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NICHOLAS FRIEND
C U L T U R E IN QUESTION
C U L T U R E NICHOLAS FRIEND
S P R I N G
2 0 1 6 S U M M E R
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Nicholas Friend MA (Oxon), MA (Cantab), FRSA, Founder and Director of INSCAPE, co-Founder of Friend&Friend, was the Director of Cambridge University’s History of Art Summer School for 25 years. He has been lecturing, teaching and conducting cultural tours in the UK and abroad for more than 30 years. He has lectured for the Wallace Collection, the National Gallery, Sotheby’s and numerous businesses and organisations. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Companion of the Guild of St George. He and Louise Friend are co-Founders of Culture in Question, and co-Directors of INSCAPE Tours. They share their time between homes and offices in London and Berkeley, California.
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WHO WE ARE
NICHOLAS FRIEND MA (Oxon), MA (Cantab), FRSA, Founder and Director of INSCAPE Fine Art Study Tours Ltd, and co-Founder of Friend&Friend Ltd has been teaching adults in galleries, museums and country houses for over 30 years. He has taught for the Wallace Collection, the National Gallery and Sotheby’s, and has conducted many tours at home and abroad. For 25 years he directed Cambridge University’s History of Art Summer School. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Companion of the Guild of St. George. [email protected]
LOUISE GOLDBERG FRIEND B.A Art History, M.ED Human Development, M.FA Interior Architecture and Design, co-Founder of Friend&Friend Ltd is Director of Programmes and Design. Her work in the arts and education has included programme development for the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C, commercial interiors planning for Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, San Francisco, and teaching art, edible gardening and cooking to children. [email protected]
SARA PUPI BA McGill University, CertHE Université de Montréal, studied Anthropology, Psychology and Management and is INSCAPE’s multi-lingual Operations Manager and Senior Tour Manager. Italian by birth, brought up in a French school in Turkey, and educated at McGill University in Canada, she brings to her work effortless communication and social skills in English, Italian, French, and Spanish. [email protected]
HENRIETTA MACPHEE BA Kings College London, Diploma Camberwell College of Arts, joins us as maternity cover Bookings Administrator from the arts organisation Art in Action, where she was Operations Manager and Events Co-Ordinator. She is an artist who also works as a jeweller’s assistant in Hatton Garden, is a potter in training and makes enormous pots. [email protected]
V ISUAL&PERFORMINGARTS&ARCHITECTURE&DESIGN&ARCHAEOLOGY L I T E R A T U R E & D R A M A & P O E T R Y & P O L I T I C S & T H E M E D I A
HISTORY&HERSTORY&DIARIES&LETTERS&MEMOIRS S C I E N C E & M A T H E M A T I C S & T E C H N O L O G Y
G A R D E N & C U L I N A R Y H I S T O R Y P H O T O G R A P H Y & F I L M
COMMERCE&INVENTION
L E C T U R E S ART WORKERS’ GUILD Q U E E N S Q U A R E BLOOMSBURY LONDON WC1N
P R E M I S E S ST JUDE’S COTTAGE 12A CASTLEBAR HILL LONDON W5 1TD
020 8566 7539 [email protected]
W W W . N I C H O L A S F R I E N D . C O . U K
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THE YEAR IN QUESTION 1066
TUESDAY 12 JANUARY
What actually ’happened’ in that year, the one indelibly printed on every British, Commonwealth and American brain? The significance of the year became apparent on 5 January, as Edward the Confessor, King of England, took his last breath and passed, leaving behind no heir, neither son nor daughter, either of whom would have worked as there was not yet a law of primogeniture. Within a matter of weeks, Harold Godwinson, one of the most powerful earls in England, was voted king by the Witenagemot, an early form of parliament. Riders galloped off in all directions with the news of Harold’s succession. Neither William, Duke of Normandy nor King Harald Hardrada of Norway welcomed the news and probably killed the messenger; they both felt they had a claim to the English throne. King Harald Hardrada, joined by Harold Godwinson’s brother, Tostig, invaded Northern England with 10–15,000 men on 300 longships in early September. By the 20th September, Hardrada’s army defeated the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria at the Battle Fulford, opening Jorvik (York) up to the invaders. However, five days later both were killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge by Harold Godwinson thus ending what had evolved into peaceful co-existence (Danelaw) with the Danes in the north and east of the Kingdom. Victorious King Harold had no choice but to march his exhausted army back south to face William of Normandy who had arrived on southcoast. On the 14 October, the beleaguered English army was predictably slaughtered by the Normans, their king, Harold Godwinson killed and his crown and country grabbed by William. This horrific event marks the end of Anglo-Saxon rule of England. In one fell swoop a ‘civilisation’ was shattered. What was scattered, what was destroyed, what endured? All Culture in Question lectures take place in the Art Workers Guild, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, unless otherwise indicated. Coffee is served at 10.30 (optional), the lecture begins at 11, and a light lunch with wine is served at 1 pm. The event ends by 3.30 p.m. £85 INSCAPE members, £95 non-members. Your guests who have not previously attended are welcome at a cost of £15.
