Monday 11th Dec 2017
10.30 am Coffee
11.00 am Lecture The Boy who Bit Picasso 11.00 am - Antony Penrose
As a child Antony Penrose first met Picasso when he visited the Penrose family home of Farley Farm, in Chiddingly, East Sussex in 1950. They became instant friends and invented their own boisterous game of pretend bull fights. In the excitement Antony bit Picasso, and Picasso bit him right back, but it did not spoil the friendship and during the many visits he made to Picasso’s homes in France Antony felt very much at home. He loved the menagerie of pets – the live ones and those Picasso made as sculptures that seemed alive. Antony’s parents were Roland Penrose, the curator and biographer of Picasso, and Lee Miller, the photographer.
12.30 Lunch
2.00 pm Lecture Witnessing Women at War - Lee Miller
For Lee Miller a woman at war was any woman caught up in World War 2. She shot faultless images for Vogue’s haute couture in London’s bombed out streets. She documented the magnificent work of the WRNS, ATS, the Land Girls, the WRVS and the nurses. She shows us the refugees in Europe, girls accused of collaboration and women forced into slave labour or prostitution and concentration camp victims. Their roles range from bravery to stupidity and from enforced involvement to volunteering.
This is a documentation of one of the biggest social changes in British and European history, as three million women left their normal housewife roles and entered industry and the armed forces discovering careers and undreamed of freedom. It is told against the background of Lee Miller’s own life story which takes her from being a fashion supermodel via life as a surrealist artist to a combat photographer and finally a gourmet cook.
Cost Coffee and lecture £10
Morning lecture and lunch £25