1.        The Art of the Movie Poster

2.        Fashion Designers on Film

1.        Movie posters have helped us decide how to spend our hard-earned cinema money for over a century, from the art deco attractions of Metropolis, through the widescreen promises of the mid-century, all the way to the formulaic multiplex offerings of today. Some are timeless works of art, some are downright deceptive, some are startlingly original. And today, some change hands for half a million pounds. Join lecturer Christopher Budd to find out what we can learn from a hundred years of movie posters.

 2.        Whether looking for inspiration, for added realism, or for some cutting-edge styles, film directors have often reached out to fashion designers to clothe their characters. Some of the results of these meetings of minds have proved iconic in both worlds, and some have even trickled down into our own wardrobes. Christopher Budd will look at great onscreen fashion collaborations, and some that take a sideways look at the very idea.

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Christopher Budd is a writer, teacher and musician, with a specialism in music for film. His research interests range from silent cinema to electronic music via Hollywood from the studio system to the experimental ’70s, and British and European film and music of the 1960s and 70s, as well as special effects, movie posters and fashion on film.

He lectures for various community arts and adult learning organisations including the WEA, U3A, many local groups within the Cambridgeshire Alliance of Lifelong Learners, and further afield including the French and Italian film clubs at the Letchworth Settlement and the Kings Lynn Film Festival.

Christopher has written on diverse topics for publications including EMC Media Magazine, Music Teacher, Classical Music, Bass Guitar Magazine and US record-collecting bible Goldmine, and contributes regularly to music magazine Shindig!, penning a monthly column on album covers. He also teaches private instrumental lessons and records as a session musician.

1. Barrage Balloons and Breech Rings: Artists on the Home Front​​
2. Henry Moore: Drawing in the Dark

1.     During the second World War, Sir Kenneth Clark, the then Director of the National Gallery, established the War Artists Advisory Commission with the aim of employing artists to record Britain’s part in the war for posterity. The scheme ran for six years and supported around 400 artists. Some saw action in Europe, Africa and the Far East, but most recorded the effects of war on the home front in industry, including John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Stanley Spencer, Henry Moore and Laura Knight.

2.     ​In contrast to Henry Moore's popular drawings depicting Londoners sheltering from the Blitz, his drawings as a war artist of Britain's underground army, the miners of Wheldale colliery, are less well-known. From Moore's return to his childhood home and the challenges associated with 'drawing in the dark', to the influence of the project on the sculptor’s later work, this talk, based on Chris Owen’s book, Drawing in the Dark: Henry Moore’s Coalmining Commission, will provide new insights into Moore’s life and artistic process. It will also reveal the back-breaking labour endured by nearly 3/4 million miners, as they made their vital contribution to Britain’s war effort.

Chris Owen is an art historian specialising in British art since 1750. He is a freelance lecturer and Honorary Visiting Senior Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University. After studying History of Art at Cambridge University, Chris embarked on a career lecturing in art schools. He was appointed Assistant Principal at Leeds College of Art and Assistant Dean at the University of Derby before becoming Head of Cambridge School of Art at Anglia Ruskin University from 2011 until retirement in 2019. His book: Drawing in the Dark: Henry Moore’s Coalmining Commission was published by Lund Humphries in 2022. He is currently working on a new book about the sculptor, John Flaxman.

Painting: Take Off (1943) by Laura Knight