Summer Party with drinks and canapés in a beautiful garden.

Tickets £25

Organiser: Barbara Farmer - barbarafarmer4647@gmail.com 0151 652 1002 or 0780495596

The Pochins moved to Oscroft in 2006 as a young family to the house which is a combination of Georgian farmhouse and disused shippon but was run down , with the majority of the garden laid out to lawn. Over the years they have transformed the house , garden and its surrounds to include a mixed garden of lawn, flower beds , orchard with free range hens, woodland, a grazing field for the family’s animals and a cut flowers area.

The garden has been improved with the installation of a canal pond, beech hedging with spring and early summer borders of peonies, euphorbia, alliums and roses together with a prairie border of grasses, echinacea, sedum,rudbeckia and asters. Recently Felicity has ploughed up a field where she now grows commercial cut flowers.

Directions and address will be sent with your tickets.

Tickets £22, which includes refreshments

We will meet in the Atrium of the Hospital under the ‘bird roost’ at 2pm.

Please park in Sainsbury’s car park on the East Prescot Road opposite the hospital. Bus routes 10A from James Street Station and 10B from Queens Square run past the hospital.

Organising Committee member - Indira Maddison (contact indiramaddison@hotmail.co.uk or 07986 864008)

Alder Hey’s reputation as a leading children’s hospital is internationally renowned with 330,000 children and young people treated there each year. As Europe’s only hospital in a park, Art, Architecture and Landscaping play a prominent role as the campus continues to expand. We have an exclusive opportunity to join Alder Hey Children’s Charity for a behind the scenes tour of the hospital when we will have the chance to see first-hand the magic that takes place across its departments, learn about its innovative Arts for Health programme, and hear about exciting new developments.

We will then be taken on a tour of the hospital estate including the Chelsea Garden. Sensible footwear is advised.

Image: Exterior of Alder Hey Hospital © Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

Tickets £18

Organising Committee member - Pam Meredith Jones (contact pam@milesmj.com orartfriendsmerseyside1@gmail.com or 07941 542911)

Oriel Glasfryn Gallery is the only independent art gallery in North East Wales, situated just off the A55 at Junction 31 in the historic town of Caerwys, the gallery showcases the finest original Welsh art and craft including painting, jewellery, ceramics, sculpture, glass, textiles, wood and metalwork.

The permanent gallery is set in the grounds of Glasfryn Hall, the home of Dave Roberts, a renowned pastel landscape artist specialising in paintings of Snowdonia and North Wales. He will be exhibiting in The Pastel Society Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London from 24 January. His private home will be open for us to view the Spring Exhibition.

Our private view will begin with a talk by Dave Roberts, after which we will have an opportunity to explore the paintings on view. Refreshments will be served.

For those who would like to make a day of it, the Dinorben Arms at Bodfari, off the A541 at the B5429, is a ten-minute drive away. Please make your own booking directly with them:

Call 01745 775090 or visit their website here.

Image: Anglesey Sunset pastel by Dave Roberts

Tickets £40

Arrive from 12pm with a delicious two-course lunch at 1pm followed by Niall’s talk over coffee. Drinks will be available to purchase from the bar.

Please let us know of any allergies.

Organising Committee member - Olwen McLaughlin (contact info@editionsltd.net or artfriendsmerseyside1@gmail.com or 07970 660081)

Visitors to the Artists Club often remark on the excellent pictures which adorn the Club’s rooms – and the dining room in particular, with its large painting by Will Penn by the windows.

Many of the Club’s early members were professional artists, part of a heyday of painters working and exhibiting in Liverpool in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The paintings in the Club – mainly presidents’ portraits, and informal sketches – give only a hint of its artistic heritage, and the quality of its members’ output. In this talk by Niall Hodson, Curator of the Williamson Art Gallery we will be introduced to some of the artists behind the pictures, and the lively Liverpool art scene in which the Artists Club’s early members made their names.

Image: Image: William Charles Penn The Concert Pianist Joseph Greene © Artists Club, Liverpool

Tickets £20

30 places available

Meet at Sudley House at 11am - limited parking available on site so please car share where possible in order to limit car numbers.

Coffee/tea and cake upon arrival. Please let me know of any allergies, gluten free choice will be available.

Organiser: Gail Aubrey (contact dgmaubrey@hotmail.com or artfriendsmerseyside1@gmail.com or 07803 617648 or 0151 427 3301 )

Built in 1821 Sudley was the home of George Holt, ship-owner and merchant, and houses much of his important collection of paintings, drawings and prints.

