SPRING LUNCH
 

   For full information and how to book, click here

Now that Spring is on the horizon  I would love for you come along to our Spring Lunch on Friday 10th April.  After the lunch there will be a talk by Nicky Stichman, Head of House Visits and Collections at Penshurst Place who will tell us about the history and artworks of this much loved local house. Our caterer this year will be Lindsey Clingo who caters for many events in the area. It's the perfect opportunity to socialise with fellow members. Whether you are a longstanding member or a new member you will be assured of a warm welcome.

THE ARTS SOCIETY LIMPSFIELD SPRING LUNCH
St PETER’S HALL, LIMPSFIELD FRIDAY 10th APRIL 2026

Doors open at 12.30 pm and lunch will be served at 1pm.
 
Cost £40: includes Welcome Drink with nibbles and wine and soft drinks with the meal.
Our Talk: The Artworks and History of Penshurst Place by Nicky Stichman
 

Menu
Main course

Chicken in a bacon and  tomato sauce served with new potatoes and veg
OR 
Brie, red onion and tomato parcel served with new potatoes and veg
Dessert
Pavlova with berries 
OR
 Chocolate Roulade
OR 
Cheese and biscuits
Tea or Coffee, 

BOOKING ARRANGEMENTS
This event is very popular and you should book and pay as soon as possible and no later than April 3rd. Members will have priority whilst we also welcome partners and friends.
 

TO BOOK YOUR PLACE: Please email chair.limpsfield@theartssociety.org giving your name, menu choices, any people you would like to be seated with and any special dietary requirements.

Please pay by bank transfer to Nat West Bank, Sort Code 60 16 09 Account No. 75668327. Account Name TAS Limpsfield giving the reference “Lunch”” and your surname.
Postal Bookings: Please send cheques, made payable to TAS Limpsfield, to the Chairman, 130 Bluehouse Lane Limpsfield, Surrey RH8 0AR and include the information requested above.

Contact number on the day: Rosie Dalziel 07799 151092

I look forward to seeing you there!
Best Wishes,

Rosie Dalziel

Chairman, TAS Limpsfield

At the United Reformed Church, Bluehouse Lane, Oxted

From 10am, includes tea/coffee, buffet lunch and three lectures

Click here for booking poster link

In this Study Day Andrew combines the lectures 'From Downton to Gatsby' and 'The Glamour Years', then guides you through the various decades and illustrates the events and people who created today’s modern world.

He shows how the period between 1890 and 1959 was probably the most tumultuous and extraordinary in world history, with political and world events having a profound and lasting effect, not only how people lived, but also on fashion and jewellery design.

For the series and film Downton Abbey, Andrew was commissioned to make many jewels for the main characters and this inspired him to create a talk based on this unique period.

Jewellery and Fashion are often seen as two entirely separate and distinct fields of design, but this is very far from the case.

In his talk, Andrew guides you through the extraordinary decades and events between 1890 and 1929, where the great couturiers collaborated with the finest of jewellers to produce jewels and clothes of outstanding quality and glittering opulence.

Friday 12th April Limpsfield Church Hall

Note this is also listed under Visits - see Visits to book

This is a popular event - mark it in your diary!

One of our members, Graham Dixon previously controller of Radio 3, will give an after lunch talk on Frederic Delius - A Tale of Two Villages.

The name Delius links a grave in Limpsfield with a house in Grez-sur-Loing, just south of Paris.  There are more layers to this artistic connection than there might seem at first sight.......... 

Tuesday 13th February

Held at the United Reform Church in Bluehouse Lane

This event also appears under Visits.  For more information, please click here

Celebrate the centenary of the Roaring Twenties with an interdisciplinary exploration of the art,design,music, literature, fashion and lives of the era's protagonists: Gershwin, Hopper, Sheeler, Tamara de Lempicka, Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

Dr Marie-Anne  Mancio

Our speaker trained as an artist before gaining a PhD in Art and Critical Theory from the University of Sussex. She has lectured in art history for the City Lit, Tate Modern, the Course, Art in London, London Art Salon, Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Nth Degree Club and many private art societies.  Dre Mancio also runs art history study tours abroad. 

