Showing at the Eric Morecambe Centre…

Making an Old Master: Apprenticeship and Studio Life for the Would-Be Artist”

Lecturer: Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe

What did ignorant 10 year-old boys like the young Botticelli or the young Rubens learn during their apprenticeships to become the artists we know today? This lecture looks at the hard work that went into making a painting, and the training needed to become a painter. I will use the evidence in paintings themselves to understand daily life in the studio, – the darkness and the cold of winter, the precarious scaffoldings needed to paint any oversize picture, or the studies and preparatory sketches needed to train a good artist.   And what was it like for any young woman wanting to become an artist? There are many fascinating examples from the strong-willed business women, Artemisia Gentileschi and Maria van Oosterwyck to the portraitist Elizabeth Vigée Lebrun, who fled the French Revolution and whose memoirs describe all this and more.  

Lectures start at 10:30 prompt, please arrive in good time from 10:00 to have a free tea or coffee and chat.

Guests may book online using the following link:  https://buytickets.at/theartssocietyharpendenarea/1342816

Further information, guest ticket prices and membership fees can be found at: www.tasha.org.uk