Goring Decorative and Fine Arts Society A member society of NADFAS Registered Charity No. 1100600 www.gadfas.org.uk NADFAS

A member society of NADFAS

Goring on Thames

N E W S L E Charity T T ENo.1100600 R

Registered

June 2015

Dear Members Thank you for the welcome you have given me in my first year as Chairman. Taking over the reins of GADFAS has been a daunting task but as I near the end of this year, I feel I have a better understanding of what it takes to keep GADFAS running smoothly. In this last task I have been well supported by the Committee, many of whom are new to their roles and some have returned to the committee for a second time. We have all benefited from their experience. There are many more who give invaluable help by volunteering in various capacities. We are very grateful and thank them for generously giving their time. We are all volunteers and welcome any members who would like to help in any way. It has been a busy year with a varied and interesting programme. The lecturers have been very complimentary about the friendly reception they have received at Goring. As you may be aware, the lecturers are booked up to two years in advance. If members have a particular subject they would like us to consider, we are always open to suggestions. We have been pleased to welcome many new faces this year. Our membership numbers are very healthy, though with shorter waiting lists than in the past. We had two very successful Study Days this year which are covered further on in this newsletter. Do have a look at our redesigned website. The tour to Herefordshire in October was another successful collaboration with David Bostwick. By the time you read this we will also have been to Madrid. There have been some excellent visits organised which have been well supported and more are planned for next year. After six years of hard work, our joint project with Henley DFAS, the Church Record of St. Mary’s, Henley is now complete. It has been a major achievement for all involved. Enormous thanks go to Peter Brass and the GADFAS members who were part of the team. We are hoping to have a presentation about the project at the AGM on 17th June, which is a very good reason to come to the meeting and to the reception afterwards. I hope to see many of you there. The Church Trail of St Thomas of Canterbury in Goring is being launched in early May. It is a project that has been done jointly by Church and GADFAS members under the leadership of Jenny Boyd. We are very grateful to all the members of the team for the work they have put into the project. I do hope you will visit the Church and try out the trail on your grandchildren! Next year GADFAS will be 30 years old and we are already planning some anniversary celebrations. Best wishes

Diana Wingfield Chairman Guildhall Art Gallery (see page 4)

2 HEREFORD AND THE WELSH MARCHES, AUTUMN 2014 – Michael and Bronwen Bennett One never ceases to be amazed that every UK county exhibits such a rich and distinct diversity of history, topography and domestic architecture, in this area emanating from the English defences against the Welsh along the border. The tour – with David Bostwick as our erudite guide – was excellently based at the Three Counties Hotel in Hereford and, at twenty-five, the party size ensured a family-like cohesion. We had a first class driver, helpful at all times and who parked our coach in Monmouth outside an attractive dress shop, so making retail therapy inevitable even on a GADFAS tour! The itinerary included notable ancient buildings, which also provided an insight into the methods used for their preservation. Tredegar House (NT), Hampton Court Castle, Stokesay Castle (EH) among other attractions, focused on educational themes to set the history for their large numbers of visitors. However our tour also included smaller unique properties; Kilpeck Church with its famous gargoyles was wonderful even in heavy rain, and so hidden that Victorians failed to find and ‘restore’ it. Above all were our special explorations of the privately owned Kentchurch Court, Llanvihangel Court and as a climax the

description-defying Hellens Manor, where we were welcomed as guests by the residents and shown amazing treasures before being treated to a delicious home-cooked lunch. We learned too of the problems in maintaining these properties and came away filled with admiration at the dogged determination of the owners to do so.

Stokesay Castle, Herefordshire Finally, we are all most grateful to Honor Juniper and her team for organizing such a successful and special holiday.

THE VENETO, SPRING 2014 – Tanya Hawley Although we have been GADFAS members for many years, this was the first time we have been on a trip. Peter is a Palladio enthusiast, hence a visit to Vicenza many years ago, so the chance of exploring many more of his buildings, was an opportunity too good to miss.

journeys out each day but I am sure this was better than having the hassle of packing and moving on. Day two was Canova’s Temple at Possagno, enormous and rather vulgar, followed by Villa di Maser (still lived in), with lively frescos by Veronese. Then it was on to Asolo, the hillside village where all the19c literati retreated from the summer heat, for a delicious lunch in the market square and a stroll in Freya Stark’s pretty garden.

On the ancient bridge at Bassano del Grappa Our base, Bassano del Grappa, is a delightful town, worth the detour in its own right, complete with the intricate Palladio bridge built to withstand Alpine torrents, endless cafes and a friendly oldfashioned hotel. There were longish coach

Giotto fresco merchandise

3 The next day we were off to Vicenza. We started at the Villa Valmarana ai Nani with statues of dwarfs, guest wing, views and roses followed by the perfect Villa Rotunda where we were welcomed by the owner, a charming Italian Count no less. Into town for lunch, a hat shop, ices and the wonderful Teatro Olimpico, still in use for concerts. To finish off, we called at the inevitable grappa distillery and staggered home.

fun journey by boat down the Brenta canal brought this trip to a close, taking in two spectacular villas before launching out into the Lagoon for Venice. In the bright afternoon sunshine, it was pure Canaletto and the end of a perfect day.