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SHAKESPEARE 400 The most influential single writer who has ever lived, Shakespeare’s works are reproduced and enjoyed more than any other writer, living or dead. From the codex to the computer, Shakespeare has become the world's greatest cultural content provider in history. Whether through printed paper, art, music, dramatic or dance theatre, radio, television, film, or the internet, Shakespeare's words and works have been propelled from coastline to coastline, border to border in the UK and America, and, certainly, beyond. Next year, 400 years since his death, flotillas of cultural, creative, and educational organisations will commemorate the astonishing oeuvre of William Shakespeare. INSCAPE’s contribution to the global celebrations will be a suite of related lectures in the UK and USA introducing the beginning or confused student to Shakespeare as well as attempting to satisfy the professional scholar with its scope and presentation. Selecting two particular years, key periods in Shakespeare’s life, Nicholas will explore the ways in which Shakespeare’s works both reveal and reflect the shattering and chronic events of his personal and public life. Having played Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and Othello before the age of 21, Nicholas reveals his deepened understanding of those parts in relation to a lifetime of reading and teaching Shakespeare. He aims to be a bridge to the man’s thoughts and insights, his humour and wit, and, ultimately, his wisdom. The lectures will be richly illustrated by examples of centuries of art work relating to the most profound moments in the plays. THE SHAKESPEAREAN YEAR IN QUESTION: 1599 TUESDAY 19 JANUARY Shakespeare produced Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet, the Globe Theatre was built, another Spanish invasion appeared imminent and vivid Elizabethan conspiracies circulated round an aged heirless monarch. THE SHAKESPEARIAN YEAR IN QUESTION: 1606 WEDNESDAY 17 FEBRUARY Shakespeare produced King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra at a time of forced Union between England and Scotland, when plague threatened every household and women became scapegoats for male fear, while papist plots abounded in the wake of the Gunpowder Conspiracy. £85 per day INSCAPE members, £95 non-members. £160 for both days. Your guests who have not previously attended are welcome at a cost of £15.
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THE WIT IN QUESTION MAX BEERBOHM
WEDNESDAY 3 FEBRUARY
George Bernard Shaw called him ‘the incomparable Max’. The youngest of nine children of a Lithuanian grain-merchant, Max Beerbohm was nevertheless educated at Charterhouse School and Merton College Oxford, whence he published essays in the greatest journal of the 1890s, the Yellow Book. In 1892, when he was twenty, he had his first caricatures published in the Strand Magazine, which he reported later dealt "a great, an almost mortal blow to my modesty". He went on to be hailed by The Times as ‘the greatest of English comic artists’, renowned particularly for his brilliant caricatures of the Pre-Raphaelites. Bernard Berenson called him ‘The English Goya’ and Edmund Wilson ‘ the greatest portrayer of personalities in the history of art’. Drama critic of the Saturday Review, he became an extremely funny literary parodist, publishing ‘A Christmas Garland’, and went on to write short stories and the hugely successful novel ‘Zuleika Dobson’. His style was seen recently by the New Yorker as ‘malice passed through a sieve of manners’. He spent the last forty-five years of his life living in Rapallo, where he was often visited by Ezra Pound, who lived nearby, Somerset Maugham, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier and Truman Capote. All Culture in Question lectures take place in the Art Workers Guild, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, unless otherwise indicated. Coffee is served at 10.30 (optional), the lecture begins at 11, and a light lunch with wine is served at 1 pm. The event ends by 3.30 p.m. £85 INSCAPE members, £95 non-members. Your guests who have not previously attended are welcome at a cost of £15.