Our annual Spring Lunch is always very popular.  We now have a local guide and speaker, Alexandra Sheldon, who will entertain and educate us on the local treasures and how they came to Titsey.

For information and booking please click here

Book early!

About Alexandra:

Alexandra is a guide at Titsey Place, at Knole in Kent and at Tate Britain. For her MA in Art History Alexandra wrote her dissertation on the nude sculpture of the 18th-century ballet dancer Giovanna Baccelli at Knole. 

 Alexandra has a portfolio of talks, both online and in-gallery, on a wide range of subjects from 17th-century male portraiture to the history of pregnancy portraits, and from representations of the 18th-century actress Frances Abington to the mid-20th-century artists of St Ives.  In addition she has written talks on the Venetian-born sculptor Antonio Canova and the elite culture of collecting copies of Classical sculpture in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Last year Alexandra led tours of the British-Guyanese artist Hew Locke’s highly acclaimed work ‘The Procession’ which was the Tate Britain Duveen Galleries' commission for 2022, and wrote and presented an online talk on Locke’s work.  Her current project is preparing an in-gallery talk at Tate Britain on ‘Women in British Art’ and an online presentation for Tate on ‘Reynolds at 300’ to mark the tricentenary of the artist’s birth this year.

Please Note:  This event is also listed under Visits - see Visits in order to book a place

This event takes place at the URC in Bluehouse Lane, starts at 10.00 am and includes morning coffee and buffet lunch

French Protestant Huguenots migrating in the 16th and 17th centuries impacted our arts, the military and finance sectors. Focusing on the Baroque style of Versailles through the Huguenot designer Daniel Marot, who also ushered in the French Rococo style.  

It is estimated that upwards of 50,000 people settled in the British Isles, and that perhaps one in six of the country’s current population descends from Huguenot lineage. This lecture focuses on three areas of the arts impacted by the migration: the baroque style of Versailles that arrived in London through the great Huguenot designer, Daniel Marot, who worked for William and Mary at Hampton Court; the growth of the silk weaving industry in Canterbury, Spitalfields and later Sudbury and Macclesfield; and on the silversmiths and ceramicists who ushered the French Rococo style into Britain. This is put into the context of how their work changed material culture and was absorbed into British national identity.

Image:   Jean Tiyou, Privy Garden screen at Hampton Court, 1690's.  Photograph courtesy of Tim Winter.  

Vivienne Laws

Viv is an art historian, curator, author and journalist with over 25 years’ experience in the art market, she teaches at several Higher Education institutions in London.  In January 2021 she received the Geoffrey Bond Bursary for Art, an annual prize awarded by the Worshipful Company of Educators to an “outstanding educator” nominated by their institution.

Since 2011 she has have been Senior UK Consultant to Singapore gallery One East Asia and has co-curated many exhibitions of Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art in London and Singapore.

When time allows she also lectures as an on-board art historian for Viking and Fred Olsen cruise lines.

Please Note: This event also appears under Visits

Venue: The Church Hall, Limpsfield

Date and Time: Tuesday 5th April at 12.30 for 1.00 pm

FULLY BOOKED

The Harrison Sisters and the Nightingale Broadcast with Sandee Brown of The Old Barn, Oxted

The Harrison family played an important role in the development of music in this country. May as a violinist, Beatrice a cellist, Monica a singer and Margaret a violinist, and each was an excellent pianist. This will be an entertaining talk, full of anecdotes and local history, ending with the playing of the recording.

Note:  This event is also listed under Visits.

This event is now open for Booking

To book: click here

Event poster: click here

The day will be held at the United Reformed Church in Bluehouse Lane, Oxted

Morning coffee and a buffet lunch are included, cost £32

These talks will give you a really good understanding of  twentieth century architecture and popular style.

Art Deco Styles (in three one-hour talks)

This lecture examines Art Deco in terms of its historical context – a new style that emerged in the aftermath of the First World War – and its formal characteristics. It traces the various sources of inspiration embraced by designers of the period, such as avant-garde art, the cultures of African, Aztec and Mayan peoples, the exotic appeal of Egypt following the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, and the development of technology and the internal combustion engine.