Day four was Mantua, a fine city surrounded by water, to visit the huge Ducal Palace and the Palazzo Te. We disgraced ourselves by sneaking off to the little theatre where Mozart played as an infant prodigy, rejoining the group late. Sorry, everyone. Day five, historic Padua. We started with Giotto’s simple frescos in the Scrovegni Chapel, and Mantegna’s at the Eremitani, then the university, with its extraordinary high oval anatomy theatre, followed by the famous Café Pedrocchi for sustenance, and a walk across town to the Basilica of St Antonio where our unflappable guide, Daniela, gathered us up for the return. A

Enjoying a vaporetto ride on the lagoon, Venice

YOUNG ARTS REPORT – Christine Gregory This year GADFAS has worked with Langtree School in Woodcote, for the first time, and our society sponsored an art club activity. The focus was fashion design. Children from Years 7 and 8 studied the work of Paul Smith, constructed mood boards, reconstructed recycled shirts and then used a school assembly to explain their ideas and model their creations. Staff at the school were very appreciative of the funding and were particularly pleased that some of their pupils had this opportunity to develop their design skills. GADFAS has continued to support The Art Room which provides art therapy at their base in Oxford and also in some other venues such as the Stephen Freeman Primary School in Didcot. Children are referred on a termly basis from a wide range of local primary schools and funding is shared between the participating schools and The Art Room. The bags of buttons, ribbons, beads and stamps which you have kindly collected are delivered to Didcot where they are put to good use, and more recently donations of past copies of art magazines have also been welcomed. We have continued our support for the Geoffrey Field Junior School and the Headmaster, Mr Charlie Clare, spoke last year at our AGM. The school spent their IT budget on a set of iPads and our funding this year has provided some specialist teaching for the children to help them develop their artistic ideas using technology, particularly following the inspiration of artists such as David Hockney. Last summer Goring Church of England Primary School enjoyed a great day, also drawing and painting in the style of Hockney. Every child in the school took part in this challenging event, working with impressive concentration. GADFAS sponsored this day, which was also part of the Goring and Streatley Arts Festival. Thank you very much to everyone who has donated items for The Art Room and contributed to our Young Arts projects through their Gift Aid.

4 STUDY DAYS – Ann Keighley In November last year, Julian Halsby gave us a wonderful Study Day on British and American

Artists in Venice, based on his book about the artists who discovered Venice in the early 19th century. We heard stories of artists such as John Ruskin, James Whistler, John Singer Sargent and Walter Sickert, and Julian illustrated his lectures with some beautiful paintings of Venice which transported us away from the grey and cloudy weather we were having in Goring that day! Following an Italian-themed buffet lunch and Julian's final lecture, some of us came away planning our next trip to Venice! Linda Collins came to us in March and gave us an interesting Study Day on the History of Modern Art, starting in Paris in the 1850s where we heard much about the city's colourful artistic, bohemian

and vibrant society. Linda regaled us with stories of the can-can girls from the Moulin Rouge and other exotic entertainments which were captured by painters such as Toulouse Lautrec and Manet at that time. Linda moved on to talk of the Paris after World War One, telling us of some of the eccentric personalities such as Salvador Dali and the visiting American jazz musicians and homegrown talent such as Stéphane Grappelli. We then finally moved on to hear about Modern Art in New York and how Peggy Guggenheim looked after the French artists who had arrived in New York to get away from the war in Europe. We finished the afternoon looking at Pop Art and Andy Warhol and his famous Campbell's Soup Cans. Linda gave us a lively Study Day, punctuated by music from both Paris and New York and I think this was the first Study Day where buffet lunch was enjoyed by us all with jazz music playing in the background! Our next Study Day on ‘The Life and Works of Michelangelo’ will take place on Friday, 30th October. Leslie Primo of the National Gallery in London will be our lecturer for the day and bookings will be taken at the May, June and September lectures.

REPORT FROM THE VISITS SECRETARY – Elspeth Lockwood Firstly, I must thank Maureen Lewis for her hard work in booking the programme of visits over the past year – a varied selection – and I know enjoyed by all. We began the season with a visit to the London Olympic Park and the ArcelorMittal Orbit with our extremely knowledgeable Blue Badge Guide, who made the day a tremendous success.

The Constable Exhibition at the V&A Museum was our Christmas visit to London – a fascinating exhibition. A memorable day was spent at the Imperial War Museum for the new WW1 Galleries and ‘Truth and Memory: British Art of WW1’ (the largest British War Art Exhibition in 100 years) and this complemented our lecture on Paul Nash. A visit to the Guildhall Art Gallery and the

The Guildhall Art Gallery ArcelorMittal Orbit, Olympic Park

Amphitheatre combined with the Bank of England Museum followed and a rewarding visit to the

5 Museum of the Order of St John and St Bartholomew the Great, London’s ‘oldest church’, proved a great success.

Our programme for 2015/16 commences in September with a visit to Snowshill Manor in Gloucestershire. We will also have a very special visit to the House of Lords, then the Goya Exhibition at the National Gallery, Eltham Palace and Rangers House and a tour of Bath with NADFAS lecturer Jane Tapley, following the Study Day on Bath. 2016 is the 30th anniversary year of GADFAS and a visit to Chenies Manor, where NADFAS began in 1965, is appropriate and we will combine this with a visit to Hughenden Manor, home of Disraeli. We end the season with The Wallace Collection, to complement a lecture on this.

