Newcastle

Monday 17 February 2025
THE ART OF JOHN BRACK
Presented by Sasha Grishin​
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.

A discussion of the work of one of Australia’s most challenging and important artists of the 20th century with whom I have worked over a number of decades and on whom I published a two-volume monograph with Oxford University Press.

Emeritus Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA established the academic discipline of Art History at the Australian National University and until December 2013 was the Sir William Dobell Professor of Art History and Head of Art History at the ANU in Canberra. Professor Grishin studied art history at the universities of Melbourne, Moscow, London and Oxford and has served several terms as visiting scholar at Harvard University. He works internationally as an art historian, art critic and curator. In 2004 he was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, in 2005 he was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) for services to Australian art and art history and in 2008 was awarded a Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.

Monday 17 March 2025
BABYLON: ART AND LEGEND
Presented by Sue Rollin​
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.

Babylon: the very name is evocative. Once one of the greatest cities in the ancient world, a vanished metropolis which lay deserted for over 2000 years, its history is bound up with myth and legend but it has never been forgotten. Biblical accounts of the Tower of Babel, Daniel in the Lions’ Den, Belshazzar’s Feast, the Fall of Babylon, the Whore of Babylon, and classical references to the great walls and Hanging Gardens have inspired artists throughout the centuries. This lecture also looks at the real Babylon, beside the River Euphrates, as explored and excavated since the 19C.

Sue Rollin lives in London and holds degrees in Near Eastern archaeology, South Asian studies and conference interpreting. She has tutored and lectured at London and Cambridge Universities, been a staff interpreter at the European Commission, and currently works as a freelance interpreter, lecturer and tour guide. Sue has travelled widely for work and pleasure and has led cultural tours in Spain, Sicily, Morocco, the Middle East, Central Asia and India. She has co-authored travel guides on Jordan and on Istanbul. In the UK, Sue lectures for the Arts Society and the V&A and she has done four previous ArtsNational lecture tours.

Monday 14 April 2025
MIRKA AND GEORGES: A Culinary Affair
Presented by Kendrah Morgan
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.

A beloved and central figure in the cultural life of Australia, Mirka Mora long captured the public imagination with her distinctive art and inimitable personality. Arriving in Melbourne from Paris in 1951, Mirka and her husband Georges contributed significantly to the local art and restaurant scenes and the city’s gradual transformation into a sophisticated metropolis. The lecture opens with Mirka and Georges’ early lives and food experiences in France, then tells the stories of their celebrated hospitality in Australia and their intermingling of food, art, love and life. The culinary journey is interspersed with fascinating anecdotes, archival photographs, Mirka’s sensuous and colourful artworks.

Kendrah Morgan is Senior Curator at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. Since 1998 Kendrah has curated more than forty exhibitions, with Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls (2017); Arthur Boyd: Brides (2014); and Fiona Hall: Big Game Hunting (2013) among her major projects. She has co-authored four books on aspects of Heide history including Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed (2015), which was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for non-fiction and the Colin Roderick Literary Award. Her most recent book, Mirka and Georges: A Culinary Affair was released in 2018.

Monday 12 May 2025
ABOUT FACE: How to Read Portraits
Presented by Alice Foster
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines portraiture as “a representation…of a person, especially the face…”. However, this simple explanation belies the complexities of reproducing the face. Portraits range from the symbolic, where a likeness was not required, to images where concern with identity opens up the areas of character, personality, mood, status, costume, occupation, gender and age. We also need to consider the relationship between sitter and painter. Portraits are quite distinct from other categories in art in the way they are made, the nature of what they represent and how they work in terms of display.

Alice Foster has lectured for Oxford University Department of Continuing Education since 1998. She lectures regularly at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Her busy freelance career includes organising History of Art study days with colleagues, and regular weekly classes in Oxfordshire and Worcestershire. In 2004 Alice joined The Arts Society and has lectured in Britain and in Europe.

Monday 16 June 2025
EASTON PEARSON: An Australian Fashion Tale
Presented by Dr Peter McNeil
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.

