Zoom | Anne & Elizabeth: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History by Tracy Borman
2024-02-16 - 2024-06-30 | Zoom Recording, Virtual, New York, NY, 10036, United States
Tudor historian and author Tracy Borman will lecture on the most fascinating relationship of the Tudor era as well as unravel and reframe the story of a mother and daughter, Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I, who changed the course of British history. From her new book—the first-ever joint portrait of the pair—Borman, England’s joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, uncovers the many details belying the speculations surrounding Henry VIII and his wives, and the Virgin Queen’s possible liaisons. Anne Boleyn may be best known for her hasty marriage and untimely end, but her greatest legacy is inextricably tied to the reign of her daughter the future Queen Elizabeth. Borman will explain how Anne was instrumental in reshaping Britain’s religious and political traditions and her years of wielding power over a male dominated court provided a role model for her daughter, Elizabeth. Indeed, Borman will show how much Elizabeth I was influenced by her mother’s legacy in her personal life. She will shed new light on the private desires, hopes, and fears that lay beyond their public personas. Finally, Borman will reveal how both women broke the mold for British queens and for women as a whole during their time.

TRACY BORMAN is England’s joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces and Chief Executive of the Heritage Education Trust. She is the author of many highly acclaimed books, including Crown & Sceptre, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him, The Private Lives of the Tudors, Thomas Cromwell, Queen of the Conqueror, Elizabeth’s Women, Witches, as well as the trilogy of novels The King’s Witch, The Devil’s Slave, and The Fallen Angel. Borman is also a regular broadcaster and accomplished public speaker.
Rent the Recording and watch at your convenience!
The Zoom video link will be sent to you on Friday, February 16 at 12:00 p.m. noon (eastern).
If you do not receive the rental link in your receipt, please email us at zoom@royal-oak.org

Zoom Rental Tour | Mind the Gap: London's Underground Unveiled
2024-02-21 - 2024-06-30 | Zoom Recording, Virtual, New York, NY, 10036, United States
Stephen Benton will guide us through a captivating exploration of the London Underground’s distinctive history. From pioneering the world’s first Underground railway in 1863 to groundbreaking advancements like electric trains in 1890 and the debut of self-service ticket machines in 1904, we will delve into the evolution of this iconic transport system. Our journey will span significant milestones, including the establishment of the first computer-controlled Underground railway in 1968 and the introduction of contactless bank card payments in 2014, all while encountering remarkable landmarks and quirky nuances acquired along the way. Though not a conventional mass transit system designed from scratch, it’s precisely these idiosyncrasies that contribute to the Underground’s undeniable charm. Join us for a fascinating expedition through the twists and turns of this extraordinary story—a testament to London’s innovative spirit in transportation.

Rent the Recording and watch at your convenience!
The Zoom video link will be sent to you on Wednesday, February 21 at 12:00 p.m. noon (eastern).
Please check your spam or junk folder if you do not receive the link in your inbox. If it is not there by 1:30 p.m. (eastern), contact us right away at zoom@royal-oak.org.

Zoom Rental | Cinema on Paper: Collecting Film Posters with Dwight Cleveland
2024-03-27 - 2024-06-30 | Zoom Recording, Virtual, New York, NY, 10036, United States
Cinema on Paper: Collecting Film Posters
Twentieth Century Fox (presents) (as Twentieth Century-Fox)BUS STOP (1956) Marilyn Monroe (Costume Design: Travilla); U. K. Double Crown (Tom Chantrell art)
The history of film and Hollywood has long captivated the imaginations of audiences worldwide. From the early days of cinema, movie posters and other ephemera have served as powerful tools to entice viewers and leave a lasting impression. One distinguished member of the Royal Oak Foundation, Mr. Dwight Cleveland, known by his internet handle “PosterBoss,” eloquently described how poster artists “captured the soul” of films and “reduce the entire essence of a movie into a single vivid sheet”. Driven by his appreciation for the graphic nature of movie posters, Cleveland began his collection in high school and has since amassed a remarkable archive of over 4,000 posters and related cinematic advertising. His collection features examples from iconic studios such as Warner Bros., Fox, MGM, Paramount, and RKO.
Encompassing a diverse array of genres including musicals, comedies, westerns, war films, sci-fi thrillers, dramas, and more, Cleveland’s collection offers a rich tapestry of cinematic history and a panorama of American culture. In an exclusive lecture, Mr. Cleveland will share his passion for collecting this captivating art form and explore its profound impact on popular culture. Drawing from his extensive collection, he will showcase a selection of posters, highlighting their artistic diversity and international significance. Sharing posters from 37 countries, he will offer a fascinating glimpse into the global appeal of film posters. Join us for an enlightening discussion as Mr. Dwight Cleveland illuminates the artistry and cultural significance of film posters, providing insight into their enduring legacy in the world of cinema.