Vivienne Laws

Viv is an art historian, curator, author and journalist with over 25 years’ experience in the art market, she teaches at several Higher Education institutions in London.  In January 2021 she received the Geoffrey Bond Bursary for Art, an annual prize awarded by the Worshipful Company of Educators to an “outstanding educator” nominated by their institution.

Since 2011 she has have been Senior UK Consultant to Singapore gallery One East Asia and has co-curated many exhibitions of Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art in London and Singapore.

When time allows she also lectures as an on-board art historian for Viking and Fred Olsen cruise lines.

Photograph: The Hoover Building, Perivale (Taran Wilkhu) 

Speaker and other details including date to be confirmed

The United Reform Church, Bluehouse Lane, Oxted, RH8 0AA

Study Day starts at 9.30am

Art Nouveau was the first attempt to create an international modern style. It had its fullest flowering on the European Continent at the turn of the 20th century.  The Study Day is broken into three parts:

The first lecture begins with examples of Art Nouveau set alongside pieces from the following Art Deco period, so that a clear distinction can be made between the two styles. 

In the second lecture, we move on to Paris.  The new store “Maison de l’Art Nouveau” and the 1900 Paris World Fair gave a focus to leading designers.  Rene Lalique’s naturalistic jewellery and Hector Guimard’s organic forms for the entrances to the Paris Metro stations encapsulate Art Nouveau.  

After lunch, we look at Gaudi’s fantastical, colourful “modernisme” in Barcelona, the different manifestation of Art Nouveau: the rectilinear forms of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland and his Austrian contemporaries, Olbrich and Hoffman..  We close with the important Palais Stoclet in Brussels, where the organic forms of Art Nouveau are left behind and begin to reflect the luxury of Art Deco ‘de luxe’.

Anthea Streeter – studied the Fine and Decorative Arts in London and continued her studies at Harvard University.  It was whilst at Harvard, where there was great enthusiasm for American design that she became interested in 20th century architecture.  Since returning from America Anthea has taught on courses in Oxford and London, lectured on the Country House course in Sussex and for several private groups around the country.

WHEN: Tuesday 9 April 2019 @ 12:30 pm – 3:30 pm

WHERE:

St Peter's Hall
High St
Limpsfield, Oxted RH8 0DR
UK

Our guest speaker, Jennifer Sturdy, will describe the 3 year long project to make a replica of the oldest known stringed instrument, the Gold Lyre of Ur, a Mesopotamian lyre dating from 2,500 BC. The project made a playable instrument, using authentic materials from the Middle East: cedar wood, mother-of-pearl, pink limestone and lapis lazuli.  The crowning glory is the bull’s head on the front, which is covered in gold.  The talk  describes all stages of the making, and includes a sound clip so that you can hear what it sounds like. 

Thursday, 21February 2018 @ 10:00 am – 3:30 pm

WHERE:

United Reform Church
21 Bluehouse Ln
Oxted RH8
UK

Steve Kershaw will take us through the techniques and aesthetics of Ancient Greek sculpture, architecture and vase painting.

Steve Kershaw

As a Classics Tutor for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, Professor of History of Art for the European Studies Program of Rhodes College and The University of the South, he has spent much of the last 30 years travelling extensively in the world of the Greeks and Romans both physically and intellectually. He has published A Brief Guide to the Greek Myths (Robinson, 2007) and A Brief Guide to Classical Civilization (Robinson, 2010) and is currently working on A Brief Guide to the Roman Empire.

Illustration: Terracotta Panathenaic prize amphora - Metropolitan Museum of Art

WHERE:

Knole House, Sevenoaks, Kent
(Entrance off A225 High Street opp. St Nicholas Church)

COST:

£34.00 (Non NT members pay £11.30 extra on house entry)

Two talks will compliment our lecture, at the end of October. The Archaeologist will cover the history of the house, evidence of the ancient archbishop’s palace and 17th and 18th century works together with artifacts recovered by the recent work.

The Curator will give us details of the highlights of the art collections and the unique furniture.

After lunch the Tower and the Showrooms are available to tour. They have recently been restored to their full glory, showing textiles, furniture and paintings. The Great Hall, the Ballroom, the Reynolds, Cartoon gallery and the King’s Room room are notable for their paintings. The Gatehouse Tower is accessible only by a spiral staircase but has memorable views over the house and its surrounding park and contains exhibits relating to 20th century users.

