Study Days
Outline
Our popular Study Days, held in the Digby Hall, Sherborne, comprise three lectures on the same day. There are two lectures in the morning with a coffee break between them followed by lunch with wine or soft drinks and a further lecture in the afternoon.
There is a charge for participants (including members of The Arts Society Sherborne). This charge is set for each Study Day and is shown when booking opens.
Booking, Arrival and Check-in
Places are limited to a maximum of about 70 and pre-booking is essential. Booking for the next Study day through the website opens a few months before the date. An off-line application form can be requested through our contacts page or can be picked up at one of our lectures.
The programme normally starts at 10:30 and finishes by approximately 3:15.
Participants are asked to arrive at the Hall by 10:15 to allow time for check-in and to take their seats by 10:25
Non-member visitors are welcome at an additional charge, normally £5.
Future Study Days
Renaissance Courts
Tuesday 10 November 2026
paula nuttall
Details to follow
Put the date in your diary NOW
Next Study Day
Julian Halsby studied History of Art at Cambridge. Formerly Senior Lecturer and Head of Department at Croydon College of Art. Publications include Venice – the Artist’s Vision (1990, 1995), The Art of Diana Armfield RA (1995), Dictionary of Scottish Painters (1990, 1998, 2001, 4th edition 2010), A Hand to Obey the Demon’s Eye (2000), Scottish Watercolours 1740-1940 (1986, 1991), A Private View – David Wolfers and the New Grafton Gallery (2002). Interviews artists for the Artist Magazine and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and The Critics Circle. A practising artist, he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1994 and appointed Keeper in 2010.
The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds and its Churches
Digby Hall, Sherborne
Tuesday 10 March 2026
The Cotswolds was one of the first rural centres of the Arts and Crafts Movement, with architects and designers of the Movement moving to the area to work and craft from the 1890s onwards. The designers and makers who settled in the area became a key part of the artistic and cultural life of the area, their influence still felt today by the many crafters who life and work there. From the first, churches in the region of all denominations commissioned work from Arts and Crafts designers, from whole churches, including one of the so-called ‘cathedrals of the Arts and Crafts’ to some of the most important Arts and Crafts stained-glass schemes. Their work and its legacy is very much alive in Cotswold churches today.
Programme for the day
10:00 -10:15 Arrival and Greeting
10:30 Lecture 1
Lead moulding at Rodmarton Manor by Norman Jewson
“The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds”
The Cotswolds became one of the most vibrant rural centres of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by William Morris’s retreat at Kelmscott Manor, several groups of designers and makers settled in the region, from Ernest Gimson and the Barnsley brothers, to C R Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft, and designers and artists drawn south from the Birmingham School of Art. They were followed by friends and admirers to create a region-wide craft community that lasts to this day. This talk explores their work, and their impact on the architecture, art and life of the area, looking at all areas of their craft and its settings from country houses to utopian communities.
11:30 Coffee Break
11:50 Lecture 2
All Saints, Brockhampton
“The Arts and Crafts Movement in Cotswold Churches“
Using one of the ‘cathedrals of the Arts and Crafts Movement’, Brockhampton Church by W R Lethaby in south Herefordshire as it’s jumping off point, this lecture is an exploration of the unusually high incidence of Arts and Crafts churches and fittings in the Cotswolds. In Cotswold churches work ranging across all disciplines can be seen by those members of the Movement who had moved to the area, such as Gimson and the Barnsleys, C R Ashbee and the Guild, John Coates Carter, Henry Payne – as well as work by other designers and makers like W. D. Caröe, Christopher Whall, James Eadie Reid, and more. We’ll examine how Arts and Crafts designers revolutionised church design and adapted to the needs of their patrons. This talk will cover churches, church fittings and memorials in the Cotswolds and the surrounding area.
13:00 Luncheon
14:00 Lecture 3
Detail of stained glass, Gloucester Cathedral Lady Chapel
“Arts and Crafts stained-glass in Cotswold Churches”
By far the most common type of Arts and Crafts work in Cotswold churches is its gorgeous, glittering stained glass. Starting with one of the most ground-breaking schemes, Gloucester Cathedral’s Lady Chapel by Christopher Whall, 1899, we’ll explore the works of designers who settled in the area, such as Henry Payne and Paul Woodroffe, and the later artists who followed them like Edward Payne, Nora Yoxall and Elsie Whitford, coming up to the present day with the Arts and Crafts influenced work of Thomas Denny. Many more designers were commissioned to create stained glass in the area, and we’ll explore some of the commissions in detail, such as Karl Parsons’ ill-fated window at Bibury!
15:30 approx Closure and Departure
Presenter: Kirsty Hartsiotis
Kirsty was the curator of the decorative and fine art at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham from 2008 to 2023. She is currently a curator at Swindon Museums, where she also worked prior to 2008. At Cheltenham she looked after the Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection, which includes the important private press archive, the Emery Walker Library. She’s curated many exhibitions on the Arts and Crafts and Private Press Movements, including Crafting Change and Ernest Gimson: Observation, Imagination & Making. Her most recent exhibition is A Very British Art Revolution at Swindon, and she’s currently working on a touring exhibition about British studio pottery. Passionate about sharing her deep love for and knowledge of the arts, she’s also a freelance researcher, currently researching Arts and Crafts war memorials and the work of Arts and Crafts designers in churches in the South West. She’s also been an oral storyteller for over 20 years, and has published a number of collections of stories. She is a regular columnist for Cotswold Life, writes for diverse other publications on art history and folklore, and was the newsletter editor for the Society of Decorative Art Collections.
Study Day March 2026 – Booking
This Study Day is available at a cost of £39 per person for members of The Arts Society Sherborne or £44 for non-members (which includes members of other Arts Societies)
Past Study Days
British and American artists in Venice
Tuesday 18 November 2025
Julian Halsby
The first English artist to paint Venice seriously was Turner who made three visits between 1819 and 1840. Although these were brief, Venice was to have a great impact on his later style and he produced a large quantity of wonderfully loose oils and watercolours. John Ruskin also fell in love with Venice and his three-volume book ‘The Stones of Venice’ became a best seller in Europe and the United States. Not only did Ruskin produce fine watercolours and photographs of Venice, he also encouraged younger artists like Goodwin, Boyce and Inchbold to paint there.
In 1879 following his disastrous court case against Ruskin, James McNeil Whistler arrived in Venice bankrupt and depressed. The Fine Art Society had paid for him to work there for three months, but he remained for over a year producing some of his best etchings, pastels and oils. His Venetian exhibitions in Bond Street were an enormous success and his position as the leading modern artist in Britain was re-established.
John Singer Sargent had been to Venice as a child, but returned in 1880 to start a long love affair with the city. His relations bought the Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal which became his spiritual home from where he set off each summer to paint sparkling watercolours, some of his finest works.
Other artists working there before the First World War include Walter Sickert and Arthur Melville. The day ends with a brief look at contemporary artists Ken Howard, Diana Armfield and Bernard Dunstan who have all made Venice their own.
The Barbizon School and the Lure of Nature
Tuesday 25 March 2025
Kathy McLauchlan
Who were the Barbizon School? They were some of the first painters to paint “en plein air”, taking their inspiration from a painting they had seen in Paris by John Constable: “The Hay Wain”. This was rejected by Londoners but revolutionised landscape painting in France.
This loose association of artists who met in the inn in Barbizon – a small village near Fontainebleau – included such names as Camille Corot, Theodore Rousseau and Jean-Francois Millet to name but three. They in their turn inspired the French Impressionists some of whom studied in Barbizon.