Home

Jan
2
Mon
Monday Bridge Club @ Highgate Society
Jan 2 @ 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Jan
3
Tue
Life-Drawing Group @ Highgate Society
Jan 3 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Jan
4
Wed
CERCLE FRANÇAIS La Fête des Rois @ Highgate Society
Jan 4 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm

A fun evening with good food and drink, talking French, to celebrate Epiphany “à la française”.

Jan
5
Thu
Watercolour Group AM @ Highgate Society
Jan 5 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Jan
7
Sat
Open Coffee Morning and Environment Committee Members Surgery @ Highgate Society
Jan 7 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Jan
9
Mon
Monday Bridge Club @ Highgate Society
Jan 9 @ 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Jan
10
Tue
Life-Drawing Group @ Highgate Society
Jan 10 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Jan
12
Thu
Watercolour Group AM @ Highgate Society
Jan 12 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Jan
14
Sat
Open Coffee Morning and Environment Committee Members Surgery @ Highgate Society
Jan 14 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Jan
16
Mon
Monday Bridge Club @ Highgate Society
Jan 16 @ 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Jan
17
Tue
Life-Drawing Group @ Highgate Society
Jan 17 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Jan
19
Thu
Watercolour Group AM @ Highgate Society
Jan 19 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Jan
20
Fri
Coffee and Computers at Highgate School @ Highgate School Library - main entrance opposite The Gatehouse Pub
Jan 20 @ 4:05 pm – 5:30 pm

Would you like a bit of friendly help with your phone, laptop or tablet? Just head to the Highgate School Library for an afternoon of free, informal one-to-one computer familiarisation sessions over a nice cup of coffee. We do tea as well. And cake!

If you don’t yet possess any electronic gadgets, don’t worry, we do and we’d love you to come and play with them.

“This is so wonderful! It’s easy – when you know how! Thank you” says 75 year old Highgate Coffee & Computers friend, who has just worked out how to move all his pictures from his phone to his tablet.

If you want more info, give Stuart a call on 020 8347 2411 (quoting Highgate Coffee & Computers). You can also email us on highgatecoffeeandcomputers@gmail.com to tell us what you want to know more about.

Please note the volunteers at these sessions are pupils from the school, ranging in age from 11 to 18 years old.  The School has a duty of care to these young people and would be very grateful if you could be mindful of maintaining appropriate interaction with them. Please consider issues such as your language, your expectations regarding the type of matter you raise with the pupils, and the sort of information that the pupils may see on your documents or particular webpages.

If you have any queries then please don’t hesitate to raise them with the members of staff at the session.

If you plan to come, it would be helpful to know, though it is not obligatory.

Warm regards

The Highgate Coffee & Computers volunteers

Jan
21
Sat
Open Coffee Morning and Environment Committee Members Surgery @ Highgate Society
Jan 21 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Jan
23
Mon
Monday Bridge Club @ Highgate Society
Jan 23 @ 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Highgate Society New Members Party @ Highgate Society
Jan 23 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

New members get together to meet each other and council members – do join the society and join the fun!

Highgate Society New Members Party @ Highgate Society
Jan 23 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Join now, if you have not done so already and come and meet like-minded people.

Jan
24
Tue
Life-Drawing Group @ Highgate Society
Jan 24 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Jan
26
Thu
Watercolour Group AM @ Highgate Society
Jan 26 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Jan
28
Sat
Open Coffee Morning and Environment Committee Members Surgery @ Highgate Society
Jan 28 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Jan
30
Mon
Monday Bridge Club @ Highgate Society
Jan 30 @ 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Jan
31
Tue
Life-Drawing Group @ Highgate Society
Jan 31 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Feb
2
Thu
Watercolour Group AM @ Highgate Society
Feb 2 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Feb
3
Fri
PAINTINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 1950-1980 @ Highgate Gallery
Feb 3 @ 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

In the year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Highgate Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of works by members of the Artists’ Union of St Petersburg 1950-1980.

