The Arts Society

Tickets available on the door: £10 / £5 students / Free for members of the Arts Society Cardiff

The Arts Society Cardiff is a friendly, flourishing organisation of some 180 members drawn from Cardiff and the surrounding area. Their members have a wide range of interests and everyone is welcome. They meet at 2pm on the second Thursday of each month (except July and August) in the comfortable and lively surroundings of Chapter to enjoy a varied programme of illustrated lectures given by experts in their field.

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14 May 

The Art of Mesopotamia: aesthetics and achievements long before the Graeco-Roman world

Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian sculpture, painting, glyptic art: a survey of Mesopotamia’s contribution to the aesthetic inheritance of the world, assessed with the help of materials large and small from the British Museum collections. Art before the word ‘art’ existed.

Irving Finkel

Irving Finkel is a British philologist and Assyriologist. He is currently Senior Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum, where he specialises in cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia. Irving is the author of academic articles and books on ancient Babylon. He also studies the history of board games and is on the Editorial Board of Board Game Studies. Among his breakthrough works is the determination of the rules of the Royal Game of Ur. Irving founded the Great Diary Project, a project to preserve the diaries of ordinary people. In association with the Bishopsgate Institute, he has helped to archive over 20,000 personal diaries.  Irving has written a number of works of fiction for children, including The Princess Who Wouldn't Come Home, Swizzle de Brax and the Blungaphone.  He is an experienced lecturer, broadcaster, teacher and presenter on YouTube.

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11 June 

Alla Moda: Mid-century modern Italian ceramics

Stylish and colourful, Italian ceramics of the 1950s–70s reflect the many developments in ceramic design and modern art of the period. Although made in large quantities and exported across the world, until now little has been known about the companies, designers and influences behind these treasures. Major makers from Bitossi to Fantoni and the many factories on San Marino are covered and the identity of an important, forgotten factory is revealed.

Mark Hill

Mark Hill studied History of Art & Architecture (BA Hons) and began his career as a porter and Junior Cataloguer at Bonhams, before moving to Sotheby's where he was a Specialist in the Collectors' Department. Between 2002-2017 he co-authored the internationally published Collectables Price Guide with Judith Miller. Founding his own publishing company in 2005 he has published over 15 books on emerging specialist subjects in the decorative arts. A "Miscellaneous" expert on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow and the Antiques Roadtrip, he has also co-presented five primetime TV series on antiques and collecting for BBC2 and lectured across the world, including at the V&A. A Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and of the City of London, Mark is also a member of the British Antiques Dealers' Association and Senior Vice President at a company offering digital solutions to the antiques industry.

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10 September 

An Introduction to the Newlyn School

In the 1880s, the fishing village of Newlyn in the far West of Cornwall became a mecca for rural realist painters who documented the lives of the local community in their beautiful and moving paintings. This talk will outline the key characteristics of this famous art movement. Introducing the ‘father of the Newlyn School’, Stanhope Forbes, and his talented wife Elizabeth (nee Armstrong) along with a host of their fellow artists, including tales of Frank Bramley, Walter Langley, Albert Chevallier Tayler and Henry Scott Tuke as well as some of the real-life characters they depicted.

Alison Bevan

Since graduating in History of Art from Nottingham University, Alison has spent her career working in public art galleries. Starting at the Graham Sutherland Gallery in her home county of Pembrokeshire, she then moved to the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, where she honed her broadcast media skills, presenting a weekly Arts News feature on BBC Radio Wales. In 1999, Alison took up the role of Director of Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance. Here she became an acknowledged expert on the Newlyn, Lamorna and the St Ives artists colonies (1880-1940), a subject on which has lectured worldwide. She raised the profile of this area of art and in 2013 was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to Cultural Heritage in Cornwall. From 2013-2024, Alison was Director of the Royal West of England Academy – Britain’s only regional Royal Academy of Art. Now based in Chepstow and working as a freelance lecturer, curator and consultant, she is Chair of Bristol Museums’ Oversight Board, a Fellow of the Museums' Association and an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Bristol.

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8 October 

George Gilbert Scott – Victorian Gothic Giant

The head of what became a long line of architects left his signature with London’s Albert Memorial, the extraordinary towering hotel in front of St Pancras Station and a church in Worsley where the clock strikes thirteen.

Ed Glinert

Ed Glinert is a much-published author, cruise ship speaker and Britain's most prolific tour guide, working in Manchester, London and Liverpool. He has written more than a dozen books, including The London Compendium (Penguin, 2003), The Manchester Compendium (Penguin, 2008) and 111 Places in Yorkshire You Shouldn’t Miss (Emons, 2021). He has also edited the entire Sherlock Holmes canon for Penguin Classics. He specialises in music, literature, architecture and art. 

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12 November 

Cinema Chevalersque: The Knight on Screen

History is often not what happened, it is what someone wants you to think happened. Stories about the past are often ‘improved’, to speak more to present concerns, or to be more satisfying emotionally. The Middle Ages is one of the most misunderstood periods in human history. It is ridiculed, satirised, wondered at and glorified in equal measure, and for over a hundred years, cinema has been an important forum for that process. Movies set in the medieval period are as numerous as Westerns, and have become, over time, one of the dominant sources for our awareness of the ‘Age of Chivalry’. In this slightly light-hearted lecture, we ‘out’ some of the worst offenders in the history of medieval cinema and celebrate a few of the rare heroes, judging them against the reality on which they are supposedly based.

Dr Tobias Capwell

Toby Capwell is an independent scholar and leading authority on medieval and Renaissance arms and armour. Over the last thirty years he has worked with many of the world's great collections, including the Imperial Armoury in Vienna, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Royal Armouries in Leeds. He has also served as curator of Glasgow Museums and the Wallace Collection, where he worked for sixteen years until January 2023. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Armourers in London. He is the author of many books on armour, weapons and tournaments, has curated numerous exhibitions, and frequently appears in film, television and online media.