About

Sir Christopher John Frayling is a British educationalist and writer, known for his study of popular culture, particularly the world of film. This lecture will look at the story of art in tandem with the evolution of Hollywood.

Ever since the dawn of the sound era, Hollywood studios have been producing spectacular feature films about the lives and achievements of the great visual artists, with a cast of characters including Charles Laughton as Rembrandt, Kirk Douglas as van Gogh, Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo.

The results – usually dismissed out of hand by art historians and curators – can tell us a surprising amount about the changing public image of the artist and about how art has entered the cultural bloodstream of modern Western societies. If you knew nothing about art history except these Hollywood films – what would you know…?

Sir Christopher Frayling takes us behind the scenes of Tinseltown's history of art, in all its fascinating glory…

Tickets

£15