llo and welcome back,

On behalf of the committee we hope that everyone enjoyed a summer break. We look forward to our trip t Provence and to the talks and events organised for the forthcoming year. I attach a copy oft the provisional programme to the end of this mailing.

This talk will be transmitted via Zoom hybrid. Please note that the format has changed from webinar to meeting. ensure that you are invisible and silent images.

We meet on:

Monday 15 September 2025 2.00pm

 When Cindy Polemis  will talk about the History of Kew Gardens

Biography

Cindy Polemis is an art historian, independent lecturer and art guide. She has a BA in Modern History from Oxford University and as a mature student she went back to university to study first for a BA and then for a Masters in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London University.

Before that she spent many years as a radio producer and presenter for the BBC World Service working in news and current affairs. Since 2016 Cindy has worked as  a lecturer and an official art guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She has also been a trustee at the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum.

Cindy has accumulated a wide range of art historical knowledge ranging from 18th European and British art to the contemporary international art scene. She has been an official guide for both Frieze Masters and Frieze Art Fairs in London. She is particularly keen to draw parallels with art and social history and her lectures are accessible and engaging, drawing out the stories of art and artists which are steeped in human emotions and experiences which we all share.

podcast here:
https://youtu.be/SdUFQhlEyJ0

The History of Kew Gardens: The World's Garden

From 18th century royal pleasure gardens to the most bio-diverse place on earth today, Cindy Polemis digs into the history of Kew Gardens. We’ll look at Kew’s early role as a beacon of historical landscape aesthetic, its crucial part in the advancement of science, colonialism and trade, and how today it drives international  efforts to combat the effects of climate change and the threats of  extinction in the natural world. Kew scientists have even collaborated  with police forensic investigations: thwarting illegal timber trades, solving  gruesome murders and identifying poisons are just some of the ways they have helped combat crime.

Today Kew holds the largest and most diverse collection of plants in the world: 30,000 living plants, some extinct in the wild, 14,000 trees, nearly 8 million dried specimens and more than 2.4 billion seeds -it is truly the world’s most important garden and one which has changed, and continues to change our world

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Lectures are at the Blackwell Grange Hotel, Grange Road, Darlington DL3 8QH

All talks, except January, are hybrid (in the room at Blackwell Grange and at home via zoom)

Monday 15 September 2025 2.00pm

Cindy Polemis: History of Kew Gardens

Monday 20 October 2025 2.00pm

Alan Read: Dora Carrington: The tragic Muse of
Bloomsbury

3.30 AGM 

Monday 17 November 2025 2.00pm

Michelle Brown: The Art of the Sherborne Missal

Monday 8 December 2025 11:00am

Anna Bianco: The Art of Winter

Christmas Lunch (extra) 12.30 pm

Monday 19 January 2026 2.00 pm

Zoom Lecture only

Siobhan Clarke: Hampton Court Palace: virtual tour

Monday 16 February 2026 2.00 pm

Sandy Burnett: Preludes to Passions- J S Bach’s music and its timeless appeal

Monday 16 March 2026 2.00pm

Nirvana Romell: African Art-Craft or Curio

Monday 20 April 2026 2.00pm

Kathy Mc Laughlan: Renoir during the 1880’s-the Search for a Classical Idyll

Monday 18 May 2026 2.00pm

Andrew Hopkins: Andrea Palladio’s Venetian Villas

Monday 15 June 2026 2.00pm

Leslie Primo: The Cult of the Pacific: from Cook to Gaugin

Special Events 2025-2026

Northern Voices Fund-raising Concert Autumn 2025 (tbc)

UK Tour: The Cotswolds May 2026 (tbc)

Overseas tour: Provence 12th-17th October 2025

Porto October 2026 (tbc)

Days of Special Interest,

Study Day: Thursday 6 November 2025

Suzanne Fagence Cooper: Christopher Dresser

www.theartssociety-nysd.org.uk

www.theartssocietynortheast.org.uk

www.theartssociety.org

Contact: Gillian or Stephen Sild: 01429 221087

(answer phone for messages)

Annual Subscription (from Oct AGM): £70.00

(Special Events not included)

As usual the official programme card will not be printed until the new committee and officers have been elected in October.

As a committee we have decided not to increase the membership fee this year.  However, overall costs are rising and in order to maintain our excellent programme of talks and activities we do need to attract new members. Please help us to encourage people to join by telling your friends.