to its final missions. Through Pieter's 12-week film shoot at Cape Canaveral and Mission Control in Houston, this documentary offers exclusive footage from unprecedented access to the Space Shuttle, Endeavour—a privilege never before granted. Pieter will share behind-the-scenes stories and delve into the missions and […]
Pieter will share his techniques for capturing extraordinary images for Sir David Attenborough and National Geographic from playful macaque monkeys to majestic cassowaries in Australia. From playful Macaque monkeys in China to majestic Cassowaries in Northern Australia, the lecture will be illustrated with segments from Pieter’s nature documentaries. Dates and Locations Wednesday 1 April 2026 […]
This presentation traces NASA’s Space Shuttle program from its ambitious start to its final missions. Through Pieter's 12-week film shoot at Cape Canaveral and Mission Control in Houston, this documentary offers exclusive footage from unprecedented access to the Space Shuttle, Endeavour—a privilege never before granted. Pieter will share behind-the-scenes stories and delve into the missions and […]
This lecture asks a simple question: did we, as artists and educators, replace a good network (postal) with a bad one (internet)? The lecture proceeds through a historical overview of correspondence instruction, Mail Art practices, and a comparative analysis of two very different educational experiments — Black Mountain College and the Barnes Foundation; and includes […]
This lecture asks a simple question: did we, as artists and educators, replace a good network (postal) with a bad one (internet)? The lecture proceeds through a historical overview of correspondence instruction, Mail Art practices, and a comparative analysis of two very different educational experiments — Black Mountain College and the Barnes Foundation; and includes […]
Since its founding as an Academy of Art in 1871, the Art Gallery of New South Wales has evolved into a leading international art museum. Steven Miller’s publication The Exhibitionists is the first comprehensive history ever published of this much-loved institution. In his lecture on the subject he will delve into the intrigues and the […]
This lecture examines style icons in the inter-war years and the early 1950s: Grace Kelly, Fiana Vreeland, the Duchess of Windsor and others. Dates and Locations Wednesday 17 June 2026 Geelong (VIC) Thursday 18 June 2026 Melbourne (VIC) Click on your preferred location above for more details and to book tickets.
Pieter will share his techniques for capturing extraordinary images for Sir David Attenborough and National Geographic from playful macaque monkeys to majestic cassowaries in Australia. From playful Macaque monkeys in China to majestic Cassowaries in Northern Australia, the lecture will be illustrated with segments from Pieter’s nature documentaries. Dates and Locations Wednesday 1 April 2026 […]
Pieter will share his techniques for capturing extraordinary images for Sir David Attenborough and National Geographic from playful macaque monkeys to majestic cassowaries in Australia. From playful Macaque monkeys in China to majestic Cassowaries in Northern Australia, the lecture will be illustrated with segments from Pieter’s nature documentaries. Dates and Locations Wednesday 1 April 2026 […]
Describing herself by writing, “I am a museum”, Peggy Guggenheim’s life took a clear path, from setting up a commercial gallery in London, going on a single-minded shopping trip to Paris in the late 1930’s even as the German tanks were rolling in to the suburbs, to escape (with her selection of European artists) to […]
Peter McNeil will walk you through the largest exhibition of men’s fashion yet assembled, curated by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2015 (then travelling to St Louis Museum of Art 2016; Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney 2018). Men didn’t ‘fade to grey’ over 300 years, but frequently burst forth in […]
As 1900 dawned, England was celebrating Edward Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variation’ and Jospeh Conrad released ‘Lord Jim’. 1902 saw the opening of New York’s ‘Flatiron building’. Colour photographs appear in France in 1908, just prior to Picasso’s ‘Girls with a Mandolin in 1910. By 1920 Alban Berg was finalising his opera ‘Wozzec’. The Bauhaus School has […]
Describing herself by writing, “I am a museum”, Peggy Guggenheim’s life took a clear path, from setting up a commercial gallery in London, going on a single-minded shopping trip to Paris in the late 1930’s even as the German tanks were rolling in to the suburbs, to escape (with her selection of European artists) to […]
