Two lectures by Dr Nathalia Murray  Curator of the successful REVOLUTION exhibition at the Royal Academy last year

New art for a New Society : Propaganda and Russian art

Already in 1917 the leader of the new Bolshevik State, Vladimir Lenin, proclaimed that culture should support political needs, which effectively meant that all culture was now viewed as propaganda. Like Lenin, Trotsky believed that ‘the essence of the new culture will be not an aristocratic one for a privileged minority, but a mass culture, a universal and popular one.’ This lecture will examine the impact of the 1917 revolution on artists and the quest of the new government for a new form of proletarian art. 

Heroes of the past living in the future. Fate of the Russian Intelligentsia after the Revolution

October 1917 represented a clear dividing line between the old and the new. The renaissance that had occurred in the visual arts at the turn of the century was cut short when most members of the ‘World of Art’ (Mir Iskusstva) group – those artists, poets and musicians who were hostile toward the Imperial Academy of Arts and nineteenth century Realism, and were often referred to as the “Russian Secession”– left Russia. 

The morning will be held at St. Philip and St. James Church House, Painswick  Road, Leckhampton  Cheltenham  GL50 2DL

Cost £25  including coffee and biscuits on arrival.  Lunch-time sandwiches available for an extra £5

The talks will start at 10.30 with a brief break between them both. We are also happy to provide a sandwich lunch for £5 although there are lots of small eateries on the Bath Road which is very close by.

Click here for a flyer with more information and booking form.