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History Of Art

Roy Strong Interviewed by Richard Barber

The Stuart Image: An Introduction to English Portraiture 1603 to 1649
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Mon 27 Monday, 27 March 2023 See this event
Michael Collins

Raphael’s World
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 6:00pm Wed 29 Wednesday, 29 March 2023 See this event
Geoffrey Batchen

Inventing Photography: William Henry Fox Talbot in the Bodleian Library CANCELLED
Weston Lecture Theatre 10:00am Thu 30 Thursday, 30 March 2023 See this event
Christine Lindey

Art for All: British Socially Committed Art from World War Two to the Cold War
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 6:00pm Thu 30 Thursday, 30 March 2023 See this event
Lily Le Brun Interviewed by Kelly Grovier

Looking to Sea: Britain Through the Eyes of its Artists CANCELLED
Weston Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Sat 1 Saturday, 1 April 2023 See this event

Festival information:

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for: - the size of the audience: at the top end of the range - their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted - the beauty and the grace of the place itself – incomparable - the willingness of my hearers to buy books afterwards; I’ve never sold more.