Pieter will share his techniques for capturing extraordinary images for Sir David Attenborough and National Geographic from playful macaque monkeys to majestic cassowaries in Australia. From playful Macaque monkeys in China to majestic Cassowaries in Northern Australia, the lecture will be illustrated with segments from Pieter’s nature documentaries. Dates and Locations Wednesday 1 April 2026 […]
Two lectures with Claudia Chan Shaw: 1. BEYOND THE LITTLE BLACK DRESS – CHANEL Fashion is what’s in vogue, the latest trend, the up to the minute. Fashion is ever changing. Yet 100 years on, the designs and ideas created by Coco Chanel are just as relevant today. We have Chanel to thank for popularising […]
Pieter will share his techniques for capturing extraordinary images for Sir David Attenborough and National Geographic from playful macaque monkeys to majestic cassowaries in Australia. From playful Macaque monkeys in China to majestic Cassowaries in Northern Australia, the lecture will be illustrated with segments from Pieter’s nature documentaries. Dates and Locations Wednesday 1 April 2026 […]
This leading cinematographer tells how he descended almost 4000 metres below the waves to film the wreckage of the Titanic, for James Cameron’s 3-D IMAX documentary Ghosts of the Abyss. Pieter will tell of his exhilaration and initial apprehension at journeying so far beneath the ocean’s surface in a submersible craft. We’ll see segments of […]
Pieter will share his techniques for capturing extraordinary images for Sir David Attenborough and National Geographic from playful macaque monkeys to majestic cassowaries in Australia. From playful Macaque monkeys in China to majestic Cassowaries in Northern Australia, the lecture will be illustrated with segments from Pieter’s nature documentaries. Dates and Locations Wednesday 1 April 2026 […]
Mediterranean garden design is partly shaped by climate and by the flora that evolved in Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Elements of xeriscapes, gravel gardens and Paradise Gardens have added to the visual language of the Mediterranean garden, along with traditions in other winter rainfall regions such as California and South-West WA. […]
A many-headed beast that emerged from the (supposed) civilising, enlightened spirit of the Napoleonic Revolution, Charlie will discuss the inception and concept of the Biennale in 1895 when cultural tourism events were springing up around Europe. Attracting a crowd of 224,000 visitors, and only pausing during the two world wars, the Venice Biennale has become […]
The celebrated controversialist, Christopher Hitchens, once wrote that a first rate bust up requires one of at least two things: a clash of strong personalities, and a conflict of principles. The history of art is peppered with first rate bust ups: between the Renaissance artists, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, between Constable and Turner in the early […]
Without the help of some supremely talented artists, sculptors, draughtsmen and engravers, the practice of medicine would not have advanced as rapidly as it did. This talk examines the mutual benefits that art and medical science have bestowed upon one another; it refers, as one would expect, to the art of great Renaissance masters such […]
This special interest event will look at three giants of the Italian Renaissance who were involved in fierce competition with each other: Leonardo, the master, Michelangelo, the brooding upstart genius, and Raphael, the artist who carefully crafted a stellar career in the shadows, to emerge as a bright light that was tragically extinguished by an […]
When Lucy goes through the wardrobe into Narnia, when Harry Potter opens his letter and when Neo takes the red pill, they all discover that the worlds they thought they knew are only part of the truth. From Plato onwards, writers and artists have been inspired to push beyond the everyday and to create other […]
This lecture considers some of the more unusual uses of portraiture from building an encyclopaedia of the tattoos that recorded Russian prisoners’ crimes to demonstrating the effects of genetics. These uses are only two examples from a range of artists producing startling portraits for reasons that may be amusing, profoundly moving and completely unexpected. Dates […]
Describing herself by writing, “I am a museum”, Peggy Guggenheim’s life took a clear path, from setting up a commercial gallery in London, going on a single-minded shopping trip to Paris in the late 1930’s even as the German tanks were rolling in to the suburbs, to escape (with her selection of European artists) to […]