Nelson Decorative & Fine Arts Society (NEDFAS)

The Nelson Decorative & Fine Arts Society (NEDFAS) aims to foster interest in and knowledge of Decorative & Fine arts, artistic heritage, culture and history. We are a member society of the UK-based The Arts Society which has a global membership of over 90,000. The Nelson Society provides its members with eight high quality lectures per year. Our lecturers primarily come from the UK where they have undergone a stringent selection process to qualify as lecturers for The Arts Society. Our lecturers are excellent speakers who deliver well-researched and illustrated talks. Recent lectures have focused on architecture, design, glass, fashion, porcelain, ceramics, artists, art and art history, sculpture and literature.

our 2026 programme

In 2026 we offer seven accredited The Arts Society lecturers from the UK and one Australian-based lecturer. Six of these will be with us in person and two will come via live broadcast from the UK. With the online lectures, there are opportunities to view additional topics from home, tuning in to the lectures hosted by the other Societies around the country.

Lectures and lecturers may be subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances.

NEDFAS Programme Details

The Nelson lectures are held at The Pastorius Waller Theatre at The Suter, Bridge St on a Wednesday with a 6.30pm start. The lectures are of one hour duration and are followed by a social time during which a glass of wine or juice and sandwiches are served. This provides an opportunity for members to meet the lecturer and other members.

Membership

The annual subscription is $155 per person, or $280 for a couple living at the same address.

The annual subscription covers the cost of venue and equipment, travel and accommodation for the lecturer, and refreshments after the lectures.

Please make payment by direct credit to our bank account: NEDFAS
Account number: 02 0704 0090438 00 – please use your name as reference.

Once you have paid please email your name, address, postcode, email address and telephone number to nedfas@gmail.com

We welcome guests to all our lectures – $35 cash payable at the door.
Members of other DFASNZ or The Arts Society (international) are welcomed to our lectures at a charge of $15.00.

To enquire about membership or guest attendances, please contact our Membership Secretary on the email address above.

Nelson – 2026 Lecturer Biographies and Topics

Susannah Fullerton

Nelson Date : Wednesday 4 March 2026 – 6.30pm

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

Nelson Date : Wednesday 15 April 2026 – Broadcast Live from the UK – 6.30pm

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 and featured in the BBC programme ‘Fake or Fortune’ in 2014. Also played a major role in, ‘The Zaks Affair, Anatomy of a Fake Collection’, on BBC4 in March 2024 which exposed a collection of Russian work as being fake.

OLEKSANDR BOHOMAZOV 1880-1930: THE LOST FUTURIST OF UKRAINE

Having never left the Russian nor Soviet empires in his lifetime, this Kyiv-based artist can only have heard about the new tendencies in Western Art through magazines or publications. Nonetheless, Bohomazov managed to create masterpieces no less exceptional or ground-breaking than those of his European contemporaries. A difficult, at times tragic life, shaped by a passionate love story on a background of major historical upheaval – Oleksander Bohomazov was an artist of revolutionary ideas and unique style. James Butterwick examines the legacy of the genius who many consider the national artist of the Ukraine and how his work is finally moving into the light.

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

Nelson Date : Wednesday 20 May 2026 – 6.30pm 

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.

BREECHES BONNETS AND BAGS: BRITISH FASHION IN ART THROUGH THE CENTURIES

Portraits provide a fascinating insight into the changing styles of dress over the centuries. This lecture follows the different fashions as revealed in paintings, looking at dress and accessories, and some of the more ridiculous styles of fashion from the 16th century to the 19th century. It focuses particularly on fashion in England but looks also at some contrasting Continental fashions. In times when Sumptuary Laws prescribed what you could wear, according to your status in society, fashion was much less of a personal choice and more a reflection of social standing. The colour of your clothing or a plunging neckline could mark you out as belonging to a particular class. Whilst the ordinary working folk might have longed for a wardrobe full of reds, purples and golds (or, indeed, for a wardrobe at all!), their ‘superiors’ may well have envied them their ability to move freely in their clothes, without the restrictions of ruffs, stuffed sleeves, enormous petticoats, or headdresses the size of small animals … sometimes also containing small animals! Have fun exploring the wildest extremes of fashion through the ages.

Charles Harris

Nelson Date : Wednesday 17 June 2026 – Broadcast Live from the UK – 6.30pm

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.

TAKEN BY SURPRISE. REVOLUTION IN THE ART OF THE POSTER

You’ve been Tangoed, Go Compared by an opera singer and Meerkittened all over the media. But where did all this begin? Who started it? How did they do it? In this presentation, you’ll go behind the scenes with the first Mad Men – not looney airy-fairy ad guys, but serious and well-known fine artists who also did seriously good commercial art. Delivered by a lecturer who successfully made this his own profession.

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

Nelson Date : Wednesday 22 July 2026 – 6.30pm

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.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ODYSSEY: SHACKLETON’S ENDURANCE EXPEDITION CAPTURED ON CAMERA

On Ernest Shackleton’s third Antarctic expedition in 1914, his ship, the Endurance, was trapped and eventually crushed in the pack ice. After camping for five months on the ice, Shackleton’s men rowed to the remote Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton sailed for help to South Georgia over 800 miles away. Over three months later he returned to rescue the crew of the Endurance.
Frank Hurley, one of the great photographers of the 20th century, was the expedition’s official photographer. His photographs are a visual narrative of an epic journey in which a remarkable human drama is played out. The aim of the lecture is to capture Hurley’s achievements as a photographer of the Antarctic in the first flush of human contact when it was still essentially terra incognita.

Charlie Hall

Nelson Date :Wednesday 26 August 2026 – 6.30pm

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.

RENAISSANCE RIVALS: HOW COMPETITION BETWEEN LEONARDO, MICHELANGELO AND RAPHAEL PROVIDED THE FUEL THAT DROVE THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

Three giants of the Italian Renaissance who were involved in fierce competition with each other, Leonardo, the master, Michelangelo the brooding upstart genius, and Raphael, the artist who carefully crafted his stellar career in the shadows, to emerge as a bright light that was tragically extinguished by an early death just as he began to be recognised as an artist in his own right. “Everything that Raphael had, he took from me”, is what Michelangelo remarked, as Pope Julius II pitted them against each other in the Vatican.

Ashley Gray

Nelson Date : Wednesday 7 October 2026 – 6.30pm

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: AN INTRODUCTION

This lecture looks in brief at the leading makers, designers and artists covered in the four Post War Textile Visionaries of Modern Art Lectures below. A broader horizon that covers 50 years of textile design and its fusion with modern art. An ideal introduction to the subject.

Amanda Herries

Nelson Date : Wednesday 18 November 2026 – 6.30pm

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.

THE JAPANESE GARDEN IN THE WEST: 100 YEARS OF EASTERN INFLUENCE

The serenity, asymmetry and control of a Japanese garden is a seductive contrast to Western symmetry, form and free growth. Even at the time of Japan’s self-imposed isolation, 1639-1854, information reached the West about trees, plants, flowers and designs through illustrations on imported porcelain, lacquer and screens. Once Japan opened up, travellers and plant-hunters were able to bring back information about the gardens, and the plants themselves. Japanese garden styles became highly fashionable into the 20th century, with several still identifiable. Tracing the origins of garden styles, the plants used and the surviving Western examples we can ask; is it possible to create a ‘Japanese’ garden outside Japan, or do we merely give it a Japanese voice?