Toowoomba
ArtsNational Toowoomba welcomes you.
Toowoomba is located 120 km west of Brisbane CBD on top of the Great Dividing Range 691 meters above sea level in the Darling Downs. The Royal Bulls Head Inn, build in 1800, is one of many tourist attractions together with the Cobb & Co Museum, The Darling Downs Steam Train display, the beautify Botanical Garden and Laurel Bank Park with an incredible display of topiary. The 75th Carnival of Flowers is during the month of September with many attractions and plenty of stunning blooms.
Lectures:
Venue:
Lectures are held at the Burke & Wills Hotel, 554 Ruthven Street, Toowoomba. Parking options are in Ruthven Street, Little Street or Grand Central Shopping Centre Park house in Dent Street.
The lecture is held upstairs in the Cunningham Room, there is a lift, and the bar is open between 5:30pm – 6pm and from 7pm -7:30 pm during supper.
Time:
Lectures are held on Thursday evenings at 6pm, please arrive by 5:45pm.
Membership:
The annual membership cost for 2024 is $200.
If you would like a printed newsletter mailed out there is an additional fee of $15.
Click here to join or email: susanpowne@bigpond.com
Guests welcome:
Guests are welcome and required to book with Susan Powne by email: susanpowne@bigpond.com or toowoomba@artsnational.au, 24 hours prior to the lecture.
The cost is $ 30 per person.
Contact:
For all enquiries please email: toowoomba@artsnational.au
Postal Address: PO Box 1555 Toowoomba QLD 4350
ABN: 27 660 498 856
Committee 2024
Chair: A Johnson
Treasurer: Susan Bradshaw
Membership: Val Watson 0428 457 868
PROGRAM FOR 2024
Thursday 14 March 2024
ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF ETHEL ROSENBERG AND THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN ICON
Presented by Anne Sebba
Venue & Time: Burke & Wills Hotel, Cunningham Room, 5.45pm for a 6pm start
Ethel Rosenberg was 37 when electrocuted for conspiracy to commit espionage following her 1951 trial. A gross miscarriage of justice. The US Government knew evidence against Ethel was weak. She was a wife, mother and a communist, but the Government thought charging her would make her husband talk. Her death left two sons orphaned and led to an outpouring of literature. Novels, plays and paintings used satire to show how women were only expected to be housewives. In the 70 years since her death, Ethel has become an American icon, a symbol of how hysteria can make governments behave shamefully.
Biographer, historian, and author of eleven books Anne Sebba lectures in the US and UK, and to the National Trust, British Library, and Imperial War Museum. Formerly a Reuters foreign correspondent, Anne presents on BBC Radio and television talking about her books, including biographies on Jennie Churchill, Laura Ashley, and Wallis Simpson. Anne’s latest book, a history of Paris is Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s.
Thursday 11 April 2024
WONDERS OF THE ALHAMBRA – SYMMETRY AND PATTERNS IN ISLAMIC ART AND DESIGN
Presented by David Banney
Venue & Time: Burke & Wills Hotel, Cunningham Room, 5.45pm for a 6pm start
For more than 700 years the Alhambra Palace in Granada has delighted and inspired. A treasure trove of art and design, the Alhambra is a virtual encyclopedia of symmetry and patterns, even more remarkable given the simplicity of the tools available to the artists and craftsmen. This lecture introduces the extraordinary techniques of design and construction that lie behind the tessellations of the Alhambra.
Described by pianist Roger Woodward as ‘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. During studies for a PhD in music David discovered the fascinating world of symmetry and symmetry breaking. His interest in this subject has lead to numerous papers about symmetry in music, as well as interdisciplinary research with Italian physicist Giuseppe Caglioti and reproductive endocrinologist Roger Smith.
Thursday 30 May 2024
WILLIAM MORRIS AND THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT
Presented by Anne Anderson
Venue & Time: Burke & Wills Hotel, Cunningham Room, 5:45pm or a 6pm start
Writer, painter, designer, printer and political activist, Morris instigated a revolt against the mass-produced, poorly designed, and badly made products that were swamping the middle-class home. Under Morris’s ethos everyday items were elevated to works of art and the remit of the artist was broadened to include both the fine and decorative arts. Above all workers were to be valued as much as their work. Work had to be meaningful, otherwise it was ‘useless toil’. Ideally objects were to be designed and made by the same man, paying careful attention to techniques and materials, as they had been in the Medieval period. This led to a revival of the Guild system and the reintroduction of craft skills and traditions.
An Arts Society lecturer since 1994 Anne was senior lecturer at Southampton Solent University and is currently Hon Associate Professor at Exeter University, a tutor for the Victoria and Albert Learning Academy, and Ceramics Consultant for Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. Anne has published on Art Deco teapots, the Pre-Raphaelites, Edward Burne-Jones, and Art Nouveau architecture. She held various fellowships and has curated national exhibitions, the most recent Beyond the Brotherhood; the Pre-Raphaelite Legacy (2019-20).