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ARTISTS’ WRITINGS IN QUESTION LEONARDO’S NOTEBOOKS
TUESDAY 9 FEBRUARY
Leonardo, arguably the central figure of the Renaissance, has long been considered by many a man ‘of mystery.’ This is in spite of the fact that we have access to an unparalleled set of documents which illuminate his thought processes, preoccupations, and deepest beliefs. Hundreds of pages of his notes, jottings, sketches, doodles, and musings, including lists of books he read and even scraps of financial records, exist in their original manuscript form. Leonardo himself was too busy to order them, and it is perhaps appropriate that the notebooks should be scattered throughout Europe, from Windsor and the British Library to Turin. But on this study day we will be able to explore almost every twist and turn, every nook and cranny, every path and avenue of Leonardo’s phenomenal mind. These really are working notes, not a manuscript being polished for publication, and Leonardo has no hesitation in adding a personal reminder or practical memo right in the middle of a sheet of mathematical studies. What emerges is the picture of a rationalist, all the stronger for being a man of quite uncanny insight and imagination. The Arundel Codex in the British Library alone features his musings on fantastic topics including mechanics, the flow of rivers, astronomy, optics, architecture and the flight of birds. He questioned the Biblical account of the Flood, seeing the fossils of sea creatures on the tops of mountains and concludes they had been deposited over a period of time somewhat longer than forty days and forty nights. The manuscript is written in Leonardo’s characteristic ‘mirror’ writing, left-handed and moving from right to left. The text, accompanied by drawings of everything that interested him from foetuses to tanks, water motion to breathing apparatus, results in a tumultuous, sprawling feast of words and images. It covers many years of Leonardo's life and the astonishing range of his mind as he moves from problems of mechanics to shopping lists. All Culture in Question lectures take place in the Art Workers Guild, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, unless otherwise indicated. Coffee is served at 10.30 (optional), the lecture begins at 11, and a light lunch with wine is served at 1 pm. The event ends by 3.30 p.m. £85 INSCAPE members, £95 non-members. Your guests who have not previously attended are welcome at a cost of £15.
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THE COMPOSER IN QUESTION ERIK SATIE
WEDNESDAY 24 FEBRUARY
Born at Honfleur 150 years ago and determined from the beginning to be a composer, Satie went to Paris where he was regarded as ‘the laziest student in the Conservatoire’. He then gave himself bronchitis to avoid military service, moved to Montmartre, became renowned in the Cabaret Chat-Noir, and befriended Claude Debussy as well as Maurice Ravel. He went on to become official composer to the Rosicrucian Order and by 1893 founded the ‘Metropolitan Church of Jesus the Conductor’. He kept, in a filing cabinet, a collection of imaginary buildings, which he occasionally offered for rent. After his first night with Suzanne Valadon, he proposed marriage. She left, and remained his only intimate relationship. He referred to himself not as a musician but as a ‘phonometrician’. Famous for his ‘gymnopedies’ he is less well-known as a superb writer, contributing to dada magazines and the American ‘Vanity Fair’, and collaborating with major dadaists such as Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray. He collaborated with Jean Cocteau on incidental music for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and then on the famous ‘Parade’, produced by Diaghilev with the Ballets Russes, with sets and costumes by Picasso and choreography by Leonide Massine. When he died of absinthe poisoning in 1925, his friends found in his apartment in Arcueil a collection of umbrellas and two grand pianos placed one on top of the other, the upper of the two used as storage for letters and parcels.
All Culture in Question lectures take place in the Art Workers Guild, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, unless otherwise indicated. Coffee is served at 10.30 (optional), the lecture begins at 11, and a light lunch with wine is served at 1 pm. The event ends by 3.30 p.m. £85 INSCAPE members, £95 non-members. Your guests who have not previously attended are welcome at a cost of £15.
