Architecture of Liverpool and Manchester: The Glories of these Cities

                                    16/6/2026     Speaker: Ed Glinert

The expectation of this lecture was of a tale of two cities and their architecture, and indeed Ed introduced his talk by saying he would divide his time equally between the two, though in the event Manchester was allotted the lion’s share. With the current running debate about which is the country’s second city, Manchester or Birmingham, it might be argued that there is more to say about Manchester, but Liverpool’s heritage and architecture begged for greater attention.

Liverpool has gained and lost its UNESCO recognition: the striking approach to the waterfront deemed at risk after subsequent development. Next to nothing remains of the city’s medieval past. It was the importance of the maritime and trading industries that brought in the wealth to fund grand civic buildings; often in Greek Classical, Georgian and Victorian-Gothic styles, lavishly decorated, tiled and finished, to bring a proud dignity to the city.  Significant buildings were highlighted, notably the Bluecoat Hospital, the oldest surviving building in the centre of Liverpool. Built in 1717, originally as a charity school for orphaned and destitute children, the school moved in 1906 to new premises in Church Road, Wavertree, leaving the original building to become an Arts Centre, in 1927, the UK’s first.

Innovation found its expression in the Metropolitan Cathedral and, along Hope Street, the biggest Anglican cathedral in the UK and the largest in Europe. St George’s Hall’s foundation stone was laid in 1838 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria, with work beginning in 1842.  The vast building was to house the Civil and Crown Courts and a Concert Room with superb acoustics. Charles Dickens described it as the most perfect room in the world. The Great Hall with its Corinthian columns and barrel vaulted ceiling boasts one of the largest pipe organs in Europe. With its many other rooms this Grade 1 listed building sits opposite Lime Street Station.

Streets of Georgian houses grace the Georgian Quarter leading to the art deco Philharmonic Hall. Across the street at the Philharmonic Dining Rooms are the Grade 1 rose marble urinals in a Victorian pub as lavish as a museum. Returning to the waterfront and the view of the Three Graces, the Egyptian influenced Royal Liver Building, the George’s Dock Buildings and the Cunard Building, based on the Farnese Palace in Rome, this was a brief tour begging time to walk to hidden gems of the less central areas. 

On to Manchester. 

Manchester boasts the least interesting Roman remains in Britain, according to the historian AJP Taylor. The Roman fort ( c 79 AD) in Castlefield was plundered in 1830. 

 One of the oldest architectural treasures - Chetham’s, now a world famous music school - has over the years undergone many additions and modernisations and is an example of how various may be the uses of a building. The site has been occupied since Roman times, the present building dating from the second quarter of the 15th century when Thomas de la Warre, Rector of the parish church, obtained a license from Henry V to refound the church as a collegiate body, a college of priests and was now the largest building in medieval Manchester. In 1547 the college was dissolved and it became a residence till changes resurrected it as Chetham’s Hospital School in 1653, a school to educate poor boys and develop a free public library. Further changes brought about world recognition. In 2017 the Stoller Hall was built creating a superb acoustical space. Appetites have been whetted for an Arts Society visit. Close by is the cathedral, once the parish church with its 1215 beginnings.

As the city developed it was the Grand Tour which ushered in the Classical style and Italianate architecture. Fine buildings graced the centre: the Crown Courts, the Free Trade Concert Hall, now a hotel, and Manchester’s jewel in the crown:  the Town Hall. Others are notably the John Ryland’s Library, the Midland Hotel, the Exchange Theatre which grew out of the Corn Exchange, and the Pantheon looking Central Library, all establishing the stature of the city.

Post-war developments scarred the landscape; brutalist, ugly, destined not to survive. High rise blocks began to dominate ‘Manc-hattan.’ Recent monies and careful town planning have often brought a cohesion to the mixed periods of architecture which might have suggested  Ed’s next chapter. His scatter gun approach pleased some, but a lack of a narrative arc frustrated others. 

    The last of the lectures all ten come and gone,

     plenty to take in and much to dwell on. 

    ’Twas a whistle stop tour,

    but our feet were not sore.

    Come back after summer

    there’ll be more art for sure …..

Hilary Benson

Three hundred years of English Jewellery

The May lecture was given by Amanda Herries, a curator at The Museum of
London who has also spent extensive time in Japan. Her topic “Three hundred years of
English Jewellery” ranged from 1550 to 1830.
Why did she choose to begin with the sixteenth century? Amanda believes it was
a century which offered inspiration and guidance. The match between fashion and the
jewellery which decorated it influenced subsequent centuries – including our own times.
But of course, “applied decoration” has been around since ancient times,
flaunting wealth and revealing social status, pandering to a human desire for “bodily
beautification”. Jewellery reinforces our powers by something more mysterious and
longer lasting than nature – not surprisingly as its origins lie in tribal traditions and
religious beliefs.
Amanda focussed on fascinating areas across the centuries. For example:
“Memento mori” jewels, which remind us that in life only death is certain. They are often
tiny – only 2” – but exquisitely carved or painted. Linked to these are “mourning jewels”
which were funded by the deceased in their will to ensure they had a better after-life.
The jewels were of different value according to how important the legatee has been in
the giver’s life.
Jewels were used to decorate clothes and parts of the body: hair, wigs, fingers,
ears and bodices according to the opportunities offered by changing fashions. When
greasy powder on piled-up hair was in fashion, these “beehives” were used to pin on
jewellery. When the high, stiff ruffs – which had been very useful – were replaced by
flatter collars in the mid-17 th century, the bodice became the location for additional
adornment.
During the Commonwealth era, jewellery reflected the greater restraint of the
Puritan religion. However, with the restoration of the monarchy in Charles II, bling was
back. The ostentatious bows and frills continued in the 18 th century, through the Baroque
and Rococo periods.
London became the major centre of hand-made jewellery, with craftsmen coming
from all over the world, often fleeing persecution in their homeland: Protestants
escaping from Catholic repression, Jews from the frequent pogroms. It is not surprising
therefore that one exquisite hoard of jewellery was unearthed in the Cheapside area of
London.
The more valuable jewels were acquired by the aristocracy and have survived
much better than the cheaper ones made of paste and glass. The superior jewels have
acquired names: the wife of James 6th was a particular devotee and possessed pieces

from “the Great Hoard of Britain”. Other well-known precious items were “The Mirror of
Great Britain” and “The Three Brethren.”
Around the mid-18th century, it was the availability of new textiles which
determined the fashion: a softer style in silk and damask and so the jewellery followed
the fashion and was skilfully depicted by artists (in works by Anthony van Dyck for
example.)
Amanda’s lecture was illustrated with beautiful slides (on our new, easy to see
screen!!!) and punctuated with the exhortation to “look at the back of the jewellery”
which was often as magnificently decorated as the front and provided additional
information.
The lecture cleverly illustrated the changes in jewellery over the 300 years,
reflecting historical developments and the Zeitgeist, both religious and political.
Constant change but enduring fascination with the power of jewellery to enhance our
appearance, increase our influence and make a striking statement about ourselves.

