Jameel Centre in the Ashmolean

11.00 - 12.00

A Study Session when the Curator of Islamic Art, Dr Francesca Leoni, will make a personal selection of small objects to highlight the holdings from the Ashmolean's Islamic Collection and discuss their significance.

The picture is of an Islamic lamp, Egypt or Syria, AD 1299-1340, glass, blown with polychrome enamels and gilding which is currently on display in the Gallery.

Please meet just inside the entrance to the Ashmolean at 10.55.

Cost: £15

Group of 15 only.

To secure a place email info@theartssocietyabingdon.org.uk or phone 01235-522886.

Picture courtesy of the Ashmolean.

Pat Suet Bik Hui and the Three Perfections: Poetry, Calligraphy, Painting

Ashmolean Museum Jameel Centre

11.00 - 12.00

Cost: £15

The Study Session led by Dr Billy Beswick will be looking at the new exhibition in the Chinese Paintings Gallery

It is the first in the UK to focus on the work of the US-based calligrapher and abstract painter Pat Suet Bik Hui (b. 1943 Hong Kong), including both solo and collaborative works which are part of the Museum’s collection. A student of the famous Hong Kong abstract painter Lui Shou-kwan (1919-1975), she offers a modern twist on the Chinese tradition of combining in a single work the three artforms of poetry, calligraphy, and painting, which have come to be known in Chinese as the ‘three perfections’.

Together, the perfections make up more than the sum of their parts. The calligraphic brushstrokes that inscribe a poem are as integral to a work’s compositional balance as those used in painting. While the images conjured by a poem and those rendered in a painting combine to create effects neither can achieve alone. This is true in Hui’s work and is also true of earlier examples by other artists on display in the lower gallery, which provide context for understanding Hui as both innovator and standard-bearer of tradition.

Dr Billy Beswick is the Christensen Fellow of Chinese Painting at the Ashmolean Museum, a curatorial role focussing on researching and publicising the museum’s extensive collection of modern Chinese art. Prior to his role at the museum, he completed a DPhil in Chinese Cultural Studies at the University of Oxford. 

Contact info@theartssocietyabingdon or phone 01235-522886. 

 Picture courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum

11.00 - 12.00 or 14.00 - 15.00

Cost £15

To complement the February lecture on Sir Anthony Van Dyck we have arranged a visit to the Ashmolean's Print Room to view selected material relating to the artist.  Group size is limited to 12.  The Ashmolean also has on display 2 major paintings by Van Dyck which are displayed in the Baroque Gallery.  These are a Deposition of Christ, and a full length portrait of a woman, possibly Gertrudis Wiegers. 

Contact info@theartssocietyabingdon or phone 01235-522886. 

Ashmolean Museum Study Session led by the Curator of Japanese Art

Thursday 9 May 2024

11.00 - 12.00 (sold out)

14.00 - 15.00 (places available)

Katsushika Hokusai (1769-1849), known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He was the first great designer of landscape prints. Before him, most print designers created images of beautiful women or kabuki actors. In the 1820s and 1830s, Hokusai produced his woodblock print series ‘The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji’ which includes the iconic print The Great Wave off Kanagawa. This series showed the sacred mountain from different viewpoints, during different seasons and at different times of day. With its simple colour schemes and bold compositions it was stylistically ground-breaking, combining elements of Japanese, Chinese and Western painting.

It was so successful that he produced ten extra prints (bringing the total to 46) produced in response to the phenomenal success of the original series. Amongst these (illustration courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum) was the Fuji from Kanaya which was one of the stations on the Tokaido Road, the main road between Edo and Kyoto. It was located on the Oi River and because there was no bridge or ferry there, ‘river waders’ were used to carry travellers across its swift-flowing waters.

This Study Session which complements the April lecture is led by Dr Clare Pollard, the Ashmolean Museum Curator of Japanese Art.

Cost: £15 (15 places only available)

Meet inside the entrance to the museum at 10.50.

Tickets available at March lectures or by email to info@theartssocietyabingdon.org.uk

The Garden Room in St Ethelwold's House, East St Helen Street

10.30 - 12.30 OR 14.30 - 16.30

Cost:  £20

Ralph Hoyle was a schoolboy member of the Wine Label Circle, a society devoted to the study of silver decanters labels and went on to be its President. He is a long-standing member of the Silver Society. He has given talks to the Art Fund, Sheffield Assay Office, American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, Historic Houses, and small charity raising events. He brings pieces from his own collection for the audience to handle and examine while he is discussing design, social context and makes revelations about the original owners he has identified from the heraldry.