We will begin our visit with a guided tour of the house followed by a talk about the current exhibition, Home and Away.

As its title suggests Home and Away features a range of nineteenth century works of both local and foreign views.  Scenes from afar are from Holt’s own collection, a body of work that was bequeathed to the city of Liverpool in 1944 and therefore, uniquely, remains intact.

Works by Atkinson Grimshaw and Charles Trevor Prescott provide well-known local views - vibrant, bustling scenes of Bold Street and the Old Market Hall at St John’s Market; atmospheric night-time dockside scenes of the Customs House. Another highlight is Rome through the eyes of the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme considered the world’s most famous living artist during his heyday. And for a February Monday what could be more uplifting than the blue of Eduardo de Martino’sBay of Naples. 

Find out more about the exhibition and hear from the Curator Jessie Petheram here.

Image: Charles Trevor Prescott Bold Street from Waterloo Place © National Museums Liverpool, Sudley House

Tickets £12 including coffee/tea and biscuits

There is a large car park at the rear of the gallery and good disabled access.

Organising Committee member - Sally Warnock (contact artfriendsmerseyside1@gmail.com or 07770785514)

Julian Treuherz has very kindly agreed to talk to us about his enjoyable and informative new book on the Art and Architecture of Sicily. Julian is an art historian who was, as many of you will remember, Keeper of Art Galleries for National Museums Liverpool between 1989 and 2007.

He and his partner, Peter de Figueredo, who has taken most of the photographs, have over the past twenty years spent part of each year researching and studying the art and architecture of Sicily. As a base they bought, surprisingly, a modern house but built in traditional style, overlooking olive groves.

Julian will use beautiful illustrations to show how Sicily’s strategic position in the Mediterranean shaped its multi cultural art and architecture and makes a compelling case for Sicilian civilisation itself as a unique and distinctive force. Stories such as, in the 6th century more Greek temples were built in Sicily than in Greece and that Caravaggio spent his final years in Sicily creating some of his finest masterpieces, are part of the many fascinating insights into the island’s history.

Our morning will start with coffee/tea and biscuits at 10.30 followed by the talk at 11am. For those who are interested, signed copies of the book will be available for purchase and Julian will also give members a code so that the book can be ordered at a 20% discount direct from the publishers, if they so wish.

Tickets £50 - wine may be ordered by the glass or the bottle at lunch

60 places available

Organisers - Julia Leary and Barbara Farmer

Contact artfriendsmerseyside1@gmail.com

07768192882 (Julia) or 07804955961 (Barbara)

To celebrate the festive season we will meet at St George’s Hall (details to follow with your ticket) and gather at the Grand Jury Room where our Chairman, Peter Woods as DL and former High Sheriff of Merseyside, will talk about the important role St George’s Hall plays for the Registry and Citizenship ceremonies.

We will then move on to the Great Hall for 12.45 till 1.30 pm, for Professor Ian Tracey’s Christmas organ recital.

Following the recital there will be a short walk across the boulevard to the newly refurbished Radisson RED Hotel connected to Lime Street Station. This iconic Grade II-listed building started life as one of the first British Railway Hotels in 1871 until it was left abandoned for years before becoming student accommodation. It has been transformed into a luxury hotel blending history, legacy and eclectic design. We will have exclusive use of the Stoke Restaurant for our celebration lunch after which there will be a raffle.

A menu will be sent out with the tickets - if you would like to sit with anyone please indicate with your menu choices, although we should stress that we always like to ensure that singles are included in the table plan.

The James Wotherspoon Lecture at The Art Library, University of Liverpool, 19-23 Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7ZG

Tickets £20 including tea and cake

80 places available

We are delighted to welcome Professor Iain Jackson BA Arch PhD ARB FHEA who is Professor of Architecture and Research Director at the Liverpool School of Architecture. He recently led a group of Art Friends on a walking tour of Liverpool to highlight the works of Herbert J Rowse, which included Martins Bank, India Buildings and the Tunnel Extracts and Entrances.

However, his PhD research has focussed on the Modernist pioneers in the 1930s who were mostly immigrants from Continental Europe, but who included the Liscard born Edwin Maxwell Fry and his wife Jane B Drew. Fry was appointed by the British government as Town Planning Adviser in British West Africa and Jane became his assistant. They were originally trained in the “suave neo-Georgian classicism style of architecture” of Professor Charles Reilly. However their projects included work on the creation of a new city, Chandigarh, India, the University of Ibada in Nigeria and educational buildings in Ghana. Professor Jackson recently curated an exhibition on the historic Jamestown district of Accra.