Paula Haes

The Culture of Ukraine

At the beginning of the April lecture Rosamund Bartlett took a show of hands to see how
many of the audience knew anything about her topic: “The Culture of Ukraine” and the
response was virtually nil. However, by the end of the lecture this was by no means the
case: Rosamund's extensive knowledge of all things Russian, Eastern European, Baltic, Soviet etc fed into a very rich account of Ukrainian culture: its history, religion, politics, music, literature, dance, even cookery.
The reason why we are nearly all so ignorant of “Ukrainian Culture” is partly because
Ukraine has only been independent for very short periods – 1919 to1922 and since 1991.
This fertile “bread basket” has been fought over for centuries by imperial powers. Any
established Ukrainian culture was frequently destroyed as foreign powers took over.
          Thus it was left to the ordinary Ukrainian people to preserve this heritage: folk art
and language were key to the survival of the distinctive culture and this they did with their
typical tenacity and courage. Only recently one aspect of “The Intangible Cultural
Heritage”, namely the beetroot soup “Borsch”, was cited as “in need of urgent
safeguarding”!
         At the crossroads of East and West, the country evolved as multi-ethnic and multi-
faith with an extraordinary level of tolerance. But this was very unusual in this area where
there are so many borders. The wars and invasions we see today are nothing new:
countries like Russia, Poland, Lithuania and Sweden have frequently tried to absorb
Ukraine and this was accompanied usually by bans on native Ukrainian culture, language
and identity, enforced with violent repression.
         Under Catherine the Great of Russia in the 18th Century, the country disappeared
off the map and was re-named “Little Russia”. But the battles were not limited to the
conquest of territory: different religious factions fought for the souls and minds of the
Ukrainian population, especially Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox Church centred in
Constantinople.
          There were however some advantages to being taken over by foreign powers.
Large numbers of Ukrainians moved to Russia, particularly St Petersburg, in the early 18th
Century and here they encountered schools for music and ballet, as well as other
educational institutions, such as schools and universities. Integrated into the Russian
establishments, Ukrainians then brought back this extended culture to the Ukraine in the
19th Century. But they never forgot their origins. In music they cultivated the
unaccompanied voices of the folk song and liturgy; the sound of the native instrument, the
Bordura. In literature the works of Gogol, forced to write in Russian, and of Shevchenko,
bought out of serfdom in 1838, who created beautiful poetry (for example “The
Testament”). In art, the visual records of Ukrainian monasteries and churches were
nurtured whilst multiple portraits of Catherine of Russia were painted by the Ukrainians – a
wise political move.
           But then in the mid-19th Century harsh repression once more. As usual, it was the
language which was targeted. The Ukrainians were banned from writing or painting: there
was no separate language in “Little Russia” it was decreed. But among the people courage
and independent spirit survived: “Ukraine has not yet perished” it was said, and the
Ukrainian culture flourished in secret.
           Rosamund presented many other outstanding examples of Folk Art: embroidery; the
ornamentation of furniture and clothes; the decoration of Easter eggs (varied across the
different regions); embroidered skirts to give protection from evil spirits, all characterised
by the glorious colours that Ukrainians so love. (All of these were beautifully illustrated by
film, videos and recordings projected onto the new, easy to read screen recently
purchased by our Arts Society!!)

           Then, in 1905, came another period of heady freedom as bans were lifted: the
“October Manifesto” in Soviet Russia granted Ukrainians civil rights; “Ukrainian” was
recognised as a true language, not a mere dialect.
            After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late 20th Century once more the
Ukrainians loudly proclaimed their pride in their heritage. As recently as 2017, the national
dance, the “Hopack” always accompanied by vigorous shouts of “HOP”, was declared to
be a national sport!!
           Culture for the Ukrainians is not a superficial gloss: it is a way of life and helps to
explain the survival of the embattled country throughout its centuries of challenge.
Paula Haes

The Art of Pandemics

The March lecture was given by Dr James Grant MBE, a retired doctor with a passion for
history and its relationship to art and artists. The carefully structured lecture concentrated on three pandemics: the “Black Death” in the 14 th Century (around 1347), the Spanish Flu in 1919 and, more recently, the Covid outbreak.

The Black Death was a total calamity killing over fifty per cent of the population in Europe – at least 40 million people, wiping out whole families and even whole cities. During the Spanish Flu in the early 20th Century eighty million people died. The death toll for the Covid Pandemic in the 21st Century has yet to be fully established, as the enquiry is ongoing, but it is clearly over one hundred thousand, distinctly lower than the other two, thanks to the discovery of a vaccine and vastly improved hygiene and health care.

The questions raised in all 3 epidemics were remarkably similar. However, the answers varied, according to the prevailing Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age: 1) Who or what is responsible for our suffering? 2) Where can I go to find help and treatment? 3) Is there any consolation or inspiration to be found in the midst of the misery and suffering?

The Black Death in the fourteenth Century was viewed as a punishment for the peoples’
turning away from God’s Law. The plague was inflicted by the “Arrows of Plague”, as illustrated by contemporary manuscripts. In the 20 th Century, the infection was said to be airborne and also spread by fleas and rats. In the Covid Outbreak, amongst others, politicians were blamed: “The Government are the virus” was the slogan. This was partially true, as the initial failure to sort out the infection in schools and care homes led to a soaring death toll. Street Art, a particular interest of James’s, transformed politicians such as President Trump and Boris Johnson into cartoon viruses. Even Banksy created a mural, which James interpreted as a message that neglect of the environment had led to the rise of infection.

In the fourteenth Century outbreak, help and treatment were sought from religious talismans: Bellini’s “The Plague” shows the victim wearing the “Plague Cross” on his chest, next to the skin. Other “cures” were available:”Abracadabra Tokens” said to protect from infection; Theriac, a potion dating back to Nero’s time, was manufactured right up to 1818 with up to 56 ingredients and kept in beautiful ceramic jars. The forerunners of today’s masks were used as early as the Bubonic Plague: giant noses stuffed with herbs and spices.

By the twentieth Century, the discovery of antibiotics and penicillin dispelled the myth of the
“miasma” and led to more reliable cures, whilst social distancing and vaccines increased
protection.

James was anxious to find positives in the 3 epidemics. Art, with its power to transform the
ordinary, was one positive creating consolation and inspiration. The depiction of St Roch
administering to the plague victims in 1549 was powerful, and St Roch later became known as the ultimate “Plague Saint”, famously provided with food by a dog. Other votive art by
Tintaretto, Van Dyck and Rubens aimed to give hope to the people.

However, with religious faith waning over the centuries, the main praise was reserved during Covid for a secular entity, the NHS, which according to James (a former employee of the NHS), inspired us with compassion and selflessness. He chose uplifting examples from Street Art in Glasgow and the USA and called on us vehemently to protect the remaining images in Gaza.

For me, as an inveterate hypochondriac, this was a tough lecture but the rest of the audience greeted it with enthusiasm. With the handy little magnifying pointer, we could see the detail of Bubonic pustules and the deathly grey colour of swollen limbs. Who knew that the curse of the Bubonic Plague is still around! I shall never view fleas and rats in the same light again!

Paula Haes

In a Half-Term week which featured Southport’s Lightport, when the heart of the town was transformed by an immersive, illuminated landscape which culminated in a complete luminous rainbow, it was characteristic of the Arts Society to offer an additional layer to delight and inform.

This month’s lecture began with John Ericson’s childhood fascination with colour, then followed his later research from a personal academic angle. His own ‘colour deficiency’, more of an accurate term than the misleading ‘colour blindness’, intrigued him. As he recognised, those who live with this way of seeing do see colour but see it differently.

We were to see for ourselves how wide a spectrum of visual perception was experienced by us when John showed on screen a striped dress and invited us to share with our neighbour what colours we saw. There was astonishment at the variety.

Before taking us through the science of colour we saw how it pervades our language. Associations cling to colours: red/ danger, pink/ softness, purple/ nobility and more. Colour is adopted for campaigns and public awareness, as we were reminded of yellow for hope, when the search was on for Madeleine McCann, and pink blazoning our town in the aftermath of the tragic 2024 stabbings. With visual language comes verbal attachment in descriptors and idioms: the trooping of the colour, colour-fast, off-colour, silver service. Quite a game to be played with grandchildren. 

From pre-history to today colour has been part of human existence: from the Lascaux cave paintings of mineral pigments to over a million colours accessible to IPad artists. The sun’s changes of light throughout the day fascinated certain artists: Samuel Palmer, Turner, van Gogh, Picasso and Monet; some so obsessed with the quality of light and transposition of colour that they painted the same scene multiple times.