Dwight Cleveland

is a 48-year veteran of collecting and advocating for vintage film posters. In 1981, Dwight published the first article on film posters while a junior at Columbia College. The 2019 Norton Museum exhibition in West Palm Beach of his Classic Films collection was the first of it’s kind for the art form. The exhibition at Poster House in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood was another first highlighting Women Behind the Camera during the silent film era. Dwight has been quoted and interviewed in various publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Film Collector’s World, Forbes, BBC, NPR, The ROBB Report, Nitrateville and POPCandy. The British publication Art of the Movies has called him the ‘Indiana Jones of Movie Posters.’ Two major acquisitions were highlighted in NBC’s series The Hunt for Amazing Treasure in 1992 and 1994. Assouline Publishing released his book, CINEMA ON PAPER: The Graphic Genius of Movie Posters in 2019. Dwight entered into an Artificial Intelligence project with Dartmouth College in 2022 boosting their data set from 2,500 to over 25,000 giving the project scale and attracting support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was subsequently named to the newly created post of Associate Visual Cultural Curator, Department of Film & Media Studies, Dartmouth College.

This year Dwight’s collection of Anna May Wong lobby cards was a ‘pop-up’ earlier in March at the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum. It will travel later in the year to Chicago. And to New York a year from now.
His collection of Maria Félix posters, the Mexican film diva, will be on exhibition at the American University of Paris this Winter.

Zoom Rental Tour | Tales on Tap: London's Historic Pubs
2024-04-03 - 2024-06-30 | CA
Tales on Tap: London’s Historic Pubs
Rent the recorded tour to watch at your leisure
The Fleece Inn, near Evesham, Worcestershire
Explore London’s rich tradition of historic pubs with Footprints of London guide, Rob Smith. For centuries, going to the pub has been a quintessential London pastime, and within the city, there exists a treasure trove of intriguing stories behind some of its most beloved drinking establishments. Rob will delve into the fascinating narratives behind a selection of his favorite historic pubs, each with its own unique charm and significance.
Discover the intriguing tale of a pub that retains its license as a pawnbroker, boasting a storied history of loaning money to none other than King George IV. Journey to a former coaching inn now under the stewardship of the National Trust, where echoes of bygone travelers still linger in its walls. Prepare to be enthralled by the story of a pub ingeniously built around the remnants of an old windmill, a testament to London’s ever-evolving urban landscape. Rob will even navigate the tricky, perennially debated question: which establishment truly deserves the title of London’s oldest pub?
Join us as we raise a virtual glass to London’s historic pubs and the captivating tales that have woven themselves into the fabric of the city’s social and cultural tapestry.
TICKETS: $30 Members; $40 Non-Member

Zoom Rental | Borrowed Landscapes: The Influence of China and Japan on the English Country House
2024-04-05 - 2024-06-30 | CA
Borrowed Landscapes: The Influence of China and Japan on the English Country House
An English lacquer cabinet, c.1690, in the Morning Room at Saltram, Devon.
From the 17th century onwards, Chinese and Japanese art and ornamentation influenced the design and decoration of interiors and gardens in Britain and Ireland. The importation of Chinese and Japanese luxury goods—lacquer, porcelain, embroidered silk, wallpaper, etc.—allowed designers and homeowners to incorporate these objects into their interiors. The East India Companies also commissioned objects from Chinese and Japanese artisans, incorporating European forms and Western patterns.
However, British designers and artisans also created their own fanciful interpretations of Asian styles and forms, often mistaking the original meaning or purpose behind the designs. These Western-created hybrid styles have been known as chinoiserie and japonisme and remain popular in decoration and design. Over the centuries, even as China and Japan became better known to Europeans, the fictional idea of what is ‘oriental’ remained prevalent in Western design.
Emile de Bruijn, will explore the impact of Chinese and Japanese material culture on British historic houses and gardens, based on the research he undertook (and the photography that was commissioned) for his new book Borrowed Landscapes. De Bruijn will illustrate how elements of Chinese and Japanese culture were admired but often misunderstood by Western craftsmen. He will also show how resulting designs were both idealized and desired, while dismembered and caricatured. Finally, he will explain how the collection of Asian objects in British and Irish country houses and the use of Asian design elements in Western furniture was not just about appropriation but also reflected admiration and an attempt by designers to appeal to the senses and admiration of the beholder.
Emile de Bruijn

