Tamworth

Wednesday​ 11 March 2026
ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN’S GLORIOUS MASTERPIECE
Presented by Ian Swankie
Venue & Time: Heritage Room, Tamworth Community Centre, Darling Street, 5.45 pm for 6.00 pm

The only cathedral in the world to have been completed within the lifetime of its designer, over 300 years ago, St Paul’s retains a timeless beauty, standing proudly atop Ludgate Hill in the City of London. Delivered in Ian’s engaging anecdotal style, this talk lavishly illustrates the history, art and architecture of St Paul’s. Starting around the exterior, then down the spectacular nave, inside the chapels, around the monuments, under the mosaics, up to the Whispering Gallery, the triforium and library, we finish downstairs in the crypt where Nelson, Wellington, Wren and many other famous people are laid to rest.

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​ 15 April 2026
ARTISTS IN THE SOUTH SEAS
Presented by Zana Dare
Venue & Time: Heritage Room, Tamworth Community Centre, Darling Street, 5.45 pm for 6.00 pm

Unrecognised during his lifetime, Paul Gauguin developed his unique style in French Polynesia. Henri Matisse’s Tahitian sojourn, provided the source for his Oceania series. Many early explorer ships such as Captain Cook’s ‘Endeavour’ carried artists who gave the world unique scenes of their contact with indigenous peoples.

With an Honours degree in majoring in Australian history and a Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies from the University of Sydney, Zana worked in Australian museums in a variety of roles. Since retiring, Zana continues to share her passion for art, history and culture as an Enrichment Speaker, sailing with Regent Seven Seas, Viking, Cunard and Royal Caribbean Cruises. In 2016 Zana co-authored a book, ‘The Creative Pulse – 5 Steps to Stretch Your Imagination’.

Wednesday​ 13 May 2026
HOW TO LOOK SLOWLY: POST IMPRESSIONISM
Presented by Joanne Rhymer
Venue & Time: Heritage Room, Tamworth Community Centre, Darling Street, 5.45 pm for 6.00 pm

Widespread reproduction of Seurat’s and Van Gogh’s paintings has fostered familiarity, often reducing the impulse to engage closely with the originals. Yet on visiting Seurat’s studio, Van Gogh marvelled at the “fresh revelation of colour” in Seurat’s work. This presentation invites slow, attentive viewing to
appreciate how both artists produced extraordinary, pioneering art. Despite their brief careers, they made remarkable contributions to modern art through distinctive, experimental approaches. We will pay attention to visual analysis and examine terms such as Post-Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism to consider how these labels do – or do not – capture the uniqueness of their work.

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
AN INTIMATE STORY OF THE ART GALLERY OF NSW
Presented by Steven Miller
Venue & Time: Heritage Room, Tamworth Community Centre, Darling Street, 5.45 pm for 6.00 pm

Since its founding as an Academy of Art in 1871, the Art Gallery of New South Wales has evolved into a leading international art museum. Steven Miller’s publication The Exhibitionists is the first comprehensive history ever published of this much-loved institution. In his lecture on the subject he will delve into the intrigues and the passionate debates, the great talents and the big personalities that have made the Gallery what it is today.

Steven Miller was the head of the National Art Archive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 2009 to 2023. He has worked in commercial and public galleries since the late 1980s and published widely on art. The book he co-authored on the first blockbuster exhibition of modern European masters to visit Australia was awarded the NSW Premier’s History Award. His 2015 publication Awakening: Four lives in art is an exploration of the creation of national identity through art. The popular and informative Dogs in Australian Art is now into its third, expanded edition. He wrote the first history of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which was published to celebrate its 150th anniversary. He has a Masters degree in theology, as well as qualifications in art history and archives. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW.

Wednesday​ 15 July 2026
JUMPING THE LIFE TO COME: HOW THE EXTRAORDINARY BARGAIN OF DR FAUSTUS HAS INFLUENCED WRITERS & ARTISTS
Presented by Mary Sharp
Venue & Time: Heritage Room, Tamworth Community Centre, Darling Street, 5.45 pm for 6.00 pm

When theatre audiences first saw Marlowe’s Dr Faustus exchange his soul for 24 years of worldly pleasures, they were horrified and terrified in equal part. Numerous writers and artists have borrowed and adapted the famous story from Goethe’s plays and Berlioz’s opera to Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray and Brian Cranston’s television hit Breaking Bad.  This lecture explores the origins of the extraordinary story and what the interpretations show us about our attitude to sin, pleasure and the afterlife.

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​ 19 August 2026
A PHOTOGRAPHIC ODYSSEY: SHACKLETON’S ‘ENDURANCE’ EXPEDITION CAPTURED ON CAMERA
Presented by Mark Cottle
Venue & Time: Heritage Room, Tamworth Community Centre, Darling Street, 5.45 pm for 6.00 pm

On Ernest Shackleton’s third Antarctic expedition in 1914, his ship, the Endurance, was trapped, eventually crushed in pack ice. After five months on the ice, the ship’s company rowed to remote Elephant Island. Shackleton then sailed with five companions over 800 miles to South Georgia, returning over three months later to rescue his stranded crew. Australian Frank Hurley was the expedition’s official photographer. His images capture with great artistry the amazing landscapes within which this remarkable human drama unfolded. This lecture illustrates Hurley’s great talent behind the lens, in the first flush of human contact when the Antarctic remained essentially ‘terra incognita’.

Born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and Birmingham University, Mark Cottle 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​ 16 September 2026
DRESSED TO THRILL: THE ART OF THE JAPANESE KIMONO
Presented by Marie Conte-Helm
Venue & Time: Heritage Room, Tamworth Community Centre, Darling Street, 5.45 pm for 6.00 pm

The kimono, literally meaning ‘wear’ (ki) and ‘thing’ (mono), is a traditional garment worn by both men and women in Japan. But it is so much more than that. Rich in symbolism and encapsulating the best in textile design and techniques through the ages, the kimono has a fascinating history that reflects wider aspects of Japanese life and culture. From everyday kimono to wedding kimono to the elaborate dress of Japanese geisha, this lecture will trace the story of the kimono, its past and its present, and the place that it occupies in the world of contemporary fashion.

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​ 21 October 2026
LEE MILLER’S WAR
Presented by Antony Penrose
Venue & Time: Heritage Room, Tamworth Community Centre, Darling Street, 5.45 pm for 6.00 pm

Lee Miller is thought to have been the only woman combat photographer with the allied infantry in Europe during the second World War. This lecture presents her war photojournalism from shortly after D Day in Normandy, through the Siege of St Malo, the liberation of Paris, fighting across Germany, the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau to the flames leaping from Hitler’s Berghof near Berchtesgaden that signalled the end of the war, and then the post war traumas of Austria and Hungary. The story is told through extensive use of Lee Miller’s own words, set to her photographs.

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.

Wednesday​ 18 November 2026
ON THE WILD SIDE: FILMING CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL
Presented by Piet de Vries
Venue & Time: Heritage Room, Tamworth Community Centre, Darling Street, 5.45 pm for 6.00 pm

Learn about techniques for capturing extraordinary images for Sir David Attenborough and National Geographic. From playful macaque monkeys in China to majestic cassowaries in Northern Australia, illustrated with segments and images from nature documentaries.

Pieter de Vries ACS is a renowned documentary cinematographer whose incredible journey has taken him from the heights of the Space Shuttle to the depths of the North Atlantic. He has captured extraordinary moments around the world. Regarded as one of the leading documentary cinematographers, Pieter’s films have garnered numerous accolades, including Emmys and BAFTAs.