Isaac Newton’s experiments with sunlight and prisms demonstrated that clear white light was composed of seven visible colours. We see with the brain and what we see depends on the hue (colour), value (lightness and darkness), and saturation (intensity).

On we went through the colour wheel, colour theory and into colour schemes.

Complementary colours, contrasting colours, warm colours, and cold colours suggesting near or further distance. 

Picasso used these to great effect with the resulting sadness in ‘The Tragedy.’

As we see colour with a combination of eye and brain, dependent on different wavelengths and a mixture of rods and cones, sensitive receptors individual for each person, each individual sees differently.

Surprises came out of research —a banana absorbs blue, reflects red and green and appears yellow. Surprises too from the animal kingdom —a bull has poor colour vision so it is the matador’s moving cape which attracts it, not the colour red. And the insect world outdoes us humans — the butterfly’s nine receptors pick up what is beyond our vision.

John Dalton (1766 -1844), teacher, meteorologist, chemist and pioneer in the development of modern atomic theory, presented his first paper to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on colour blindness, which affected him; it is sometimes still termed Daltonism, particularly in France where Eric can say ‘Je suis Daltoniste.’

Over 300 million are affected with colour deficiency: 1 in 12 men, 1 in 200 women. Women,  though carriers of the defective gene, register as fewer in number because their second X chromosome usually overrides the deficit. 

We were left to dwell on how the deficiency affects daily life and impacts on certain occupations and careers. 

The ease with which John delivered his lecture with a lightness of touch, and humour and human stories, belied the extent of his learning. If for some this was a refresher course, for me it fed directly into the Turner: Always Contemporary exhibition, currently at the Walker Gallery, exploring Turner’s work and his enduring impact on later generations. I read that ‘The Falls of the Clyde,’ (1840), showing interest in colour theory, focused on red, blue and yellow. G.F.Watts’ ‘After the Deluge’(1885-6) exhibited prismatic colour. 

Turner said ‘Light is therefore colour.’

I felt primed.

Hilary Benson

The Two Gustavs
Gavin Plumley, Cultural Historian
21/1/2026

As an overture to the drama of what was to enthral us for an hour on a cold January morning, the first bars of Mahler’s 8th (Symphony of a Thousand) enveloped us in the fulsome soundworld of a choral work, which calls on the redemptive power of love with the Hymn: Veni Creator Spiritus: Come, Creator Spirit, visit the mind of your people.

It’s always hard to appreciate the uncertainties felt by those living in a previous era because we know what happens next. While we listened to this lecture in Southport, world leaders had gathered in Davos. In the face of our current uncertainties, Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, would talk about the rupture of our world order, ‘the end of a nice story and the beginning of a brutal reality, where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints.’ Mahler’s 8th was another rupture.

Vienna in 1900 came centre stage: the crossroads of Europe, the capital of the enormous Habsburg Empire, with the Austro-Hungarian lands spreading through the Balkans to Switzerland, Italy, and southern Poland; a multi-linguistic and multi-credal empire stoking its intellectual fire. The 1848 Year of Revolution had engulfed Europe, proclaiming political liberties and national freedom, aiming to break the stranglehold of the old world order of conservatism, but failed, leaving despair and disillusion. The Habsburg rule-based conservative laissez-faire empire would not last. There was something rotten within it.

Franz Joseph became Emperor of Austria in 1848. With Austrian power weakening he was forced to negotiate with Hungary and a dual monarchy was agreed. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was formed in 1867.
This was the world into which the two Gustavs were born.
The pressures we feel, Klimt and Mahler felt too. Klimt, unhindered by rule, Mahler, difficult and determined, recognised in each other the power of art to speak into a broken world.

Vienna’s vast building programme from 1860-1899, paid for by Hungarian debt, created the city we recognise today with the Ringstrasse and its grand palaces and public buildings, the State Opera House, Parliament, the Rathaus, the Burgtheater, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum amongst them. The wheat fields of Ukraine were turned into gold and bankers were drawn into this architectural and socially thriving city.

Gustav Klimt dropped right into this period of expansion. He produced vast paintings for the new buildings, ‘on oil and canvas in aspic.’ Recognised early as brilliant with his life drawing of a nude figure of a man, to be rivalled only by Michelangelo and Raphael. Hans Makart drew him into his studio. Klimt, versatile and adept at depicting classical architecture and mythology, landscapes and portraiture, followed the rules until he broke them; imitated the classical tradition until he shocked by his erotic and sensual interpretations of allegory.

Now even the middle classes flocked to have their portraits painted. Did the details picture a state divided by itself: orchids past their best, a ring on the wrong finger, a black abyss with an elephantine monster just visible? When you are fashionable it is surprising what can be tolerated. In 1897 Klimt became one of the founding members and President of the Vienna Secession. The intention of the Movement was to publish a magazine and bring the works of unconventional artists to the public eye, and artists from abroad to Vienna. Their symbol was Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of just causes, wisdomand the arts.

In !902 Max Klinger exhibited his huge sculpture of Beethoven for the 14th Exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists of the Vienna Secession. Klimt with 21 other artists created the famous frieze behind it, which was in itself a gesture of encompassing the arts after Wagner’s objective to re-unite the separate arts: architecture, painting, sculpture and music under the common theme: the ‘work of art’; Gesamtkunstwerk. The theme, based on Wagner’s interpretation of Beethoven’s 9th, lays out man’s quest for happiness.

During the early years of the movement Klimt began to incorporate gold leaf into his paintings, referred to as his Golden Phase. His love of costume was evident as was his love of women. It was a time of many indiscreet affairs. Criticism of what was seen as pornographic art drove him to the Austrian Lake District where he immersed himself in nature; water, dawn light and meadow flowers.

Mahler, like Klimt, was bold and brazen, innovative and challenging of the old order. He called for huge forces and extended forms. As a Jew he recognised the potential dangers for him and converted to Roman Catholicism. With an eye on landing his top job he worked his way through directorships at Budapest and Hamburg to achieve his goal, being appointed as Director and Chief Conductor of the Vienna Court Opera from 1897-1907.
His orchestral music cut through tradition. His expansive first symphony met with criticism. Audiences were left wondering if the opening was the orchestra still tuning up with its 7 octaves of the oboe’s A. Then they met with unexpected bells, children’s songs, off stage brass and a Klezmer band. Silence — broken by a group of students’ ‘Bravo’, before hisses and pandemonium.
Mahler’s years at the Court Opera House involved directing some 100 different operas and conducting some 600 performances. Hitler attended a performance of Wagner’s ‘Tristan and Isolde’ and famously declared it the best evening of his life.
Like Klimt, Mahler found solace in the countryside and necessary distance from the city and people. From 1893-1896 Herr Doktor Mahler was afforded a hut in the grounds of a 19th century guesthouse on the shores of Lake Attersee to compose. Later in a place of retreat in Toblach, in the heart of the Dolomites, he created the 9th and 10th Symphonies, and ‘Das Lied von der Erde.’ No one can be insensible to the awe of nature’s mystery which infuses his work.
Both Gustavs espoused the belief that the arts could bring about a better world. Both met opposition. Klimt stayed in Vienna. After a decade of suffering anti-Semitism Mahler and his wife Alma and surviving daughter, Anna, left Vienna for America and his job at the Metropolitan Opera. They arrived at the station to board the dawn train to Paris, and from thence to Cherbourg and their boat to America. They had hoped to slip away quietly, but found the platform crowded with admirers; Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern amongst
them, and the December carriage filled with daphne and hellebores. As the train drew out Klimt broke the silence with ‘Es ist vorbei,’ ( It is over).
Gavin concluded his dazzling lecture with the words, ‘History, art and music are living forces in our lives.’ We went out into our own uncertain world much stirred, stimulated and strangely sobered.