Brisbane 1989 – fashion designers Pam Easton and Lydia Pearson began to create their range of garments. The designs were deliberately nostalgic and feminine, with an air of retrospection obtained by engaging with historical and ethnographic sources. Within ten years their female clothing line, manufactured in Brisbane but made of textiles garnered from Vietnam and India, Italy and France, was retailing globally. They were sold in Browns, London; Neiman Marcus, USA; and Alta Moda, Kuwait. What is the appeal of Easton Pearson and how is their design distinctive? This lecture reflects on McNeil’s involvement as writer-researcher in the first exhibition of Easton Pearson, held at QAG/GOMA. This was the first time fashion had been shown on a large scale in a Queensland art museum.

Dr Peter McNeil FAHA is Distinguished Professor of Design History at UTS. From 2008-18 he lived and worked in three countries, being Foundation Professor of Fashion Studies in Sweden and Academy of Finland Distinguished Professor, Helsinki. His acclaimed book ‘Pretty Gentlemen’, on Macaroni Men and the 18th century fashion world, was published in 2018. He was the main writer for Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s travelling exhibition ‘Reigning Men’ (2016-18). Peter is Past President (2006-10) of the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand, representing Art History and a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Monday 14 July 2025
A CARPET RIDE TO KHIVA
Presented by Chris Aslan
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.

Chris Aslan tells his story of working with UNESCO to establish a silk carpet workshop in the desert oasis of Khiva, Uzbekistan – the most homogenous example of Islamic architecture in the world. His work took him to the bazaars of Afghanistan to purchase natural dyes, and to the great libraries and museums of Europe to track down 15th century manuscripts to revive carpet designs from their illuminations. He also saw the lives of women transformed and became the largest private employer in town.

Chris spent his childhood in Turkey and in war-torn Beirut and is currently based in Cambridge. His career extended from the sea, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Oxford. He established a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries which became the largest nongovernment employer in town. He was kicked out as part of an anti-Western purge and recorded his experiences in “A Carpet Ride to Khiva”. The lecture traces his time in Khiva and the book that followed.

Monday 11 August 2025
THE GENIUS OF STRADIVARI
Presented by Toby Faber
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.

250 years after Antonio Stradivari’s death, his violins and cellos remain the world’s most highly-prized instruments. Loved by great musicians and capable of fetching fabulous sums when sold, their tone and beauty are legendary. Every subsequent violin-maker has tried to match them. Not one has succeeded. How can that be? This lecture explores that central mystery by following some of Stradivari’s instruments from his workshop to the present day. It is a story that travels from the salons of Vienna to the concert halls of New York, from the breakthroughs of Beethoven’s last quartets to the first phonographic recordings. (The lecture includes musical extracts.)

An experienced lecturer, Toby Faber began his career with Natural Sciences at Cambridge, followed by investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Faber and Faber. Toby is also non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music.

Monday 8 September 2025
THE LIFE AND ART OF GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
Presented by Lydia Bauman
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) rose to an almost mythical status as the pre-eminent modernist artist in early 20th century America. She did so at a time when painting was still considered an unsuitable occupation for women and despite spending decades in the isolation of Northern New Mexico and away from the artistic hub of New York. The lecture will discuss her iconic landscapes, cityscapes, skull paintings and notorious outsized flower paintings and address the question of the role of photographer, leading gallerist and O’Keeffe’s husband, Alfred Stieglitz, in the shaping of her career.

Lydia was born in Poland and studied for her BA in Fine Art at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (John Christie Scholarship and the Hatton Award), and an MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. She has since divided her time between painting and exhibiting as well as lecturing widely to adult audiences. She has taught at London’s National Gallery for more than 35 years, and intermittently at London’s Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, as well as collections such as Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Hermitage and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Monday 20 October 2025
ART OR VANDALISM?
Presented by Georgina Bexon
Time & Venue: 6:30pm. Hunter Theatre, Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Cameron St, Broadmeadow.

‘Street Art’, regarded as one of the largest art movements of modern times, has achieved huge popularity and is still rapidly growing as an art form.  It encompasses graffiti, protest art that speaks to political and social issues, and monumental painted murals.  This talk explores the history of the medium from prehistoric times to the modern day and discusses how and why this art has ended up as a mainstream art practice exhibited in respected museums the world over. 

Georgina Bexon is an international art historian, a Consultant Art Historian at the Oriental Club in London and a tour guide at Tate Modern. Georgina holds an MA in Arts Management and Policy from City, University of London and an MA in Art History from SOAS, University of London. Georgina is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Asiatic Society.