Bookings now closed.

Now united for over thirty years, Berlin is one of the most vibrant of cities. Since 1989 it has been a building site with the building of exciting new buildings, for example Potsdamer Platz, and the restoration of old ones, such as the Reichstag (shown in the photograph). Berlin possesses extraordinary collections of Egyptian, Roman and Babylonian sculpture, as well as outstanding European paintings and sculpture of the Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic and modern periods.

Our speaker will be Clare Ford-Wille, who is a renowned speaker on this topic and who has lectured for TASMH in the past.

TASMH is arranging an overseas visit to Berlin for a few days in Autumn 2026. This Study Day, in addition to being of interest to all members, will be a useful primer for members intending to go on the visit. 

Cost:  £55 (includes lunch).

Bookings now closed

Venue: Colwall Village Hall 

Doors open at 9:45am (The first talk begins at 10.15am and the day ends at around 3pm. There are two hour-long illustrated talks before lunch and one in the afternoon)

Biography of Clare Ford-Wille:

Honours degree in History of Art, Birkbeck College, University of London. Regular commitments include Centre for Lifelong Learning, London University, National Gallery, V&A Museum, WEA, Morley College, the City Literary Institute, the Art Fund and National Trust. Study tours abroad.

Picture is of the Reichstag, Public Domain from Wikimedia Commons

Throughout the 2000+ years of Imperial Rule in China emperors have sought to collect art and antiquities to demonstrate their political legitimacy and to demonstrate intellectual leadership of the Literati Class (scholar-officials). Initially, we will review the dawn of Imperial Art Patronage, and Emperors as Collectors in the early Dynasties (Qin through to Song 221BCE to 907CE). Consideration will be given to how these cultural treasures were subsequently transferred across the Dynasties. The focus will then move to the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368-1911) with particular focus on the Emperor Qianlong (1735-1796) who not only assembled the World’s greatest Oriental Art Collection but also acted as the collection’s curator. Finally, there will be an insight into the forced dispersal of the collection in the 19th/20th Centuries and its re-emergence at the core of China’s greatest Museums in the 21st Century.

The lecturer, David Rosier, is a Chartered Insurer by profession, with a specialization in medical risk assessment. He has spent over 25 years focusing on business in Asia, and China in particular. During his 14 years living in Hong Kong David, with his wife Wendy, created an internationally recognised collection of more than 500 Imperial Qing Dynasty costumes and dress accessories.  This collection was acquired, in its entirety, in late 2019 by The Shanghai Museum, People’s Republic of China. David is a past committee member of the Hong Kong Textile Society and a regular contributor to number of Chinese Art and Culture publications. He is well-placed to provide us with an informative and enjoyable study day.

Cost:  £50 (this includes lunch)

Venue: Colwall Village Hall 

Doors open at 10am 
(The first talk begins at 10.30am and the day ends at around 3pm. There are two hour-long illustrated talks before lunch and one in the afternoon)

(note that the date has changed from that given in the paper copy of the Programme Card)

Early in the C7th, a great ship was dragged ashore from the river Deben in Suffolk.  It became the burial place of a powerful Anglo-Saxon warlord, buried with a mound of treasures from all over the known world.  Fine weaponry, gold coins and exquisitely crafted jewellery reflected levels of sophistication which were a revelation.

At the end of the same century, after its conversion to Christianity, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria enjoyed a brief golden age – a result of which was the Lindisfarne Gospels, one of the most impressive works of art of the whole medieval period. With reference to the Staffordshire Hoard, the day will focus on this cultural achievement of an early ‘Dark Age’ century.

Speaker, Mark Cottle, has lectured at Exeter College on Medieval and Tudor history and on Anglo Saxon and medieval England at St Mark's & St John's University College, Plymouth and Bath University. He runs two small companies providing training and study breaks and is well-placed to provide us with an informative and enjoyable study day.

Cost:  £50

Venue: Colwall Village Hall

Doors open at 10am (The first talk begins at 10.30am and the day ends at around 3pm. There are two hour-long illustrated talks before lunch and one in the afternoon)

Anna Paisley will be providing the lunch, which is included in the price.

When Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1953, she inherited a collection of paintings that could rival any collection in the world. The Royal Collection of Art contains paintings from the Early Renaissance period to the Victorian era and beyond;  it is an important reflection of both the taste of the monarch and of the social and economic thinking of the country at the time.

There are fewer than 2,700 pictures hanging in the National Gallery in London, but there are more than 7,000 paintings in the Royal Collection - our day will be spent exploring and learning more about this magnificent collection.

Our speaker was Sandy Burnett , a former Radio 3 presenter and a well versed speaker on this subject. 2020 had marked the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth and, whilst the initial anniversary was missed that year due to the Covid restrictions, members were at last able to enjoy the presentation 'a year on' in 2021.

This event took place (by kind permission of Mrs Alexandra Berington) at Little Malvern Court.

Our speaker will be Clare Ford-Wille , who is a renowned speaker on this topic and who has lectured for TMHAS in the past.

This event will take place at Elmslie House in Malvern.

The price is yet to be fixed but will include a ‘welcome’ coffee, with a light lunch provided by Elmslie House caterers. Further details and booking to be available after Easter. The day is open to all members not just those participating in the Berlin visit in October. 80 places available
 

This is a joint party to be held with Malvern Civic Society and the cost is £25. This includes:
Reception with sparkling wine and canapés, the chance to mingle and enjoy the beautiful Hellens surroundings, the opportunity to see some of the work of the Arts Society Heritage Volunteers and a cold buffet supper in the Barn with wine/soft drinks. Short tours of some of Hellens Manor (for a small additional cost) will also be available.
 