Hilary Benson.

Betty Joel - Interior Designer in the 1930s    

Speaker: Clive Stewart Lockhart  18/11/2025

In the gloom of a drenching November morning, light was thrown on an almost forgotten designer, Betty Joel, (1894 -1985), neé Mary Stewart Lockhart. Timely too, for the lecture was being delivered by Clive Stewart Lockhart, who is retiring from his decade long lecturing with the Arts Society, and Southport’s was to be his last. 

If the lecture felt like a close-up on Betty Joel, it was, thanks to Clive’s connection with her as her great-nephew. He knew her, talked with her, and is the recipient of some of her furniture and artefacts, papers, memories and not least, her writings and opinions captured in her diaries. Much of these have helped furnish the research for his recently published book.

Betty, born in Hong Kong, the daughter of a colonial official, Sir James Stewart Lockhart, inherited his Scottish genes and Celtic characteristics. A blue-eyed, pale skinned, Pre-Raphael red head she was strikingly beautiful. In Ceylon she would attract the attention of a naval officer, David Joel, already notable for his having been mentioned in dispatches. They married. David’s school had given him carpentry skills and he made crude pieces for their first home, a football pavilion. A small start, but enough to point them towards a future career.

As early marrieds they settled on Hayling Island and an embryo business grew, using easy to acquire teak from the dismantling of battleships’ decks.  Clive was skilled at joining the dots of their working relationship and setting them in the then current social history between the two World Wars. David’s early failures to win sales, because, as Betty said, the furniture ‘was awful’, drew her in to the business. Her life in design had begun.

An avowed socialist, Betty set out to ease the drudgery of housewives, and with the emphasis on appealing to women it was after her that the company was named: Betty Joel Ltd.  Forward thinking as this was at the time, this might have cost them both a continued recognition after she later resigned. 

Betty Joel Ltd opened Token Works Factory in 1929 on Goldsmith Avenue in Portsmouth and a further factory in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1934. Token because it was a combination of teak and oak. A shop and showroom were opened in Sloane Street. From the earliest days of the business, style and standards spoke of their intention; a view shared by Hopkins, Betty’s most trusted cabinet maker, who wore a tie and often a hat on the shop floor.  Betty began to be recognised for her creative flair in the ‘Dawn of a New Period of Furniture Design’. Quintessential Art Deco style informed her stepped furniture, curved lines, and practical pieces which featured corners that resisted the collection of dust, sprung ball bearings clicking drawers into place, finger sockets replacing traditional drawer handles, to stools which fitted under dressing tables; all details that were noticed and began to be called for. Both she and David worked hand in glove with the craftsmen they employed, producing a fusion of existing maritime craft and modernistic design. Ergonomic features essential in yacht design translated directly into their furniture and philosophy.

Always with an eye to the main chance Betty showcased her work at one particular Daily Mail International Fashion Fair in Paris next to the French House,  Madeleine and Madeleine, with its sumptuous fabrics and rich embroidery, and gained her own attention. Paris began to draw her and David and in 1929 they found fresh ideas there meeting Coco Chanel, Picasso’s muse Gertrude Stein, and Edith Sitwell. Betty made most of her own clothes, buying fabric in Paris.

Increasingly the Joels’ furniture was being hired by cinemas and theatres and Betty would take clients along to show off the pieces in use. She was also keen for designers and product designers to make mutual gain. She developed with Radio Olympia a product which sold 2,500 in one day.

Success and flair went together. The couple loved Rolls Royces. Many having been donated to the war effort for army use now were being sold off for a song. In their collection David and Betty had an articulated Rolls Royce delivery van boasting ‘Sure and Swift Delivery’ on the trademark Chinese Yellow bodywork.

Orders came in for grand new buildings’ fittings, including Viyella in Nottingham which sported a sun and moon above the door signifying day- wear and night-wear. Commissions came from individuals resulting in individual showpieces: White Lodge in Harrogate and a house in Harley Street, now the only non-medical building in the street. She also took commissions from royalty and work for the Savoy and St James’s Palace Hotel. 

As business grew Betty Joel Ltd employed over 80 workers at the Kingston factory. Bold designs were created and made: a revolving bed, black glass, designer rugs, panelling, doors and lighting, all beautifully crafted; some furniture named after the client: the Winston Churchill Chair.

Clive’s steady research has whetted his appetite to buy some of the pieces he’s finding, to add to his inherited collection; not all approved of by his wife, he admitted; not all given a place in their house, as yet. Not to everyone’s taste either, the style locked between the two wars, each piece or example of decoration calls out for its own recognition.

The surround of a Rubens studio painting, ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’, above the altar in the chapel of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Clive attributed to Betty, but no detail of that seems to be made in the college guide book. Perhaps this hints at the research he has done to uncover previously unrecorded details.

With the breakdown of their marriage in 1939 and divorce from David, separation and retirement from the business and disappearance from public view, rendered Betty ‘the most successful designer you have never heard of,’ until her great nephew’s recovery of her.

Clive’s recently published book, ‘Betty Joel:Furniture Maker, Designer and Business Woman in 1920s and ‘30s Britain’, with, of course, a bold Chinese Yellow cover, holds more to inform and fascinate.  A generous final stroke further warmed the appreciative audience when our Chair revealed that Clive had donated his final Arts Society lecturing fee to Elsie’s Story Charitable Trust.

Hilary Benson

A collision of anniversaries gave a heads up for this lecture. The Arts Society Southport marked its 55th on the eve of the lecture, whilst the 400th anniversary of Charles I to the throne occurs this year in the reign of another Charles.

Barbara Askew kept us royally entertained with a whistle stop tour of the many art works that Charles I had acquired or commissioned, always with an undertow of unease about his position as king, his relationship with parliament and his people, and the artists he worked closely with.

Never expecting to be crowned a monarch, Charles grew up in the shadow of his older brother Prince Henry, himself an art collector. Charles had always shared his brother’s love of the arts and after Henry’s early death from typhoid in 1612 the 12 year old Charles inherited his brother’s collection. He came into his teenage years appreciative of the arts and must have enjoyed the spectacle of Stuart Court Masques in their spectacular setting of the Banqueting House. The building was itself a masterpiece designed by Inigo Jones between 1609 and 1622. It represented the introduction of Classicism to English Architecture with ceiling paintings by Rubens that were  commissioned by Charles himself.

In 1623 Charles journeyed to Madrid with George Villiers (later the Duke of Buckingham) in order to woo the Spanish Infanta, Maria. Religious differences ensured that as courtship the trip was a catastrophic and embarrassing failure - ‘a monster among decisions, a labyrinth without head or way out’. The gain from the Spanish adventure was that it deepened  Charles’s love and understanding of the arts; he returned with artworks a plenty - some gifts, some from the public sales. Though his visit was ill-judged he noticed how Philip IV was esteemed and as King how he spent his money. Notable amongst the booty he brought back were the cartoons Raphael had produced in 1515 for Pope Leo X as working designs for a series of tapestries in the Sistine chapel. The Mortlake Tapestry Works, which employed skilled Flemish weavers, was established  in 1619 initially to create tapestries from Raphael’s designs. Some of the tapestries made are now on display in Forde Abbey whilst the the cartoons are in the V&A.    

Marriage to devoutly Catholic Henrietta Maria of France was happy and fruitful, the pictures of family revealing an informality and affection which was a new departure for royal portraits. Daniel Mijtens’ painting ‘Charles 1 and Henrietta Maria departing for the Chase’ shows the royal couple holding hands. Anthony Van Dyke’s ‘The Great Peece’ shows a family and not just a dynasty. His ‘Five eldest Children’ puts a further distance from the convention that showed children as little adults; it is informal enough to include the family dog. A new standard was being set for portrait painting; his relaxed style influencing his successors. Van Dyke himself was adopted as the Court Painter, knighted and given a house on the river Thames at Blackfriars. His equestrian portrait of the king is the largest portrait in the National Gallery. His triple painting of the king - each aspect in a different costume - is in the Royal Collection.

