Bite-size Talks 2026 at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Love a visit to the Art Gallery and Museum and want to delve deeper into what’s on display?
Check out 2026’s programme of varied and fascinating Bite-size Talks delivered by the Collections team on Tuesday afternoons throughout the year. Please book via the links below as there are limited spaces.
Bring along your questions and enjoy!
Since his first exhibition at The Room Gallery in Greenwich in 1970, David Birtwhistle’s work has appeared in many public and private galleries and with societies such as the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour and the Society of Architect-Artists of which he was a Fellow.
Join David for a look at his illustrious career as one of Worcester’s most popular artists.
Exhibition David Birtwhistle: A Retrospective is on from Saturday 24 January until Sunday 31 May 2026.
£4.95; book via the link below.
Tuesday 10 March, 2 – 2.30pm.
Hear more about the incredible array of artists that made up the Broadway Colony – exploring how they lived and worked together in the beautiful Cotswolds and their lasting legacy on British art.
This talk takes place twice on Tuesday 10 March:
- 2 – 2.30pm – FULLY BOOKED
- 2.45 – 3.15pm
£4.95 for the talk. If you’d like to visit the exhibition John Singer Sargent: an American in Worcestershire too, advance booking is available online.
Learn about the stunning treasure items in the collections of Museums Worcestershire as the museum plans towards a major new exhibition in 2027.
£4.95; book via the link below.
Join the costume curator to learn about the importance of Worcestershire’s costume collection, how it is cared for and the collection’s significance to the county.
£4.95; book via the link below.
Learn about the forthcoming Glove Affair Gallery which will showcase Worcester’s glove collection and celebrate the skills of the local people that created them.
Worcester gloves were the choice of royalty, international fashion houses, and celebrities across the globe. Hear all about what led to Worcester becoming the fashion glove capital of Britain.
£4.95; book via the link below.
Tuesday 14 July, 2 – 2.30pm.
Bringing together this extraordinary collection of original screen-used props and puppets, faithful reproductions, original toys, memorabilia and paraphernalia dedicated to the science fiction TV shows of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Space: 1999 et al), was no mean feat.
See behind the scenes of this nostalgic exhibition and hear about some interesting local links at this talk by the exhibition’s curator.
£4.95; book via the link below.
Tuesday 8 September, 2 – 2.30pm.
Each year thousands of finds, excavated across Worcestershire, come into the care of the Museums Service. Join our Curator to hear about significant discoveries and recent highlights.
£4.95 for the talk. Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit.
Tuesday 13 October, 2 – 2.30pm.
Artist Wayne Warren, curator of Reflections, will delve deeper into the concepts behind the works in this Bite-size Talk.
The exhibition features a diverse range of artists spanning the last three centuries – including works from Worcester City’s own collection as well as high profile loans from the National Gallery. Brand-new works by Wayne Warren and Jonathon Wright have been created especially for the exhibition.
£4.95 for the talk. If you’d like to visit the exhibition too, advance booking will be available online later in 2026. The rest of Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit.
Tuesday 10 November, 2 – 2.30pm.
2026 will see a new gallery dedicated to the display of Worcester City’s permanent art collection. Hear all about about these wonderful artworks, now on permanent display in the Shirley & Rolf Olsen Gallery of British Impressionism.
£4.95; book via the link below.
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Taking the High Dosage tour of Steward’s Chemist Shop on the first Friday of every month, and these hour-long Spotlight Talks related to the spring exhibition:
Saturday 25 April, 11am – 12noon.
In this talk, given in the context of the exhibition of Worcester’s collection of Sargent’s drawings, art historian Justin Reay explores the artist’s approach to his subjects, his use of light and colour, his unusual composition, and his significance as a painter who engages us with the person or the scene depicted.
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was born to American parents in Italy, travelled extensively in Europe and the USA throughout his life, established a successful career as a portrait painter in Paris and London, and became a celebrated and influential artist. Although living for many years in London, based in James McNeil Whistler’s former studio in Chelsea, Sargent frequently stayed with friends in Worcestershire and Oxfordshire, walking the hills and meadows around Broadway, painting the upper Thames, the Avon and the Cotswold countryside as well as informal paintings of family and friends.
He is perhaps best known for his compelling, often sumptuous portraits of British and American high society figures and celebrities, showing the character as well as the likeness of his sitters, but his figurative work includes the genre of real life, depictions of ordinary people at work to whom he gives the same degree of dignity. His landscapes and architectural scenes, in oil and watercolour, are notable for their attention to detail, interesting composition and an increasingly free mark-making. His style developed from initial formality towards Impressionism, and finally to a more relaxed, painterly depiction, even for portraits, and his landscapes achieve, at their best, a languid romanticism.
£10 for the talk; book via the link below. If you’d like to visit the exhibition too, advance booking is available online. There are a variety of admission options to choose from. The rest of the Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit as usual.
Saturday 23 May, 11am – 12noon.
By 1883 John Singer Sargent was establishing what would become a glittering career as the go-to portrait painter of high society. As a young artist in Paris he implored a beautiful socialite to allow him to paint her. Over the following year Sargent laboured over what he later considered to be his masterpiece, the portrait of Virginie Gautreau. The painting, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1884, shocked its viewers with its connotations of sexual impropriety, and the breaking of class taboos in the artificial colouration of his subject’s skin. It ruined Virginie’s reputation and ended Sargent’s career in Paris, but he would quickly create a new life in England as the portrait painter of the era, creating visions of beauty and swaggering privilege.
In his second talk for Worcester’s exhibition on Sargent’s work, art historian Justin Reay discusses Sargent’s approach to painting Virginie Gautreau, including how the sexuality of the artist played a role in this portrait; he describes the public response to the painting now known as ‘Madame X’ and the reasons for the scandal which ensued, and discusses how the painting arose from the self-identity of the sitter which resonates today with modern society’s fascination with how we recreate ourselves as we wish to be seen.
£10 for the talk; book via the link below. If you’d like to visit the exhibition too, advance booking is available online. There are a variety of admission options to choose from. The rest of the Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit as usual.
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