Art History Talks with Kirsty Hartsiotis

A series of three illuminating Friday morning talks with Arts & Crafts expert, historian and curator Kirsty Hartsiotis

Tickets cost £7.50 per talk, £6 concessions or £5 for Museum in the Park Members

Tea & coffee included

‘How differently one must look at a flower’ (10.30am, 20 March)

Flowers, plants and nature in the Arts & Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds

The Arts and Crafts Movement is well-known for its use of the natural world for inspiration, from William Morris onwards. Here in the Cotswolds Arts and Crafts designers lived close to nature, getting to know intimately the places they chose for their homes, and drawing on the natural world around them for inspiration across all media. We’ll be delving into the use of nature in the work of William and May Morris, Ernest Gimson, the Barnsleys and their friends, as well as C R Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft in Chipping Campden and the designers, makers and artists who lived in the Stroud area. From glittering stained-glass to soft plaster, flowers appear, sometimes decorative, sometimes symbolic. We’ll look, too, at the gardens they designed, and where they went on their explorations into the countryside. .

Wonderful Wall Paintings of Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds (10.30am, 10 April)

Once upon a time our churches were full of colour and imagery but today often only ghosts of those decorations remain – fragments of glass, mutilated wood and stone, and the ephemeral, fading glimpses of wall paintings. In Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds, however we are lucky in having exciting schemes of wall paintings from one of the very earliest schemes to survive in Britain at Kempley, terrifying dooms at Mitcheldean and Oddington, to Tudor wall paintings that hint at a flowering of Renaissance art in Gloucester – and so many more. These medieval schemes tell the stories of the Bible, of the saints, and act as warnings and reminders of correct behaviour. Step into this medieval world with Kirsty Hartsiotis, as she takes you through what these paintings meant to the congregations of the past. But did you think that wall paintings are a thing of the past? Kirsty will bring us right up to date.

From Birmingham to Byzantium to the Cotswolds: Stories of Ernest and Sidney Barnsley (10.30am, 15 May)

2026 marks the centenary of the death two of the Cotswolds’ greatest Arts and Crafts architects, the brothers Ernest and Sidney Barnsley. They moved, with their friend Ernest Gimson, to Gloucestershire in the 1890s, and all three stayed here for all their lives. They originally hailed from Birmingham, but both left to study in London, where they met the friends who would become the architects of the Movement. This talk follows their life stories, including travels abroad as young men, Ernest heading to France and Italy, and Sidney to Greece and Turkey. After they settled in the Cotswolds they worked as architects and furniture makers, and the talk will look at their buildings, and their craft work, particularly Sidney’s furniture. We’ll also explore their lives in Sapperton, who they socialised with, and what they did for fun!