News for members of the Art appreciation group

Satire to Sublime: British Art from Hogarth to Turner

On Thursday 21st March 2019, find out how eighteenth and early nineteenth-century painters grappled with the rapid changes of life in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain.

Listen to National Gallery experts on Hogarth’s satirical look at British life, Wright of Derby’s provocations around scientific ethics and Turner’s confrontations with modernity and progress and learn about key developments in British painting c.1745-1845, focussing on portraits, landscapes and scenes of everyday life in the National Gallery’s collection.

Click here for more details and a booking form.

After the impressionists...

… post impressionists to Picasso at the National Gallery.

Join National Gallery experts for a day of talks exploring the radical diversity of late nineteenth and early twentieth century-painting. From the blazing visions and emotional intensity of Van Gogh to the quiet stillness of Hammershoi, discover the art that followed in the wake of Impressionism.

Tickets are £25 per person.

Click here for more details and booking form.

U3A national summer schools 2018

The U3A Trust is running two summer schools this year. The first will run from Monday 23rd to Thursday 26th July at Harper Adams University, Newport, Shropshire. The second will run from Tuesday 11th to Friday 14th September at Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester.

The full programme covers 19 courses including:

  • Opera
  • French
  • Cryptic Crosswords
  • Maths
  • Art Between the Wars
  • Musicals
  • Writing a TV Soap

Click here for more details including programme details, costs and booking arrangements.

U3A summer schools - 2017

Click here to see the programme for the 2017 U3A summer schools.

The courses available are extremely varied:

  • Cryptic crosswords for beginners
  • Regards sur la France actuelle
  • Globalisation
  • History of the workhouse
  • Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Look back in anger? School maths from an adult perspective
  • Recorder ensemble playing
  • Sexuality in the ancient world
  • Creative writing - erotic genre
  • Key influences on English Garden Design
  • Latin in context
  • Dickens and Great Expectations
  • Music before the microchip
  • Exploring English poetry
  • Boys Will be Girls [and vice versa]…cross-gender casting in Shakespeare’s plays
  • Singing for pleasure
  • La Belle Epoque France 1890-1914
  • Creative writing for radio
  • Drama - from ‘The Living Room’ to ‘The Room’
  • Exploring English
  • Law and Order in Anglo-Saxon England
  • Roots of popular music
  • Opera of the ‘Early Romantic’ period
  • Intermediate-advanced Spanish
  • The Russian revolutions a hundred years on

Click here for more detail including costs and booking.

The secret language of art

This is a U3A study day hosted by the National Gallery in London on 24th November 2016.

It will focus on symbols and allegories in some of the most beautiful and intriguing paintings in the National Gallery. This study day will provide tools for reading the hidden meanings of well-known paintings. There is never a single definitive interpretation of a work of art, but you will learn some of the main types of visual allegory and symbolism available to artists working in the tradition of Western European painting.

Tickets cost £18.

Click here for more details and a booking form.

The age of Baroque - spectacle and style

From the Third Age Trust...

The National Gallery Collection
June 2nd 11am - 3.30pm - £18 per ticket

Following the success of our joint ventures exploring paintings in the National Gallery’s Collection both chronological and thematically, the National Gallery is delighted to be hosting another U3A study day which will focus upon the 17th century Baroque style in Italy, Spain, France and the Netherlands. This follows on from the study days on Italian and Northern Renaissance paintings

The meeting will introduce key themes and concepts, functions, chronology and techniques. The day will provide you with a well-rounded experience of various and fascinating aspects of the age of Baroque.

Join National Gallery experts for a baroque extravaganza. Enjoy a feast for the eyes, from the courtly splendour of works by Rubens and Van Dyck, to the light, darkness and drama of Rembrandt and Caravaggio’s revolutionary paintings.

If you're interested book directly with the Third Age Trust.