Hobart
Postal Address:
ADFAS Hobart Inc.
PO Box 2162
Lower Sandy Bay, TAS 7005
Contact: hobart@adfas.org.au
Membership Enquiries:
Membership secretary – Biz Ritchard
Email: adfas.hobart@gmail.com
ABN: 23 682 798 614
ADFAS Hobart provides for its members a yearly programme of illustrated lectures given by overseas and Australian lecturers chosen for their communication skills and expert knowledge in their fields. Occasional special interest days are also held when topics can be examined in more detail.
Committee 2021
Chairman:
Lorraine Polglase
Ph: 6225 5221 / 0415 558 256
Vice Chairman:
Jenny Holmes
Ph: 6227 8620 / 0408 395 870
Secretary/Public Officer:
Sherryl Stephensen
Ph: 6229 7289 / 0417 392 427
Administration Secretary:
Rosemary Sargison
Ph: 6227 8904 / 0438 278 994
Treasurer:
Tiina Sexton
Ph: 6223 3996 / 0419 557 895
Membership Secretary:
Biz Ritchard
Ph: 0407 241 183
Committee:
Dale Anning
Kathy Rundle
Juliet Stephens
John Williamson
VENUE AND TIME OF LECTURES
Stanley Burbury Theatre UTAS Sandy Bay 6PM
MEMBERSHIP
Single membership: $125
Couples membership: $230
Nadfas Review: $25
VISITORS
Members may bring guests $25 per lecture
PROGRAMME FOR 2021
Gemma Black
The lecture gives a highly polished and entertaining look at Ireland’s national treasure the Book of Kells. It will delve into the background, the calligraphy and illumination, the pigments and tools therein, and some of the history and the mystery of this astonishing manuscript.
Gemma is a studio-based artist and calligraphic-designer based in Tasmania. She was a recipient of a Churchill Fellowship to study in Europe allowing her to research, observe and learn the practice of calligraphy. She is a fellow of the prestigious Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society, UK, and for over 25 years has taught extensively throughout Australia. Her work is housed in private and public collections including the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, the European Parliament and Parliament House Australia.
22 March 2021
Yehudi Menuhin: Prodigy and Phenomenon
Philip Bailey
The lecture focuses on the remarkable careers of Yehudi and his sisters, three consummate musicians who each had to deal with their often-complicated lives outside the concert hall. Several topics are explored as the Menuhin saga unfolds: the precious violins; the architecture and furnishings of their various residences; concert halls and their acoustics; yoga and its role in extending a career.
Philip Bailey’s introduction at the age of 9 to the world of Yehudi Menuhin and his two remarkable sisters began in 1951. In 1974 he joined the Menuhin staff, becoming Yehudi’s personal assistant until the musician’s death in 1999. This close association with the Menuhin family has given Philip the unique insight into the lives of these remarkable musicians. On returning to Australia, he has written a Menuhin biography and has given over 150 presentations across the country.
10 May 2021
Picturing the Kangaroo
John Simons
One of the problems facing Australia’s first colonists was naming new found species of animals and plants; another was depicting them for an English audience. This lecture looks specifically at early images of the kangaroo with a brief account of the etymology of the word ‘kangaroo’. It then explores how the ‘first’ image by George Stubbs established a pictorial image that held sway well into the 19th Century.
Emeritus Professor John Simons is a former Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) of Macquarie University and is currently Adjunct Professor at the University of Tasmania. He was educated at the universities of Wales, Exeter, Brunel and Harvard. He has written numerous books and articles on topics ranging from medieval chivalric romance to the history of cricket. He specialises in the history of animals in Victorian England and is also a published poet.
5 July 2021
A Special Place
Jan Dineen
A personal journey drawing upon the strength and depth of this island’s arts and crafts industries, and the determination and independence of their practitioners. In the beginning there was an island. It was simply a Special Place, because materially it offered all they needed and more: it had a dark past. Today’s Tasmanians are aware of a wide world. Good ideas are great resources and along with a natural wealth, great imaginings have occurred. The island is truly special. This is the story of the awakening of Tasmanian artists and craftspeople. They have blazed tracks for the island’s economic development: carving, forming, building, showing, blowing, knitting, weaving, casting; gaining international recognition for our Special Place.
An award-winning designer/maker of woollen clothing for many years, Jan Dineen’s work has been featured in local, interstate and international galleries including the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Marimura, Tokyo, Japan. A former lecturer in Textiles at the University of Tasmania’s School of Art, Jan taught for many years in textiles/fashion at both the Launceston and Hobart campuses of TAFE. She is a past member of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Industry Training Board. Recently Jan completed her Master of Fine Art and Design at The University of Tasmania.
