The Arts Society at 50: the President’s story

As The Arts Society celebrates its golden anniversary, our President Dr Loyd Grossman CBE, FSA, reflects on public engagement with the arts and looks to the future. 

Photo: John Millar

One of the impressive things about The Arts Society is the sheer enthusiasm of its Members. You can’t fake that quality. It’s the petrol that has kept the Society going and seen it grow from an idea to a national institution. Now we’re at this point, we’ve really got to celebrate. We’ve got to tell people how much fun The Arts Society is and how enlightening membership can be.
 
So much has changed during the past 50 years. The importance of beauty, for one thing, is now well recognised. We know that beauty is good for us – in the built environment, in an exquisitely crafted quilt or in a painting. Yet somehow, it hasn’t been talked about. We’ve had a guilty feeling that if something is beautiful, it must be expensive and elitist – which is just not the case. Beauty is everywhere. The Arts Society understands this.
 
It’s a key time for us as a Society. The rebranding has been a bold, interesting thing to do. Change is not always easy, but the new approach is forward-looking and beautiful. It reflects the quality – and breadth – of the Society’s work. The excellence of our Lecturers, for instance, is extraordinary. We must promote this more.
 
I believe there are thousands of people who would want to join the Society, if they knew about us. We’ve got to raise our visibility locally, nationally and globally, and let our prospective audience know that we welcome them. We have to think of fresh ways to reach younger people and instigate more events that are accessible to them.
 
Public connection to the arts is at an all-time high. There is a thirst for participation, with record exhibition attendances, as well as quality television and radio arts commissioning. The outlook is so positive and we, in our golden jubilee year, have our part to play, by helping more people to understand, appreciate and love the arts. We have to tell people that we are here, we’ve done great things and we want them to join us.
 
As told to Sue Herdman for The Arts Society Magazine spring 2018.