Council Chamber, Order of St John As I write, we are about to enjoy a guided walk with the ever popular Andrew Davies to Kenwood and Hampstead Village, followed later in the summer by a visit to lovely Lacock Abbey and Bowood House.

We are also in the course of planning a special visit to Winchester Cathedral in October 2016 to include a guided tour, Sung Evensong and a light reception in one of the Cathedral’s lovely venues. I do hope you join us for some of this varied programme of visits.

REPORT FROM THE PROGRAMME SECRETARY – Marion Hill My thanks to Jenny Horsup for selecting such an interesting and varied programme of lectures from last September until November 2015, and we regret that she has had to retire early from this position on the GADFAS Committee. I am most grateful to her for handing over such wellorganised paperwork that has made it easy for me to take on this job at relatively short notice. We began the new season with an appraisal of ‘Women Looking at Women in Art’ from the 18th century up to the present day, and this was followed by an exploration of ‘20th Century Sculpture in Britain’. ‘Inn Signia’ was the title of a stimulating and amusing talk on pub signs when popular lecturer John Ericson showed examples of some of the most distinctive designs and explained the origins and the stories behind them. Author Anne Seba introduced us to ‘The Dollar Princesses’ when American heiresses traded their fortunes for titles in the British aristocracy. ‘A Poet in Paint’ – the work of the artist Paul Nash, one of the greatest British War Artists of both Great Wars – was the subject of a lecture given shortly before a visit to the London Imperial War Museum’s Exhibition which celebrated the Art of the First World War where we could see many of the paintings that were included in David Boyd Haycock’s lecture.

A complete contrast was a lecture on ‘Diamonds – The Most Precious Gemstone of Them All’; as was another, examining the use of the artist in costume and set designs for ‘Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes’. ‘Popes and Painters – The Avignon Papacy and the Impressionists’ considers the development of art in Provence in both 14th and 19th century France and our last lecture in the summer looks at ‘Nomadic Woven Art and its Symbolism in Afghanistan and Iran’. It is unfortunate that the Eric Ravilious Exhibition of 100 watercolours, that has recently opened at the Dulwich Picture Gallery finishes on 31st August as its curator, James Russell, is coming to speak in October and so it is not possible to organise an associated GADFAS visit. The last lecture of this year has a musical theme: ‘The History of the Harp from Mediterranean Antiquity to 20th Century Europe’ and Sarah Deere-Jones will be demonstrating on this instrument. Where possible, we hope to link some lectures with visits to major exhibitions, galleries and museums or relevant places of interest and our first lecture in September will be by Gail Turner on ‘Goya’s Portraits’, preparing us for a visit to the National Gallery’s Autumn Exhibition on this subject. Later in May, we shall be visiting the Wallace Collection in London after we have heard past curator, Stephen Duffy, speaking on ‘The Founders and Treasures’ of the Collection.

6 Nirvana Romell will be our guide to Croatia for the 2016 GADFAS foreign tour and in March she will be introducing us to the country of her birth in her lecture ‘Understanding Balkans Art and History’. In January 2016, Jo Walton returns to Goring to give a lecture on ‘Artists and Camouflage’; this is a subject that she has developed after the popular series of lectures on ‘The Golden Age of British Art in the 20th Century’ which she gave to NADFAS South Mercia Area Societies at Rewley House, Oxford in 2014. Many members will remember the spectacular Olympic cauldron at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in 2012 and its brilliant designer, Thomas Heatherwick, a Modern Leonardo, is the subject of our February lecture by Anthea Streeter. The parents of Antony Penrose were the Surrealist painter and writer, Roland Penrose, and Lee Miller, the renowned American model, who later studied photography with Man Ray and became a very highly regarded war photographer

herself. In April, their son will speak about the lives of his parents, their work and their circle of artistic friends, which included the painter Picasso who regularly visited the Sussex family home, Farley Farm, which is now open to the public. Our final lecture in June, ‘Design Matters – the Creation of Contemporary Fine Binding’ is given by specialist bookbinder, Dominic Riley, who won the 2013 Sir Paul Getty International Bookbinding Competition; his winning binding has been acquired and displayed at Oxford’s Bodleian Library. I hope you will find many of these subjects to be of interest but please come to our monthly lectures even if you are unsure that the content will appeal to you. NADFAS lecturers’ enthusiasm rarely fails to bring their specialist subjects alive and hopefully gives both enjoyment and new knowledge to members.

We are Making a New World by Paul Nash, Imperial War Museum ©IWM (Art.IWM ART 1146)