9 August 2021
The Egotistical Sublime: a lecture about artists and the West Coast of Tasmania
Raymond Arnold
A Tree Stump, Power Pylon, Dam, 4WD Track, Road marker, Radiata Pine, Water Tank, Open Cut Mine, Spanish Heath, Scotch Broom and Myself. Feral events colonising the gravelly sulphide and quartzite swathes of Queenstown Tasmania; jostling for a place, a tone and a colour in the progress of my oil painting. My lecture will look at my own work on the West Coast within a context of other artists over time.
Raymond Arnold studied teaching and art in Victoria before developing his professional career in Tasmania. Over the past 3 decades he has been involved in many facets of the art world culminating in him being awarded a Federation Medal for services to the Art Community. He currently lives in Queenstown, Tasmania where he directed Landscape Art Research Queenstown (LARQ) for which was granted an Australia Day Tasmanian Local Hero Award in 2016. He has had solo exhibitions in Australia, Europe and the USA, and his work can be found in the Imperial War and the Victoria and Albert Museums, London, the Bibliotheque Nationale and the Musee Courbet in France. In Australia, the National Gallery, Australia’s Parliament House and various State Galleries have his prints in their collections.
6 September 2021
Antarctic Images 1: From the Imaginary to the Perceived
Presented by John Williamson
This talk focuses on the story from our first imaginings of what Antarctica looked like (an Arcadian paradise) through to the images of the artists on early Antarctic expeditions such as those of James Cook; the national expeditions of the mid-19th Century: the French (Dumont d’Urville) the British (Ross) and the Americans (Wilkes); to the end of the 19th Century (the purely scientific Challenger Expedition to the Southern Ocean) and how, during all this time, Science and Art were combined in a dance of imagination, beauty and accuracy.
John has been a passionate teacher for 40 years. He has taught Pre-Tertiary Philosophy, and Modern and Ancient Histories at Fahan School, and has lectured on Antarctic History at the University of Tasmania’s Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies. John developed Hobart’s Waterways Tour (in the tunnels of the Hobart Rivulet) for the HCC and co-developed the Polar Pathways Tour for the State Government. He has been a regular guide for these during the Antarctic Mid-Winter Festivals. As an historian, writer and musician, John is fascinated by the way in which Art, Design, Music and Architecture dovetail with the history of ‘place’.
Andrea Palladio, the Italian architect whose constructions inspired a new building culture in England and North America, theorised that beauty results “from the form and correspondence of the whole”. Since Antiquity Italian villas and their gardens have been designed harmoniously, making valuable agricultural and economic contributions. They also provided spaces for intellectual reflection, architectural innovation, aesthetic appreciation – and relaxation in some of the most picturesque Iocations imaginable. This talk examines the Renaissance rediscovery of classical texts on villas and their impact on gardens, and traces the exportation of this Italian style in the work of designers such as Cecil Pinsent.
Dr Kathleen Olive is well known for her lectures and seminars, including popular short courses at the WEA Sydney and the Italian Institute of Culture. Her published research on a Renaissance Italian manuscript, the so-called Codex Rustica was presented to Pope Francis 1 in 2015 as the official gift of the Florentine Curia. She holds a PhD in Italian Studies from the University of Sydney and has over a decade’s experience of university lecturing in Italian language and literature, and European history. She has a further 15 years of experience in public speaking on topics ranging from the Italian Renaissance to modern art and the gardens and architecture of Japan.
8 November 2021
The Problematic Statue – A Brief History of Debunking and Desecrating Public Monuments
Presented by Geoffrey Edwards
The toppling and vandalising of prominent statues around the world has been an all-too-frequent news item in recent times. Citing the alleged moral failure or criminal culpability of the toppled subjects, the wrath of outraged crowds has focused on grand sculptural representations of kings, presidents, dictators and celebrated historical identities including Christopher Columbus, Captain James Cook, assorted Confederate generals and Cecil Rhodes. But this is hardly a modern-day phenomenon. The problematic statue takes a look at the surprisingly long tradition of trashing public art in the interests of re-writing history.
Image: William Walcutt Pulling down the statue of George III at Bowling Green, NY, 1776 (1857)
Geoffrey Edwards is a freelance curatorial consultant, arts lecturer and writer. Since 2016, he has been adviser to the Gandel family’s Pt Leo Estate Sculpture Park. He was Director of the Geelong Art Gallery (1999–2016), held various curatorial roles (1976–1999) at the National Gallery of Victoria concluding his time there as Senior Curator of Sculpture and Glass. He has published widely on historical and modern sculpture, painting and the decorative arts (chiefly glass and ceramics). He is a Board member at The Johnston Collection House Museum in Melbourne; a member of the National Advisory Committee of Sculpture by the Sea; a member of the Public Art Committee of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria); a Trustee of the Colin Holden Charitable Trust; and Vice President of the Australian Fine and Decorative Arts Society.