Charles kept his favourite painting, Leonardo’s ‘St John the Baptist’ close to him. It came from Louis XIII  and now hangs in the Louvre. The size of the collection grew till the nation was bankrupted, the Civil War further impoverishing the country. Having been tried as a commoner, rather than an absolute monarch, Charles was executed in 1649 in front of the same Inigo Jones Banqueting House which had given him such pleasure.  The fabulous art collection acquired through inheritance, patronage, purchase or gift - nearly two thousand paintings, sculptures and tapestries - was sold by the republican government. Not all were disposed of, however, and some works have since been recovered and returned to the Royal Collection.  Whatever his failings politically, Barbara Askew painted Charles as a great influencer of the visual and decorative arts, noting too in her concluding remarks that Charles became the only king to be canonised - King Charles, King and Martyr - his feast day January 30th, the anniversary of his beheading.

Hilary Benson

Dressed to thrill: the Art of the Japanese Kimono

The first lecture of the 25/26 season in September was given by the eminent
lecturer, Professor Marie Conte-Helm, OBE, whose work over the years has gained
much praise.
An expert in many areas of Asiatic culture, she has an extensive knowledge of
the Japanese “Kimono” which translates as “things to wear”. This unassuming title
belies the immense importance of “Kimono”, which emerged as Marie traced the
evolution of the garment in Japan over the centuries.
The shape of the Kimono has, however, barely changed since the 8 th century: a
‘T’ shape, voluminous with copious sleeves, the left hand side wrapped over the right. It
is very difficult to assemble, takes at least two hours to put on, and has to be taken
apart for cleaning. The maintenance is costly!
Since it evolved from being a mere undergarment in the 17 th century, it has been
a bare canvas for textile designers with many motifs, usually symbolic. Even the
“swinging sleeves” in the Kimono Furisole convey a message: long when unmarried –
shorter when married.
The Kimonos, worn by men, women and children for formal and informal
occasions, became very popular with the increasingly powerful and wealthy commercial
class in the Edo period, which began in the 17 th century. The symbolism was, however,
so important that the military and aristocratic levels of society, the sole wearers until
then, had to protect their social status by introducing a law. The middle classes were
banned from wearing certain colours – red for example. They were allowed to wear
more sober black and grey.
A fresh surge in popularity occurred more recently during the Covid epidemic.
Generally, in the 21 st century, young people have taken to wearing the Yukata, made of
cotton, cooler, easier to maintain and labelled the “T-Shirts” of the Kimono world.

The second thread of this excellent lecture was the influence of Kimono on
English painting and culture in the second half of the 19 th century – part of the cult of
Japanism, as Japan opened up to the rest of the world. Japanism was particularly
promoted by Whistler, for example in his “La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine” (the
real producers of porcelain were in China!!)
Interesting and news to me was the reverse influence of Victorian dress on
Japanese style. Concerts were held in Japan in the 1880s, with the orchestra in
Victorian garb and playing Western instruments, the ladies in the audience dressed in
Liberty prints. There would be several changes of clothes during a Japanese wedding and the third change was often into Victorian dress. Meanwhile, in Britain, there were
celebrations of the Kimono: the Duke and Duchess of Connaught were amongst those
British aristocrats putting on tableaux, with their family dressed in Kimono, events which
could, by then, be captured in photographs some of which were produced by the
lecturer.
The symbolic motifs on the Kimono canvas “raised everyday objects (“things to
wear”) to the extraordinary,” a true definition of art. They reflected contemporary
movements in art history; for example designs from Art Deco in 1910-20 are said to
have transformed the architecture of Japanese cities, with angular shapes and
skyscrapers. The Kimono was used during the 2 nd World War as propaganda, with the
depiction of planes and troops.
Thus, the Kimono often conveys a message, as befits an art form born of
Chinese calligraphy: the ubiquitous crane speaks to us of good fortune; the
chrysanthemum, worn in September, designates the season of Autumn.
Although the Kimono has mostly been associated with the ruling class, with
“extravagance, eccentricity and excess” it can still be seen on the streets of Japan, as a
younger and poorer generation adopt the traditional style, to chill out at weekends and
afternoons.
With her immense knowledge, Marie illustrated how the Kimono is, not merely
“something to wear” but, appropriately, it contains messages: it speaks to us in a rich
language of symbols.

Paula Haes

This is the link to the video that would not play during the lecture  opens YouTube

Expectations were running high for this last lecture of the year, with its timely coupling of an Art Deco Study Day to come.

As a colourful, bold, larger than life character, Tamara de Lempicka was born of Russian/Polish Jewish parentage, savouring social and Polish cultural élite in her formative years. Always an independent spirit, she was drawn early on to being an artist.

After marriage in Russia to a prominent Polish lawyer there followed a move to Paris, precipitated by the Russian Revolution in 1917. Her daughter ‘Kizette’, born around 1919, became an early subject of her still lifes and portraits.
Showing promise she started to sell her paintings, and her breakthrough came with the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which later gave its name to the style Art Deco. Her style attracted American journalists, and she became a favourite of Harper’s Bazaar.

Tamara was a workaholic producing prize winning portraits. Even the 1929 Great Depression didn’t dent her commissions. Working mostly on portraits she developed her technique and brilliant craft and became readily recognisable for her distinctive style and use of colour. She combined soft cubism with a neoclassical style; clean, precise and elegant, which was sometimes shocking for its sensuality and seduction.
Lesbian and bi-sexual she presented her subjects boldly.

Harry Fletcher is an admirer of Tamara’s work and was enthusiastic in his delivery. In the earlier part of his lecture, when he lingered over a painting and explored its style, he drew us in; notably with her 1927 self-portrait, ‘Tamara in a Green Bugatti.’ She is strikingly portrayed at the wheel sporting leather gloves, and a grey winding scarf, a picture of independence, and cold, inaccessible beauty; sporting a helmet suggestive of her identifying with the sleek machine. Her heavy lidded, sensuous look matched the new technology.

He showed us portraits of Tamara, the liberated, independent, modern woman posing under photographic lighting for cinema news reels. She lit up the roaring ‘20s, indulged a hedonistic sub-culture living on the fringes, flouting the accepted laws of society. Influenced by Georgia O’Keefe’s skyscraper subjects, Tamara began incorporating high-rise, sharp-edged city landscapes into the backgrounds of her works.

Harry Fletcher struggled to conceal the constraint of the quart into a pint pot. The latter part of his lecture flew over details, often just the price tag of her works recently sold, with the result that Lempicka’s work seemed more light weight than it is, suggesting it is merely of consumer’s interest. Like other characterful artists her work is fitting material for postcards, calendars, and jigsaws. The distinctive lines and vibrant colours are attractive to advertisement material and do keep her work alive; all a reminder of her as a significant figure and exemplar of the Art Deco Movement.

Something of a bibliography of the ‘Baroness with the Brush’, as she was known, usefully opens up further reading which the lecture inspired, but the rush of information overall left us rather flurried.

Hilary Benson

The May lecture was given by Professor Catherine Tackley - a locally based Arts Society lecturer, who thankfully stepped in to rescue us from a necessary change in programme. Catherine, an expert in musicology, has been head of music at Liverpool and The Open Universities and has researched the Age of Jazz in Britain, especially the interwar years, for over 25 years.

