Hobart

Monday 2 March 2026
JOHANNES VERMEER AND THE ABSENT SUBJECT
Presented by Albert Godetzky
Venue & Time: Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay 6.00 pm

Johannes Vermeer’s paintings might be considered typical of the ‘Dutch Golden Age’. Yet, compared with his contemporaries’ works, Vermeer’s serene interiors seem oddly different. This particular difference has preoccupied scholars since the ‘rediscovery’ of Vermeer in the 19th Century and will be the focus for our enquiry into his work. Is Vermeer’s subject the merry couple enjoying wine and music; the elegant furnishings; or is it the light and shadow which suffuses every detail and creates tonal nuances? The lecture will review the various interpretations of Vermeer’s art and consider the circumstances that may have influenced him in his day.

Albert Godetzky received his PhD on Haarlem Mannerism from the Courtauld Institute where he was Associate Lecturer in Early Modern Art until 2025. He has worked at several European institutions including the National Gallery, London. In 2022, he was guest curator of Silent Rebels: Polish Symbolism around 1900 at the Munich Kunsthalle. His research has appeared in numerous art magazines and yearbooks, and he is currently preparing a book-length biography of the Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius.

Monday 11 May 2026
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI AND 20TH CENTURY SCULPTURE
Presented by David Worthington
Venue & Time: Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay 6.00 pm

Brancusi, the son of a peasant from a mountainous province of Romania, became an internationally famous artist and is seen as one of, if not the most important sculptors of the 20th Century. How did this happen and what is so special about his work? Brancusi combined the Romanian wood working tradition with a Belles Arts training. He also had an intuitive understanding of the significance of engineered products. A great friend of the inventor of Conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp, Brancusi is an enigmatic contradiction. This, along with his relevance to 20th century sculpture, will be explored in this lecture.

David Worthington has been drawn to abstract sculpture since seeing a work by Barbara Hepworth in a school history book aged 10. He graduated from Oxford University in 1984 with a degree in Philosophy and Theology, then studied Fine Art in London, Barcelona and New York. David is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Sculptors and was Vice President in 2010-13. He has carried out public commissions in the UK, America and Japan.

Monday 22 June 2026
PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: A Life of Collecting
Presented by Charlie Hall
Venue & Time: Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay 6.00 pm

When Peggy Guggenheim described herself in writing as, “I am a museum”, her life took a clear path: from setting up a commercial gallery in London; to travelling to Paris in1939 to buy art, where her intentions were curtailed by the German tanks rolling into the suburbs in April 1940; to escaping to New York with her selection of European art works, and the subsequent establishment of her museum and gallery, ‘Art of This Century’. In 1947 she purchased the eccentric ‘unfinished palazzo’ in Venice, where her collection remains one of the most iconic assemblages of 20th Century art in the world.

Charlie Hall is a passionate arts educator, lecturer, and guide, based in London and Italy. He is the director of the John Hall Venice Course, a short immersive course in the life and art of an Italian city. He is also the tour lecturer and leader for Kirker Holidays and independent tours in Italy. He has designed and hosted art talks and events for Soho House and has led courses for Christie’s Education and Serpentine Gallery.

Monday 6 July 2026
SPECTACULAR BODIES: Art, Anatomy, Medical Science
Presented by Barry Venning
Venue & Time: Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay 6.00 pm

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 as Leonardo, Antonio Pollaiuolo and Michelangelo, but it also considers examples of work by (among others) Rembrandt, Hogarth, the American realist painter Thomas Eakins and the English artist Henry Tonks, who was both a distinguished surgeon and a gifted painter and teacher.

Barry Venning is an art historian whose interests and teaching range from the art of late medieval Europe to global contemporary art. He has published books, articles and exhibition catalogue essays on Turner, Constable and European landscape painting. He has a research interest in postcolonial art and British visual satire, and works as a consultant and associate lecturer for the Open University. His media work includes BBC TV documentaries, BBC and ABC Australia local radio, and a DVD on Turner.