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THE FAMILY IN QUESTION THE ROMANOVS 1613-1918
TUESDAY 1 MARCH
The Romanovs are the source of a Pushkin play, a Moussorgsky Opera, 24 movies, and countless books and doctoral dissertations. Ruling a sixth of the world's surface, they were the most successful dynasty of modern times. Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584), married to a Romanov, was the first ruler to be crowned as Tsar of all the Russias. It was he who began the transformation of Russia into a multiethnic and multicontinental Empire of one billion acres. Under Boris Godunov (regent, 1585-1598, tsar, 1598-1605) noted member of an ancient, now extinct, Russian family, the entire Romanov family was deported to remote corners of the Russian North and Ural, where most died in chains. The Romanov Peter the Great (1682-1725) famously formed the Russian navy on Deptford principles, built St Petersburg, and led a cultural revolution replacing medievalism with a scientific, European, and rationalist system. In the midst of this dry and structured environment his daughter-in-law, the German princess Sophia, overthrew her husband Peter III with the help of her lover Grigory Orlov. As Catherine the Great, she ruled the Russian Empire, seduced a fair number of her courtiers and formed the Hermitage. Her son Paul I was murdered in his palace in 1801. By paying attention to the army and freeing the serfs in 1861, Alexander II gained much popular support. Following the death of his wife and heir, he contracted a morganatic marriage with his mistress Dolgoruki, he legimitised their children, an act which may have contributed to his assassination in 1881. His son Alexander III reversed many of his reforms, and undertook horrific pogroms against the Jews forcing thousands to escape heroically to Europe and America. Among his wife’s siblings were Kings Frederik VIII of Denmark and George I of Greece, and Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward VII. The last Tsar, Nicholas II, married a grandchild of Queen Victoria, who passed the gene for haemophilia onto her son Alexei, and then famously fell under the spell of Rasputin. In 1918, at the hands of Bolsheviks, the entire family was brutally murdered in the cellar of the Ipatiev House. All Culture in Question lectures take place in the Art Workers Guild, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, unless otherwise indicated. Coffee is served at 10.30 (optional), the lecture begins at 11, and a light lunch with wine is served at 1 pm. The event ends by 3.30 p.m. £85 INSCAPE members, £95 non-members. Your guests who have not previously attended are welcome at a cost of £15.
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THE STREETS OF LONDON
THREE WEDNESDAYS You may not be taken by the hand as in the Ralph McTell song, but you will be led through the streets of London to ‘show you something to make you change your mind’. Like constant friends we often take for granted, behind the hallowed portals of these streets are unexamined riches. Bond Street was built by Sir Thomas Bond as long ago as 1680. More recently, one building was equipped, for no obvious reason, with a carillon of 23 bells. Knightsbridge goes back to Edward I, and is named after a crossing of the river Welbourne, one of London’s hidden rivers. Later, Humphreys Hall in Knightsbridge inspired the Mikado. Wigmore Street was named after Lord Harley’s Wigmore Castle in Herefordshire, hence too nearby Harley Street. Here at one time lived the writer Ugo Foscolo; and here, at his humble lodgings, he used to entertain at breakfast Samuel Rogers, Tom Campbell, Roscoe the historian, Cyrus Redding, and other celebrities. This is to mention nothing of some of the finest shopfronts in Europe. On this new Culture in Question series, we meet at the relevant Underground station, walk up one side of the street, have lunch at the end, and then walk back, looking at every building for the story it has to tell, historical, social and commercial. WEDNESDAY 18 MAY BOND STREET Please meet outside Bond Street Underground Station. WEDNESDAY 25 MAY WIGMORE STREET Please meet outside Marble Arch Underground Station. WEDNESDAY 1 JUNE KNIGHTSBRIDGE Please meet outside Knightsbridge Underground Station. £70 per day members, £80 per day non-members, or £175 members, £205 non- members, for all three days.
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THE MARKET TOWN IN QUESTION
THREE TUESDAYS A market town is neither village nor city, but a settlement with the legal right to hold a market. These rights usually date back to the Middle Ages. Waltham Abbey has held a market for over 700 years. Amersham market is still held every Tuesday. Gravesend’s market, still held every day, dates back to 1268. The market might be held after Mass, and a market cross might ensure God’s blessing on the proceedings, and act as deterrent to shoppers and thieves alike. Using these medieval market towns as examples, and timing our visits with market day, we explore the history of market towns, the purposes they served, the goods sold in the marketplace, when they were sold and for how much, and the fine architecture that grew up around them and which still survives often disguised behind high street shop signage. TUESDAY 31 MAY WALTHAM ABBEY 11.00 Meet at Waltham Cross Station (27min from London Liverpool Street). 4.00 Return to Waltham Cross Station TUESDAY 14 JUNE AMERSHAM 11.00 Meet at Amersham Station (42min from London Marylebone) 4.00 Return to Amersham Station TUESDAY 28 JUNE GRAVESEND 11.00 Meet at Gravesend Station (23min from St Pancras, 57min from Charing Cross) 4.00 Return to Gravesend Station £70 per day members, £80 per day non-members, or £175 members, £205 non- members, for all three days.
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LECTURES ART WORKERS’ GUILD Q U E E N S Q U A R E BLOOMSBURY LONDON WC1N
P R E M I S E S ST JUDE’S COTTAGE 12A CASTLEBAR HILL LONDON W5 1TD
020 8566 7539
