Programme Venue: Woodhouse Eaves Village Hall, 50a Main Street, Woodhouse Eaves, LE12 8RZ. 7:15pm for 7.45pm October meeting please be seated by 7:30 There is no lecture in January as the weather can make travel difficult. Thursday 12th February 2026 Simon Seligman Debo Mitford Cavendish - Duchess & Housewife. Deborah Devonshire, the youngest of the Mitford sisters and wife of the 11th Duke of Devonshire, was hefted by marriage to one of Europe’s greatest treasure houses, Chatsworth. In the second half of the 20th century, in partnership with her husband, she imbued it with a spirit, elegance and sense of welcome that transformed it from being the worn-out survivor of decades of taxation, war and social change into one of the best-loved, most- emulated and popular historic houses, gardens and estates in the country. Deborah Mitford, William Acton Public domain Thursday 12th March 2026 Sophie Matthews Music in Art. So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art.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. Sophie Matthews Thursday 9th April 2026 Bertie Pearce Now you see it Now you don't. 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. Geometric Model of M.C. Escher's stellated dodecahedron. This is a model of M.C. Escher stellated dodecahedron found in his lithograph entitled 'Gravitation' that can be constructed with pentagons from a net. BPCarpenter Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Thursday 14th May 2026 Justin Reay 'Painters of Light' Caravaggio to Hockney Details later Thursday 11th June 2026 Lucretia Walker 'The Powder & The Glory' Helena Rubenstein Cosmetics There are no ugly women, only lazy ones, quipped cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein, whose company made her one of the world's richest women. Business woman, art collector, and philanthropist, she was the first female millionaire. She commissioned work from avant-garde artists, Joan Miró, Picasso, Salvador Dali who was to design a powder compact for her. Her exclusive beauty salons influenced and blurred the conceptual boundaries between fashion, art galleries, and the domestic interior. Helena Rubinstein, from a 1921 publication. Print by Paul César Helleu. E.V. Brewster Publications Inc. Public domain