Nelson Decorative & Fine Arts Society (NEDFAS)

The Nelson Decorative & Fine Arts Society (NEDFAS) aims to foster interest in and knowledge of Decorative & Fine arts, artistic heritage, culture and history. We are a member society of the UK-based The Arts Society which has a global membership of over 90,000. The Nelson Society provides its members with eight high quality lectures per year. Our lecturers primarily come from the UK where they have undergone a stringent selection process to qualify as lecturers for The Arts Society. Our lecturers are excellent speakers who deliver well-researched and illustrated talks. Recent lectures have focused on architecture, design, glass, fashion, porcelain, ceramics, artists, art and art history, sculpture and literature.

our 2025 programme

In 2025 we offer seven accredited The Arts Society lecturers from the UK and one Australian-based lecturer. Six of these will be with us in person and two will come via live broadcast from the UK. With the online lectures, there are opportunities to view additional topics from home, tuning in to the lectures hosted by the other Societies around the country.

Lectures and lecturers may be subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances.

NEDFAS Programme Details

The Nelson lectures are held at The Pastorius Waller Theatre at The Suter, Bridge St on a Wednesday with a 6.30pm start. The lectures are of one hour duration and are followed by a social time during which a glass of wine or juice and sandwiches are served. This provides an opportunity for members to meet the lecturer and other members.

Membership

The annual subscription is $135 per person, or $245 for a couple living at the same address.
Please download and complete the 2025 NeDFAS New Membership Form

The annual subscription covers the cost of venue and equipment, travel and accommodation for the lecturer, and refreshments after the lectures.

Please email forms to nedfas@gmail.com.

We welcome guests to all our lectures – $25 cash payable at the door.
Members of other DFASNZ or The Arts Society (international) are welcomed to our lectures at a charge of $15.00.

To enquire about membership or guest attendances, please contact our Membership Secretary on the email address above.

Nelson – 2025 Lecturer Biographies and Topics

Peter McPhee

Nelson Date : Wednesday 5 March 2025 – 6.30pm

Peter McPhee was appointed to a Personal Chair in History at the University of Melbourne in 1993. He had previously taught at the Victoria University of Wellington in 1980-87. He has published widely on the history of modern France, most recently Liberty or Death: the French Revolution (2016); and An Environmental History of France: Making the Landscape 1770-2020 (2024). He was appointed as the University of Melbourne’s first Provost in 2007-09. He was awarded a Centenary Medal for services to education in 2003 and became a Member of the Order of Australia in 2012. He is currently the Chair of the History Council of Victoria, the state’s peak body for history.

TWO WOMEN PAINT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: ADÉLAÏDE LABILLE-GUILLARD & ELISABETH VIGÉE-LE BRUN

Two of the most prestigious and talented portraitists of the late-eighteenth century were Adelaïde Labille-Guiard and the court painter Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. While the latter was appalled by the French Revolution and decided to flee as early as October 1789, Labille-Guiard stayed in Paris, and painted the most prominent revolutionaries. She bought a country house twelve miles east of the capital in 1792 to escape the turmoil, but never disavowed the Revolution. This lecture outlines the lives and brilliant achievements of these two extraordinary women.

Christopher Garibaldi

Nelson Date : Wednesday 9 April 2025 – 6.30pm

Christopher Garibaldi MA (Oxon), MBA, MPhil (Cantab), is an independent researcher and scholar. He recently completed an MPhil in the History of Art and Architecture at St John’s College, Cambridge where he is currently studying for his doctorate on aspects of the history of royal patronage.
2010–2019 Director of Palace House, Newmarket (National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art: 2008–2010 Co-Director of the Attingham Summer School for the Study of Historic Houses and Collections. 1998–2003 Senior Curator & Assistant Keeper of Art (Decorative Art) at Norwich Castle Museum: co-curator of Flower Power – The Meaning of Flowers in Art and Eat, Drink and Be Merry, the British at Table 1600 to 2000. 1994–1997 Catalogued the silver in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and other royal residences.

