ADFAS Bowral & District provides for its members a yearly program of lectures on a variety of interesting topics, ranging through the fields of art, architecture, music, drama, dance, the decorative arts, garden design and much more. In addition to the eight lectures each year (six given by noted English lecturers and two by outstanding Australian lecturers), field trips to special exhibitions and places of interest are arranged.
Wednesday 23rd February - special interest morning
Hilary Kay, ADFAS Behind the Scenes at the Antiques Roadshow
The Antiques Roadshow is now recording its 34th series. What has made this programme one of the BBC’s most successful and longest running hits? Hilary joined the Roadshow in 1979, and in this talk she gives a fascinating insight, into the dramas, the disasters, the exploits, the public at large and life on the Roadshow circuit.
Wednesday 28th March - lecture
Michael O’Brien, NADFAS The Art and Architecture of the Khmer Empire
This talk includes a brief account of the geography, the historical sources, the language and religion of the Khmers and traces the development of their empire from small Indianised states in the sixth century to the establishment of their capital in the Angkor region in 803 and to its demise after the middle of the thirteenth century. We shall also follow the evolution of Khmer sculpture and architecture during this time.
Wednesday 18th April - lecture
Susannah Fullerton, ADFAS Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: The Wicked Poet, Lord Byron
Why was Byron considered “mad, bad and dangerous to know”? In his own time he was both famous and infamous for his audacious poetry, his scandalous love life (which included an affair with his half-sister) and his devotion to liberal ideals. Ostracised by English society, Byron went off to fight for Greek independence and died at the age of 36. His personality and his romantic poetry made a unique impression on 19th century Europe, and the term “Byronic” was coined to recognise this uniqueness. This talk includes some of his best-loved poems and tells the story of the colourful, shocking and revolutionary life of one of England’s greatest poets.
Wednesday 23rd May - lecture
Anne Sebba, NADFAS “That Woman” – Wallis Simpson
It is 75 years since the abdication of Edward VIII. This lecture, based on three years of research, is a reassessment of why a woman from Baltimore born into relative obscurity was so demonised by the British establishment and wider commonwealth and how, after she married the ex-King and became Duchess of Windsor, she turned her exile and hatred into a platform from which to launch herself as one of the world’s best-dressed women who entertained in the most elegant of homes fit for a king – or an ex-King.
Duchess of Windsor jewels
Wednesday 20th June - lecture
Alison Renwick, ADFAS The Art Market
This illustrated lecture focuses on the Australian art market, but also looks at the global drivers in the contemporary art market. We shall include international examples (artists such as Damian Hirst and Jeff Koons) and some more local figures (such as Brett Whiteley, Del Kathryn Barton, Shaun Gladwell and photographers including Rosemary Laing and Bill Henson
Wednesday 18th July - lecture
Linda Smith, NADFAS Great Tarts in Art: High Culture and the Oldest Profession
A mixture of art history, analysis, social history and scandalous anecdote, this lecture takes a generally light-hearted look at changing attitudes to sexual morality down the ages. It examines the portraits and careers of some of history’s most notorious mistresses and courtesans. It also charts the complex and often ambiguous attitudes of art and society towards the numerous anonymous working girls at the lower end of the social scale, by investigating how they have been represented in art at different times and places from the seventeenth to the twentieth century
Lady Emma Hamilton By George Romney c.1782
Wednesday 22nd August - lecture
Geri Parlby, NADFAS The Emperor and the prostitute. Justinian and Theodora, the Most Notorious Couple in the History of Byzantium and the Art they Inspired
Was this the most outrageous imperial couple in Byzantine history? Justinian and Theodora bowed to no man when they ruled the world’s most powerful empire during the sixth century. A former prostitute and exotic dancer, Theodora was a woman with an unsavoury past, while her husband’s antecedents came from Balkan peasant stock. Yet together they inspired some of the most beautiful art in the Byzantine Empire, from the sublime mosaics of Ravenna and St Catherine’s monastery to the miraculous architecture of Hagia Sophia.
Wednesday 19th September - lecture
Charles Hadjamach,NADFAS Rebel in Glass: the Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was America’s foremost exponent of Art Nouveau. Jeweller, painter, designer and architect he is most famous for his richly decorated glassware. Commissioned to produce stained glass windows, Tiffany also produced sumptuous lamps with naturalistic decoration drawn from flora and fauna.
Inspired by ancient cultures, Tiffany had his own glassworks where he experimented with different techniques of glass blowing and decoration. By the turn of the century, Tiffany Favrile glass was the most imitated glassware in America.
Wednesday 24th October - lecture
Keir Davidson , NADFAS Musô Soseki and the Moss Garden at Saihôji, Kyoto
Images of this beautiful garden are amongst the best known of all Japanese gardens. Who built this magnificent and mysterious garden and why does it have two distinct parts? Why was its builder so drawn to certain elements of this site that he carefully included them in his design; what is the significance of the unusual setting of the gate which separates the two, These are amongst the questions addressed in this lecture
Venue and Time of Lectures
Lectures, followed by light refreshments, are presented in the Ballroom, Annesley, Westbrook Drive, Bowral at 10.30 am and 6:00 pm
Guests
Guests are most welcome - prior notice is not necessary. A $20 fee applies. The fee for students and members of other ADFAS Societies is $10.
Membership
Annual membership subscription is $130 (students $65) or $240 per couple.
