Waikato Decorative & Fine Arts Society (Waikato DFAS)

Waikato DFAS meets at 7:30pm at The Centre for Performing Arts, Southwell School, Peachgrove Road, Hamilton. Parking is available on site.

The evening starts with a welcoming glass of wine followed by a one-hour lecture. Members are invited to stay and enjoy light refreshments after the lecture. You are also most welcome to come along as a guest. Further details are below.

In 2026, we are looking forward to seven accredited The Arts Society lecturers from the UK and one Australian-based lecturer. Most will be with us in person with just a couple by live broadcast, which also give the opportunity for members to view several additional topics from home. We hope for a successful year, but are always ready to adapt our programme arrangements if necessary.

Our 2026 programme can be downloaded here: Waikato Brochure 2026

Membership

New members:
To join WaikatoDFAS, please download and complete the 2026 WaiDFAS New Members Form  Our annual subscription is $180 per person.

A half year membership is available for $90 for new members who join any time after June. This membership will cover the last four lectures for 2026. Please use the 2026 New Members Form on this page or contact the Membership Secretary.

Please scan or photograph the completed form and return to the Membership Secretary –  dfaswaikato@gmail.com.

For further information, or to notify changes of contact details, please advise Suzanne Britton, Treasurer, phone 027 226 1236 or Lyn Jones, Chairperson, 021 0610 716. Or email dfaswaikato@gmail.com.

Membership is non-transferable.

Returning members:
Returning members are encouraged to pay their subscriptions online :
Account No: 03-1568-0260926-000  (include Surname, Ref: Sub)

For members renewing for 2026 whose contact details have changed, please notify us by email to dfaswaikato@gmail.com

Guests

Guests are welcome anytime. A $25 per lecture guest fee is payable on the night. The fee for other visiting DFAS members is $15.00.

Waikato 2026 Lecturer Biographies and Topics

Susannah Fullerton

Waikato Date : Thursday 26 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.

THOSE MITFORD GIRLS!

The aristocratic Mitford sisters were writers and socialites, biographers and essayists. Jessica, who wrote Hons and Rebels and The American Way of Death, was a communist and human rights activist. Unity sympathised with the Nazis and worshipped Hitler. Nancy’s “Love in a Cold Climate” characters had a reckless upper-class Bohemianism and were determined to find life amusing at all costs, Diana became the most hated woman in Britain during World War II and Debo became a Duchess. Susannah Fullerton looks at the lives and works of these unconventional sisters.

James Butterwick

Waikato Date : Thursday 9 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 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

Waikato Date : Thursday 14 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.

CARAVAGGIO

In 1571 an artist was born who would bring about one of the most radical changes in pictorial styles, particularly through his pronounced use of contrasting light and shadow, or chiaroscuro. He was the most famous painter of his time in Italy, as well as a source of inspiration for hundreds of other artists. Known as Caravaggio, his given name was Michelangelo Merisi, but though he had the name of an angel, he was anything but, being a notorious brawler and spending his last years on the run from a murder charge. This lecture will introduce you to the drama of the life and the art of Caravaggio.

charles harris

Waikato Date : Thursday 11 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.

THE GREAT POSTER WAR 1914-1918

It’s August 4th, 1914. Imagine you are a poster artist and Lord Kitchener has just handed you the hottest commercial art brief in history: Persuade 250,000 men to sign up before Christmas! What would you do? At the outbreak of WWI, posters were the most effective weapon of mass communication. Now they had to be more effective than ever before. Comparisons of propaganda from Britain, France, Germany, America and Russia through the art of Leete, Christy, Erdt and many others.

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

Waikato Date : Thursday 16 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.

PORTRAITS IN STONE: THE GREAT CATHEDRALS OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

Over a timespan of some five hundred years, the great medieval cathedrals of England were built. In terms of resources called upon, space covered, design and craftsmanship employed, this period marks the greatest single architectural achievement in English history. From Durham to Gloucester the lecture follows the evolution of cathedral building with reference to structural and aesthetic details together with some of the fascinating figures and events behind them.

Charlie Hall

Waikato Date : Thursday 20 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.

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM – A LIFE OF COLLECTING

Describing herself by writing, “I am a museum”, Peggy Guggenheim’s life took a clear path, from setting up a commercial gallery in London, going on a single-minded shopping trip to Paris in the late 1930’s even as the German tanks were rolling in to the suburbs, to escape (with her selection of European artists) to New York and the subsequent establishment of her museum (and Arts centre), and finally the purchase of the eccentric ‘unfinished palazzo’ in Venice, her collection remains one of the most iconic assemblages of Twentieth century art in the world.

Clare Blatherwick

Waikato Date : Thursday 1 October 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.

TEXTILE VISIONARIES OF MODERN ART & DESIGN: THE CIRCLE OF MARION DORN

The lecture will explore the career of designer Marion Dorn and the wider avant-garde movement between the wars. This pivotal time saw a renaissance in textile design and began the process of democratising Modern Art. Marion Dorn & her husband artist Edward McKnight Kauffer were destined to play a central role in modernism and Interior design on both sides of the Atlantic. From Claridge’s Hotel in London to The White House in Washington DC. Marion Dorn was synonymous with style, design & beauty.

Amanda Herries

Waikato Date : Thursday 12 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.

SKIN DEEP: THE BEASTLY ART OF BEAUTY, REALITY AND RIDICULE

Dare you think about the things our 18th century forebears did to pursue the social arts of beauty and fashion? We strive for fashionable body shapes, and we are prepared to use all sorts of potions and lotions on our skin in our pursuit of the image of beauty. None of this new. For thousands of years image has influenced our taste and our habits. At no point was this more obvious – or more lampooned – than in the 18th century in Europe. The fashions were excessive, the lotions were poisonous, and the caricaturists were merciless. Try not to squirm as I expose it all.