Due to the pandemic making it impossible to continue to hold these lectures at my home, and various other personal reasons, I am no longer giving regular monthly talks at my home. Many of these were to provide a background to exhibitions held at the various public galleries in London, which added to the experience of seeing the various works by some of the world’s greatest artists.
However, I am giving lectures as a guest speaker and if you wish to engage me, below is a list of the lectures I have given to my art history group during the thirteen years running up until the start of the Covid pandemic. If any of these subjects appeal, then I am very happy to come and give a talk to your group.
My special area of research is 16th century art and artists, very specifically illuminations and portrait miniatures and have given talks to The Arts Society on The Origins of the Tudor Portrait Miniature .
If you wish to contact me please email me at melanie.v.taylor@gmail.com or ring me on 01372 272235.
Previous subjects
2020
Nicholas Maes (1634-1693): background to the exhibition at National Gallery, London.
2019
There be Dragons: a look at how the map makers used mythical beasts to denote danger
Rene Lalique (1860-1945): Jeweller, glassmaker & industrialist.
Art Nouveau : an overview of the architecture and design of the era known as La Belle Epoque.
Natalia Goncharova – Rebel or Trailblazer? (exh. Tate Modern)
Cubism: Who invented it, why did they do it and when.
Van Gogh: (Exhibition at Tate.)
Nicholas HIlliard, Isaac Oliver & Rowland Lockey (a background to the NPG exhibition Elizabethan Treasures: Hilliard & Oliver)
The New Woman: a 19th century Phenomena?
2018
The Pre-Raphaelites (exhibition : Edward Coley Burne-Jones Bt. Tate Britain).
Study day : The Rise of the Venetian Republic
Sicily : the Jewel of the Mediterranean
Do the 15th c Flemish artists, Jan van Eyck, Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden, deserve to be called primitive artists?
The Architect, the Sculptor & the Painter: Brunelleschi, Donatello & Masaccio
Symbolism
The Gentileschi’s: Father & Daughter.
Charles I: A Man of Taste (Exhibitions at both the Royal Academy & The Queen’s Gallery).
2017
Frenchmen in London (Exh Tate Britain: The Impressionists in Exile)
Is this William Shakespeare? An examination of the Wadlow portrait.
How the Protestant Renaissance changed Portraiture.
18th century Venice
Rivalries in Rome 1500 – 1550.
The History of the Nude
How Artists See Themselves (exh Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace)
The Russian Avant Garde 1905 – 1917 (exh RA: REvolution 1917 – 1932)
Rivalries in Rome 1500 (exh National Gallery: Michelangelo & Sebastiano del Piombo)
2016
Caravaggio:(Exhb: Beyond Caravaggio at National Gallery)
Holbein : before he came to England
Surrealism: an Introduction.
Stranger Painters of the Tudor Court: who were the foreign artists that came to England and were the foundation of our artistic heritage?
Five Great Mistresses: a look at forgotten women artists of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Botticelli: A Renaissance Master: (exh V&A: Botticelli Re-imagined)
Lee Miller (Exhb. Imperial War Museum)
The Impressionists (Exhb RA)
2015
The Golden Age of Dutch Art – Part 2
The Golden Age of Dutch Art – Part 1
Nicholas Hilliard 1547 – 1619.
Botticelli: A Renaissance Master
John Singer Sargent – His Life & Works. (Exhb. National Portrait Gallery)
Blinded by the Light: The Impressionists (Exhb. National Gallery)
Rubens (Exhb. RA)
2014
Art & Artists of the Great War.
The ‘discovery’ of linear perspective in 15th century Florence. Was it as new as all that?
Giovanni Battista Moroni (Exhb: Sackler Wing, Royal Academy)
Rembrandt: His Life & influences (Exhb: Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery)
Into the Light: JMW Turner and his influence on 19th & 20th century art (Exhb: Tate Britain)
Malevitch & The Jack of Diamonds Group (Exh: Tate Modern)
The Stranger Painters of the Tudor Court (Exhb: NPG)
Matisse: His life & work: (Exhb: Tate Modern)
Veronese: The Master of Colour (Exhb: National Gallery)
Renoir: His Life & Works. (Exhb: Light Box, Woking – Renoir in England).
Is Modern Art all that Modern? A look at the making of marks since the end of the last Ice Age: guest speaker – Hannah Wiggins Thirkill.
David Bailey: (Exhb. NPG)
2013
Klimt (Exhb. Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery)
Philip II as patron of the arts
Artists of the Tudor Court (Exhb. In Fine Style, Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace)
Vermeer & His Place in Dutch Art (Exhb. Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery)
If Music be the Food of Love. . .