Curator John Barkes has been working with artists in St Petersburg for more than twenty years. A chance meeting in 1993 with a painter with close links to the Repin Academy of Fine Arts resulted in nearly a hundred trips to the city, with visits to more than three hundred studios. The collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 left many elite professions without salaries or resources. Members of Artists’ Unions were no exception, but crucially they retained their studios and the paintings that represented their lives’ work.

To the artists’ surprise, and often severe irritation, John Barkes nearly always ignored their finished exhibited paintings, which tended to be rigid and formal, selecting in preference the vibrantly observant oil sketches and drawings that had no monetary value under the old system. It has thus been possible, by chance and the accidents of history, to exhibit and sell a great number of works by eminent artists and teachers at very accessible prices.

One wall will feature designs for major mosaic and mural projects from the 1960s and 1970s by Evgeni Kazmin. He is most proud of his scheme for the Sochi State Circus building, and is delighted that it survived the depredations associated with the recent Winter Olympics. The main theme of any Socialist Realist exhibition is life under the Soviet system – work, leisure and the family – paintings of a time that has passed into history, brilliantly observed.

Detail from design for the circus pavilion at Sochi 1969, Evgeni Kazmin. ©John Barkes, 2016. All Rights Reserved

All works are for sale, mostly priced from £400 to £4,000.

Gallery Talk:
On Sunday 5th February at 5.30pm. Dr Elizaveta Butakova, visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, will lecture on Socialist Realism. John Barkes will share the platform giving his insights into the Soviet art education system.
Admission £10 (HLSI members £5) on the door.
To reserve your place please eMail admin@hlsi.net or telephone 020 8340 3343.

Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
Exhibition continues until 16 February and is free.

London Forum event:Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Conservation Areas @ The Gallery
Feb 3 @ 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm

2017 is the 50th year since conservation areas were first designated.  St John’s Wood was the second one to be approved.
London Forum and its members will be celebrating this occasion including at Civic Day in June 2017. Members are invited to attend this open meeting and discuss what should be done for this anniversary.
There will be speakers from Historic England and Civic Voice who will explain their aims for this celebration year and suggest to societies what they could do themselves. There will be discussion on the proposals and the ideas of those society representatives who attend.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DATE HAS BEEN CHANGED FROM 30TH JANUARY DUE TO A CLASH WITH ANOTHER EVENT
Venue: The Gallery, 75 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EL
Location: Near to Farringdon station
Cost (per person): No charge but donations welcomed

Feb
4
Sat
Open Coffee Morning and Environment Committee Members Surgery @ Highgate Society
Feb 4 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
PAINTINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 1950-1980 @ Highgate Gallery
Feb 4 @ 11:00 am – 4:00 pm

In the year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Highgate Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of works by members of the Artists’ Union of St Petersburg 1950-1980.

Curator John Barkes has been working with artists in St Petersburg for more than twenty years. A chance meeting in 1993 with a painter with close links to the Repin Academy of Fine Arts resulted in nearly a hundred trips to the city, with visits to more than three hundred studios. The collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 left many elite professions without salaries or resources. Members of Artists’ Unions were no exception, but crucially they retained their studios and the paintings that represented their lives’ work.

To the artists’ surprise, and often severe irritation, John Barkes nearly always ignored their finished exhibited paintings, which tended to be rigid and formal, selecting in preference the vibrantly observant oil sketches and drawings that had no monetary value under the old system. It has thus been possible, by chance and the accidents of history, to exhibit and sell a great number of works by eminent artists and teachers at very accessible prices.

One wall will feature designs for major mosaic and mural projects from the 1960s and 1970s by Evgeni Kazmin. He is most proud of his scheme for the Sochi State Circus building, and is delighted that it survived the depredations associated with the recent Winter Olympics. The main theme of any Socialist Realist exhibition is life under the Soviet system – work, leisure and the family – paintings of a time that has passed into history, brilliantly observed.

