Today we make a group visit to the Tobacco Factory to see a matinee performance of King Lear.  30 tickets have been reserved for members and a booking form was included with the November Bulletin.

There are just 3 tickets left, please contact Mary Hinchliffe as soon as possible if you wish to come.

Please note that numbered seats cannot be reserved ie it pays to be early, also for short excursions members need to make their own transport arrangements.

(Updated 1 February 2012)

Another blockbuster: the ‘David Hockney: A Bigger Picture’ exhibition. Featuring vivid paintings inspired by the East Yorkshire landscape, these large scale works have been created especially for the galleries of the Royal Academy.   (Image: Winter Timber  Photo credit: Jonathan Wilkinson.  Click on image to enlarge)

Because this is a Sunday excursion the coach will depart Clifton Down Shopping Centre at 8.30am, returning back  at 7.00 pm.  There  will be timed tickets at the Exhibition at 12.30pm and 1.00pm. 

 This excursion is FULL with a waiting list.  

 (Updated 6 December 2011)

The Three dancers

Linda is an Art Historian, and a well qualified lecturer who is popular with Bristol Friends.  Her subject tonight is ‘Picasso and Britain’ a major show being held at Tate Britain from 15 February – 15 July 2012.  This will be the first exhibition to explore Picasso’s lifelong connections with this country, and will examine his evolving critical reputation here and British artists’ responses to his work.   Linda is the sort of lecturer who will bring the subject of this exhibition to life.

(Pablo Picasso The Three Dancers 1925 Tate © Succession Picasso/DACS 2011)

( This item added 6 August 2011)

The Source

Following the linked lecture on the previous Tuesday (28th February), the Picasso and Britain exhibition examines Picasso’s enormous impact on 20^th century British modernism.

Picasso’s The Source (1921) will be shown at this exhibition. Photograph: Succession Picasso/DACS 2011/courtesy of Moderna Museet, Stockholm

This excursion is FULL with a waiting list.

(Updated 1 February 2012)

What better at this time of year than to look forward to Spring.  Specifically, to look forward to Spring Luncheon at a new venue for The Friends:  Cameley Lodge hotel at Temple Cloud, just 10 miles from Bristol along the A37.   In the past few years many of our Spring Luncheons have taken place at venues in the northern fringes of Bristol, so for a change, this time we are looking south in the hope that the many members living in North Somerset and BANES will be able to join us too.  Joanna Brown will give a short update on current developments at  the end of lunch.

The setting of Cameley Lodge is idyllic, sure to impress and help us all relax.

Full information and a booking form was included with the November Bulletin.  There are still a few places left  – don’t be put off by the journey, it will be well worth the trip.  If you want to come, please contact Carol Lear.

(Updated 17 January 2012)

This is the final lecture in the 2011-12 series — and what a way to bow out!

Linked to the major new touring exhibition visiting Bristol Museum and Art Gallery from 31 March, Martin Clayton will reveal to us ‘Leonardo da Vinci through his drawings’.  Martin has been Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings for the Royal Library at Windsor Castle for 20 years.  He has curated many exhibitions of drawings from the Royal Collection including those on Raphael, Poussin, Caneletto and many on Leonardo da Vinci.

Please note: this lecture starts at 7.00pm and will be a ticketed event (but still free to members).  Look out for the booking form with the February Bulletin, due to reach members around 17 February, and return it as soon as possible.   Also, we will be checking membership cards on this occasion, so please remember to bring yours with you (the green card, which also includes the 2011-12 Lecture Programme).

(Updated 18 January 2012)

The Great Gatehouse

The last time The Friends visited Henry VIII’s grand palace was in the late 90s.  Since then it has undergone continuous refurbishment and improved garden access, not least of which is the splendid new Tudor Court garden.

You may have to choose between the Apartments and Grand Rooms, including the Wolsey Room, the Courtyards and Cloisters, the Renaissance Picture Gallery, and 60 acres of the Palace Gardens!  Early Spring should reveal the amazing daffodils in the Wild Garden as well as other seasonal floral displays.

The coach will start from Pembroke Road at 8.30am with return estimated at 7.00pm

Full details and a booking form will be enclosed with the February Bulletin due to reach members around 17 February.

(Added 19 January 2012)

View to Shanklin

This Residential Excursion is FULL with a waiting list.

Please note: the Final payment with appropriate s.a.e. should reach Margaret Bell by 1st March 2012 when final notes and a fully timed itinerary will be sent out.   A form will appear in the February bulletin.

 (This update 28 October 2011)

Claude Gellée, also known as Lorrain, was an early landscape artist, much loved in Brittain before his paintings went out of fashion at about the time of the Pre-Raphaelites in England and the Impressionists in France.  It is only in the past half-century that he has been restored to his place as one of the greatest, most original and most romantic of landscape painters.

This London Exhibition explores the influence Claude’s mastery of light and landscape had on Turner throughout his career.  It brings together related works by both artists, including oils, watercolours and sketchbooks.

The coach departs from Pembroke Road at 8.30am with return estimated at 7.00pm.

Full details and a booking form will be enclosed with the February Bulletin due to reach members around 17 February.

(Added 19 January 2012)

The visits to the Georgian House in mid-October 2011 were so successful that many members were unable to attend, so we are repeating them on Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 May 2012.

Further details and a booking form will be included with the February Bulletin due to arrive with members around 17 February.

(This item added 11 November 2011)

The visits to the Georgian House in mid-October 2011 were so successful that many members were unable to attend, so we are repeating them on Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 May 2012.

Further details and a booking form will be included with the February Bulletin due with members around 17 February.

(This item added 11 November 2011)

The coach departs from Pembroke Rd at 8.30am with return estimated at 7.30pm.

Full details and a booking form will be enclosed with the February Bulletin due to reach members around 17 February.

(Added 19 January 2012)

Next year’s Summer Dinner will be held at the Clifton Club, 22 The Mall in Clifton Village, on Wednesday 20 June 2012 at 6.30pm for 7.00pm.

As one of Bristol’s most exclusive venues (it’s a private members’ club) it was established in 1818 to provide a place where ‘gentlemen of means and leisure could converse and convene regularly’.  Although the members still subscribe to some of those traditional values, the club is now a truly cosmopolitan and modern club for both men and women.  In recent years it has undergone a beautiful refurbishment, completed in 2008.

Further details and a booking form will appear in the February Bulletin.

(This item added 11 November 2011)

The 2012 AGM will be held in the Rear Hall of the Museum at 6.00 for 6.30pm as usual, on Tuesday 3 July.  Full details in due course.

(This item added 4 November 2011)

The very popular annual Lecture/Lunch at Trinity College will take place this summer on 24 July.  The lecture will be given by Karin Walton, Curator of Applied Art and responsible also for the Museum’s historic houses. The subject of her lecture is “A Curator’s life – what do Curators actually do?”

A booking form will be included with the May Bulletin.

(Updated 2 February 2012)