Mudgee
ArtsNational Mudgee welcomes you.
If you are interested in any form of the arts, we invite you to join us at ArtsNational Mudgee to enjoy an annual series of eight superbly illustrated presentations on a wide variety of arts topics. After each event we’ll finish with a drink from the bar at Club Mudgee while we mingle with the presenter and members. You will receive a newsletter during the year and through ArtsNational Travel you may take the opportunity to join other members on Australian and international tours, support young artists, cultural and heritage activities.
Membership is the best way to meet and make new friends in a convivial atmosphere, and you are most welcome to visit as a guest.
Mudgee is one of the great wine and food areas, where wineries set in rolling hills serve award winning wines and epicurean fare. Set in the Cudgegong Valley the town still possesses the character of its 19th century past. Close by is the historical town of Gulgong and the old gold mining villages of Sofala and Hill End as well as the UNESCO Word Heritage listed Wollemi national Park. Visit www.visitnsw.com/mudgee
Lectures:
Venue:
Lectures are held at Club Mudgee, 99 Mortimer Street, Mudgee. Parking on street or in Club Mudgee carpark – entrance in Perry Street
Time:
Lectures are on a Friday and begin at 6.00pm.
Membership:
Annual membership – $150 per person. This includes one free guest ticket for use during the year.
To join contact Peter Windeyer on 0427 260 348 or mudgee@artsnational.au
Guests welcome:
$30 for each lecture unless attending with a member using the free guest pass.
Members of other Societies $15.
Full time students: No charge
Contact:
For all enquiries please email: mudgee@artsnational.au
Postal Address: PO Box 268 Mudgee NSW 2850
ABN: 38 303 378 600
Committee
Chair: Peter Windeyer
Treasurer: Louise Windeyer
Secretary / Membership: Elizabeth McCrea
2024 PROGRAM
Friday 23 February 2024
SCULPTURES AND PHOTOGRAPHERS
Presented by David Worthington
Venue & Time: Club Mudgee 99 Mortimer Street Mudgee – 6.00pm start
Photographers, look to sculpture as a theme. The relationship between photographers and sculptors and how practitioners of both disciplines, have been drawn to each other’s work. That sculpture didn’t move meant it was a subject matter for the early camera requiring long exposures. A sculpture is a series of photographs over 360 degrees. Each profile needs to be composed and framed. A sculptor edits work via modelling or carving thus presenting a framed vision. This vision has inspired photographers in how they have seen the world. The manner in which photographers have shot and cropped has influenced sculptors.
David Worthington was drawn to abstract sculpture after seeing a Barbara Hepworth in a school history book aged 10. He graduated from Oxford University in 1984, then studied fine art in London, Barcelona and New York. A maker, he also curates and writes about art. He was shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize in 2009. David is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Sculptors and was Vice President in 2010-13.
Friday 22 March 2024
DECORATING DOMESTIC SPACES IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
Presented by Kathleen Olive
Venue & Time: Club Mudgee 99 Mortimer Street Mudgee – 6.00pm start
The growth of the middle class in medieval Europe -– due in part to trade, guild reorganisation and education – ensured that by the 15th century a new type of consumer culture had developed. Merchants, bankers and artisans signalled their wealth and sophistication through conspicuous consumption, much of it for the interior decoration of their domestic spaces. In this talk, the decorative style of the 14th and 15th century in northern Italy, France and Burgundy will be shown: from costly tapestries to their cheaper equivalents in fresco, from devotional altar pieces to extraordinary metalwork and enamels.
Kathleen’s PhD was a study of artisanal culture in Renaissance Florence, through the lens of a goldsmith’s commonplace book known as the Codex Rustici. She lived
and studied in Italy for a number of years, and then taught Italian language, literature and history at the University of at the University of Sydney. Kathleen now works with Academy Travel, leading tours to Europe and, particularly, Italy.
Friday 3 May 2024
THE GENIUS OF RENE LALIQUE
Presented by Andy McConnell
Venue & Time: Club Mudgee 99 Mortimer Street Mudgee – 6.00pm start
René Lalique was the 20th century’s greatest glass designer/entrepreneur. Lalique’s extraordinary work was unrivalled, combining his unique visual sense with a perfect understanding of glassmaking technologies and revolutionary approach to marketing. This talk covers Lalique’s early work in jewels and furniture before he dedicated the remainder of his life, c1905-45, to glass. His output spanned simple, pressed cosmetic pots through car mascots and stemware to the unique cire perdu [lost wax] vases.
Andy has dealt in antiques since adolescence but served an apprenticeship in journalism. After working in music, film and television, he returned to writing in 2004, authoring the The Decanter, An Illustrated History of Glass From 1650. He followed this with Miller’s’ 20th Century Glass. He continues to write and runs Britain’s largest antique glass gallery in Rye, Sussex. Andy is best known as the humorous glass specialist on BBC’s evergreen Antiques Roadshow.
