Orange & Districts

Wednesday 4 March 2026
THE BRILLIANCE OF BRUNEL: The Man who Built the Modern World
Presented by Ian Swankie
Time & Venue: 6pm for 6:30pm start, Holy Trinity Church Hall, corner of Anson and Byng St, Orange

British people and visitors to the UK still find themselves amongst the infrastructure created by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the 19th century. He changed the face of the British landscape with his ground-breaking projects including railways, bridges, tunnels, ships, and grand buildings such as the magnificent Paddington Station. He merged art with engineering and science and was a pioneer and a revolutionary. And he was brilliant. We’ll look at the man, his background, his work, and his legacy.

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.

Wednesday 8 April 2026
THE CARRICK FOX DILEMMA
Presented by Leigh Capel
Time & Venue: 6pm for 6:30pm start, Holy Trinity Church Hall, corner of Anson and Byng St, Orange

The Carrick Fox Dilemma, revolves around the naming conventions and legacy of Ethel Carrick Fox, a pioneering artist whose works have been celebrated in various exhibitions. Capel’s work has sparked discussions and debates about how artists should be recognized posthumously, particularly in the context of female artists and their contributions to the art world. The dilemma arises from the different ways in which her works have been catalogued and exhibited, leading to questions about the most appropriate name to use for her legacy. Capel’s insights and research have been instrumental in shedding light on the complexities surrounding Ethel Carrick Fox’s identity and the challenges faced by artists in the posthumous recognition of their work.

Leigh Capel has worked in the auction industry as a valuer and specialist since 2013 and is an accredited valuer of the Auctioneers & Valuers Association of Australia. His experience in the auction industry and as an art dealer provides a rounded perspective of art history and the market.

Wednesday 6 May 2026
MARY CASSATT: PAINTING IN PARIS
Presented by Joanne Rhymer
Time & Venue: 6pm for 6:30pm start, Holy Trinity Church Hall, corner of Anson and Byng St, Orange

Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) was the only American to exhibit with the French Impressionists. Encouraged by Degas to exhibit with them, she remarked, “I accepted with joy… I hated conventional art.” Cassatt made significant contributions to four of the eight shows. However, the subjects deemed suitable for a “respectable” woman were limited. We will consider how, despite this setback, Cassatt reimagined her subjects in unconventional, thought-provoking ways. We will investigate her distinctive paintings and prints to see how Cassatt navigated the male-dominated art world, to produce avant-garde works that offer a singular, insightful perspective on 19th-century French society.

Joanne Rhymer’s expertise in the history of Modern Art and the Politics of Representation has led to roles at the National Gallery, Tate Gallery, Wallace collection and other prestigious institutions in London and Cambridge. Specialising in 19th-century and early 20th-century French art, her interests include the visual skills involved in sustained looking at paintings.

Wednesday 17 June 2026
FLORENCE BROADHURST : THE ENIGMATIC DESIGN LEGEND  
Presented by Claudia Chan Shaw
Time & Venue: 6pm for 6:30pm start, Holy Trinity Church Hall, corner of Anson and Byng St, Orange

With her designs gracing the walls of hip nightclubs, homewares, travel goods and fashion, Florence Broadhurst has become a global phenomenon. Her vibrant wallpaper designs had all but been forgotten until her original silk printing screens were discovered by design company Signature Prints, languishing in a dusty warehouse. During her life she was the queen of reinvention, hiding her humble beginnings and passing herself off as a French couturier and an English aristocrat. She returned home to Australia to revolutionise the design industry of Sydney in the 60s and 70s, only to have it all come to a terrible end. Join Claudia Chan Shaw for a look at Florence Broadhurst’s fascinating life and the design legacy she left behind.

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.

Wednesday 8 July 2026
GENTILITY, GOSSIP AND GALLANTRY: Common Misconceptions About Jane Austen
Presented by Mary Sharp
Time & Venue: 6pm for 6:30pm start, Holy Trinity Church Hall, corner of Anson and Byng St, Orange

Jane Austen’s novels are often characterised as lightweight romances dealing in trivialities and portraying a limited social sphere, reflecting the constricted circumstances of the author’s own life. This lecture offers an alternative reading, suggesting Austen is not interested in romance but moral challenge, not a mild spinster but a social commentator of contemporary relevance. Mary will read and discuss extracts from Emma and Pride and Prejudice, posing and considering questions such as how we should view the tedious Miss Bates to whom Emma is so famously insolent and how we should judge the over-excitable Mrs Bennet.

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.

Wednesday 12 August 2026
THE STORY OF THE SUTTON HOO SHIP BURIAL 
Presented by Mark Cottle
Time & Venue: 6pm for 6:30pm start, Holy Trinity Church Hall, corner of Anson and Byng St, Orange

In the early seventh century a great ship was dragged ashore from the River Deben in Suffolk. This became the resting place of a powerful Anglo-Saxon warlord, buried with a mound of treasures from all over the known world. Fine weaponry, gold coins and exquisitely crafted jewellery revealed levels of sophistication which were a revelation. The aim of the lecture is to examine the finds in turn, partly to appreciate them in their own right and partly to explore what insights they offer and what questions they pose about their world. 

Born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and Birmingham University, Mark 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.

Wednesday 9 September 2026
THE ART OF THE JAPANESE GARDEN
Presented by Marie Conte-Helm
Time & Venue: 6pm for 6:30pm start, Holy Trinity Church Hall, corner of Anson and Byng St, Orange

This lecture introduces some of Japan’s most famous gardens and provides a context for understanding the principles of Japanese garden design as it has evolved through the ages. The Japanese love of nature and the changing seasons has manifested itself in paintings and in the intimate and grand-scale gardens surrounding aristocratic palaces and Buddhist temples, as well as Zen-inspired dry landscape gardens with strikingly symbolic content. The lecture also draws upon wider examples to illustrate the distinctive qualities that the Japanese have brought to garden design, an approach successfully adapted to modern domestic settings and to Japanese gardens abroad.

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.

Wednesday 14 October 2026
THE MAKING OF ‘LEE’
Presented by Antony Penrose
Time & Venue: 6pm for 6:30pm start, Holy Trinity Church Hall, corner of Anson and Byng St, Orange

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.