Emile de Bruijn studied Japanese at Leiden University, the Netherlands, and museology at Essex University, United Kingdom. After working in the Japanese and Chinese art departments of the auctioneers Sotheby’s, he joined the National Trust where he currently has the role of Assistant National Curator of Decorative Arts. In 2017 he published the monograph Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland, and his latest book is Borrowed Landscapes: China and Japan in the Historic Houses and Gardens of Britain and Ireland (2023).

Zoom Rental | Once a King: The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII with Jane Marguerite Tippett
2024-04-12 - 2024-06-30 | Zoom Recording, Virtual, New York, NY, 10036, United States
Once a King: The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII

Many people are familiar with the history of the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII who gave up the British throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. Although an-often-repeated story, historian and author Jane Marguerite Tippett brings new insight through her astonishing discovery of the first and unedited drafts of Edward’s memoir A King’s Story, written with the assistance of Life magazine journalist Charles J.V. Murphy. Preserved in Murphy’s archive, but overlooked by previous Royal scholars, Tippett uncovered the private manuscript that Edward created between 1947 and 1951.
She also discovered hundreds of pages of interviews Murphy conducted with the couple in 1954 when he was working on the Duchess’s biography. In her lecture, Tippett will explore the significance of this material, and how through Edward’s writing we gain an entirely new understanding of his life as Prince of Wales as well as the momentous events of his brief 11-month reign. Tippett will scrutinize the ways in which Edward’s writings shift our understanding of his importance in the history of the 20th-century British monarchy and explore how this material may change people’s perspective on the significance of his royal career.
Jane Marguerite Tippett

Jane Tippett is a historian and archivist. She graduated from University of Delaware with a BA in French, History and English Literature. She received her MSt. in History of Art from Wadham College, Oxford, where she wrote her dissertation on the centrality of provenance in the contemporary fine art auction market. Since graduating she has worked as a private archivist to high-net-worth families and interior design firms in New York City, Boston, and London. Once A King: The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII (Hodder & Stoughton, October 2023) is her first book. Her next book, Monsieur, which will be published in May 2024, is a survey of the photographic work of Patrick O’Higgins, the biographer and longtime companion of Helena Rubinstein.
Rent the recording and watch at your leisure!

Zoom Live | A Collector’s Country House: William Randolph Hearst with Victoria Kastner
2024-04-16 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom Webinar, Virtual, United States
A Collector’s Country House: William Randolph Hearst
Tuesday, April 16 | 6:00 p.m. (ET)
Zoom Webinar (Live)
When Winston Churchill visited William Randolph Hearst’s estate at San Simeon during Churchill’s 1929 California tour, he was pleasantly surprised. Though he had been expecting “a Monte Carlo casino perched atop the Rock of Gibraltar,” he found instead a stunning country house and an intriguing host. Hearst was an art collector in the 18th-century English tradition. Like William Beckford and Horace Walpole, Hearst personally selected every object in his vast collection, and determined its location. For 28 years, Julia Morgan—the first female architect to gain worldwide prominence—worked right beside him creating La Cuesta Encantada (The Enchanted Hill), as it was formally known.
At San Simeon, Hearst blended English country house traditions with Californian informalities. Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, and all the Hollywood set rubbed elbows with Calvin Coolidge and Bernard Shaw. Presiding as hostess was Hearst’s companion, the actress Marion Davies. The end result was a quintessentially American country house with English style gardens: built by a media mogul, designed by a woman architect, presided over by a Hollywood starlet, and forever immortalized by a film—Orson Welles’s brooding Citizen Kane. Victoria Kastner will discuss Hearst’s extensive art collection—Renaissance tapestries, Mediterranean furniture, English silver, and architectural fragments galore—and provide lively anecdotes about the hilltop, in this examination of America’s most glamorous country house and estate.
Victoria Kastner