Friday 31 May 2024
BLOOMING MARVELS: THE GLOBAL ART HISTORY OF FLOWERS
Presented by Dr Sam Bowker
Venue & Time: Club Mudgee 99 Mortimer Street Mudgee – 6.00pm start
This talk travels the world in search of exquisite and compelling flowers, as chosen and interpreted by artists. Along the way there will be drugs, erotica, jail, science, secret messages, economics, war, extinction and Instagram. Maybe we’ll also discuss Monet’s garden and Van Gogh’s sunflowers, but this is not going to be your usual walk in the park.
Dr Sam Bowker is the Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at Charles Sturt University. Beyond developing Australia’s leading ‘Islamic art and design’ subject for university students, he has curated diverse international exhibitions and published widely on the history of khayamiya (Egyptian tentmaker applique).
Friday 5 July 2024
THE JOY OF INDIAN CLASSICAL
Presented by Dr John Stevens
Venue & Time: Club Mudgee 99 Mortimer Street Mudgee – 6.00pm start
Indian classical music has a rich heritage stretching back beyond the thirteenth century. Its two major traditions – the Hindustani and the Carnatic – have given rise to some of the most beautiful music ever conceived. This lecture provides an introduction to the major traditions, artists and concepts that form the basis of this tradition. By the end of the lecture you will know the sitar the sarod, your sarangi the shehnai, the tanpura and the tabla. Through musical examples and images, you will be given a key to unlock a wondrous world of music.
John Stevens is a Research Associate at the University of London. His PhD in History is from University College London. He teaches British Imperial history, Indian history and Bengali language, and is a regular visitor to India and Bangladesh. He publishes widely in the fields of British and Indian history. His biography, in 2018, of the Indian guru Keshab Chandra Sen – Keshab: Bengal’s Forgotten Prophet. He appears regularly in the Indian media.
Friday 2 August 2024
WHAT HAVE THE HUGUENOTS EVER DONE FOR US? MASS MIGRATION AND THE ARTS IN BRITAIN
Presented by Vivienne Lawes
Venue & Time: Club Mudgee 99 Mortimer Street Mudgee – 6.00pm start
The mass migration of the French Protestant Huguenots in the 16th and 17th centuries impacted the arts, the military and finance of the countries to which they fled after suffering Catholic persecution. This lecture focuses on three areas of the arts impacted by the migration: the growth of the silk weaving industry; the silversmiths and ceramicists; and on the baroque style of Versailles. We see how the artistic works of the Huguenots changed material culture and integrated into the British national identity.
Viv Lawes is an art historian, art market analyst and curator/ writer who combines a career in the art business with academic research and teaching in Higher Education. She teaches at several universities. Her courses cover a variety of topics, and she has curated exhibitions of Southeast Asian art in London and Singapore. A former art journalist at The Art Newspaper, she writes for a wide array of publications and private clients.
Friday 6 September 2024
BREECHES, BONNETS AND BAGS
Presented by Rosalind Whyte
Venue & Time: Club Mudgee 99 Mortimer Street Mudgee – 6.00pm start
Paintings provide an insight into the styles of dress over time – the different fashions in dress, accessories, and the more ridiculous fashions. Look at fashion in England and the Continent. Laws prescribed what you could wear, according to your status in society. Fashion was a reflection of social standing. The colour or the neckline said you were a particular class. The ordinary folk might have longed for a similar wardrobe, or a wardrobe at all. Their ‘superiors’ may have envied them their ability to move freely without the restrictions. Explore the wildest extremes of fashion through the ages.
BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. Experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. Lectures at Tate, to independent art societies and on cruises.
Friday 11 October 2024
THE PAINTERS OF CIRQUE MEDRANO
Presented by Paul Chapman
Venue & Time: Club Mudgee 99 Mortimer Street Mudgee – 6.00pm start
The legendary Paris circus, from its beginning as the Cirque Fernando in 1875, and renamed the Cirque Medrano in 1897, until its closure in 1963 was an integral part of Parisian cultural life, attracting many writers, painters and poets with many works inspired by the Circus. Many painters of the 19th and 20th centuries captured the magic and sparkle and sometimes the hardship of circus life. The performers have been immortalised by Renoir, Degas, Lautrec, Seurat, Picasso and Leger among others. An intriguing look at the history of a circus through the painters of the Montmartre.
Paul is an Art Historian and a National Gallery trained guide with many years of experience working in education. As a freelance Paul delivers courses and lectures for a wide range of educational organisations. Paul has also given talks and tours for art associations/societies in Museums and Galleries in the UK and Europe. As a writer, Paul has published a book, which examines the subject of cultural crossovers and appropriations in 20th century painting. Paul is a tour guide at the Longford Castle art collection and he is also a visiting tutor at Marlborough College and MCSS.
Friday 29 November 2024
Annual General Meeting and Guest Speaker
Venue & Time: Club Mudgee 99 Mortimer Street Mudgee – 5.30pm start
Guest Speaker to be advised