Jazz was the first globally popular music, greatly helped by advances in
technology: recorded sound, domestic record players, radio and new types of
international travel. Catherine expertly explained the characteristics of jazz: the fast tempo; the rhythm with the essential syncopation; improvisation; the instrumental colour with its front line-up of clarinet, trumpet and trombone, backed by piano and drums.

In 1919, the art of music played an important role in overcoming the period of
crisis just after the First World War. Audiences were hungry for something new and the Dixieland Original Jazz Band, which was the first band to come over to Britain from the Unites States, fulfilled this need. Their performances were carefully staged with props like the Teddy Bear and monkey automata, the intriguing dress of the musicians. British audiences were so delighted they made pilgrimages to the US, to the home of jazz in New Orleans, to Harlem and the Cotton Club.

Jazz soon became music to dance to, and, in dance halls like the Hammersmith Palais, a much wider range of social classes experienced its joy. Very aware of the social impact of jazz, Catherine traced its effect on attitudes to race, as the spectacle of blacked-up white men strumming their banjos in the Savoy tearooms gave way to the authentic syncopated orchestras with a growing number of black artists and composers.

The impact of jazz on society extended to literature: F Scott Fitzgerald's "Tales of the Jazz Age"; Evelyn Waugh's "Vile Bodies"; to ceramics and textiles with bright colours and angular designs echoing the jagged rhythms of jazz. The early 1930s and the contemporary art deco style were dominated by echoes of jazz. "The spirit of the age was written in the music of the people"; (Mendl 1927) but not all people: some condemned jazz as pseudo-democratic; others experienced a "Fear of jazz"; with its wild uninhibited steps. Suter's painting of jazz figures including a naked woman was quickly removed as "offensive"; from the Royal Academy exhibition. However, all changed around 1935 with the years of depression and the shadow of an impending war there came a ban on American bands: Europe became more isolationist and this situation lasted until 1955 leaving British bands, like Jack Payne to pick up the baton.

Catherine deepened our knowledge of jazz, widened our horizons to include the social, historical and cultural background and challenged our understanding.

She maintained a satisfying balance of music and art, all delivered with a clear structure to the lecture and an entertaining sense of humour: this was the Arts Society at its best.

Paula Haes

The Crown and the Cradle

            The April lecture was given by Siobhan Clarke, an Arts Society accredited lecturer who specialises in historic Royal Palaces.

            She concentrated on the lives and deaths of the Royal babies, highlighting how important they were in ensuring the continuation of the Royal dynasties.

            The problem of who was going to succeed to the throne when the King died was at the forefront of the monarch's mind and explains some of their more eccentric behaviour.

            Henry the Eighth, for example, with his numerous wives, spent 28 years on his quest to produce an heir. He made pilgrimages to holy sites; he arranged for holy relics to be sent to his wives to safeguard their pregnancies. If a wife failed to provide a boy - the future King - (girls did not count), she was in danger of execution. Conveniently for him however, Jane Seymour  died in childbirth, so he was able to re-marry and try again without delay.

            A huge difficulty in ensuring there was a male successor was the dangers of childbirth, and the lecturer devoted most of the lecture to this problem, providing many interesting details. The midwives of the time had no knowledge of the importance of hygiene during the birth and hands were not washed! The mother was shut up in the airless "birthing chamber" whilst the midwives attempted to replicate the womb, keep out "bad spirits" and protect mother and baby. There was no pain relief and mothers would frequently die after long labours.

            A breach birth killed Princess Charlotte of Wales - a strong woman and a Protestant - who might have borne a successful heir. So important was the issue of succession that the Doctor, Dr Croft, presiding over the birth (for doctors had begun to be in attendance at the end of the 18th Century) subsequently committed suicide. Even in 1850, 5 in every 100 women were recorded as dying in childbirth (although this was probably a serious underestimate which counted only the middle and upper classes)

            It was vital to get the offspring christened as soon as possible, for even if the heir survived childbirth, he frequently died of infectious diseases in childhood: typhoid and tuberculosis for example. There were other threats to the heirs who were sometimes separated from their mothers, with all the heartache caused on both sides. This was to facilitate their grooming as the future King, and they could be a casualty of war or of political intrigue from an early age. The young princes, Edward and Richard, were probably murdered in the Tower, although their remains have never been found (Elizabeth II was against any search.)

            If there were no legitimate "spare" successor when the heir died, the monarch had to fall back on the illegitimate offspring of mistresses. This was particularly the case after the death of Queen Victoria. For us, the most famous descendant of a mistress was, of course, Princess Diana.

            The practice of childbirth did improve with more effective pain relief and the development of forceps from the mid-nineteenth century. We were relieved to hear that the current Princess of Wales (Kate Middleton) has benefited from such progress in delivering her children and was not under the obligation to produce a boy, which had often before led to multiple pregnancies for some queens - up to 19 births!! Topical too was the historical perspective on the fate of the "spare": the anguish of the current one, Prince Harry, thrown into a new light.

            The lecturer provided portraits of the heirs and their spares, although the focus was by no means on paintings. Nevertheless, the lecture provided some interesting historical insights into the lives of the Royal babies.

Paula Haes

In March, we welcomed back Russell Nash, an experienced Arts Society Lecturer and entrepreneur, to learn about "The Men who made Menswear" from the Regency period to the "Swinging Sixties".

Who would have guessed that the fashion and style of men's apparel would be so important in the social and political spheres down the centuries? In the Tudor period for example "sumptuary lawyers" ensured that the sartorial laws were imposed: what size of ruff individuals were allowed to wear according to their status; the prohibition of silk for any man below the rank of knight.

Later, gentlemen imposed their own fashion, being always highly conscious of the impact on society of their garments. In the Georgian era sumptuous colours were order of the day and men's narcissism ran rife. Towards the end of the 18th century however, menswear became more sober, despite being under the guidance of the "Father of modern fashion" - the notorious Beau Brummel.

Down the centuries, men have been very aware of their profile or "silhouette". There have been constant changes, some large, some small: to the length of trousers (breeches swiftly gave way to full-length trousers, for example). In the 1860s, coat tails were removed and the frock coat arrived. To create the correct silhouette men's shoulders and waists were emphasised or minimalised according to the fashion.

With the expansion of the universities and public schools, sport became very popular for gentlemen, leading to softer attached collars, wide trousers ("Oxford bags") sweaters and other knitwear - but not of course in the world of work where the suit was still de rigueur. Your clothes made a statement about your interests and your attitude to society: the Duke of Windsor in the early 20th century was always a rebel and defied the trend.

Throughout the 20th century, the events of history and social developments affected the style of menswear - the tastes of "gentlemen" no longer prevailed. Warmer and darker fabrics were necessitated by the cold climate and pollution. The shortages of fabric in the World Wars altered the "profile" of the men (and women!). In the 1950s, the clash of Mods and Rockers was centrally a clash of fashion styles: the Italian Couture of the Mods versus the New Edwardian style of the "Teddy Boys".

Today, menswear is more homogeneous; the "uniform" of the leather jacket, cotton T-shirt and denim jeans making it harder to distinguish between "master and man". There are still however many individuals who make a statement through their clothes, often following developments in textile production: the power suit, the skinny suit, the minimalist, velvet jackets and so on.

A series of gifted tailors have been behind these phases - often Jewish immigrants after World War II - who have known how best to market their products. The fashion industry has enabled them to cultivate and propagate their individual talents: Bill Green with his underwear catalogues; the tailors of Barnaby Street and Lee McQueen whom Russell described at the end of the lecture as "the genius from Savile Row".

This was a fascinating lecture on a topic which contained far more artistic and cultural interest than the title indicated.

 Paula Haes

The titles of the monthly lectures are often tantalisingly short, stirring anticipatory questions about how the subject will be addressed. Ian Cockburn chose to focus on the origins of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella and its medieval history, highlighting the significance of relics and reliquaries, cathedrals along the route and dubious histories of miracles as told down the centuries.

