Blue Mountains

Friday 30 January 2026
AUGUSTE ESCOFFLER – Chef, Author and Restaurateur
Presented by Susannah Fullerton
Venue and Time: The School of Arts Wentworth Falls. Arrive 1.30pm for 2pm start.

Auguste Escoffler revolutionised French Cuisine, gettng rid of heavy sauces, simplifying and codifying recipes. In this lecture Susannah will talk about his recipes (many named for famous people of the day), his innovations, his relationship with César Ritz, his role on the Titanic, his hatred of afternoon teas, and discover how this French trailblazer altered dining habits for ever.

Susannah has a BA from the University of Auckland NZ and a post-graduate degree in Victorian literature from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She teaches literature and lectures regularly at the State Library of NSW and the Art Gallery of NSW. In 2017 Susannah was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for Services to Literature and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW. Susannah is President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, the largest literary society in the country, Patron of the Kipling Society of Australia and Lady Patroness of the International Heyer Society.

Friday 27 February 2026
GREAT RAILWAY STATIONS – EVOKING THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE
Presented by Ian Swankie
Venue and Time: The School of Arts Wentworth Falls. Arrive 1.30pm for 2pm start.

If you think of St Pancras International or New York’s Grand Central, you imagine long romantic journeys. You know they are special places promising excitement and adventure. But there are dozens of other glorious stations in the UK and overseas. This lecture explores some of the most evocative and splendid stations in the world. We look not only at the magnificence of station architecture and engineering but also examine numerous artworks within railway stations and the many depictions of stations in art – like Monet’s Gare St Lazare or William Powell Frith’s Paddington. An excursion which is lavish, colourful and fun.

A Londoner with a contagious enthusiasm for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is also a freelance London tour guide. Since 2012 he has led a popular weekly independent art lecture group in his home town of Richmond in West London. Ian is an Accredited Lecturer for The Arts Society and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars, one of the City of London’s famous livery companies.

Friday 10 April 2026
ART NOUVEAU: Ahead of the Curve
Presented by Claudia Chan Shaw
Venue and Time: The School of Arts Wentworth Falls. Arrive 1.30pm for 2pm start.

Popular in Europe and the United States from 1890 – 1910, Art Nouveau was a decorative style that influenced architecture, fine art, illustration, advertising, jewellery, glass and furniture design. It was a new style for the coming century, rejecting the dated, historic references of the past – a “new art”. Join Claudia Chan Shaw for an absorbing look at this most elegant of design movements, celebrating the work of Alphonse Mucha, Louis Comfort Tiff any, René Lalique, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard
and more. A lecture full of beauty!

Sydney born creative Claudia Chan Shaw has a multi-faceted career as a fashion designer, television and radio presenter, author, public speaker, installation artist, photo artist, and curator.  With a BA in Visual Communication Design from Sydney College of the Arts, she is co-designer and director for the internationally acclaimed Australian fashion label, Vivian Chan Shaw. The label is renowned for its exquisite handmade knitwear and jewellery. The designs are represented in the permanent collection of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.  

Friday 1 May 2026
NEW VISIONS: PARIS AND IMPRESSIONISM
Presented by Joanne Rhymer
Venue and Time: The School of Arts Wentworth Falls. Arrive 1.30pm for 2pm start.

During Napoleon III’s reign (1852-1870), the Paris landscape was transformed by the construction of wide boulevards, elegant buildings and parks. Theatres, cafes and entertainment venues flourished, offering spaces for sociability and artistic exchange and inspiring impressionist artists keen to capture the fleeting sensations of the modern capital. This lecture will examine works by Manet, Renoir and Caillebotte to discover how their radical techniques reflect the attractions and complexities of modern Parisian society.

Since earning an MA in the History of Art: Modernism and the Politics of Representation, Joanne has focussed on education and has been employed in learning programs at many prestigious London galleries. She is currently a Panel Tutor for the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge as well as teaching at a range of other institutions. Her areas of specialism include 19th century and early 20th century French art and interests include the visual skills involved in sustained viewings of paintings.

Friday 5 June 2026
DOGS IN ART: Enjoy These Tails of How Dogs Have Changed in the course of Australian Art
Presented by Steven Miller
Venue and Time: The School of Arts Wentworth Falls. Arrive 1.30pm for 2pm start.

Dogs have truly been ‘the best friend’ to artists, not only as subjects, but also as companions and champions. Australians love their dogs. With nearly 3.5 million dogs registered, we are said to have one of the highest rates of dog ownership in the world. Apart from writing the main text on the subject of Dogs in Australian Art, Steven Miller also maintains the popular Instagram account dogsinozart. This is a serious artistic subject which will be presented in an enjoyable and light-hearted way.

