**The OASA invites applications for the role of Chair of the Oxford Art Society Associates. For details scroll down to see the notice below.**
January 1st 2021
Letter from the OASA President to the Associates
To find myself as President of the Oxford Art Society Associates is totally unexpected and a considerable honour. I am well aware that following Jon Whiteley is a formidable challenge. Jon’s personal and academic qualities will be well-known to members of the Associates, and I recall with huge gratitude his integrity and support in all matters that lead to the creation of the undergraduate degree in the History of Art. As a poacher turned gamekeeper (having spoken to the Associates), I will strive to do what I can in his succession.
After an extraordinarily testing year, we may now look forward with some optimism and indeed learn from the positive aspects of how individuals and organisations have maintained their activities and programmes, often in new and creative ways. Above all this has been achieved with internet presence via Zoom, Skype, Teams, FaceTime… At times I have felt zombied by Zoom. I am convinced that face-to-face contacts – talks, events and performances – will always be at the core of communication in the arts, but we have discovered that we can reach out to audiences throughout the world. I recently spoke at the Mumbai Literary Festival from my office at home. There are big audiences out there, and our programme is of the quality to attract a wide following. An ambition in 2021 is to speak in person in India about my new book on Dante and divine light in painting (Lund Humphries). We will have to see what is possible.
Another area we can look to enhance our reach is locally. It would be good to build on (or create) relationships with Modern Art Oxford, the Ruskin School, the Picture Gallery at Christ Church, the Museum of History of Science, the Department of the History for Art, the student Edgar Wind Society. We might look to share some events. There is no town in Britain (other than unmanageable London) that can offer more fulsome riches in the visual arts than are available in Oxford.
And an advertisement: I am due to talk on the David Hockney shows I am co-curating in Cambridge as a kind of presidential inaugural on 8 November, by which time we hope to be back to something like normal. At least the visuals will be extraordinarily vivid and varied.
It will be a privilege to be directly involved with the Associates.
With the best wishes to everyone for 2021.
Martin Kemp
Prior to each lecture, links will be provided to all OASA members who have provided the committee with their email addresses.
If you have query about membership please contact the Membership Secretary. Details of the Officers of the OASA are given below.
Dante and the Art of Divine Light
Martin Kemp’s new book Visions of Heaven
Dante and the Art of Divine Light was published in March 2021
Oxford Art Society Associates Programme 2021
Background to the 2021 series of OASA Zoom lectures
Those of you who are members of the OASA will already have received details of our very exciting programme for 2021. Friends and other visitors to our web pages can see these details here on the OASA Lectures page.
We are very fortunate that three of our lecturers whose talks were cancelled last year have agreed to speak this year and in addition, we have been able to secure the services of three further, outstanding, speakers to complete the programme. This includes our illustrious new President, Prof. Martin Kemp, who will deliver his inaugural lecture about David Hockney to us, at the end of the year.
All lectures this year will be given on Zoom, the web-based videoconferencing facility. As you know, this technology has allowed people to keep in touch on a face-to-face basis during the pandemic and for the OASA it offers us the opportunity attend lectures from the comfort of our own homes while we are confined to barracks.
One of the enjoyable aspects of past programmes has been the opportunity to engage in discussion with the lecturer at the end of each talk and this possibility will retained with our Zoom lectures, which will allow us to send in questions via the ‘chat’ facility or ask questions directly at the end of the talks.
Because we are using Zoom, we will of course be able to accommodate a much larger audience than was possible in the past and we shall be looking to attract the interest of students and of members of other art societies to join us
It will be necessary to register on a web page to attend each lecture and we will be letting you know how to do this in a week or so, posting information on this OASA web page and also by email if we have your address.
If you are an OASA member and haven’t received your new membership card, please let Sarah Thorn, our membership secretary know, via The Ashmolean.
We are looking forward to welcoming you to our new series of lecture and hope to see you there.
Sincerely,
Tony Bron
Chairman of the OASA On behalf of the OASA Committee
Chair of the Oxford Art Society Associates
Applications are invited for the post of Hon. Chair of the Oxford Art Society Associates (OASA) that falls vacant at the end of 2021.
The OASA was founded in 1962 as a partner to the Oxford Art Society, to provide a regular window on the Visual Arts for the residents of Oxford and its environs. It holds six lectures a year, two per University term, and in 2022 lectures will be held once again in the Headley Lecture Theatre (HLT) of the Ashmolean Museum. The 2022 lectures will be hybrid events delivered live to an audience of OASA members and guests and broadcast concurrently on Zoom to reach a wider audience.
The OASA is run by a members’ committee, currently chaired by Professor Anthony Bron. The President of the OASA is Professor Martin Kemp, the distinguished art historian. Prof. Bron is stepping down at the end of the year and the Associates are seeking a replacement Chair.
The duties of the OASA Chair, working with the committee, include formulation of the year’s lecture programme, corresponding with the membership and chairing each meeting. The committee meets regularly by Zoom to discuss prospective speakers for the following year, consider aspects of publicity and to review the success of each meeting.
The manner in which the committee works is as follows. With guidance from the President, the committee builds up a portfolio of potential speakers to which all committee members contribute. Dates for lectures are agreed with the Events Manager of the Ashmolean Museum and speakers are invited over the course of the year. By the Autumn, once all titles have been received, programme details are emailed to the membership and also placed on the OASA pages of the Oxford Art Society website. These details are incorporated into a membership card which is sent to members in January.
All speakers are asked to provide a set of details for publicity purposes, which includes a digital portrait of themselves, a short personal biography, a piece of text about their talk and an image which illustrates some aspect of it. This information is always available for the first speaker when publicity is first posted on the website and is used in setting up the Eventbrite link for each talk.
Professor Bron will be retiring from his position as chairman in December 2021. The names of speakers and dates of talks for 2022 have been agreed and the main thrust of the committee’s activities in 2022 will be to consolidate arrangements for the hybrid lectures in the HLT next year and to plan for meetings in 2023. The work of the Chair is fully supported by the General Secretary, Treasurer, Membership Secretary, Zoom Manager, Publicity Officer and ordinary members, under the overall guidance of the President.
Those interested in the post are invited to contact Prof Bron directly by email (anthony.bron@eye.ox.ac.uk) to arrange a meeting or chat on the phone.
OFFICERS of the OXFORD ART SOCIETY ASSOCIATES
Prof. Martin Kemp: President
Ms Judd Flogdell: PA to President
Prof. Anthony Bron: Chair
Ms Lucy Stopford: Hon General Secretary – Artist. Member of the Oxford Art Society
Ms Judith Brown: Hon Treasurer – Past treasurer of NADFAS
Steve Street: Acting Membership Secretary and Zoom Meeting Manager
Dr. Linda Whiteley: Ordinary Member – Art Historian. Research Associate of the Dept. of the History of Art, University of Oxford
Dr. Martin Smith: Publicity Officer, also in charge of the OAS web design – Sculptor. Member of the Oxford Art Society
Debs Digby: OAS Secretary – Occasional secretarial support