The Arts Society Auckland

Founded in 2004 as The Auckland Decorative & Fine Arts Society Incorporated, our society has a new life now as The Arts Society Auckland in line with our parent body in UK.

We meet on eight Wednesday evenings during the year at 7.30 to enjoy diverse and stimulating lectures on arts-related topics, delivered by lecturers primarily from the UK. We also help contribute to the preservation of our NZ artistic heritage and promotion of art education.  TASA has donated over $80,000 to the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki since our inception and continues to assist its programmes of conservation and education.

our 2026 programme

The success of our Societies is built on the high quality of presentations delivered by experts in their field. Many of these are accredited in the UK for their subject matter and presentation skills.

Our venue is the Rialto in Newmarket with its luxuriously comfortable seats.  In 2026 we offer seven The Arts Society speakers from the UK and one Australian-based. Six of these will be with us in person and two will come via live broadcast from the UK. With the online talks, there are opportunities to view additional online topics from home, tuning in to the gatherings hosted by the other Societies around the country.  Most members will therefore have the opportunity of enjoying up to 16 top calibre lectures.

Guests are welcome for $35, paid online prior, or in cash on the evening.  We ask that members let us know the name/s of their guests so that we can prepare name tags.

Membership

Full year subscription is $270.00; Half year $135.00 (lectures 1-4) with the option of renewing for the second half of the year.

We offer an Early Bird subscription offer of $250 for the year if paid by 1 December 2025.

To join as a new member or rejoin please download the TASA 2026 Membership Form & Programme

For membership enquiries email tasaauckland@gmail.com  Membership pays for our venue and for refreshments after the lecture.  These two are our major expenses along with lecturers’ fees.

Our account details are AkDFAS 12-3042-0379470-00.

For general enquiries email tasaauckland@gmail.com

Auckland – 2026 Lecturer Biographies and Topics

Susannah Fullerton

Auckland Date : Wednesday 25 February 2026 – 7.30pm

Susannah Fullerton, OAM FRSN, is Sydney’s best-known lecturer on classic novels. She lectures regularly at the State Library of NSW, at conferences, schools and libraries. She is a registered speaker for ArtsNational (previously the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society). She gives talks on famous writers and their novels, poems and plays at a great variety of places around NSW, Australia and overseas. Susannah has been President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for almost 30 years. She is also Patron of the Kipling Society of Australia, a founding member of the NSW Dickens Society and of the Australian Brontë Association. She is a Lady Patroness of the International Heyer Society.
Susannah loves to share her passion for great works of literature. In addition to being the author of several books on literary figures and topics, she has published articles and reviews, organised literary events and conferences, is a tour leader and literary awards judge, and is often interviewed on TV and radio about literary concerns.

TEN NOVELS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Literature has always had the power to change – just think of the impact of the King James Bible, Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, Marx’s The Communist Manifesto and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. And yet fiction too has the power to change – to evoke sympathy, to make us take on different opinions, and even to bring about political and legal change. This talk examines ten novels which altered our world, when it came to race relations, charity, the shape of literature, and the plight of the poor and the different. Discover which novels have had universal impact and be encouraged to think about which books you would select as having in some way brought about enormous change.

James Butterwick

Auckland Date : Wednesday 8 April 2026 – Broadcast Live from the UK – 7.30pm

James Butterwick began collecting and selling Ukrainian and Russian Art in 1985 and has established himself as one of the world’s leading dealers and experts in the field. From 1994, he lived in Moscow, becoming the only foreign member of the Russian Society of Private Collectors, forming collections, contributing to museum exhibitions and reading lectures on the history of Russian Art. In 2013, he visited Kyiv, the first of over fifty visits to Ukraine before the start of the war.
A fluent Russian speaker, James lectures on Soviet Avant Garde painters, including the Ukrainian, Oleksandr Bohomazov (1880-1930) as well as on the issues of authenticity that surround the Ukrainian and Russian Avant Garde. He has spoken at the Tretyakov Gallery and the Museum of Russian Impressionism in Moscow, New York and Cambridge Universities, the Kyiv Centre of International Relations and, in January 2021, at the seminal ‘Original or Fake’ conference, at the Ludwig Museum, Cologne. A regular on radio and television, James had his own slot of Radio Matryoshka in London.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE BOOM: THE MASS FAKING OF THE SOVIET AVANT GARDE

