Art and the USA 1945 – 1989

from Jackson Pollock to the Guerilla Girls

WEA tutor Rosanna Eckersley

£42 for 5 sessions starting Wednesday April 23^rd 2025, 10.30 – 12.30

Danbury Parish Church Meeting Rooms, Main Rd, Danbury CM3 4NG

This exciting new course examines the wide range of artistic styles and practices in the USA in the years after WW2. The energy and innovation is clear, see the scale and mark making in Jackson Pollock’s painting.

The tutor aims to encourage close-looking at artworks, to set art into artistic and historical contexts, including the Cold War, and to create an environment where students are comfortable talking about art. For some images our discussion will be just to figure out what is going on! We begin with Abstract Expressionism (Pollock, Rothko, Reinhardt, Frankenthaler, Newman, Krasner and more), moving to Rauschenberg’s very different practice and Jasper John’s Flag (1954-5). We will look at 1960s pop art (Warhol and Lichtenstein) and, thinking about sculpture, we’ll discuss Minimalism and, for site-specific art, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) among others. We end with artists who focused on identity and worked for societal change: Judy Chicago’s feminist The Dinner Party, Betye Saar’s The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972) and the Guerrilla Girls’ significant public interventions – highlighting the paucity of women’s art in public.

Course Ref Q00021970

For more information and to enrol click HERE

English Monarchy:

Queen Anne to Queen Elizabth ll

WEA Tutor Roger Cooke

£42 for 5 sessions starting Thursday April 24^th 2025, 10.00 – 12.00

Danbury Parish Church Meeting Rooms, Main Rd, Danbury CM3 4NG

Despite England being the world’s first successful constitutional monarchy, which had the effect of limiting the power of the monarch, the personality of the monarch did affect the course of history. We will look at the changes in the monarchy from the reign of Anne, the last Stuart, to the death of Elisabeth 11, the longest holder of the office.

Sometimes in ways so subtle as to be almost invisible, our monarchs mark shifts in the way our country is ruled and, on occasions, have made that shift inevitable. The private views, peccadillos and prejudices of the monarch can have decisive consequences: from the Tory-ism of George VI which nearly created a constitutional crisis, to Queen Anne’s underrated political nous manipulating the creation of the United Kingdom, a feat that defied her male Stuart predecessors, we will explore the machinations of Kings, Queens and Consorts.

Course Ref Q00021971

For more information and to enrol click HERE