Public Lecture Course: Art and War

Community & Culture

This five-part lecture course, delivered by experts in the field, will interrogate the many and varied ways in which warfare has been depicted by artists in Great Britain, from the late 16th to the early 19th century.

This was a period of domestic and international ferment. It begins with the threat of invasion by Spain’s mighty Armada, and ends with the Royal Navy’s dominance of the seas after the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte’s France. Spanning military, naval, political and social history, as well as 300 years of visual culture in Great Britain, the course will feature a succession of lectures focussing on a single work of art, or a sequence of such works.

These will be used as the starting points for discussion, and will include some of the greatest icons of British art, including the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I, William Hogarth’s The March of the Guards to Finchley and JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire.

There will be a drinks reception each week from 6.30 to 7.00PM. The lecture will begin promptly at 7.00PM.

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Important information

You will need to register for each week individually. This is to ensure that we have consistent attendance over the five weeks. Apologies for the inconvenience.

In addition, as our events are free, not everyone who asks for tickets comes to our events. To make sure we have a full house we allocate more tickets than there are seats. We do our best to get the numbers right, but unfortunately, we occasionally have to disappoint people. Admission is on a first come, first served basis, so please arrive in good time for the start of the event.

Visitors with disabilities or reduced mobility

Please let us know if you have any physical, sensory or other access needs that we can support you with, in order to assist you in your participation in and enjoyment of our event. If you require assistance in the event of an emergency evacuation, please email [email protected] or call 0207 580 0311 beforehand. For more information please see the ‘Visit’ page of our website

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