Further details and the chance to book will be forwarded as soon as possible it is hoped that tickets will be available at our March meeting. TMHAS is limited to 70 tickets in the first instance.

With the anniversary of the death of Leonardo passing recently it is worth considering his legacy 500 years on.  His autograph paintings are few with a number undergoing extensive restoration. Many of his drawings are based on his approach of remaking nature.  

Leonardo would say nature must be his guide and that art was based on a scientific understanding of everything depicted. He used his powers of draughtsmanship and astute sense of observation in his scientific drawings making an incredible contribution to our early understanding of anatomy, aeronautics, warfare, cartography and water engineering to name but a few. It would take centuries of science and technology to catch up with his thoughts. 

We follow Leonardo’s pursuit of these investigations whether they be on his own iniative, his pursuit of remunerative employment or in response to a particular set of circumstances in his life and review the contribution made by his drawings to the world in which we currently live.

Joseph Wright (3 September 1734 – 29 August 1797), styled Joseph Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter. He has been acclaimed as "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution".

His paintings of the birth of science out of alchemy, often based on the meetings of the Lunar Society, are a significant record of the struggle of science against religious values in the period known as the Age of Enlightenment.

Bookings can be made starting from our first lecture on 19th September.

The day covers the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars in music, art and literature and the ensuing development of “Romanticism”, a surge of movement against the neo-classicism of the late eighteenth century in Europe and Britain. These oeuvres will be blended together to show the overall impact of them in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Romanticism emphasised the individual, the irrational, the spontaneous, the visionary and the transcendental. Seen in the music of Chopin for example, the artists Friedrich, Turner, Goya, Delacroix, and the poetry of Wordsworth and Byron to name just two.

Dr Paul Roberts is the newly appointed Sackler Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University. From 1994 to 2014 he was Senior Roman Curator in the Department of Greece and Rome at the British Museum, where he was the driving force behind the major exhibition Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum. At the Ashmolean he worked on an exhibition for 2016 Storms, War and Shipwrecks: Sicily and the Sea- telling the history of Sicily through shipwreck finds around the island. He studied at the Universities of Cambridge, Sheffield and Oxford and lived in Italy for several years, in Milan, Rome and Naples. He has excavated in Britain, Greece, Libya, Turkey and in particular Italy, where he directs excavations in the Sabine hills near Rome. His research focuses on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people in the Greek and Roman worlds. He has accompanied tours to Sicily, the Bay of Naples and Rome and has written books on Roman daily life, Roman Emperors, mummy portraits and Roman glass. He is currently writing a walking tour of Ancient Rome.

10.15 am start for 10.30 at Browns End Bromsberrow. 

David is a Chartered Insurer by profession and a Fellow of the Assurance Medical Society, with extensive international experience as an author and lecturer in Medical Risk Assessment. He has in excess of 25 years of working and living in Asia. Whilst living in Hong Kong (1991-2004) he assembled a collection of approximately 700, predominately Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Imperial and related textiles/costume accessories. Past Committee Member of the Hong Kong Textile Society and frequent speaker on Imperial Insignia and Badges of Rank.

The Emperor Qianlong was arguably the greatest of all Qing Emperors as he guided China through a period of unquestionable political, economic and cultural prosperity which rivalled any comparable period of high achievement in Chinese history. Territorially Qianlong added more than 30 per cent of landmass to the Empire through successful military campaigns and astute diplomacy. He was passionate about preserving Manchu culture whilst respecting and nurturing other ethnic Chinese cultures. Qianlong travelled his Empire regularly undertaking lavish expeditions to the South and West designed to forge loyalty to his Imperial rule. Despite all these successes as a ruler it is in the fields of the sciences, arts and culture that Qianlong made the greatest contribution to China’s heritage. Qianlong was a noted scholar who during his lifetime wrote and published over 43,000 poems, painted on virtually a daily basis and was accomplished in the art of calligraphy. It was perhaps as a Collector of Fine Art that Qianlong created his greatest legacy. He amassed a treasure trove of hundreds of thousands of works of art from previous dynasties or which represented the finest current workmanship. His collection spanned all genres of the arts including paintings, porcelain, jade, textiles, enamelling, ivory carvings and snuff bottles. This lecture will provide an insight into Qianlong not only as a successful Emperor of China but also as a scholar and ‘ultimate’ collector of fine art. A wide range of items of the highest quality, produced by the Imperial Workshops, will illustrate this lecture. 

Please click here for booking information.

10.15 am for 10.30 start at Little Malvern Court. (click for a map).

John Ericson was formerly a lecturer at the University of Bath where he was Director of Studies in the School of Education with responsibility for the professional development of teachers. He has worked extensively overseas as an educational consultant and this has given him the opportunity to give lectures and presentations at conferences all over the world. In 2008 and again in 2011 he undertook extensive lecture tours of Australia and he has been a popular speaker on the NADFAS circuit for a number of years. In his professional life he has developed a particular interest in presentation skills including the role of pictures in learning and the appropriate use of PowerPoint. This coupled with his ability to relate well to people of all ages and backgrounds makes him an impressive and confident public speaker.As well as the talks he has developed from his professional background, he offers presentations on an eclectic range of topics that are derived from his diverse interestsand enthusiasms such as, Pub Signs, Children’s Book Illustrations and the Shakers of North America. All his talks, are entertaining, highly informative, very well illustrated and presented with warmth and humour. 

John tells the extraordinary story of the Shakers of North America, exploring their beginnings, what they believed and how they lived their lives before examining examples of their wonderful buildings and furniture. For it is only with such an understanding of their devout faith and way of life that we can begin to appreciate their intriguing legacy. 

Supports group tour to Istanbul.

10.15 am for 10.20 start at Little Malvern Court.