Victoria Kastner is a leading scholar and author about the architect Julia Morgan as well as about Hearst Castle, where she worked for 30 years and was the historian. She is the author of Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House, with a foreword by George Plimpton, published by Harry N. Abrams in 2000; Hearst’s San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land, May 2009; and Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. She co-authored The Beverly Hills Hotel: The First 100 Years with Robert Anderson. In 2022, Victoria published Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect. Ms. Kastner has lectured extensively on Julia Morgan, Hearst’s art collection, and the history of collection for many museums and groups: including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the American Museum in Britain in Bath; and the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. She has also written about Hearst, San Simeon, and Morgan for The London Telegraph, the American Institute of Architects, Oxford University’s Journal of the History of Collections, and The Magazine Antiques.

Zoom Rental | A Collector’s Country House: William Randolph Hearst with Victoria Kastner
2024-04-17 - 2024-06-30 | Zoom Recording, Virtual, New York, NY, 10036, United States
A Collector’s Country House: William Randolph Hearst
When Winston Churchill visited William Randolph Hearst’s estate at San Simeon during Churchill’s 1929 California tour, he was pleasantly surprised. Though he had been expecting “a Monte Carlo casino perched atop the Rock of Gibraltar,” he found instead a stunning country house and an intriguing host. Hearst was an art collector in the 18th-century English tradition. Like William Beckford and Horace Walpole, Hearst personally selected every object in his vast collection, and determined its location. For 28 years, Julia Morgan—the first female architect to gain worldwide prominence—worked right beside him creating La Cuesta Encantada (The Enchanted Hill), as it was formally known.
At San Simeon, Hearst blended English country house traditions with Californian informalities. Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, and all the Hollywood set rubbed elbows with Calvin Coolidge and Bernard Shaw. Presiding as hostess was Hearst’s companion, the actress Marion Davies. The end result was a quintessentially American country house with English style gardens: built by a media mogul, designed by a woman architect, presided over by a Hollywood starlet, and forever immortalized by a film—Orson Welles’s brooding Citizen Kane. Victoria Kastner will discuss Hearst’s extensive art collection—Renaissance tapestries, Mediterranean furniture, English silver, and architectural fragments galore—and provide lively anecdotes about the hilltop, in this examination of America’s most glamorous country house and estate.
Victoria Kastner

Victoria Kastner is a leading scholar and author about the architect Julia Morgan as well as about Hearst Castle, where she worked for 30 years and was the historian. She is the author of Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House, with a foreword by George Plimpton, published by Harry N. Abrams in 2000; Hearst’s San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land, May 2009; and Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. She co-authored The Beverly Hills Hotel: The First 100 Years with Robert Anderson.
In 2022, Victoria published Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect. Ms. Kastner has lectured extensively on Julia Morgan, Hearst’s art collection, and the history of collection for many museums and groups: including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the American Museum in Britain in Bath; and the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. She has also written about Hearst, San Simeon, and Morgan for The London Telegraph, the American Institute of Architects, Oxford University’s Journal of the History of Collections, and The Magazine Antiques.
Rent the recording and enjoy the lecture at your leisure!

NYC | Cotswold Manors and Gardens with Paula Henderson
2024-04-18 18:00 - 19:30 | The General Society Library, 20 W. 44th Street, New York City, 10036, United States
Cotswold Manors and Gardens
The Cotswold hills with their mellow stone cottages, elegant manor houses and imposing castles contain some of the most important historic gardens in England. A virtual history of English gardens can be found in Gloucestershire, parts of Oxfordshire, and Warwickshire. Although little survives of the Roman and medieval periods, some very early gardens remain: Thornbury Castle and Horton Court are two remarkable early 16th century gardens. From the 17th century, the restored gardens at Westbury Court are well known, while ghosts of the late 17th-century gardens at Dyrham Park are more challenging to discover.
The 18th century is represented in the poetic garden at Rousham, William Kent’s best surviving landscape, as well as in Capability Brown’s most famous garden at Blenheim Palace. Quirkier examples of the English landscape are found at Painswick and Sezincote.
Modern gardens, too, are impressive: the Arts and Crafts garden at Snowshill and especially Major Lawrence Johnston’s Hidcote Manor, which became a model for so many later garden designs. This lecture covers the history of the English garden, using both famous and little-known gardens, all set in the most unspoiled part of England.
Paula Henderson