Detail from design for the circus pavilion at Sochi 1969, Evgeni Kazmin. ©John Barkes, 2016. All Rights Reserved

All works are for sale, mostly priced from £400 to £4,000.

Gallery Talk: On Sunday 5th February at 5.30pm. Dr Elizaveta Butakova, visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, will lecture on Socialist Realism. John Barkes will share the platform giving his insights into the Soviet art education system.
Admission £10 (HLSI members £5) on the door.
To reserve your place please eMail admin@hlsi.net or telephone 020 8340 3343.

Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.

Exhibition continues until 16 February and is free.

Feb
5
Sun
PAINTINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 1950-1980 @ Highgate Gallery
Feb 5 @ 11:00 am – 5:00 pm

In the year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Highgate Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of works by members of the Artists’ Union of St Petersburg 1950-1980.

Curator John Barkes has been working with artists in St Petersburg for more than twenty years. A chance meeting in 1993 with a painter with close links to the Repin Academy of Fine Arts resulted in nearly a hundred trips to the city, with visits to more than three hundred studios. The collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 left many elite professions without salaries or resources. Members of Artists’ Unions were no exception, but crucially they retained their studios and the paintings that represented their lives’ work.

To the artists’ surprise, and often severe irritation, John Barkes nearly always ignored their finished exhibited paintings, which tended to be rigid and formal, selecting in preference the vibrantly observant oil sketches and drawings that had no monetary value under the old system. It has thus been possible, by chance and the accidents of history, to exhibit and sell a great number of works by eminent artists and teachers at very accessible prices.

One wall will feature designs for major mosaic and mural projects from the 1960s and 1970s by Evgeni Kazmin. He is most proud of his scheme for the Sochi State Circus building, and is delighted that it survived the depredations associated with the recent Winter Olympics. The main theme of any Socialist Realist exhibition is life under the Soviet system – work, leisure and the family – paintings of a time that has passed into history, brilliantly observed. All works are for sale, mostly priced from £400 to £4,000.

Gallery Talk:
On Sunday 5th February at 5.30pm. Dr Elizaveta Butakova, visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, will lecture on Socialist Realism. John Barkes will share the platform giving his insights into the Soviet art education system.
Admission £10 (HLSI members £5) on the door.
To reserve your place please eMail admin@hlsi.net or telephone 020 8340 3343.

Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.

Exhibition continues until 16 February and is free.

Detail from design for the circus pavilion at Sochi 1969, Evgeni Kazmin. ©John Barkes, 2016. All Rights Reserved
Gallery Talk: “The Post War Avant-Garde in Soviet Russia” with Dr Elizaveta Butakova Kilgarriff @ Highgate Gallery
Feb 5 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

The Post War Avant-Garde in Soviet Russia
Dr Elizaveta Butakova Kilgarriff, visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, will talk about Socialist Realism. John Barkes, curator of Highgate Gallery’s current exhibition PAINTINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 1950-1980, will share the platform giving his insights into the Soviet art education system.

Dr Kilgarriff is an academic focussing on the Russian post-war avant-garde. In 2015 she completed her thesis entitled ‘A-Ya Magazine: Soviet unofficial art between Moscow, Paris and New York, 1976-1986’ at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Based on this research, in 2014, she curated the exhibition ‘Paper Museums: Moscow Conceptualism in Transit’ at the John Hansard Gallery, Southampton. She has been a visiting lecturer at the Courtauld, UCL and the Ruskin. In 2016, she co-taught the MA ‘Global Conceptualisms’ at the Courtauld Institute.

Doors open 5.15pm. Admission £10 (HLSI members £5) on the door.
To reserve your place please eMail admin@hlsi.net or telephone 020 8340 3343.
Exhibition open 11am-5pm.

