Programme of Events 2025
Elizabeth and Stanhope Forbes: A Marriage of Art
Exhibition at Worcester Art Gallery
Autumn Breeze Elizabeth Adela Forbes c.1900
You are invited to join us at Worcester Art Gallery on: Thursday 26th June 2025 11am
We shall meet in the foyer of Worcester Gallery from 10.45am onwards for a private talk which starts at 11am.
The talk will be given by: Natasha Wilcockson. Curatorial and Exhibitions Assistant.
Cost of the talk is £4 per person. Payment by BACS preferred.
Details: A/C Name: Friends of Dame Laura Knight Society
A/C No.: 71788612
A/C S.C.: 40-31-09
Please reference your payment with your name.
Payment by cheque is possible. Cheques payable to:
‘Friends of Dame Laura Knight Society’. Bring it with you on the day.
Following the talk, you are free to browse the exhibition. This will be at your own pace, unguided. Cost is £4 (£3 Art Pass Holders, free to Friends of the Gallery) payable on the desk on the day.
There is a cafe at the Gallery to have a coffee or light lunch with your friends of the Society if you wish.
Even if you have already visited the exhibition, it is well worth a second viewing and lovely to share your thoughts with fellow art lovers.
Here is a note about the exhibition from the Gallery: A sumptuous selection of artworks by the power couple of British Impressionism, Elizabeth and Stanhope Forbes.
The exhibition includes intricate portraits and landscapes to lose yourself in, many on loan from Penlee House Gallery & Museum and visiting Worcester for the first time. Also featured is the local favourite by Stanhope Forbes; Chadding on Mounts Bay.
Elizabeth Forbes achieved international recognition but soon became overshadowed by her male contemporaries. This exhibition aims to put these two outstanding artists on an equal footing and show the importance of both to the development of British Impressionism.
Please use the Contact Us page if you would like to join us
Talk ‘Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920‘
Tim Batchelor Curator Tate Britain
Saturday 11th October 2025 3pm Malvern Theatre Studio One
Talk ‘Women at Work’
Alice Foster Saturday 14th March 2026 3pm Colwall Village Hall
Spirit Of Malvern Art Competition
On May Bank Holiday Monday, 2025, the Malvern Creatives Connect artist group held its second annual ‘en plein air’ competition. 100 artists both local and national had around five hours to create a scene in and around Malvern.
In the spirit of Dame Laura Knight, our society sponsored a prize for Best Landscape which was won by the artist Greta Vilidaite who painted the view over Malvern from an elevated position on the Wyche Road.
Below is Greta’s winning entry.
Laura Knight’s Theatre: Performance, People and Place
Professor Claire Cochrane
Saturday 15th March 2025 3:00pm Colwall Village Hall
Laura Knight’s extraordinarily capacious concept of theatre resulted in art which tried to capture not only the diversity of different forms of performance, but also the working environments of where and how performance is made. In discussing examples of that diversity this talk will also focus on the key personalities who facilitated her access—in particular Sir Barry Jackson, her friend for over 50 years and the founder of the Birmingham Repertory Company and the Malvern Festival.
Claire Cochrane is Professor Emeritus of Theatre Studies at the University of Worcester. She has published widely on the history and continuing policies of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and is a trustee of the Sir Barry Jackson Trust. As a historian of twentieth and twenty-first century British theatre with a particular interest in regional theatre, she is the author of Twentieth Century British Theatre: Industry, Art and Empire published by CUP in 2011. She is currently working on the co-edited two volume Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century British Theatre. Volume 1 1900-1950 was published in October last year.
Dame Laura Knight: An Artists Appreciation
In November 2020 the DLK society commissioned an on-line lecture by artist and senior lecturer Brian Gorst titled ‘An Artists Appreciation’. Brian was able to offer a unique insight and perception onto DKL’s work and methods.
Initially only available to members we have now openly released this onto YouTube which can be accessed: here
Publication : Laura Knight in The Malverns
OUR PUBLICATION ABOUT LAURA KNIGHT IN THE MALVERNS.
Heather Whatley’s book ‘Laura Knight in the Malverns’ is now well established on the bookshelves. Heather is the founder of the Dame Laura Knight Society in 2008.
Most biographies of Laura mention her stay in Malvern but none give detail of the three decades from 1931 until 1961 that she lived here. Drawing on recorded memories of local people the author hopes to bring to life the woman as well as the artist, a dynamic personality who engaged socially with all the locals she met, many of whom she painted.
Using Society archives, photos, maps and illustrations of Laura’s local paintings the writer traces Laura and Harold’s stay in Malvern from early Festival days, their permanent stay during World War 2, when Laura was a prolific War Artist, to their frequent returns to the town post war to see old friends and to continue painting.
Dame Laura Knight claimed she did her best landscapes in Malvern and her paintings of this period demonstrate her love of our countryside in all seasons and leave us with a colourful record of the lives of ordinary working people and our cultural history.
The book is published by Aspect Printers, costs £7.50 and is available in Malvern Tourist Information Centre, Co-operative Bookshop Malvern, Malvern Museum and on-line at Amazon.co.uk.
To read a review of the book please click here.