MURRAY RIVER (ALBURY / WODONGA)

Monday 16 February 2026
WOMEN AND WAR
Presented by Gavin Fry
Venue: The Butter Factory Theatre (Hothouse), Gateway Island, Wodonga
Time: 6.00 pm for light refreshments, 6.30 pm lecture start time

Just three women worked as Official War Artists during World War Two – Nora Heysen, Stella Bowen and Sybil Craig. They each made a significant body of work, bringing a fresh vision to the official expression of Australia at War.

Gavin Fry is a writer, artist and museum professional with fifty years experience working in curatorial and management positions in Australian museums, galleries and educational institutions. He is the author of twenty-five books on Australian art and history and a large number of catalogue and journal essays. In retirement Gavin has returned to his art training and exhibits as a painter in Newcastle and Melbourne. As well as working as a professional writer, he also designs and publishes books on behalf of other writers and artists. Gavin holds the degrees of Bachelor of Arts [Hons] and Master of Arts from Monash University and Master of Philosophy from Leicester University.

Monday 9 March 2026
THE HISTORY OF EMBROIDERY
Presented by Susan Kay-Williams
Venue: The Butter Factory Theatre (Hothouse), Gateway Island, Wodonga
Time: 6.00 pm for light refreshments, 6.30 pm lecture start time

This talk takes us from some of the earliest embroidery in this country from the 10th century through the height of English work, Opus Anglicanum to the embroidered outfits of our Tudor monarchs through to the seventeenth century when new design ideas arrived from India and China, and new techniques emerged such as raised embroidery, through to the growth in silk shading with the growth in dye shades, then to Berlin wool work in the 19th century and the dawn of art embroidery by the likes of William Morris and Walter Crane in the late 19th century. Finally, we reach the period of embroidery artists in the 20th century including Beryl Dean, Constance Howard and Diana Springall to the artists of today including Mr X Stitch. This lecture shows how much embroidery has changed and stayed the same over the last thousand years.

Susan was the Chief Executive of the Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace for 17 years. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Institute of Marketing and in 2015 was made a Fellow of the Society of Dyers and Colourists in recognition of her work on the history of dyes. Susan has a longstanding interest in textiles, especially colour, and published her first book, The Story of Colour in Textiles (Bloomsbury) in 2013. In 2022 she published An Unbroken Thread: the 150-year history of the Royal School of Needlework. She is currently the President elect of the Society of Dyers and Colourists.

Monday 13 April 2026
SYDNEY IN LOCKDOWN
Presented by John Swainston
Venue: The Butter Factory Theatre (Hothouse), Gateway Island, Wodonga
Time: 6.00 pm for light refreshments, 6.30 pm lecture start time

Art history is replete with portraits of the good and the great, vistas of great landscapes and stories of great heroism, sometimes true, sometimes imagined. In our own time the story of Australia’s most populous City without people over a two-year period is told by photographer John Swainston in a series of images that start in the country town of Bowral and explore the great buildings of Sydney without people. As the story progresses, we learn of those who worked through, some who survived in business, some who did not. The visual record of the greatest pandemic of the modern age, as well as the return to more normal life, as seen through the eyes of a single photographer, stands unique across the country. There are less than a handful of remaining images from Australia’s previous pandemic of 1918-1920. Here is an extensive series of defining architectural images and striking portraits in our own time, reinforcing the importance of documentary record in an age of otherwise mass voyeurism without considered reflection.

Born in London, John Swainston moved to Australia in 1979 and worked for 50 years in the photo industry, including 24 years as MD of Maxwell Optical Industries. A former president of AIPP and PICA, he has exhibited his work widely and published several books. He now lectures, writes, and contributes to photography organisations. Now, with I Will Lift Mine Eyes, he explores England’s great cathedrals, blending history, architecture, and faith into a powerful visual journey.

Monday 18 May 2026
JOURNEY ACROSS THE HIMALAYAS
Presented by Zara Fleming
Venue: The Butter Factory Theatre (Hothouse), Gateway Island, Wodonga
Time: 6.00 pm for light refreshments, 6.30 pm lecture start time

This lecture will focus on the Buddhist areas of the highest mountain range in the world, the Himalayas — the once spiritual domain of Tibetan culture and religion, spanning 2,000 miles from Ladakh in the west to Bhutan in the east. Zara will explore the kingdoms and principalities of Ladakh, Zanskar, Spiti, Lahoul, Nepal, Mustang, Sikkim, Bhutan and their spiritual heartland of Tibet.