Steven Miller was the head of the National Art Archive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 2009 to 2023. He has worked in commercial and public galleries since the late 1980s and published widely on art. The book he co-authored on the first blockbuster exhibition of modern European masters to visit Australia was awarded the NSW Premier’s History Award. His 2015 publication Awakening: Four lives in art is an exploration of the creation of national identity through art. The popular and informative Dogs in Australian Art is now into its third, expanded edition. He wrote the first history of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which was published to celebrate its 150th anniversary. He has a Masters degree in theology, as well as qualifications in art history and archives. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW.

Friday 3 July 2026
IS THIS THE REAL LIFE? How Writers and Artists have Challenged our Perceptions of Reality
Presented by Mary Sharp
Venue and Time: The School of Arts Wentworth Falls. Arrive 1.30pm for 2pm start.

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 worlds that inspire our imaginations. This lecture explores what these stories tell us about how we view our lives and what it is that we most desire.

Mary is an experienced broadcaster and teacher with particular expertise in literature and drama. She worked for many years for BBC Radio 4 producing some of its most popular programmes, including Start the Week and Woman’s Hour, before joining the senior management team as a Commissioning Editor. Mary has subsequently worked as a teacher and Director of Sixth Form at a leading girls’ grammar school. She now runs her own company ‘Opening Up Literature’ which offers literature courses for adults including studies of Shakespeare and Creative Writing. Her most popular course is ‘Telling Tales’, which explores how writers and artists have reinvented classical stories. She is a professional bridge teacher and lecturer.

Friday 7 August 2026
MASONRY, MANUSCRIPTS AND MUSIC: An Inspirational Journey Through Medieval England
Presented by Mark Cottle
Venue and Time: The School of Arts Wentworth Falls.  Arrive 1.30pm for 2pm start.

The architecture, manuscript illumination and music of medieval England are among the greatest achievements of any period of English cultural history. The aim of this lecture is to open a window onto this remarkable world to capture something of the essence of its Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals, its equally rich span of manuscript illumination, both sacred and profane, and its religious and secular music. Essentially inspirational and aspirational, these are forms of artistic endeavour which can touch the sublime.

Born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and Birmingham University, Mark Cottle has enjoyed a career in education and training at home and abroad. He has lectured at Exeter College on Medieval and Tudor history, St Mark’s & St John’s University College, Plymouth, and at Bath University on Anglo Saxon and medieval England. Currently Mark runs two small companies providing training and study breaks.

Friday 4 September 2026
AROUND THE WORLD WITH ISABELLA BIRD: Victorian Lady Traveller
Presented by Marie Conte-Helm
Venue and Time: The School of Arts Wentworth Falls.  Arrive 1.30pm for 2pm start.

This lecture traces the story of the intrepid Victorian lady traveller, Isabella Bird, who set out to see the world and brought glimpses of it back to her readership at home. Isabella Bird’s fascinating written accounts of her globetrotting adventures from the 1850s offer insights into some of the challenges faced by women travellers in the mid-Victorian period as well as the growth of travel and tourism opportunities that helped to make the world a smaller place. Her photographic work and illustrations contributed to the emerging picture of everyday life in the East.

Professor Conte-Helm is a long-established Lecturer of The Arts Society with a BA in History of Art and an MA in Asian Art. She has most recently served as Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, as Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, and as a Member of the Board of Governors of the University for the Creative Arts. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011 and has held senior academic positions at various UK universities.

Friday 9 October 2026
THE MAKING OF ‘LEE’
Presented by Antony Penrose
Venue and Time: The School of Arts Wentworth Falls.  Arrive 1.30pm for 2pm start.

Antony, the son of Lee Miller, a former model who was also involved in the surrealist art movement, but who is perhaps best remembered as one of the very few female war correspondents during the liberation of Europe at the end of the second World War, when she worked as a photojournalist. Today’s lecture is the behind-the-scenes story of the decade long journey to the release of the major
feature film ‘LEE’ starring Kate Winslet. The movie is based on Antony’s biography of his mother, The Lives of Lee Miller, published in 1985.

For the past 45 years, Antony has conserved and disseminated the work of his parents, Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. With his daughter Ami, he is the co-director of The Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection at Farley Farm House in Sussex and has seen his parents’ work featured in major exhibitions at the V&A, National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial war Museum London, Manchester Art Gallery, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Whitworth. He has lectured at museums and universities around the world and made documentaries for television. Publications include The Lives of Lee Miller, Lee Miller’s War (editor), The Angel and the Fiend, The Home of the Surrealists, Roland Penrose the Friendly Surrealist and The Boy Who Bit Picasso. The movie titled ‘LEE’ starring Kate Winslet is based on his book The Lives of Lee Miller and for ten years he was heavily involved with its production and release.