LS Lowry (exhb. Tate Britain)
The English Avant Garde
19th century Women Photographers
19th century photography of Empire
A Bigger Splash (exhb Tate Modern)
The Reformation & Counter Reformation in Renaissance Eureope
Barocci: His Life & Times (exhb National Gallery)
Post WW2 American Art & its influence
Roy Lichtenstein: (exhb Tate Modern)
2012
The Origins of the Modern Ballet
The Art of Propaganda
Rodin
The Male Gaze
Keeping up with the Burne-Jones’s.
Were the Pre-Raphaelites really so avant garde? (Exhibition – Tate Britain)
Ovid as Inspiration (Exhibition – National Gallery Metamorphoses: Titian)
The Life of Edvard Munch (Exhibition – Tate Modern)
Art and the mental state
Andy Warhol & The Factory (Exhibition – Dulwich Picture Gallery)
The Marketing of Monarchy
Cecil Beaton (Exhibition at V &A)
The Life & Works of Claude Lorraine.
The Life & Works of JMW Turner
The work of 17th C Landscape artists and their influence on 18the British Landscape painters (Exhibition at National Gallery – Turner in the Light of Claude)
The Venetian Colourists:
Ben Nicholson & Barbara Hepworth.
British Modern Art – the Who, the How and the Why. (Exhibitions: Tate Britain: Picasso & British Modern Art; Courtauld Institute: Mondriaan//Nicholson in Parallel)
Does Art Reflect the Society of its time?
2011
The illuminated Scenes of Winter
Leonardo: The Man. (Exhibition: Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery)
How Printing Killed the Illuminated Manuscript (Exhibition: British Library – Royal Manuscript: The Genius of Illumination)
Elizabeth I & Nicholas Hilliard. How Hilliard created the brand of Gloriana.
The Rise of the Cult of Celebrity. A look at how the rich and powerful marketed themselves.
Pugin: Life & Times
The Gothic Revival, or why the Victorians went mad for the pointed arch!
Reliquaries & Veneration. (Exhibition: Treasures of Heaven, British Museum)
The History of Photography and photojournalism.
Post Modernism & the Las Vegas Manifesto –an overview of the art and architecture of the latter part of the 20th century. (Exhibition: V&A Post-Modernism: Style & Subversion 1970 – 1990)
Surrealism: A look at the art work inspired by dreams and how the work of the surrealists influenced and continues to influence artists of the 20th century.
The Life & Works of Joan Miro: (Exhibition: Tate Modern.)
Modernism & International Modernism – an overview of what constitutes these artistic movements in art, furniture, architecture and objects of desire.
Nymphs & Shepherds Come & Play: The life and work of Jean Antoine Watteau (Exhibition: RA Sackler Wing. The drawings of Jean Antoine Watteau: Virtuosity & Delight)
An examination of the styles known as Baroque & Rococo
The Life & Work of Aubrey Beardsley
The Aesthetic Movement – an overview of this Victorian artistic movement. (Exhibition: V&A: The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860 – 1900.)
Differences between Northern European & Italian Renaissance painting.
How to read a Renaissance Painting (Exhibition: Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery: Jan Gossaert’s Renaissance.)
But Is it Art? A group discussion and survey of what the Ashtead Art Lovers thought of what constitutes Art.
2010
Botticelli: La Primavera & Others. Do his paintings hold secrets or are they just decorative?
Canaletto and The Grand Tour: (Exhibition : Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery)
The Glasgow Boys. (Sackler Wing : Royal Academy)
Gauguin & The South Seas: an exploration of the life & works of Paul Gauguin (Exhibition: Tate Modern )
John Singer Sargeant (Sackler Wing : Royal Academy)
Caravaggio – Saint or Sinner?
The Life & Work of Van Eyck
Regency Buck – a background talk before a trip to Brighton
The Life & Works of Artemisia Ghentileschi
Degas & The Dancers
The Life & Works of Vermeer
Robert Mapplethorpe – photographer (Guest speaker)
Henry Moore (Exhibition at Tate Britain)
2009
Fashion Photography
Donatello -v- Michelangelo
Michelangelo & Pope Julius II
Turner
Fiore de Henriquez – 20th C sculptress
Van Gogh – (Main Gallery : Royal Academy)
The Futurists (Exhibition at Tate Modern)
The Marketing of Monarchy – Henry VIII & Hans Holbein
The Impressionists and Snow
JMW Waterhouse (Exhibition : Sackler Wing, Royal Academy)
2008
Wild Thing – the work of Eric Gill, Jacob Epstein & Gaudier Breszka (Sackler Wing : Royal Academy)
Van Dyck (Exhibition at Tate Britain)
Donatello
The Renaissance Portrait (Exhibition : Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery)
The Role of the Society Photographer
The Lure of the East (Exhibition at Tate Britain)
Origins of the Tudor Artists
The da Vinci Code
Renaissance Siena : Art for a City (Exhibition : Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery)
Annie Leibowitz (Exhibition: National Portrait Gallery)
Nicholas Hilliard
2007
John Millais (Exhibition at Tate Britain)
Lee Miller (Exhibition at the V & A)
Melanie V Taylor 