The Soviet Avant Garde contained some of the greatest names of art history. Malevich, Chagall, Kandinsky, and countless others, blazed a trail through Art History for an all-too brief period. With their creativity stunted by the advent of Socialist Realism in 1932, their work disappeared only to re-appear after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, when a flood of newly-discovered works appeared on the Western and domestic markets of which the vast majority, up to 98%, were fake, having neither verifiable provenance nor exhibition history, their authenticity supported by documents from unscrupulous Russian and Western art historians and bogus certificates of chemical expertise. This scandal reached a crescendo in January 2018 with an exhibition of 24 dubious works of the period at the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts in Belgium. James Butterwick examines the background behind the mass faking of the Soviet Avant Garde, the history of these paintings, universally rejected by museums and the art market, as well as the methods used to ‘create’ authenticity. James was recently an expert witness exposing Russian fakes, ‘The Zaks Affair. Anatomy of a Fake Collection’, which aired on BBC4 on March 12th 2024 and he also appeared on ‘Fake or Fortune.

Note: With his online speaking circuit, James will be delivering a second topic to the NZ Societies so there is an opportunity to view this from home. Details and links will be sent in advance.

Rosalind Whyte

Auckland Date : Wednesday 13 May 2026 – 7.30pm 

Rosalind Whyte holds a BA and MA from Goldsmith’s College, and an MA (distinction) from Birkbeck College. She is an experienced guide at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. Rosalind lectures at Tate, to independent art societies and on cruises.

DAME LAURA KNIGHT

Dame Laura Knight was a woman artist who achieved extraordinary things in her career, including becoming the first woman to be elected as a full member of the Royal Academy in London in 1936, 168 years after its establishment.  She was the only British woman to be given War Commissions in both the First and Second World Wars and the only British artist to cover the Nuremberg Trials of 1946.  In her long and productive career, she painted landscapes, portraits and seascapes, as well as scenes from the circus, the ballet and the theatre.  This lecture provides an overview of her fascinating career and some of the remarkable achievements of her long life.

Charles Harris

Auckland Date : Wednesday 10 June 2026 – Broadcast Live from the UK – 7.30pm 

Charles Harris has had a life-long career in advertising around the world, most of it as a Creative Director in global agencies (J Walter Thompson, Bates, FCB, Publicis, Leo Burnett). Responsible for the quality of the creative ideas and finished production of advertising campaigns, his work for many of the world’s great brands including British Airways, QANTAS, Sony, Nestle, Kraft, BP, Gillette, and more has earned him global awards in New York, Hollywood, Singapore and Sydney. His experience as a creative advertising man gives his poster presentations a unique behind-the-scenes insight as to what works, what doesn’t, and why.

POWER BY DESIGN. HOW HITLER DICTATED HIS BRAND

In the hands of the master propagandists of the Third Reich, posters became weapons of evil. The lecture covers their propaganda techniques and shows how they demonized the Jews, the disabled, and those of the wrong genetic background. You’ll see how Hitler used posters and a team of image consultants to win the hearts and minds of his people – gaining power and cementing his grip on society. The 1936 Berlin Olympics, sweeping new autobahns, shiny Volkswagens and youth programmes all served to paper Hitler with glory. Focusing on the years 1933 – 1939.

Note: With his online speaking circuit, Charles will be delivering eight 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.

Mark Cottle

Auckland Date : Wednesday 15 July 2026 – 7.30pm

Mark Cottle was born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall and Birmingham University where he graduated with an MA in late medieval society and culture.  His career has been spent in teaching, training and lecturing at home and abroad. He has been with The Arts Society since 2007 and has lectured widely in England, Wales and Scotland.  He has also lectured in the Isle of Man, Berlin (Arts Society) and in 2023 for a month in Australia for ADFAS.

MASONRY, MANUSCRIPTS AND MUSIC: AN INSPIRATIONAL JOURNEY THROUGH MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

Cathedral builders, manuscript illuminators and musicians define this remarkable period. The aim of the lecture is to capture something of the essence of its Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals, its equally rich span of manuscript illumination, both sacred and profane and its religious and secular music. Essentially inspirational and aspirational, these are forms of artistic endeavour which can touch the sublime. They can still resonate powerfully, if sometimes surprisingly, with us today.

Charlie Hall

Auckland Date : Wednesday 19 August 2026 – 7.30pm

A passionate arts educator, lecturer, and guide, Charlie Hall is based in London and Italy. Director of the highly regarded John Hall Venice Course, (est. 1965) Tour lecturer and leader for Kirker Holidays since 2013, and of independent tours in Italy. Designer and host of a series of art talks and events for the Soho House group of private member’s clubs. Designed and led courses for Christie’s Education and The Serpentine Gallery ‘Collector’s Circle’. Arts Society lecturer specializing in all things Italy.