Paula Henderson has degrees in art history (University of Chicago, M.A.) and Ph.D. in architectural history from the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London). She lectures widely in Britain (where she lived for 43 years) and the United States and has published over seventy articles on English Houses and their settings. Her first book, The Tudor House and Garden: Architecture and Landscape in the 16th and 17th Centuries (published by Yale University Press), won the Berger Prize for the outstanding contribution to the history of British art 2005. Treehouses (co-authored with Adam Mornement) was published by Francis Lincoln, also in 2005. She is currently completing books on London gardens in the age of Shakespeare and on the Landscape as Art.
She taught courses for the Courtauld Institute of Art Institute Art for many years and, most recently for the V& A Museum. She has lectures for the Paul Mellon Center for British Art, the Architectural Association, both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Birkbeck College, Christie’s Education, The Inchbald School of Design, the V&A Museum, the Tate Gallery, The Garden History Society, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Sotheby’s Educational Studies, and many others. She led tours for the Courtauld Institute to Florence (‘Gardens of the Medici’) Debyshire (‘Elizabethan Architecture’) and the Cotswolds (‘Gardens of the Cotswolds’). While living in England, she also traveled to the United States to lecture for the Society of Architectural Historians, The Garden Club of America, The Royal Oak Foundation, and the Williamsburg Institute. She is a Fellow of Society of Antiquaries of London and now splits her time between Nantucket, MA and Williamsburg, VA.
Thursday, April 18 | 6:00 p.m. (ET) Reception following
The General Society Library, 20 W. 44th Street, NYC (Bet. 5th and 6th)

Zoom Rental | Cotswold Manors and Gardens with Paula Henderson
2024-04-19 - 2024-06-30 | Zoom Recording, Virtual, New York, NY, 10036, United States
Cotswold Manors and Gardens
The Cotswold hills with their mellow stone cottages, elegant manor houses and imposing castles contain some of the most important historic gardens in England. A virtual history of English gardens can be found in Gloucestershire, parts of Oxfordshire, and Warwickshire. Although little survives of the Roman and medieval periods, some very early gardens remain: Thornbury Castle and Horton Court are two remarkable early 16th century gardens. From the 17th century, the restored gardens at Westbury Court are well known, while ghosts of the late 17th-century gardens at Dyrham Park are more challenging to discover.
The 18th century is represented in the poetic garden at Rousham, William Kent’s best surviving landscape, as well as in Capability Brown’s most famous garden at Blenheim Palace. Quirkier examples of the English landscape are found at Painswick and Sezincote.
Modern gardens, too, are impressive: the Arts and Crafts garden at Snowshill and especially Major Lawrence Johnston’s Hidcote Manor, which became a model for so many later garden designs. This lecture covers the history of the English garden, using both famous and little-known gardens, all set in the most unspoiled part of England.
Paula Henderson

Paula Henderson has degrees in art history (University of Chicago, M.A.) and Ph.D. in architectural history from the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London). She lectures widely in Britain (where she lived for 43 years) and the United States and has published over seventy articles on English Houses and their settings. Her first book, The Tudor House and Garden: Architecture and Landscape in the 16th and 17th Centuries (published by Yale University Press), won the Berger Prize for the outstanding contribution to the history of British art 2005. Treehouses (co-authored with Adam Mornement) was published by Francis Lincoln, also in 2005. She is currently completing books on London gardens in the age of Shakespeare and on the Landscape as Art.
She taught courses for the Courtauld Institute of Art Institute for many years and, most recently for the V&A museum. She has lectures for the Paul Mellon Center for British Art, the Architectural Association, both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Birkbeck college, Christie’s Education, The Inchbald School of Design, the V&A museum, the Tate Gallery, The Garden History Society, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Sotheby’s Educational Studies and many others. She led tours for the Courtauld Institute to Florence (‘Gardens of the Medici’) Debyshire (‘Elizabethan architecture’) and the Cotswolds (‘Gardens of the Cotswolds’). While living in England, she also traveled to the United States to lecture for the Society of Architectural Historians, The Garden Club of America, The royal Oak Foundation, and the Williamsburg Institute. She is a Fellow of Society of Antiquaries of London and now splits her time between Nantucket, MA and Williamsburg, VA.
