Art Appreciation

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This group meets on the third Thursday of the month.

January 16th 2025

17th Century Women Artists

The 16th and 17th centuries boast some world famous names in European painting. This session will introduce you to some largely overlooked women who worked as professional artists, trained in their fathers’ studios, supporting their families, and courted by European Royalty including Charles I. Their lives and superb work may surprise and delight.


Mary Beal English Susan Penelope Rosse English Anne Killigrew English Élisabeth Sophie Chéron French The Merian family German working in the Netherlands Judith Leyster Dutch Clara Peeters  Dutch Lavinia Fontana Italian Fede Galizia Italian Elisabetta Sirani Italian Artemisia Gentileschi (

November 21st 2024

St Jerome Albrecht Durer

Once again, religion, technology and creative genius vie with each other to tell the next part of the history of art through landscape.

The Cook Pieter Aertsen

The Renaissance in the Netherlands, Flanders and Germany has a different flavour from that in Italy – the depiction of ordinary people, the wide arching view of mountains, valleys and seas. But not far away, the strong moral guidance of the protestant church.


We look at the work of Durer, Patinir, Aertsen and Breugel

October 17th 2024

L.S. Lowry

LS Lowry was a British, 20th Century artist . He is mostly known for his paintings of the Salford & Manchester area where he grew up and worked such as ‘Coming from the Mill 1930’ and this is what most people see as a “typical” Lowry.

There was more to him than that though. He did go to art college, but in the evenings after he had finished work. Once he had retired he turned to landscapes and portraits instead of his more famous industrial scenes.

September 19th 2024

Landscape through history part 1 starting in the 1st century BCE up to the C19th.

Landscape was not taken seriously in its own right until the C16th, but there are some lovely examples from earlier times to put our modern work into context.

How did Roman frescos, Mediaeval manuscripts, the Dutch masters and Renaissance painters depict the natural world and how did the industrial revolution affect the paintings we are so familiar with today?

August 22nd 2024

Visit to the Glynn Vivian Gallery Swansea to see the Wakelin Award winners

July 18th

Mary Lloyd Jones – Passion and Protest.

Sky study -Turner

Mary Lloyd Jones is a rare being. A Welsh speaking woman with a growing international profile, whose paintings now sell for thousands of pounds. Mary says of her work:

“My aim is to reflect my relationship with the land, an awareness of history, and the treasures of our literary and oral traditions”.

Her work comes from her surroundings around Aberystwyth, with its scarred landscape bearing the legacy of lead and silver mining. She has also painted in Ireland, the USA, Italy, Spain SW England, always seeking and demonstrating the shapes and colours of the landscape.

Edgar Degas
watercolour landscape

June 13th

Cardiff School of Art and Design Summer Show

Cardiff Met, Llandaff Campus

May 16th

Dic Aberdaron,
by William Roos,

Welsh art in context

How do you earn a living as an artist in a rural country with little claim to wealth and connections?

We take a break from the excitement of the early modern artists to look at an itinerant portrait painter in the 19th century. A mixture of history and art, unfolding not only what makes a portrait, but also something about the people who wanted to have their ‘likeness’ captured.

unknown woman by William Roos

April 18th

Landscape with chimney – Kandinsky
Gabriele Münter
– Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter

Kandinsky and Munter were ground-breaking international artists in Munich at the start of the 20th century They wanted to explore sound and spiritual questions relating to the arts using vivid colour and clear delineated form. Kandinsky is also often referred to as one of the father of abstract work.

Münter’s courage in asserting herself against the social norms of the day are remarkable as is her ability to step out from Kandinsky’s shadow. Her paintings are vivid and striking, with strong shapes and a clear graphic framework.

March 21st

We visited the Holbourne Museum in Bath to see the Gwen John exhibition

February 15th 2024

Wyndham Lewis Workshop 1914

The Vorticists

The turbulence of the early 20th century was reflected in revolutionary artistic movements not only in Europe, but in Great Britain too . Cubists in France, Expressionists in Germany, Futurists in Italy, Rayonists in Russia and the Vorticist group here. Young artists, then as now, wanted to challenge the establishment and break new ground.

January 18 2024

Four Cubists from Ukraine, Switzerland, Russia and Spain .