IRMA STERN (1894-1966) – FLOWERS AND FACES OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

Irma Stern was one of the most important and influential artists to come out of South Africa in the twentieth century. A near contemporary of Munnings, her art shows some stylistic similarities although her subjects were very different. A similar concern with figurative painting was in Stern’s case directed at the production of luxurious flower paintings in the manner of Van Gogh whilst perhaps her most original achievement were the powerful portraits she painted of black African sitters in exotic locations and costumes. This lecture serves as an introduction to the art of South Africa whilst addressing important contemporary themes relating to the depiction of race, colonialism and the appropriation of African culture.

Lars Tharp

Nelson Date : Wednesday 14 May 2025 – Broadcast Live from the UK – 6.30pm 

Since my 1986 debut on the BBC Antiques Roadshow (and all series since), I have spoken widely, within and beyond the UK. With over 40 years of experience in ceramics and other areas, I aim to combine several compelling narratives with enthusiasm and humour. Born in Copenhagen, I studied Archaeology at Cambridge and joined Sothebys where, as a director and auctioneer (1977-1993), I specialized in Chinese and European ceramics. Today my consultancy devises and curates exhibitions, advises on the acquisition, care and disposal of ceramics and other fields. I also speak a lot: many of my most popular talks concern the vast universe of clay and ceramics as well as the world and works of William Hogarth

A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN CLAY – FROM STONE AGE TO SPACE AGE

Earthbound clay! – and its infinite uses. For tens of thousands of years clays have figured in Man’s material culture: storage and transport of foods, liquids and commodities; bricks for construction and decoration, from small hovels to sky-scrapers; for ducting of heat and water, underfloor and central heating; impervious surfaces for domestic and hospital hygiene, for and large-scale city drainage; for roofing and ornamental tiles; ritual objects including small votive figures found near ovens or kilns dating back 20,000 years; ornamental maiolica reliefs in the towns of Tuscany and the mosques of Arabia; not least in the evolution of writing: clay tablets recording taxes, laws and records – in cities of Mesopotamia, or treaties and records of land and commercial transactions; the modelling in clay of forms destined for casting in metal complex forms in metal; the ceramic insulators assisting the transmission of electricity to be relayed across great distances; for micro components in computers; elements in rocketry; insulation of space craft exteriors and communication satellites….What would the world look like if all ceramic elements present and past were removed? We look at some of the key ceramic markers from all times and cultures.

Note: With his online speaking circuit, Lars will be delivering a variety of unique talks to all the NZ Societies so there is an opportunity to view additional topics from home. Details and links will be sent in advance.

Chris Aslan

Nelson Date : Wednesday 18 June 2025 – Special Double Lecture Event – 5.00pm start

Note: The extra lecture will be complementary to our members and for guests it is $45 to attend both.

Chris Aslan was born in Turkey and spent his childhood there and in war-torn Beirut. After school, Chris spent two years at sea before studying Media and journalism at Leicester University. He then moved to Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, establishing a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, and becoming the largest non-government employer in town. He was kicked out as part of an anti-Western purge and took a year in Cambridge to write A Carpet Ride to Khiva. Chris then spent several years in the Pamirs mountains of Tajikistan, training yak herders to comb their yaks for their cashmere-like down. Next came a couple more years in Kyrgyzstan living in the world’s largest natural walnut forest and establishing a wood-carving workshop. Since then, Chris has studied and rowed at Oxford, lived in Cambridge, but is now based in a mountain village overlooking the sea in North Cyprus. Chris writes fiction and non-fiction, and his most recent book is called Unravelling the Silk Road. Chris lectures for the Art Society during the first quarter of each year, and leads tours with Indus Experiences to Central Asia, having left a large chunk of his heart there.

