Art History with Anne

Newsletter June 2023

Throughout May I was kept very busy with Travel Editions tours to Normandy and Lille/Antwerp.  Monet and Impressionists in Normandy, which has been running very successfully for many years, includes a full day in Giverny to visit Monet’s famous house and garden, the Museum of Impressionism and Monet’s final resting place.  Early May is a perfect time to visit Monet’s water garden, as the lilac and white wisteria on the Japanese bridge are usually in full bloom. I was lucky to catch the tree peonies at their best. In the Clos Normand, the garden surrounding his house, the irises should be out. But at what ever time of the year you visit the gardens, there will be beautiful flowers to see: in early spring tulips followed by geraniums in early summer and sunflowers in late summer. My favourite feature is the grand ally, which originally took visitors from the house to the Japanese bridge. In late summer the ground is covered with vibrant nasturtiums. Monet’s ‘garden of an artist’ may well inspire your own green fingers!

Live lecture for June

Art Nouveau/Jugendstil in Strasbourg

Finally, after several cancellations due to COVID restrictions, I was able to lead my new Travel Editions tour to Strasbourg and Karlsruhe. After Paris and Nancy, Strasbourg boasts the largest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture in France.  However, the local architects were influenced as much by German Jugendstil and the Vienna Secession as they were by the whiplash style of Hector Guimard’s Paris Metro Stations. Falling into the annexed territories ceded to Prussia after the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war, Strasbourg became a cultural crossroads. Most of the Art Nouveau buildings can be found in the Neustadt and Neudorf areas developed under Prussian rule. Many of the architects had German origins or had studied in Germany. Architectural duos, who co-authored of buildings, are a local peculiarity: Franz Lütke (1860–1929) and Heinrich Backes (1866–1931); Jules (Julius) Berninger (1856–1926) and Gustave (Gustav) Krafft (1861–1927); and Ferdinand Kalweit and Max Geist.  

Join me to discover the idiosyncratic nature of Art Nouveau in Strasbourg!

Immeuble, 22 Rue Du Général de Castelnau, Built 1903, Franz Lütke  and Heinrich Backes, architects

Immeuble, 22 Rue Du Général de Castelnau, Built 1903, Franz Lütke  and Heinrich Backes, architects. Window on the staircase.

Maison “egyptienne” 10 Rue du Général Rapp, Built 1905.Franz Scheyder, architect, Adolphe Zilly painter

You can pay by PayPal to watch this lecture at your leisure

Live and in Person! Thursday 15th June 2023

The Arts and Crafts Movement in Surrey have asked me to deliver a study day on C.F.A. Voysey to be held at Goddards, a wonderful house designed by Edwin Lutyens with gardens by Gertrude Jekyll.  Owned by the Landmark Trust, the property is normally rented out. So, this is rare opportunity to see the property. I will be offering two lectures, Voysey’s Surrey Houses and The De Morgans, the Lovelaces and Voysey. Before these two lectures you will have the opportunity to tour the house.

Ticket prices includes a welcome drink and tea/cake: Members £24 and Non-members £26.

Numbers are limited to 30 people. There are just three places left.

contact@artsandcraftsmovementinsurrey.org.uk

or Carolyn Smith, chair ACMS,  cmsatreelhall@btinternet.com

Lutyens/Jekyll, Goddards, Surrey

C.F.A. Voysey, Norney Grange, Shackleford, Surrey

What’s New on the Channel

Why not have a look at what’s just been released on our free access channel:  Anne Anderson Art and Design History Channel on YouTube.

Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh

Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864 –1933) was an English-born artist who attended classes at the Glasgow School of Art and whose art and design work became one of the defining features of the Glasgow Style in the years around 1900. It was at the School of Art that she met her future husband Charles Rennie Mackintosh, often seen as Scotland’s greatest architect. Her work has been somewhat marginalised in comparison, by later art and design historians, but in recent decades has been recognised as a major contribution to the progressive style and output of the Glasgow Four, the group that included her sister Frances and her husband Herbert MacNair, as well as Mackintosh.

Travel Editions Tours

Some news for those of you who are interested in the art and heritage tours, in the UK and/or abroad, that Scott and I undertake through the Travel Editions company. Following a successful series of UK tours in  2022,Travel Editions is running an interesting range of tours this summer and autumn. Below are listed some of our tours scheduled for later this year, that might be of interest to you. Arts and Crafts Houses and Gardens, 31 July – 02 August (based in Cheltenham) Following in the footsteps of William Morris, artists and craftsmen settled in villages throughout the Cotswolds, including picturesque Broadway and Chipping Campden, drawn here by its rich craft tradition and natural charm. Gothic Castles to French Impressionism, 14 – 16 August (based in Cardiff)  It was a love of Gothic Revivalism that bought the 3rd Marquess of Bute together with architect William Burges to sumptuously remodel Cardiff Castle and create the Neo-Gothic fairytale Castell Coch in the late 1800s, a main features of your visit to Cardiff. The tour also looks at the magnificent French Impressionist art collection, one of the most important private collections in Britain, formed by the Davies sisters and housed in the National Museum of Wales.

For further details on these and other tours, please visit the Travel Editions website: https://www.traveleditions.co.uk to check booking details etc.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-90), Landscape at Auvers in the Rain. 1890. Purchased Paris 1920. Bequeathed to the National Gallery of Wales by Gwendoline Davies, 1952