The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

 Learn about the origins of slapstick & how Britain became the crucible of the pantomime form, independently from the rest of the world.  Find out exactly why pantomime is so popular, what makes it so successful & how it remains such a joyful celebration of all that is quintessentially British.

IMPORTANT: November 2026 TALK: WE ARE SORRY BUT DUE TO THE DEMAND FOR SEATS AT THIS TALK  ALL VISITOR TICKETS ARE NOW TAKEN 

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

Elsa Schiaparelli is seen as the undisputed queen of fashion of the Roaring Twenties and her artistic collaborations with many of the surrealist artists of the day such as Dali, Cocteau and Giacometti, were groundbreaking.  Hats like lamb cutlets, high heeled shoes, pockets like drawers, buttons like lips and eyes, gloves with red python nails and legendary dresses including the iconic lobster dress as worn by Wallis Simpson for Vogue.  Schiaparelli wanted to shock, and she did!

IMPORTANT: WE ARE SORRY BUT DUE TO THE DEMAND FOR SEATS AT THIS TALK  WE ARE UNABLE TO ACCEPT VISITORS. THIS WILL BE KEPT UNDER REVIEW.

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talk starts this month at 1:45pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts ( preceded by the AGM)

The development of spring-driven clockwork mechanisms in the mid-15th century opened the opportunity for amazing new ‘automatons’.  From animated figures to models of galleons that would move down the dining table, accompanied by music, animation and even canons that fired – these automata were designed to entertain and, more importantly, impress as objects of status, wealth and modernity.

IMPORTANT: WE ARE SORRY BUT DUE TO THE DEMAND FOR SEATS AT THIS TALK  WE ARE UNABLE TO ACCEPT VISITORS. THIS WILL BE KEPT UNDER REVIEW.

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

One of the finest 18th century French painters and among the most important women artists of all time.  Because of her close association with Queen Marie Antoinette, Elizabeth was forced to flee France during the French Revolution.  For twelve years she travelled throughout Europe painting noble sitters in the courts of Naples, Russia, Austria and Prussia.  She returned to France in 1802, under the reign of Napoleon where she continued to work with success in France, London and Switzerland.  Her work and her life make her an extraordinary woman working in dramatically changing times.

IMPORTANT: WE ARE SORRY BUT DUE TO THE DEMAND FOR SEATS AT THIS TALK  WE ARE UNABLE TO ACCEPT VISITORS. THIS WILL BE KEPT UNDER REVIEW.

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

Few artists are as rooted in a place as Stanley Spencer and his beloved home village of Cookham.  This Thames-side village was not only his birthplace, his home for most of his life, and even his nickname, but it dominated his imagination and was the inspiration and location for many of his greatest paintings.  We look at Cookham’s place in Spencer’s art and how it was central to his unique vision of English domestic and spiritual life.

Note: Wednesday 5th May - Day visit by coach to the Stanley Spencer Memorial. Details to be posted on the visits page.

IMPORTANT: WE ARE SORRY BUT DUE TO THE DEMAND FOR SEATS AT THIS TALK  WE ARE UNABLE TO ACCEPT VISITORS. THIS WILL BE KEPT UNDER REVIEW.

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

2027 is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Gainsborough.  He was unquestionably one of the greatest portrait painters that Britain ever produced.  His ability to capture the inner lives of his sitters, his dramatic use of paint and his remarkable approach to colour set him apart from almost all of his contemporaries.  Yet the genre he truly loved was landscape. We will look at the life and work of this unique artist, his experimental technique and his fraught relationship with portraiture, the genre in which he excelled.

IMPORTANT: WE ARE SORRY BUT DUE TO THE DEMAND FOR SEATS AT THIS TALK  WE ARE UNABLE TO ACCEPT VISITORS. THIS WILL BE KEPT UNDER REVIEW.

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

India made a huge contribution to the British Empire’s war effort between 1914 and 1918 including the despatch of over a million men to the fighting fronts.  An Indian Corps arrived on the Western Front in the autumn of 1914 and played a vital role in the defensive battles around Ypres.  In the spring it took part in the series of offensives launched by the British, most famously at Neuve Chapelle.  Following the war, the Imperial War Graves Commission commenced work on commemorating the Indian dead and approached Herbert Baker, who at that time was working with Edwin Lutyens on the plans for New Delhi.  The final result was a memorial of stunning beauty and grace.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE CONTACT ENID JONES TO FIND OUT IF VISITOR SEATS ARE AVAILABLE

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

Opals are fascinating gemstones that form when water-carrying silica seeps into cracks in rocks.  Over millions of years it hardens into stone.  Unlike crystals such as quartz, opal is amorphous, which creates its bright, shimmering colours.  We will explore the iconic sites of arid outback Australia, where opals typically form in sedimentary rocks. We will discover the unique varieties of this gemstone, which curiously has the ability to replace the original material, fossils, wood and shells leading to some spectacular gems.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE CONTACT ENID JONES TO FIND OUT IF VISITOR SEATS ARE AVAILABLE

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

What caused American painting to take off as it did in the mid-20th century?  The painter Willem de Kooning attributed its initial success to the work of his friend Jackson Pollock who he credited with ‘breaking the ice’.  Anna’s talk looks at the career of the famous action painter and assesses how his contribution to painting (including his infamous drip technique) contributed to Abstract Expressionism becoming an artistic phenomenon worldwide.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE CONTACT ENID JONES TO FIND OUT IF VISITOR SEATS ARE AVAILABLE

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

This extraordinary manuscript dates to about the year 800 and is almost certain to have been written on the remote Scottish island of Iona.  It is partly a fantasy of intertwined animal, bird and human heads, but also a standard Book of the Gospels with all that entails, including full page miniatures that illustrate the story.  It doesn’t stand alone because the intricate iconography is found in other manuscripts as well as on Anglo-Saxon preaching crosses.  In its time it has been annotated by the helpful and stolen by the wicked.  It is a testament to the spirituality, not just of the men who created it, but of the Christianity of that time and place.  It is also full of mistakes.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE CONTACT ENID JONES TO FIND OUT IF VISITOR SEATS ARE AVAILABLE

enidjonestasc@gmail.com

The talks start at 2pm in Jack Wagg Hall, Cranleigh Arts

The foods we eat at Christmas have a long, curious and visually spectacular history.  This lecture narrates and illustrates that history from Medieval boar’s head and brawn, by way of highly decorated 17th century mince pies to the almost forgotten Twelfth Night Cake. Medieval illuminated manuscripts, paintings and prints from the 17th to the 19th centuries, and illustrations from cookery books provide us with images of some of the lost glories of the British Christmas feast.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE CONTACT ENID JONES TO FIND OUT IF VISITOR SEATS ARE AVAILABLE

enidjonestasc@gmail.com