Many of these countries lay on the ancient trade routes connecting India with Central Asia, and although isolated became important centres of Buddhist art and culture, housing vast repositories of sacred in art in their monasteries and temples

Zara is a freelance lecturer, art consultant and curator, specialising in the art and culture of Tibet, the Himalayas and Mongolia. Initially based at the V&A, Zara has also worked with the Central Asian Department of Bonn University, the Orient Foundation, the Royal Academy and many museums and galleries. Zara edited volume 1 of Masterpieces of Mongolian Art and published articles on Buddhist art and culture. Zara has been a tour guide on numerous trips to the Himalayas.

Monday 15 June 2026
CLARICE BECKETT
Presented by Andrew Gaynor
Venue: The Butter Factory Theatre (Hothouse), Gateway Island, Wodonga
Time: 6.00 pm for light refreshments, 6.30 pm lecture start time

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 stored after her death in a rickety shed, of which at least two-thirds rotted due to the weather before being re-discovered in 1971. Andrew Gaynor has been researching Beckett since the early 2000s and has walked Beckett’s routes identifying exact locations for many of her paintings, particularly around the artist’s home suburb of Beaumaris.

Andrew Gaynor is a writer, researcher and freelance Curator whose area of special interest is Australian modernism. Currently a PhD candidate, he has held curatorial positions at key institutions including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, the City of Boroondara, and the McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park. He has curated exhibitions on Helen Maudsley, Louise Hearman, Guy Grey-Smith, Gay rights in Victoria, Robert Jacks and many others.

Monday 13 July 2026
THE VENICE BIENNALE
Presented by Charlie Hall
Venue: The Butter Factory Theatre (Hothouse), Gateway Island, Wodonga
Time: 6.00 pm for light refreshments, 6.30 pm lecture start time

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 a hugely significant art show, and has inspired hundreds of other biennales. Over 40 countries send representatives to their national ‘pavilions’. Charlie will also examine its influence in the Contemporary Art world over the last 130 years.

Charlie Hall is a passionate arts educator, lecturer, and guide, based in London and Italy. He is Director of the highly regarded John Hall Venice Course, (est. 1965,) Charlie has been Tour lecturer and leader for Kirker Holidays since 2013, and of independent tours in Italy. He is designer and host of a series of art talks and events for the Soho House group of private members’ clubs and has also designed and led courses for Christie’s Education and the Serpentine Galleries ‘Collector’s Circle’.

SPECIAL HALF INTEREST DAY

Sunday 16 August 2026
THE HOUSEKEEPER’S TALE: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
Presented by Tessa Boase
Venue: Albury Library Museum, corner Kiewa and Swift Streets, Albury.
Time: 10.30am – 2pm
Cost: $55

Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious jobs a 19th and early 20th century woman could want – and also one of the toughest. A far cry from the Downton Abbey fiction, the real-life housekeeper was up against capricious mistresses, low pay, no job security, and gruelling physical labour. Delving into secret diaries, unpublished letters and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories behind some of Britain’s most prominent households.

1.  A GOOD HOUSEKEEPER IS NOT EASILY GOT AT
Focusing on the Victorian Era, we discover more about this unique position by examining a bundle of letters discovered in the archives of Hatfield House, charting the meticulous hunt for a housekeeper to serve Queen Victoria’s prime minister, Lord Salisbury, in 1890. We then move to the story of Mrs. Sarah Wells – mother to the writer H.G. Wells – who kept a revelatory diary for the 14 years she toiled below stairs at Uppark.

2. DANGEROUS AND DISORDERLY – THE 20TH CENTURY
This period of change for British domestic servants is embodied by the triumphant figure of housekeeper Hannah Mackenzie, whose career spanned extremes of fortune and circumstance. We finish our morning by looking at the life of a contemporary housekeeper, Nicky Garner, of Holkham Hall in Norfolk. How has the role changed, and how has the English country house adapted to the modern world?