SPECIAL DOUBLE LECTURE EVENT – 5.00PM START

A CARPET RIDE TO KHIVA & HOW TO GET DOWN FROM A YAK – ADVENTURES IN CENTRAL ASIAN NOMADIC TEXTILES

A Carpet Ride to Khiva
Whilst this lecture will leave you knowing more than most about Persian miniatures, Timurid carpet designs and the process of rearing silkworms, it is essentially a story of how I started a silk carpet workshop in a remote desert oasis in Uzbekistan. It involves natural dye-buying in Afghanistan, dealing with corrupt officials, and seeing the way that women’s lives are transformed when they’re given the opportunity to work, and don’t have to sleep with anyone, bribe anyone, or be related to anyone in order to do so. Extremely popular, this lecture brings warmth and humanity into the world of art and textiles.

We will break for a rest and refreshments before regathering for:

How to Get Down from a Yak – Adventures in Central Asian Nomadic Textiles
Houses made from wool that warm in the depths of winter, carpets that tell stories, woven bands that appease ancestors, embroideries that ward off evil, and kilims that store kitchenware, with everything ready to be packed and carried on yak, or camel at a moment’s notice; the little-known nomadic textile cultures of the Kyrgyz, Turkoman and Karakalpak are explored in this lecture, along with the rise and fall of nomadism and where nomadism fits within the modern world. Chris also shares from his own experience of working with nomadic yak herders in the High Pamirs for three years.

Alice Foster

Nelson Date : Wednesday 23 July 2025 – 6.30pm

Alice has lectured for Oxford University, Department of Continuing Education since 1998. She lectures at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Her busy freelance career also includes organising themed study days with colleagues, and regular weekly classes in Oxfordshire and Worcestershire. In 2004 Alice joined The Arts Society and has lectured in Great Britain and Europe. Formerly President of Northleach Arts Society, she is also President of Banbury Fine Arts Society. Since its inception in 2003 Alice has led study holidays with Learn Italy Ltd to Italy and other parts of Europe. In 2024 she joined the team at the Argyll Hotel, Isle of Iona, Scotland, and runs History of Art Study weeks, specialising in the work of Scottish artists.

HOW TO LOOK AT MODERN ART

Sometimes it is difficult to access images that “don’t look right”. The Modern Art period runs approximately from the 1880s to the 1940s. Alice’s lecture traces the way images began to lose their verisimilitude in favour of line, shapes and colour, which ultimately led to abstract art arriving just before the onset of World War 1. She will look at the work of Paul Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh, and then Picasso and Matisse at the beginning of the twentieth century, and ending her talk with Vassily Kandinsky’s famous painting, Cossacks, in 1911, where the narrative has disappeared altogether.

Pamela Campbell-Johnson

Nelson Date :Wednesday 27 August 2025 – broadcast live from the UK – 6.30pm

With an MA Hons Art History, St Andrew’s University, Pamela has over 30 years of lecturing experience to undergraduates, adult groups, and to Friends and Patrons of the Royal Academy of Arts as part of the RA’s Adult Education Department. She has also conducted numerous guided tours, residential trips and focused gallery talks on individual works of art. Specialising in British Domestic Architecture and Modern British Art – Pamela has a particular love for the 1920s and 1930s. She’s had permanent career at Royal Academy of Arts for 12 years and work experience also undertaken at Bonhams, Art Loss Register and National Trust. Now a freelance art consultant and lecturer, she recently curated a collection for the Lansdowne Club.

FROM CLARIDGES TO THE LONDON UNDERGROUND: THE LIFE & WORK OF TEXTILE DESIGNER MARION DORN

Renowned for her ‘sculpted’ rugs, we consider Dorn’s various commissions from the 1920s to the 1960s, including designs for the Savoy Hotel Group, Eltham Palace (the Art Deco home of the Courtauld Family), the London Underground and The White House, Washington DC.

