Date: Wednesday 13 May 2026, 8.00pm

Lecturer: Ray Warburton

We are sponsoring a special lecture for the Dulwich Festival on Thursday 13 May 2026 at 7.30 for 8pm at our usual venue, JAGS Sixth Form Centre via the Greendale entrance. Please note, the £12.65 fee for this lecture is not included in the Arts Society Dulwich annual membership fee. Tickets can only be purchased via the Dulwich Festival website - click here to go to the page for this event.

The lecture will look at Banksy's varied works from A to Z. He first came to prominence on the Bristol graffiti scene in the 1990s. Since moving to London in 2000, he’s used a stencil-based approach to his street art. It’s quicker to execute, with less risk of being detected or apprehended. Some of his most memorable stencilled pieces have entered the nation’s consciousness. They include rodents, girls with balloons, chimpanzees, flower-throwing freedom fighters, and housewives who fight back. He sometimes dabbles in "fine art" but usually with the aim of mocking the art market. He produces installations to bemuse and exhibitions to dazzle

Date: Thursday 14 May 2026, 8.00pm

Lecturer: John Snelson

2026 marks 75 years since the death of Ivor Novello, whose career was extraordinary by any measure: composer, playwright, film idol and stage star. Novello, who died suddenly in 1951, was certainly the master of the romantic waltz song which sustains his reputation today, but there is much more to his genius than 'Dear Ivor' and wistful nostalgia. With examples from his songs, scripts and films, this lecture goes to the heart of Novello as an instinctive and innovative force in film and on stage in his day. The range of his music, the wit of his writing and the individuality of his acting fuse into a unique ability to realize the power of dramatic performance time and time again.

Date: Thursday 11 June 2026, 8.00pm

Lecturer: Lydia Bauman

Gwen John’s work is both instantly recognisable and era-defining. She is known for the quiet strength of the solitary women in her portraits and the reflective stillness of her interiors. For decades she was overshadowed by her famous brother Augustus and often portrayed as a recluse, but nevertheless defied convention to forge her own existence. She trained at the Slade, then one of the few art schools to accept women on the same terms as men. She made her life and work within the heady art worlds of London and Paris amid a rich cultural circle that included James McNeill Whistler and her lover, Auguste Rodin. This is the story of a progressive trailblazer and a painter devoted to her craft at the forefront of early 20th century art.

Date: Thursday 9 July 2026, 8.00pm

Lecturer: Rupert Dickens

Van der Heyden’s reputation pales in comparison with Leonardo da Vinci, but his career at the height of the Dutch Golden Age was no less extraordinary.  He was a brilliant painter and draughtsman, producing wonderful views of Amsterdam and other cities. But he was also an inventor, entrepreneur, administrator and marketing genius. Among his innovations were a mechanical fire engine and street lighting.  We will take a close look at his career from his meticulous cityscapes through to the detailed drawings of his inventions and the surprising vanitas still-life paintings he produced at the end of his career.