Monday 3 August 2026
THE WORLD OF HOMER
Presented by James Renshaw
Venue & Time: Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay 6.00 pm

In examining the history and cultural legacy of the two earliest works in the western literary canon, the Iliad and the Odyssey, this talk will outline each plot and focus on how and why these poems have cast such a spell on artists and writers ever since: from ancient Greek tragedy and vase painting, through renaissance artists such as Botticelli and Bernini, up to modern authors such as James Joyce and Madeleine Miller. Understanding the world of Homer is an essential element for understanding the history of western art.

James Renshaw gained a degree in Classics from Oxford University. Since 1998 he has taught secondary school level Classics, including early in his career at Sydney Grammar School. He currently teaches at Godolphin and Latymer in London where he runs the school’s Ancient World Breakfast Club. He has published popular textbooks related to the classical world, including In Search of the Greeks and In Search of the Romans and has lectured for the V&A Academy.

Monday 7 September 2026
THE STORY OF THE CULLINAN DIAMOND MINE
Presented by Claire Blatherwick
Venue & Time: Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay 6.00 pm

This talk deals with the fascinating story of a diamond mine in South Africa which remains the source of the largest piece of diamond rough in history. It will explore the creation of diamonds deep within the Earth’s crust and show images taken by the speaker as she travelled 750m underground to examine the workings produced. There will also be a behind the scenes look at something most of us have only ever seen in shops.

Clare Blatherwick is an independent jewellery consultant based in Scotland. She has over twenty years’ experience in the jewellery business, ten of which as Head of Jewellery for Bonhams in Scotland, a role which saw her travel internationally searching for jewels to be auctioned around the globe. She has a keen interest in the historical aspect of jewellery and has lectured internationally and has appeared on TV in the UK and US as a jewellery expert.

Monday 12 October 2026
‘ONCE UPON A TIME … IN BLUE AND WHITE’: The Story of the Willow Pattern Plate
Presented by Amanda Herries
Venue & Time: Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay 6.00 pm

The story of the ‘Willow Pattern Plate’ is well known: two lovers meeting underneath an orange tree, an elopement, a fierce father and jilted suitor, a pursuit across a bridge into a little boat, tragedy and death: two lovebirds flying together forever under the gentle sway of the willow tree. From the early 19th Century this well-known design has been on thousands of English teapots, plates and dishes. Is it Chinese? Is it English? The story behind this famous image takes us from the origins of blue and white designs in the exotic East to the emerging wealth of the Midlands pottery towns.

Amanda Herries read Archaeology & Anthropology at Cambridge. From 1978 -1988 she was Curator at the Museum of London specialising in decorative arts, 1714 to present day. In 1988 she moved to Japan, lecturing and writing on Oriental/Western cross-cultural and artistic influences. Since returning to the UK in 1995, she has focussed on fundraising for arts companies, lecturing, guiding tours to Japan, curating exhibitions, and writing, with recent publications on Japanese garden influences in the West, and Scottish portrait painter, Henry Raeburn.

Monday 23 November 2026
CUTTING RHYTHMS, SHAPING STORIES: How Film Editing Works
Presented by Karen Pearlman
Venue & Time: Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay 6.00 pm

Few aspects of creative filmmaking are as shrouded in mystery as the work of the film editor, who will usually say their art is intuitive. Karen Pearlman puts forward the idea that editing is a form of choreography. She shows how editors shape movement – of story, of emotion, of image and of sound, into moving experiences for an audience. Clips from Pearlman’s award-winning films are woven into this story of how cuts work, where they are hidden, why they are made the way they are, and who is behind the good ideas that come out in the editing process.

Karen Pearlman is an author and senior lecturer in Screen Production at Macquarie University, and the producer of numerous award-winning dance-films, documentaries and dramas. Karen is a former President of the Australian Screen Editors (ASE), and two-time winner of Best Editing Awards plus an Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) Award for best short fiction film. Before taking up filmmaking, Karen had a distinguished career as a professional dancer with a BFA in dance from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.