IMAGE & THE VENICE BIENNALE; A MANY-HEADED BEAST THAT EMERGED FROM THE (SUPPOSED) CIVILISING, ENLIGHTENED SPIRIT OF THE NAPOLEONIC REVOLUTION

The first edition of the Venice Biennale was in 1895, thirty years after London’s ‘Great Exhibition’, and at a time when tourism and cultural events were springing up around Europe. Attracting a crowd of 224,000 visitors, and only pausing during the two world wars, it has become a hugely significant art show, and has inspired hundreds of other biennales, from Liverpool, Rio and Shanghai, over forty countries send representatives to their national ‘pavilions’. It has had a huge impact on the Contemporary Art world, being the main event for any self-respecting art collector, connoisseur or critic. This talk discusses the inception and concept of the Biennale, and its subsequent growth over the 125 years.

Ashley Gray

Auckland Date : Wednesday 30 September 2026 – 7.30pm

Ashley Gray is Director of fashion and textile gallery Gray M.C.A and a recognised textile expert specialising in Modern Artist Textiles, their design and history. As a leading authority on the subject, he has published many articles and essays and is regularly invited to lecture and sit on committees of the leading International Art Fairs. As a curator, he has worked on an extensive array of exhibitions including Material Textile: Modern British Female Designers and Material Textile: Creativity, History & Process at Messums Gallery, Common Thread at New Art Centre and From Bauhaus to our House at Cromwell Place, London. He also curates the highly acclaimed Styled by Design exhibition that celebrates the innovation of modernist textile design. Ashley explores the textile innovators of the early to mid-20th century and the fusion between the applied, decorative and fine arts. From Cryséde to Cresta, Ascher to Edinburgh Weavers, Sanderson and David Whitehead. The evolution of textile design was a critical catalyst in the democratising of Modern Art. Sutherland, Hepworth, Moore, Picasso, Leger and many Modernist masters were commissioned for visionary artist textiles that brought Modernism into the home and onto the street in a blaze of colour that revitalised the post war world.

THE POST WAR TEXTILE VISIONARIES OF MODERN ART: ZIKA AND LIDA ASCHER, MODERN ART IN FASHION

Post war, the world of fashion, interiors and modern art fused with dynamic results. Czech emigrees Zika and Lida Ascher left Prague in 1939. Their modernist aesthetic took London fashion by storm, commissioning leading modern artists from Moore to Topolski, from Derain to Matisse. Ascher through fashion brought modern art into the heart of fashion and joyous colours onto the street. This lecture considers the role fashion and textiles played in democratising modern art through the eyes two innovative textile visionaries. An amazing story of courage, tenacity and success.

Amanda Herries

Auckland Date : Wednesday 11 November 2026 – 7.30pm

Amanda Herries read Archaeology & Anthropology at Cambridge University. From 1978-1988 she was Curator at Museum of London specialising in the decorative arts 1714 to present day, exhibitions, lectures, booklets, broadcasts. In 1988-1995 she  moved with family to Japan, lecturing and writing on Oriental / Western cross-cultural and artistic influences. In 1995 she returned to UK, fundraising for arts companies, writing, lecturing and guiding tours to Japan and of gardens and general history in Scotland. Amanda has curated an exhibition on Japanese plants and gardens in London and Edinburgh as part of Japan/British celebrations in 2001 and is currently preparing an exhibition for 2026 on the Scottish Colourist S.J. Peploe. Amanda has contributed to many publications on Japanese plant and garden influences in the West.

DIVERSE RICHE AND COSTLYE JEWELLS: 17TH CENTURY TRADE, TREASURE AND THE CHEAPSIDE HOARD

‘Diverse riche and costlye Jewells’ is a perfect description of the unique collection of jewels known as the ‘Cheapside Hoard’. Unearthed, by chance, in 1912 in one of the most historic parts of London, it seems it was lost, or buried, between 1640 and 1666. More than 400 pieces make up this remarkable Hoard, including a unique walnut-sized emerald contacting a watch movement, a slithery emerald studded salamander to earrings shimmering with suspended amethysts. These are rare, but not royal, jewels. Pieces demonstrate remarkable skills and stones mined in every part of the world. What does the collection represent? Why was it brought together? What are its secrets?
The climax of the talk is Christian Dior’s new look in 1947. But his sister, Catherine Dior, was sent to Ravensbrück but never talked about her life as a resister because she was living in sin with a married man and fellow resister. Her story and the stories of many other women, will be revealed in this lecture, but why has it taken so long for the varied and complicated role played by women in Paris to be openly talked about? In this talk I shall discuss some of the many reasons for this long silence, only now being broken.