Thursday 20 June 2024
STREAMS OF FIRE AND TONGUES OF FLAME – A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ART OF GLASS
Presented by Geoffrey Edwards
Venue & Time: Burke & Wills Hotel, Cunningham Room, 5.45pm for a 6pm start
In this illustrated lecture, Streams of Fire and tongues of Flame, the ancient and remarkable history of glass as an art form is traced with reference to works in major public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. The lecture also refers to glass-related imagery and symbolism in the visual arts, film and literature – a tradition that ranges in time and type from biblical allusion and Chaucerian dream visions of glass temples through to the novels of Daphne du Maurier, the films of Orson Wells, the poetry of Les Murray and recent science fiction.
Geoffrey Edwards was the Director of the Geelong Art Gallery. Prior to this appointment, he held Senior Curatorial positions at the National Gallery of Victoria where he was in charge of the collections of International and Australian sculpture and Melbourne’s celebrated holdings of ancient, antique, and modern glass. He is also the Senior Sculpture Curatorial Advisor for Point Leo Estate Sculpture Park
Thursday 25 July 2024
CARAVAGGIO: THE BAD BOY OF BAROQUE
Presented by Daniel Evans
Venue & Time: Burke & Wills Hotel, Cunningham Room, 5.45pm for 6pm
Caravaggio was a violent bully with a massive ego, yet the most gifted painter of his generation. He offended as easily as he wowed with his works. Scandal followed him everywhere he went or fled to. His paintings have cinematic compositions with intensely visceral details, as he developed a pioneering style that would inspire a European stylistic following, and change Baroque painting forever. His tragic end and eventual downfall is the stuff of a great film not yet made and this lecture aims to bring his colourful character to life.
Dan Evans, an educationalist with a passion for European art and architecture. He teaches History and A Level History of Art at Cheltenham College, a full boarding independent school established in 1841. Dan has been lecturing since 2001, and spent 9 years working as a senior lecturer and tour guide for Art History Abroad and he was once voted the British winner of the World Guide of the Year Awards.
Thursday 22 August 2024
ALCHEMY AND ADVENTURE: A HISTORY OF EXOTIC COLOURS AND POISONOUS PIGMENTS
Presented by Lynne Gibson
Venue & Time: Burke & Wills Hotel, Cunningham Room, 5.45pm for 6pm start
It easy to take colour for granted in our manufactured world. But before organic chemistry the most desirable pigments were often rare, exotic, or poisonous. Merchants supplied cochineal ‘grana’ from the holds of Spanish galleons, pungent golden nuggets from India and lapis rock carried by camel train from the mountains of Badakhshan. Alchemists prepared deadly King’s Yellow, mysterious Vitriol of Venus and Moorish Gold concocted from basilisk powder and human blood. Small wonder artists kept their paint recipes closely guarded in ‘Books of Secrets.’ This lecture tells the stories of alchemy and adventure behind some our beautiful and colourful paintings.
Lynne Gibson is a freelance lecturer in History of Art, and in Drawing, Painting and Printmaking. She has worked at the Universities of Sussex and Bristol and has conducted lectures, courses and guided tours for organisations including Art Galleries and Museums, The Art Fund, The National Trust and The Arts Society. She is a professional artist specializing in oil painting and etching, has been exhibited widely and her work used in a range of publications.
Thursday 19 September 2024
THE HEALING POWER OF PLANTS – WHY PLANT DERIVED TREATMENTS ARE NOT AN ALTERNATIVE INSTEAD THEY ARE THE REAL THING
Presented by Timothy Walker
Venue & Time: Burke & Wills Hotel, Cunningham Room, 5.45pm for a 6pm start
Mankind has exploited the medicinal properties of plants for thousands of years, yet the role of plants in modern medicine is still considered to be peripheral by many people. This talk attempts to put the record straight and to show that plant products are used every day by all of us to relieve pain and suffering, to heal wounds and cure diseases. This is a talk with a very wide appeal and relevance.
From 1988 to 2014 Timothy Walker was the Director of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden. Botanic gardens are often described as living museums, and garden curators talk about them in the same way as museum curators do. Gardens are often thought of a place where science and art meet on equal terms and Timothy’s lectures investigate this relationship. Since 2014, he has taught Plant Biology at Somerville College Oxford.
Thursday 7 November 2024
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S GROUND BREAKING VISION
Presented by Deborah Jenner
Venue & Time: Burke & Wills Hotel, Cunningham Room, 5.45 pm for 6pm start
O’Keeffe’s inspiration comes from hiking along canyons of America’s Southwest to portray vistas from within gorges or where there are exposed cross sections of the Earth. Her compositions may be captured from below or above, or, by telescoping distances with her ‘Far Away Nearby’. Her ground-breaking vision often creates metaphorical openings onto the Infinite. Such a sublime approach to both landscape and abstract painting demonstrates how unique O’Keeffe’s perspective is. Her New World images disregard the European landscape genre. If anything, they recall Chinese scroll painting. (I think Australians could find parallels with their own topography and her frontier approach).
Deborah Jenner, American-born art historian; member of College Arts Association has resided in Paris since 1990. She has worked at the Ecole du Louvre, the Sorbonne, the Catholic Institute, and the British Council. Her Doctorate thesis proved non-western influences in Georgia O’Keeffe’s art. Deborah’s publications include catalogue essays for Musée d’Orsay and Centre Pompidou, many scholarly papers and Gallery critiques. She gives public talks, guided walks and museum tours for ex-pat organisations and study-abroad programs.