Tessa Boase is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer, and campaigner with an interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women from the 19th and early 20th-centuries – revealing how they drove industry, propped up society and influenced politics. She is the author of three books of social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (2014); Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds (first published as Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather in 2018), and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams (2022). Since uncovering the feminist origins of the RSPB, Tessa has been campaigning for public recognition of its female founders with plaques, portraits, and a statue.

Monday 17 August 2026
FASHION, FEATHERS AND FEMINISM: Women’s Fight for Change
Presented by Tessa Boase
Venue: The Butter Factory Theatre (Hothouse), Gateway Island, Wodonga
Time: 6.00 pm for light refreshments, 6.30 pm lecture start time

When social historian Tessa Boase told the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds she wanted to write their early story, they refused to let her visit their archives. To a former investigative journalist, this was a challenge she could not resist. This lecture shines a light on the intriguing story of women’s love affair with plumage – and of the brave eco feminists who fought back on behalf of the birds. Moving from a polite Victorian tea party to an egret hunt in a Florida swamp; from a suffragette ‘monster rally’ to a milliner’s dusty workshop, you will be taken back in time to a world where every woman, of every class wore a hat. Shocking and surprising, entertaining and moving, this pacy lecture remains Tessa’s most popular.

Tessa Boase is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer, and campaigner with an interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women from the 19th and early 20th-centuries – revealing how they drove industry, propped up society and influenced politics. She is the author of three books of social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (2014); Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds (first published as Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather in 2018), and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams (2022). Since uncovering the feminist origins of the RSPB, Tessa has been campaigning for public recognition of its female founders with plaques, portraits, and a statue.

Monday 14 September 2026
THE ART OF LAUGHTER
Presented by Mariska Beekenkamp-Wladimiroff
Venue: The Butter Factory Theatre (Hothouse), Gateway Island, Wodonga
Time: 6.00 pm for light refreshments, 6.30 pm lecture start time

Comical paintings were abundant in the Dutch Golden Age genre paintings depicting people and animals misbehaving, being silly, naughty and laughing out loud. Some of these paintings represented common sayings, while others were created as moral lessons. However, they also coincided with a belief by contemporary doctors of the 17th century that laughing was good for your health.

Mariska Beekenkamp-Wladimiroff read Social Psychology at the University of Amsterdam and was tempted to do a PhD in Decision Making Behaviour. In the end she turned to her true love – the Arts. Whilst having her three children, she completed her BA and MA in Art History, majoring in The Dutch Baroque Arts from the 17th century at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. She started as a College Lecturer, but soon after started her own company, Art Historical London, offering art historical lectures, museum visits, courses, tours, travel and events from Amsterdam, London and New York, and since 2020 online. A fully accredited PTLLS lecturer, she also teaches on the public program of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, for the New York Adventure Club in the States, and can provide live, online and recorded lectures for groups or individuals.

Monday 19 October 2026
MUSIC POWER
Presented by Graham Jones
Venue: The Butter Factory Theatre (Hothouse), Gateway Island, Wodonga
Time: 6.00 pm for light refreshments, 6.30 pm lecture start time

From the earliest days of warfare music has been used in battle as a means to communicate orders, help give soldiers courage and to improve the morale of the Armed Forces. This presentation looks at how music worked in warfare and it is still relevant in today’s military. Does it help sustain history, heritage and tradition or is there more, perhaps psychological warfare? Find out more in this unique presentation on the power of music.

Dr Graham Jones started his professional life as a musician in the British Army and over a glittering career spanning nearly forty years he retired as the Senior Director of Music, Household Division and Director of Music, Coldstream Guards a position unequalled throughout military music in Great Britain. During his illustrious career he has recorded over 40 albums and been responsible for the largest commissioning programme of wind band music in recent history commissioning over 30 new works for wind band. He pioneered a music education programme with the University of Salford for military musicians resulting in a new Master of Music in performance degree. Graham was made a Member of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace for outstanding service to military music in 1993. Having retired from military service Graham is enjoying a second career as a guest conductor, adjudicator, guest speaker, lecturer, clinician, recording consultant and educator.