Ralph's interest is mid eighteenth-century English Rococo silver. He brings with him the pieces he is going to talk about for the listeners to handle and examine, together with a comprehensive collection of power point images, with close ups of features of interest. The Huguenot influence on this most decorative period is discussed, where new silversmithing techniques fused with new designs; together with methods of manufacture, interpreting the engraved heraldry of the items, and the social context.

He makes the talk entertaining as well as informative by taking the audience on a journey to uncover the original owners by tracing the heraldry, shows portraits of them, and reveals some of the life story associated with them; fabulously wealthy aristocrats and middling sorts, they variously had a stint in the Tower of London, had tragic family circumstances, had their descendants gamble away their estates, found their wife in a bed she should certainly not have been in, or were dragged to their death in an overturned carriage... Knowing the exploits of these original owners of these pieces adds considerably to their interest and brings another dimension to the handling.

This format also lends itself to study sessions, particularly a small group at a single table, where a greater range of pieces can be shown, and discussed in more detail, together with a session looking at silver wine labels *; their evolving design from the 1730s, how wars with France determined the wines that were drunk, and how some makers families supplied them for several generations.

   * Also known as decanter labels. Originally introduced to identify the contents of opaque and dark coloured bottles.

Tickets on sale at February lecture or from info@theartssocietyabingdon.org.uk

Print Room at the Ashmolean Museum

Viewing of material relating to the work of Albrecht Durer

Tuesday 26 September 2023

11.30 - 12.30 or 14.00 - 15.00

Cost: £15

Following the September lecture on Albrecht Durer: Life, Ego and Afterlife by Albert Godetzky, this is an opportunity to visit the Ashmolean's Print Room to view the material they hold which relates to Durer, 1471 - 1528, an important artist of the German Renaissance.

Groups of 12 only.

Meet inside the entrance to the Ashmolean at 11.20 or 13.50.

Booking through info@theartssocietyabingdon.org.uk or at September lecture.

Ashmolean Study Session 

Dr Lynn Hulse

Tuesday 19 June 2022

Masterpieces of Stuart Embroidery

My mother taught me embroidery as a child and this went well beyond basic cross-stitch. However, I couldn’t imagine attempting anything like the 17th century pieces we saw at the Ashmolean. Most, whether on biblical or classical themes, included figures worked to give a three-dimensional effect, and sometimes using human hair or even peacock feathers. Minute pearls or Venetian glass beads might be added, all demanding precise stitching at a time when lighting was much poorer than today.

Some of the items we studied were the work of professional court embroiderers, no longer kept busy with ecclesiastical work in a post-Reformation period, but there was also a stunning embroidered casket from a Quaker school in Hackney, where girls as young as 10 or 12 would do the work as training to run a household and look after its linen.

This study session involved just eight of us, so it was a real pleasure to get up close to pieces and to be able to ask questions of an expert with such great enthusiasm for her subject.

Esther and Ahaseurus panel image courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum

Islamic Art  The Influence of Empires

Denise Derbyshire

Our expert guide didn't expect the group to remember all the numerous civilisations, dynasties and empires which she covered in swift succession.  Nor do I imagine her despairing that we won't be able to describe all the different methods of ceramic production, techniques of decoration or required firing temperatures.  What I think we all came away with was the graphic realisation that not just art history but history in general cannot be separated into neat little boxes of time lines.   Cultural influences move backwards and forwards, cross continents and even bypass trade routes.   Mighty rulers in the past changed faith if it suited them from an economic point of view.   The experimentation, ingenuity and skill involved in ceramic production over the centuries is astonishing in its fluidity.

And here's a surprising conclusion.   After closely examining the pottery on displayin the Islamic gallery, we allsaid that may examples could easily be mistakenfor contemporary designswhich we would be very happy to show off at home.  Chance would be a fine thing!

Truth and Beauty in Art

What is considered beautiful and of value in art has changed over time and differs between cultures. In this series of lectures, we will examine the different influences on and choices made in China, Japan and Western Europe. Each of our lecturers has prepared a special Study Day, drawing on their deep specialist knowledge and expertise.

Venue: The Headley Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum, Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PH

Time: 10.30am-3.30pm

Cost: £38 per Study Day (includes coffee, biscuits and a light lunch)

More details can be found here

Booking form is here