9.45 am onwards: gates open for the NT car park (NT membership card needed) for non NT cost £4.00

10.15 am Arrival at the Hayloft at Knole for tea/coffee (included). Entrance via the Conservation Studio next to the Brewhouse Cafe? (to the left of the main house, around the corner, then on the right).

10.30 am  Archaeologist’s talk on Knole house

11.45 am  Curator’s talk on the treasures of Knole

1.00 pm   Lunch (sandwich lunch included)

1.45 pm . Start of house tour (non NT members will need to pay the entry fee)

Bookings will be taken at the September Lecture. Please see Booking Form for more details and payment instructions.

WHEN: Friday, 13 April 2018 @ 12:30 pm – 3:30 pm

WHERE:

St Peter's Hall
High St
Limpsfield, Oxted RH8 0DR
UK

Our after lunch talk will be given by Andrew Wilton

The Romantic Period was notable for its awakened love of nature. In 1802 Luke Howard proposed a new classification of clouds as ‘the countenance of the sky’. This interest was reflected in the work of poets and painters. Famously, John Constable described his pictures taken on the spot from nature as ‘scientific experiments’.  As well as painting accurate records, his contemporaries used skies to dramatise historical and mythological events.

Andrew Wilton is a former Keeper of British Pictures at Tate Britain.  He has organised many major exhibitions.  His many publications include ‘Five Centuries of British Painting’ and ‘Turner in His Time’.  He is Honorary Curator of Prints and Drawings at The Royal Academy of Arts and Honorary Curator at The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers’  which is the 5th oldest Livery Company in the City of London.  He has been a judge of the annual Berger Prize, an award for books on British art and architecture, and he sits on the Art and Architecture Committee of Westminster Cathedral.

Picture: 'Stonehenge' by Constable 1835 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Wednesday, 14 February 2018 @ 10:00 am – 3:30 pm

WHERE:

United Reform Church
21 Bluehouse Ln
Oxted RH8
UK

Clare Ford-Wille will reveal stunning examples of church architecture and decoration from a region full of early Christian buildings.

Armenia and Georgia have had chequered histories, but much remains from their rich artistic past. Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity in 301 A.D. and churches built during this early period in both places exhibit highly sophisticated experiments in dome construction and masonry techniques.  Of particular beauty are the ‘khatchkars’ (carved crosses) unique to Armenia.   Georgian and Armenian illuminated manuscripts glow with vivid colours and the 19th century artistic revival is diverse and fascinating.

Image:  Passage of the Red Sea, 1266 from a medieval Armenian Bible in the Armenian Patriarchate Library Jerusalem

LECTURER NAME:

Lars Tharp

WHEN:

Tuesday, 31 October 2017 

WHERE:

Foundling Museum
40 Brunswick Square
Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1AZ

COST: £72.50

Held at the Foundling Museum, this Special Interest Day will include a guided tour of the nearby British Museum European Porcelain Collection.   A special day for porcelain enthusiasts with a superb guide.

We will also have a brief introduction to the Foundling museum’s galleries including the fascinating history and Hogarth exhibits.

After lunch we will meet up at the North Entrance of the nearby British Museum, for our tour of the collection of ceramics – those destined only for the emperors. Pieces intended for Beijing travelled north along the one of the greatest engineering feats in the world, China’s Grand Canal, unlike export ware which went south. The dazzling Percival David Collection is considered one of the finest collections outside China.

The nearest Underground station is Russell Square, very close to the Foundling Museum.

10.20 a.m.       Arrive at the Foundling Museum, Brunswick Sq. for tea/coffee (included)

10.45 a.m.       Talk

12.00 p.m.       Tour of the Foundling Museum Galleries

12.45 p.m.       Lunch with Lars – Buffet lunch

2.00 p.m.         Arrive at the British Museum for a guided tour of the collection and viewing the static collection.

3.30 p.m.         Tea in the Great Court (not included) plus Questions and Answers

Image:       Dish from the Swan Service, 1738, Meissen Porcelain