Hunter (Pokolbin)

Monday 10 February 2025
JANE AUSTEN: HER LIFE AND WORKS
Presented by Susannah Fullerton
Venue & Time: Cessnock Performing Arts Centre, 7pm

The 6 most elegant social comedies in English literature were written by a woman whose personal life was unexciting and confined. Yet Jane Austen’s genius gave her novels depth and charm and made them some of the most popular novels ever. Susannah Fullerton, President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia and author of several books about Jane Austen, shares her passion for Austen’s novels and her interest in her life. Illustrations bring the Regency world to life and readings will remind audiences just how funny Jane Austen can be.

Susannah has a BA from the University of Auckland NZ and a post-graduate degree in Victorian literature from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She teaches literature and lectures regularly at the State Library of NSW and the Art Gallery of NSW. In 2017 Susannah was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for Services to Literature and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW.

Monday 10 March 2025
SECRETS OF THE SERAIL: Behind the Scenes at the Ottoman Court
Presented by Sue Rollin
Venue & Time: Cessnock Performing Arts Centre, 7pm

Explore the world of the Ottoman court within the palaces of Istanbul: the Topkapi Palace with its courts, pavilions, gardens and fountains, the Dolmabahce Palace, a 19C extravaganza, and other waterfront residences along the Bosphorus. We glimpse court life and ceremonies through the eyes of European writers and artists and as recorded by the Ottomans themselves: we study the costumes, jewels, ceramics and other treasures of the sultans and enter the harem, a palace within a palace, guarded by the black eunuchs, where the Sultan’s concubines were secluded from the world outside and the Queen Mother reigned supreme.

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 7 April 2025
SEEING MUSIC, HEARING ART
Presented by David Banney
Venue & Time: Cessnock Performing Arts Centre, 7pm

Leonardo and Palestrina, Picasso and Stravinsky, Debussy and Matisse – Art and Music are never produced in a vacuum, and the histories of art and music have run similar courses, with music always a little way behind. This lecture traces the major historical movements of the last 1000 years, exploring the parallels between sound and visual images. How can we “hear” perspective? How can we “see“ sonata form? What does Rothko sound like, and what does Philip Glass look like? Why does music take longer to catch up?

Described by pianist Roger Woodward a ‘quite simply one of the best conductors in the country’. David is one of Australia’s most highly regarded musicians, with success as a conductor, composer, string player and educator. A past winner of the ABC Young Conductor’s Award, David is Artistic Director of the Christ Church Camerata and the Newcastle Music Festival. He is Interim Music Director of Christ Church Cathedral Newcastle. David has worked with many of Australia’s leading orchestras and soloists, including the Queensland, Adelaide and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, and Opera Queensland.

Monday 5 May 2025
DE-CODING DA VINCI
Presented by Alice Foster
Venue & Time: Venue to be advised, 7pm

Leonardo da Vinci epitomised Renaissance Humanism, creating some of the most influential paintings in western art. He died over 500 years ago, yet his work remains enigmatic, potent and mystifying. A gifted engineer, inventor and scientist, painting fell at the end of his line of curiosity, yet ironically it’s this for which he is remembered best. Much is unfinished; his Last Supper was the target of jokes and vandalism by French forces in Milan, while he was among the first to celebrate human imperfection in his caricatures. And just what is the draw of his Mona Lisa? This lecture revises the familiar and explores some less well-known da Vinci works.

Alice 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 7 July 2025
A CARPET RIDE TO KHIVA
Presented by Chris Aslan
Venue & Time: Venue to be advised, 7pm

Chris Aslan tells his own 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 4 August 2025
THE GENIUS OF STRADIVARI
Presented by Toby Faber
Venue & Time: Cessnock Performing Arts Centre, 7pm

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 violinmaker 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 auditoriums around the world.

After investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Toby remains on the board of Faber and Faber, is non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music, and a director of Liverpool University Press.

Monday 1 September 2025
BRITISH ART FROM EGG TO BACON
Presented by Lydia Bauman
Venue & Time: Cessnock Performing Arts Centre, 7pm

A survey of a hundred years of Art in Britain from the Victorian Leopold Augustus Egg to Francis Bacon. This talk examines ways in which Britain’s isolated position resulted in an art which, while occasionally showing European influences, for most part remained steadfastly and uniquely British. Expect a tongue in cheek analysis of such popular British archetypes as the “stiff upper lip”, a “nice cup of tea”, “no sex please, we’re British” and of course “the weather”!

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 13 October 2025
THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE WORLD’S BIGGEST ART HEIST
Presented by Georgina Bexon
Venue & Time: Cessnock Performing Arts Centre, 7pm

On 18 March 1990, the ‘impossible’ happened – thirteen works of art, valued at a total of $500 million, were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Museum officials, police and security experts were completely baffled as to how this had happened. These great masterpieces have never been recovered; a devastating loss to the museum and its public. This talk relates the story of the fascinating police investigation into the missing paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas and Manet; resulting in knowledge of how, why and by whom the robbery was committed but leaving the crime officially ‘unsolved’.

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.