The Wonder of the Times : Thomas Lawrence in Bath

The portrait painter Thomas Lawrence first came to public attention as a boy in the 1770s, when his father kept a superior coaching inn, the Black Bear at Devizes, Wiltshire. Travelling from London to the fashionable spa town of Bath, the novelist, diarist and playwright Fanny Burney was one of many famous guests at the Bear; stopping there in 1780 she found the innkeeper’s family to be well read and musically gifted. Their youngest son, Thomas, was ‘a most lovely boy of 10 years of age, who seems to be not merely the wonder of their family, but of the times for his astonishing skill in drawing'...

THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER

Miss Amina Wright

Amina Wright has three decades of experience as a curator of historic art collections and exhibitions. She has produced several major exhibitions on eighteenth-century British Art and Old Masters and published and lectured widely in these areas. She has recently completed a brand new one-of-a-kind museum, the Auckland Project’s Faith Museum in County Durham. As Senior Curator at the Holburne Museum in Bath she was a key member of the team that delivered the museum’s highly successful 2011 redevelopment. Amina has also worked for English Heritage and the National Trust and has an MA in Christianity & the Arts from King’s College London.

Currently based in Durham but moving back to Bath in mid-2024.