Fact packed and at fast pace we covered the burial place of the bones of Saint James, the Apostle, discovered in Northern Spain in the 9th century, and the creation of a religious shrine at Santiago de Compostella, the beginnings of a place of pilgrimage; its destruction in AD 947 by the Moorish army of Abu Amir al-Mansur, eliciting the construction of a new cathedral. We saw fabulous visuals of the first ‘guide book’ of the Camino, the Codex Calixtinus, c1138 - 45 AD, containing liturgical texts, polyphonic music, descriptions of art and architecture and early pilgrims. With the first crusade came a shift in the relationship between Christians and Moors. 12th century fake news emerged in the Historia Caroli Magni et Rotholandi, then origins of stories of St James’s hat , the symbolic chicken feathers and the scallop shells entertained us;  then a focus on the great cathedrals and their architecture took up the story.

The cathedrals of Cluny, St Foy at Conques, and the developments from Romanesque to Gothic architecture were traced through Burgos Cathedral to Santa Maria de Regla de Léon Cathedral in NW Spain; this last full of light and boasting 1,800 square metres of stained glass.

Cathedrals allowed for pilgrims to walk through ambulatories to view relics and pray before the journey continued. Singing hymns and songs stirred the pilgrims’ religious fervour as they walked, and if their arrival at Santiago itself coincided with St James’s Day on July 25th, then elaborate processions and fireworks, spectacles indeed, greeted the foot weary yet triumphant travellers.

When all was said and done, all did not seem quite done for me. Manuscripts and architecture paint much of the spectacle but where were the glimpses of the paths, the roads, the ways travelled through countryside, towns, open spaces, high and low?
Perhaps we are left with different anticipatory questions which we may only be able to answer by becoming a pilgrim ourselves.

Hilary Benson
2/3/2025

The Art of the Automobile

The January lecture was given by Roger Mendham, a seasoned Arts Society
Lecturer and an acclaimed international photographer, who has spent much of his life
travelling and researching the “Art of the Automobile” from the beginnings of the
industry to today.
Roger’s knowledge was boundless, and he revealed some surprising facts about
the motor car. However, above all, he drew our attention to the beautiful aspects of car
design, which brought gasps of delight from the audience – even those like me who
thought the design of cars uniform and boring.
The early history of the automobile industry focussed on Germany and the
manufacturers Benz and Daimler. The designs initially copied the Carriage (but without
horses) and the bicycle (with additional wheels). In 1888, Frau Bertha Benz
courageously made the first long car journey of 65 miles, benefitting thankfully from an
overhead cover, brakes and refuelling at a pharmacy in Pforzheim (the first service
station!!)
Other fuels for the car quickly emerged: steam for example – drawing inspiration
from the many steam-powered engines and locomotives of the industrial age. Although
a very lengthy and somewhat explosive process, steam survived as a fuel until the
1920s.
Roger surprised us with a fact of contemporary interest: 121 years ago, 38
percent of cars were electric. Mrs Ford drove one until the 1920s. The target market
was physicians with the frequent stops and starts; women drivers, for whom the electric
starter (1912) was a blessed improvement on cranking up the car; and the British Royal
Family including Princess Alexandra – later Queen Alexandra – the celebrities of the
era.
But the continuation of electricity as a fuel was thwarted by the Great War, when
electric charging points were not a priority. Thwarted too, by the discovery of cheap
crude oil of just the right quality in Texas: running on this fuel the price of the Model T-
Ford dropped to only 600 dollars in 1909 – within the means of the ordinary worker.
The USA then took the lead in manufacture and design. The car chassis
remained very similar, but the coach builders took over the design of the rest of the car,
funded by an economic boom in the 1920s and early 1930s and inspired by the Paris
1925 international exhibition – “The Arts Décoratifs" or "Art Deco”: "Pieces have to be
modern" was the entry requirement.
Car manufacturers also incorporated ‘Art Deco’ principles into their new
skyscraper office buildings - the magnificent metal eagles of the Kreisler building for
example. The cars showed imagination: boat-tailed designs mimicking the elements of

the clients' expensive yachts; the “coffin bonnet" of the Phantom car – all aimed at the
top end of the market. These were cars to be seen in, often seating only two people,
certainly not cars for shopping! Roger lovingly pointed out the beauty of the design and
the shapes and colours of the chrome and leather.
However, the Great Depression of 1937 and the Second World War ended the
push for luxury. The automobile market did not revive fully until 1954. Celebrities – the
new rich – particularly Hollywood film stars, took over from the Royal families. The
prices of luxury automobiles rose rapidly - Amelia Earhart's (the lost woman pilot);
Robert Redford’s; Gary Cooper’s car, of which only 2 were made, sold for 22 million
dollars. In Britain, Diana Dors was photographed sitting in her Rolls but she couldn’t
drive. Duesenbergs and Rolls Royces were particularly favoured.
Soon the moderately wealthy purchaser could only afford the radiator cap of the
car which could fetch up to 200 thousand dollars. Our ears pricked up when we heard
that René Lalique – the master of glass - designed the “Cinq Chevaux” in France for the
radiator cap of the Citroen. Talbot's “tear drop” (Goutte d’Eau”) design was much sought
after.
After the Second World War the Bugatti cars were particularly prized: Ralph
Lauren’s sold for 30 million dollars. Only four Black Bugattis were made but one is still
missing: we were urged to search our garages and sheds as, if found, it would be worth
100 million.
Roger ended his lecture with a magnificent photo of the “Round Doors Rolls”
which he described as “The most beautiful automobile ever created”. His enthusiasm for
those “mobile works of art” was infectious. His lecture was a lovely balance of facts and
artistic analysis illustrated by outstanding photography. Thank you, Roger.

Paula Haes

300 Years of Christmas at Covent Garden     Sarah Lenton 3/12 2024

With the Pantomime Season waiting in the wings, we were delivered a tour de force of a lecture by Sarah Lenton. Dyed in the wool of the theatrical world, she right royally entertained, informed and delighted us, with facts and fantasies spun from her years of experience, working principally at the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne and Sadler’s Wells.

We had decamped to the Studio for this Christmas Lecture, lights up, so Sarah could eyeball us as performers would once have done in the intimate oil and candlelit first theatre in Covent Garden in 1731.

Injudicious gunpowder on stage, she said, caused the demise of theatres; Covent Garden’s first two destroyed by fire, Drury Lane’s second managing to survive to this day. Over time buildings adapted as did traditions on stage and in the pit, and the Christmas theatrical season became a fixture, running from the Feast of St Nicholas, ( 6th December) to Candlemas (2nd February).

John Rich became associated with spectacle, devising shows he himself could excel in.

He famously played the harlequin, usually performed by acrobats, endlessly running around the stage displaying visual jokes. Rich, more the ballet dancer, could turn himself into an egg and hatch himself. He carried a stick, and to hurrying ad lib music would bang something to signal a change; thus ‘slapstick’ was born.

John Kemble, a fine gentleman, hated the vulgar rubbish of the Christmas shows,  but they paid for the Shakespearean plays. Even now the Pantomime Season finances much of the rest of the year.

Covent Garden’s third theatre of the 1850s attracted the young Victoria and her presence somewhat calmed the rowdy, riotous behaviour. Audiences became more respectable.

Innuendos had been stock in trade humour for the rough Georgian audiences till Joseph Grimaldi’s miming skills enthralled the crowds; ‘there was so much mind in it.’

He quickly became the most famous clown in London, joining the Covent Garden Theatre in 1806. In the pantomime Harlequin Mother Goose, he enjoyed his greatest success. He created a new type of clown, combining rogue and simpleton, criminal and innocent dupe in one character, and his white faced  makeup became the norm for all ‘Joeys’ who came after him.