Note: With her online speaking circuit, Pamela will be delivering a variety of unique talks to all the NZ Societies so there is an opportunity to view additional topics from home. Details and links will be sent in advance.

Clare Blatherwick

Nelson Date : Wednesday 8 October 2025 – 6.30pm

Clare Blatherwick is an independent jewellery consultant based in Scotland. She has over twenty-five years of experience in the jewellery business, ten of which were spent as Head of Jewellery for Bonhams in Scotland, a role which saw her travel internationally searching for wonderful jewels to be auctioned around the globe. She has a keen interest in the historical aspect of jewellery and has lectured extensively on her subject both in the UK and internationally, including Europe, South Africa and Australia. She has also appeared on various TV programmes in the UK and US as a jewellery expert. Clare is a member of The Society of Jewellery Historians.

THE WORLD OF PEARLS

The allure of pearls has been documented from ancient times and there is evidence of the use of pearls in the Arabian Gulf region dating back to 4000BC. In ancient Rome, according to legend, Venus herself was born of the sea like a pearl. The Romans thought pearls were formed from the teardrops of the gods, or perhaps as a result of clams capturing dewdrops in the moonlight. This talk looks at the amazing variety of types of pearls, from those produced by oysters to marine snails, how they are found and some of the most famous pearls in the world, including those that belonged to Mary Queen of Scots.

Anne Sebba

Nelson Date : Wednesday 12 November 2025 – 6.30pm

Anne Sebba FRSL is the prize-winning author of ELEVEN books including the best-selling biography THAT WOMAN, a life of Wallis Simpson based on her discovery of 15 unpublished letters locked away in an attic trunk. Her next book was Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940’s about a wide variety of women and how they behaved in wartime Paris published in the US, UK, China, France and the Czech Republic, winner of the Franco-British award. She has also written biographies of Jennie Churchill, Mother Teresa and Laura Ashley among others.
She makes regular television appearances and has presented programmes for BBC R3 and R4 including two about the pianists, Harriet Cohen and Joyce Hatto. She began her working career as a foreign correspondent for Reuters news agency, the first woman accepted on their graduate trainee scheme, and has also worked for the BBC world services in their Arabic department, although she does not speak a word of Arabic. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, a Trustee of the National Archives Trust and a former chair of Britain’s 10,000 strong Society of Authors Management Committee.
Her most recent book is a life of Ethel Rosenberg, electrocuted in 1953 aged 37 for conspiracy to commit espionage following a trial with multiple miscarriages of justice, optioned by Miramax and shortlisted for the Wingate Prize. She is currently writing about the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz, due for publication in March 2025, the 80TH anniversary of the liberation of the camps and also works as a reviewer, journalist, after dinner speaker and lecturer for the Arts Society as well as various other institutions and schools in the UK and US including the British Library, Royal Oak, English Speaking Union and the National Trust.

THE WOMEN’S ORCHESTRA OF AUSCHWITZ: HOW PLAYING MUSIC SAVED THEIR LIVES BUT WAS ART ABUSED BY THE NAZIS FOR THEIR OWN ENDS?

In 1943 the talented violinist, Alma Rose, the niece of Gustave Mahler, was sent to Auschwitz expecting to die. She requested a violin to play what she thought was her last tune. Once she was recognised, she was ordered to create and conduct an orchestra of women to be used by the Nazis as a tool to make other women prisoners march in time on their way in and out of gate to work. She was a harsh taskmaster as she coached and coaxed her motley band of almost 40 young girls, half Christian half Jewish, mostly amateurs and some as young as 14 with little more than two years experience at school playing the recorder. Yet none of her girls was sent to be gassed because she knew their lives depended on how good they were. Only Alma herself died probably of food poisoning. They were the only all-female orchestra in any of the Nazi camps and ghettos and they became such a fine orchestra that the Nazis often demanded favourite tunes played privately. My book on the subject will be published in the spring of 2025 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camps, a story that has not been fully told until now.