Three of them studied and spent time in Paris as part of the Cubist circle we are so familiar with. They demonstrate the universality of the early 20th century art movement. We will discuss their influences and look at how they spanned the whole range of Expressionism. Fauvism, Cubism and Orphism, adding their own distinctive stamp and claiming their place in early 20thcentury art.

Alice Bailly Switzerland

Sonia Delauney Russia, now Ukraine

María Blanchard Spain

Natalia Goncharova Russia

October 19th

The German Expressionists – Die Brücke (The Bridge)

Schmidt Rottluff woman with a bag

Ernst Kirchner Berlin street 1910

Eric Heckel White House 1908

The impressionists were breaking boundaries in art but the expressionists were making political and revolutionary protest.

The manifesto of 1906 stated

‘we want to achieve freedom of life and action against the well established older forces’.

In art this freedom involved blending elements of old German art and African and South Pacific tribal art, with post-impressionism and fauvism to create a distinctive modern style”

September 21 2023

Fauvism

Last year we started our journey with the founding group of French Impressionists, looking in some detail at the paintings of Manet, Morisot, Degas, Pissarro and Renoir.

The Impressionist Mary Cassatt brought us to the American painters, and others working outside France who do not always have the prominence of the French artists. British painters included Whistler and Sisley’s Penarth and Gower paintings.

With Post Impressionists, we have touched on Paul Cezanne, Henri Rousseau, Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat – all big personalities who deserve more time in the future.

We finished the year with The Glasgow girls – long over-shadowed by the Boys (Rennie Mackintosh), and then going to some Welsh artists – Sisley of course, but also some early industrial artists such as George Childs and Penry Williams. Finally we studied and visited Frank Brangwyn’s Empire Panels in Swansea.

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Visit to The Brangwyn Empire Panels in The Guildhall, Swansea.

Originally painted for the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster, in honour of the Peers and their sons who died in WW1. They were thought to be too colourful for that setting, but were snapped up for Swansea’s new Guildhall in 1934

The Empire Panels in the Brangwyn Hall towered above us. Wonderfully vivid colours and a reminder of how the British saw the Empire in the early 20th century

We were shown the first panel submitted to the Palace of Westminster, now behind glass in a committee room. It depicts North Africa with date palms, lush plants and animals.

We found the most interesting pictures in a nearby corridor. They were smaller studies, squared up ready to be transferred onto the huge final panels. We could clearly see the progression of Brangwyn’s ideas as he included the details of people, plants and animals.




One Day Gallery and Museum Visits Frequently Asked Question

Visits are chosen for their general interests to group members or to reflect a recent presentation. There is usually no limit on numbers since the venues chosen are open to the general public. If a private visit is organised and numbers are limited, places will be given in order of receiving an application.

For visits to venues also open to the general public, all details and updates, are sent to the whole membership by email. If the numbers are limited, only members who have expressed an interest will be sent information. This will be made clear initially.

A proposed time to leave the venue will be suggested in the joining information. Members will be free to leave when they wish since only public transport is involved but members are asked to let the group leader know if they are going to another venue or returning home before the suggested time. It is important that the group leader can check that no one is left behind at a venue.

It is all too easy to get distracted or absorbed in conversation when walking in a group. Members are reminded to keep an eye on surroundings and walking surfaces.

Special care is needed walking on a road without a pavement. In such instances walking in single file is recommended.

When crossing roads please think as an individual and not as an amorphous group i.e. just because the person in front of you has begun to cross a road does not necessarily mean it is safe for you to do the same. Make your own assessment whether it is safe to cross.

Uneven terrain and accessibility will be made clear to members of the group before booking if these are known. Additional advice may be given at the venue. Only u3a members are covered by u3a insurance.

Travel is usually by public transport. Members are free to decide to join the group on the day of travel or take a different train. Members are encouraged to inform the organiser ahead of time if possible so that no one gets left behind. Members buy their own tickets for travel and for the venue.

Please let the leader know if you are leaving the group to go elsewhere or to return home before the suggested time.

The leader’s phone number will be given to everyone on the visit.

For those travelling to the venue using their own vehicle the visit starts on arrival at the venue.

Your u3a Beacon details allow you to add a phone number of someone to contact in case of an emergency. To do this, go to the Cardiff u3a website, click on ‘for Members’, then ‘Members Area or Portal’ and follow directions from there.

Cardiff