The Arts Society Falmouth

12
September
2025

GREAT OPERATIC RIVALRIES - HANDBAGS AT DAWN?

Tim Mirfin

A look at some of opera's greatest rivalries, spats and tiffs, ranging from the throw-away remark to full in-public fighting. They certainly make for a spicy history. Which individual or voice category might be the worst example? Are they an intrinsic part of opera? Whose fault are they? We will hear and see examples of great singers from the past to the present.

17
October
2025

SPANISH PAINTER OF SUNLIGHT: JOAQUIN SOROLLA

Gail Turner

Sorolla (1863-1923) was a highly successful artist of international renown in his lifetime, but outside Spain and the United States he is largely forgotten today. one of the city’s ‘hidden secrets’. While Sorolla admired the great Spanish traditions of Velázquez and Goya, his delightful paintings of fishermen and children at the seaside, landscapes and the great series depicting his Vision of Spain, in the Hispanic Society in New York are full of sunlight and optimism. His former home and studio is now one of Madrid’s most popular small museums. For those who do not know him, his paintings are a real treat.

14
November
2025

THE ART OF THE CARTOONIST

Harry Venning

Harry Venning has been a professional cartoonist for thirty years, during which time he has provided cartoons for several high profile UK publications (The Guardian, Radio Times) as well as for countless more obscure titles (British Journal Of Wound Care). He was awarded UK Strip Cartoonist Of The Year for his Guardian strip Clare In The Community, which he adapted into a Radio 4 sitcom. In 'The Art Of The Cartoonist' Harry will be tracing the history of his profession with examples from early practitioners like Cruickshank and Hogarth, to more contemporary artists such as Giles and Schulz, bringing events right up to date with cartoons produced fresh on the page that day! Yes, Harry will be drawing live. Prepare to hear some tricks of his trade, learn where to put eyebrows for maximum effect and discover exactly what the eskimo brothers said in The Funniest Joke Ever (possibly).

12
December
2025

THREE WISE MEN - GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH. THE TRADITIONS OF THE MAGI

Christopher Bradley

The term Magi refers to Zoroastrian priest-sages, anonymous wise men who were specialists in medicine, religion and astronomy, who travelled from ‘the East’. Tradition has placed the number of Magi at three, relating to gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but earlier versions has the number between two and thirty. The Adoration of the Magi is one of the most popular religious subjects but how accurate are the depictions of Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar? Empress Helena’s attempts to find traces of the Magi led her envoys around the Middle East, taking us from Persia and Constantinople to Milan and finally Cologne.

13
February
2026

160 YEARS OF LONDON UNDERGROUND DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE

Mark Ovenden

Covers surprising attempts to create some graphic unity, even in the 1860s and 70s, expansion of the Underground and the need to create some cohesion between the different operating companies, Leslie Green's architecture and the Arts & Crafts movement, Frank Pick, Edward Johnston's typeface, Charles Holden's architecture and the Streamline Moderne/Art Deco movement, the New Works Programme, post war austerity/design, Victoria Line, loss of Johnston & rescue by Kono, Jubilee Line Extension/architecture, creation of TfL, recent schemes and future works including the Elizabeth Line/Northern Line extension to Battersea etc..

13
March
2026

WILD MEN OF THE NORTH - TOM THOMSON AND THE GROUP OF SEVEN

Ross King

In 1924 an exhibition in London of Canadian landscapes moved the critic C. Lewis Hind to celebrate them as ‘the most vital group of paintings produced since the war - indeed, this century’. These landscapes of Canada’s northern lakes and rugged backwoods, painted in a boldly Post-Impressionist style, had been produced over the previous decade by a collective of Toronto-based painters known as the ‘Group of Seven’, whose aim was to forge a national school of landscape painting. This illustrated lecture introduces the painters - including their talismanic colleague Tom Thomson, who died in 1917 - and examines how they stormed the conservative bastions of Canadian art to establish themselves on the international stage as practitioners of a distinctive avant-garde.

10
April
2026

DAVID HOCKNEY - BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN

Frank Woodgate

David Hockney has become a ‘national treasure’. Although a fine draughtsman, he first came to fame in the early 1960s for his graffiti-like paintings. The late 1960s and early ’70s saw him painting in a number of different styles, from the precise naturalism of Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy to extremely unnaturalistic works paying homage to his great hero, Pablo Picasso. With all his media and style changes, Hockney continues to delight and enchant people from all walks of life.

8
May
2026

SECRETS OF AN EDWARDIAN SHOPAHOLIC

Tessa Boase

An extraordinary personal collection of Edwardian couture clothing lies in the vaults of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, once worn by a debutante named Heather Firbank.

When Heather’s maid persuaded the museum to accept her former mistress’s entire wardrobe, the V&A’s Fashion and Textiledepartment was born.

Who was Heather – and what secrets do her clothes yield up? From the country house ‘Saturday to Monday’ party, to the risqué fashion shows of couturier Lucile, this is an intimate portrait of shopping, high society, seduction and ruin in the years leading up to the Great War. Social history at its most personal, unguarded and revealing.

19
June
2026

MUSIC IN ART

Sophie Matthews

So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

10
July
2026

NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T - THE ART OF VISUAL DECEPTION

Bertie Pearce

This is one of the quirkiest lectures you will ever hear. There is a universal delight in being deceived and in this lecture Bertie Pearce takes his audience on a whistle stop tour of art which fools, surprises and amuses the viewer. Beginning and ending with the Belgian surrealist, René Magritte, it encompasses Trompe L’eoil, Banksy, Bridget Riley, Arcimboldo and Escher to name a few. Hold on to your seats and get ready to be visually fried.