Access to the talk is through Number 23 Abercromby Square (built between 1824-28) but do give yourself time afterwards to look at the ceiling and stairwell of Number 19 (built in 1863).

Tea and cake will be served after the talk. Directions will be sent with your ticket.

Image: Kenneth Onwuka Dike Library, University of Ibadan (Nigeria)

Image credit: the African Studies Centre, Leiden

Walker Art Gallery, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EL

Tickets £15

30 places available

Organiser Barbara Farmer (contact barbarafarmer4647@gmail.com 0151 6521002 or 07804 955961)

The John Moores’ Painting Prize was set up in 1957 and was one of Britain’s first contemporary art prizes. It was named after its original sponsor, Sir John Moores, founder of the Littlewoods business empire.

The aims of the exhibition were “to give Merseyside the chance to see an exhibition of painting and sculpture embracing the best and most vital work done today and throughout the country” and to encourage contemporary artists, particularly the young and progressive.

We will meet in the cafe at the Walker Art Gallery at 2.30 pm.

The Royal Court Theatre, 1 Roe Street, Liverpool

Tickets £35 including theatre performance and interval snack

40 places available

Organiser Indira Maddison (contact 07986 864008 or artfriendsmerseyside1@gmail.com)

Many of us are familiar with The Royal Court Theatre but few are aware of the drama back stage. We now have a wonderful opportunity for a tour behind the scenes with two of the people responsible for saving this special Liverpool institution and a chance to attend one of their own home produced shows. It promises to be a lovely outing and we would recommend you book early.

The exterior of this Grade II-listed building belies what we will encounter inside. The theatre was built in 1880 - at the time it was the premier theatre in Liverpool but was burnt down and the current building was rebuilt in the Art Deco style in 1938. It became a venue, not just for theatre with famous stars performing, but also a venue for many pop bands. Having slumped into decline, it was resurrected by Comedy! We will hear more during the back-stage tour.

The afternoon will start with a behind the scenes talk and tour back-stage, after which you will be able to purchase a light lunch at the downstairs cafe. The matinee performance of The Boys in the Blackstuff will begin at 2pm and, during the interval, snacks on small plates will be served at our seats.

Parking is available at St John’s Shopping Centre car park.

Tickets £15

40 places available, forming two groups of 20.

Organiser Gail Aubrey (contact dgmaubrey@hotmail.com, 07803 617648, 0151 4273301 or artfriendsmerseyside1@gmail.com)

We will meet at the Childwall campus - Hope Park, Taggart Avenue, L16 9JD - under the archway close to the main entrance (from Woolton Road the main entrance is on the right hand side of Taggart Avenue).

Parking is at the rear of the campus by the sports hall - just keep to the road within the campus and you will arrive at the car park.

Coffee/tea and biscuits upon arrival before we set off with Martin and his colleague, James, for the tour. Please let me know of any allergies.

At about 12.30/12.45 pm we will make our own way by car to the Shaw Street campus - The Creative Campus - Shaw Street, Everton L6 1HO. There is street parking on Shaw Street and the nearby Salisbury Street.

At about 1.30pm we will have a tour of the gardens of this newly expanded site set adjacent to the Grade II-listed buildings of the old Liverpool Collegiate School and now part of this exciting creative hub. The expected time of the end of the tour is 2.30 pm.

Please let me know if you are able to offer/are seeking a place re: car sharing.

The 86C bus from the Liverpool One bus station goes to Hope at Childwall but getting a bus to the Everton campus is problematic. If you are thinking of getting the bus out to Childwall, let me know and I will try and ensure that there will be a lift for you to Everton.

Image credit: Liverpool Hope University

Private visit to Brynbella, near Tremeirchion, Denbighshire

Private tour of the Town Hall, Liverpool and afternoon tea at the Racquet Club Hotel, Chapel Street

Private visit to Gorstella Gallery, Kinnerton Road, Doddleston, Chester

Talk by the artist Michael Brennand-Wood and tour of the exhibition

A curatorial introduction and viewing of the Turner Prize 2022 exhibition at the Tate Liverpool, Royal Albert Dock

A curator led tour of the exhibition

The Boodles Story

Visit to St John the Baptist followed by a talk from local historian Martin Strauss at the restored Lister Drive Library, Tuebrook

Alex Beard CBE on the subject of leading change in the arts from Museums to Opera Houses