Much has been lost over the years: orchestral scores, plans, sets and costumes, but the spirit of the entertainment stretches down the years. Innovations and surprises still catch audiences, even if the later new traditions are now part of the scene: we expect a woman to play the principal boy and the witch in Hansel and Gretel to be a man.

Today the Christmas Season features ballets, pantomimes and shows, calling on skills across the theatrical board for scenery, costumes, props and visual effects.

Sarah said that The Nutcracker and Cinderella are ‘made’: Covent Garden at this time of year is a workshop. Props and clocks must work. 

With bevvies of children as extras Sarah lamented, ‘You can’t get a chip in the canteen.’ But she relishes their funny remarks. Little girls are mice this year, with tails and snouts, so can’t look down. ‘But there are trap doors’, said one little mouse, ‘So I pulled her by her tail and saved her life.’

The brilliant senior stage manager at Covent Garden, Johanna Adams, with a mix of calm and command, cues in the different levels of action, and the mechanisms turn and characters and dancers appear. If there is a mistake the whole action stops, only to re-start with the orchestra on pilot.

This season’s thrilling aural and visual impact occurs in The Nutcracker as the Christmas tree grows and grows and the glitter falls.

The magic works on audiences for another year.

With Christmas carols in the air I can’t not link the line from the medieval carol, Personent Hodie, 

             ‘Oh, that we were there!

              Oh, that we were there!’

Hilary Benson

Northern Lights - Dr James Lindow October 2024 If the short title was suggestive rather than specific, then the subtitle, ‘The Influence of Netherlandish Art on the Italian Renaissance’, opened up a fascinating lecture; erudite and edifying. Dr James Lindow was the first Renaissance PhD from the Royal College of Art and the V&A, and his enthusiasm was winsome. Fast paced and fact filled, he explored the primacy of the Flemish artists in the medium of oil, landscape painting and portraiture, which caught the eye of the Medici and other patrons in Florence. If Italian artists of this period are more commonly lauded, we were shown the other side of the coin. What lay behind the success of the Netherlandish art? Wealth and power played their inevitable role. Philip the Good ruled as Duke of Burgundy from 1419 until his death in 1467. During his reign the Burgundian State reached the apex of its prosperity and prestige and became a leading centre of the arts. Philip was a keen patron of Flemish artists: painters and composers. His court, renowned for its splendour, boasted taste and fashion, which boosted the Burgundian economy. Shifting from cloth making to luxury goods, these were sought across Europe. Philip built a shipyard in Bruges, and with its port Bruges was interconnected by land and sea with Italy, France and beyond. It became a commercial hub. Merchants and bankers established a base in the growing city, and artists of different nationalities grouped and settled there. Art fairs began to develop in the 15th century; the Antwerp Fair running for eight weeks. Giorgio Vasari assumed Italian artists were working with egg tempura, and presumed this was so across Europe, but in the Low Countries oil pigments were preferred for their more distinct colours, enabling a play of light: ‘in portraits so real, they lacked only one thing - a voice.’ Jan van Eyck - the ‘Prince of Painters’, and Rogier van der Weyden were particularly influential. Van Eyck’s ‘Portrait of a Man’, 1432, contrasted with Alesso Baldovinetti’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’, showing how van Eyck’s 3/4 view allows for a more realistic face shape than the flat profile of the lady’s face. This practice was taken up by the Italians, and we looked at Botticelli’s ‘Portrait of a Young Man with a Medal’, c1475; the medal celebrating the Medici, influenced by the Flemish style. Striking was Hans Memling’s ‘Portrait of Tommaso Portinari’ with its 3/4 view showing the far cheek. The artistry and observation of this German-Flemish painter are such that Memling paints creases at the eye, moisture in the cornea, a pimple on the cheek and stubble on the chin. As the commercial market grew, the Burgundian artists worked on cloth, the pigment thin without a ground, allowing a work to be rolled up and shipped. The Medici in Florence boasted some 150 Flemish paintings. In 1472 the family bought the Hof Bladelin, a house in Bruges built in 1451 for the treasurer of Philip the Good, and added an Italianate courtyard, where stone medallion portraits of Lorenzo de Medici and his wife still survive. The expressive Netherlandish art, often narrative, influenced the Italian artists, even crossing from portraits to altar pieces. Similarities were observed between Fra Angelico’s San Marco altarpiece and van Eyck’s work. Fra Angelico’s ‘The Deposition’ (Florence), picked up on the narrative influence of Rogier van der Weyden’s ‘Descent from the Cross’, (1435), but depicted the scene with a distant emotion, more in the Italianate style. Van der Weyden’s technique of layering oil pigment gave flesh tones and fabrics a brilliance. Comparisons culminated with the ‘Mona Lisa’, suggesting its use of oil pigment and unworldly background showed a Netherlandish influence. We had duly feasted.

Hilary Benson

London’s Lost Department Stores Tessa Boase 17/9/2024 Tessa Boase brought her book alive; her talk richly illustrated by period photographs of the lost shops, the vanished world of dazzle and dreams. Social history and architecture quickened our memories. We were invited from the outset to recall the department stores of our past, the shopping, the browsing, the thrill of displays, conversations and meetings up in restaurants, the lighting, staircases, escalators, perfume departments, haberdashery, hats and stockings and attentive service at counters. Suddenly we were lifted into a lost world of etiquette of confidence and style; a social swirl, transported by what was displayed before our eyes. Particularly poignant on this September day was the recent closure of Beales in Lord Street, a short lived hopeful project to return something of that lost world of shopping to Southport, only to fall to the power of the internet shopper and Vinted’s success. As in her book Tessa took us on a guided tour of the West End’s lost stores and with fabulous illustrations of the period showed us something of the theatrical spectacle of what thrilled in the golden age of shopping in these ‘Halls of Temptation.’ Landmarks have fallen and the present generation has no inkling of that past experience or knowledge of names such as Shinners of Sutton, Arding and Hobbs, Derry and Toms, Waring and Gillows, Marshall and Snelgrove and a host more. Innovation drove development: the first ‘lavs’ in 1909, the first roof garden, elevators, the Lamson Pneumatic Tube System, the first curved glass wall in Sloane Street, or Benny O’Leary’s Lenscrete. As these great department stores changed hands, if they survived the wrecking ball, lost treasures were revealed beneath false ceilings and walls, evoking something of this past period. Tessa opened up a world behind the dazzle and temptation of the consumer goods into the lot of shop girls. Hidden from customers these nameless individuals beavered away in cold, dark rooms, sewing, altering and packing. A living in system survived until 1914 in conditions akin to the workhouse. Long hours, 7am-11pm, 6 days a week, with bedrooms like barns were worse conditions than for a servant in a country house and led to strikes and demands for a union. The ‘flirty ‘30s’ saw a golden era for department stores. King Edward V111 boasted style and elan and men’s fashion flourished afresh. Change was afoot. Destruction came with Luftwaffe attacks and then a blow of a different kind struck with the Elephant Gang. Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants —a gang of women, terrorised the stylish stores; one would create a distraction, the others opened their elasticated bloomers and shoved down merchandise, escaping to an awaiting Chrysler. If shop lifting today seems less colourful it works its own ends and spells loss of a different sort. Along with the changing patterns of buying, closures continue and Tessa left us with the question, ‘What of the future?’ Jill Newsham returned us to Southport in her fulsome vote of thanks and to the foundation on which we were sitting. She informed us that William Jolley, a draper in a small way, later went into partnership with the more famous Samuel Boothroyd. In 1823 Jolley’s draper shop was part of a row of cottages called Richmond Hill, parallel to Lord Street where The Atkinson now stands, (built in 1874). The shop was situated in the downstairs room of Jolley’s cottage for which he paid a yearly rent of £20. We had been duly entertained and some went out to shop.

Hilary Benson