Feb
6
Mon
Monday Bridge Club @ Highgate Society
Feb 6 @ 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Feb
7
Tue
Life-Drawing Group @ Highgate Society
Feb 7 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
PAINTINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 1950-1980 @ Highgate Gallery
Feb 7 @ 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

In the year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Highgate Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of works by members of the Artists’ Union of St Petersburg 1950-1980.

Curator John Barkes has been working with artists in St Petersburg for more than twenty years. A chance meeting in 1993 with a painter with close links to the Repin Academy of Fine Arts resulted in nearly a hundred trips to the city, with visits to more than three hundred studios. The collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 left many elite professions without salaries or resources. Members of Artists’ Unions were no exception, but crucially they retained their studios and the paintings that represented their lives’ work.

To the artists’ surprise, and often severe irritation, John Barkes nearly always ignored their finished exhibited paintings, which tended to be rigid and formal, selecting in preference the vibrantly observant oil sketches and drawings that had no monetary value under the old system. It has thus been possible, by chance and the accidents of history, to exhibit and sell a great number of works by eminent artists and teachers at very accessible prices.

One wall will feature designs for major mosaic and mural projects from the 1960s and 1970s by Evgeni Kazmin. He is most proud of his scheme for the Sochi State Circus building, and is delighted that it survived the depredations associated with the recent Winter Olympics. The main theme of any Socialist Realist exhibition is life under the Soviet system – work, leisure and the family – paintings of a time that has passed into history, brilliantly observed.

Detail from design for the circus pavilion at Sochi 1969, Evgeni Kazmin. ©John Barkes, 2016. All Rights Reserved

All works are for sale, mostly priced from £400 to £4,000.

Gallery Talk:
On Sunday 5th February at 5.30pm. Dr Elizaveta Butakova, visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, will lecture on Socialist Realism. John Barkes will share the platform giving his insights into the Soviet art education system.
Admission £10 (HLSI members £5) on the door.
To reserve your place please eMail admin@hlsi.net or telephone 020 8340 3343.

Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
Exhibition continues until 16 February and is free.

Feb
8
Wed
PAINTINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 1950-1980 @ Highgate Gallery
Feb 8 @ 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

In the year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Highgate Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of works by members of the Artists’ Union of St Petersburg 1950-1980.

Curator John Barkes has been working with artists in St Petersburg for more than twenty years. A chance meeting in 1993 with a painter with close links to the Repin Academy of Fine Arts resulted in nearly a hundred trips to the city, with visits to more than three hundred studios. The collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 left many elite professions without salaries or resources. Members of Artists’ Unions were no exception, but crucially they retained their studios and the paintings that represented their lives’ work.

To the artists’ surprise, and often severe irritation, John Barkes nearly always ignored their finished exhibited paintings, which tended to be rigid and formal, selecting in preference the vibrantly observant oil sketches and drawings that had no monetary value under the old system. It has thus been possible, by chance and the accidents of history, to exhibit and sell a great number of works by eminent artists and teachers at very accessible prices.

One wall will feature designs for major mosaic and mural projects from the 1960s and 1970s by Evgeni Kazmin. He is most proud of his scheme for the Sochi State Circus building, and is delighted that it survived the depredations associated with the recent Winter Olympics. The main theme of any Socialist Realist exhibition is life under the Soviet system – work, leisure and the family – paintings of a time that has passed into history, brilliantly observed.

Detail from design for the circus pavilion at Sochi 1969, Evgeni Kazmin. ©John Barkes, 2016. All Rights Reserved

All works are for sale, mostly priced from £400 to £4,000.

Gallery Talk:
On Sunday 5th February at 5.30pm. Dr Elizaveta Butakova, visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, will lecture on Socialist Realism. John Barkes will share the platform giving his insights into the Soviet art education system.
Admission £10 (HLSI members £5) on the door.
To reserve your place please eMail admin@hlsi.net or telephone 020 8340 3343.

Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
Exhibition continues until 16 February and is free.

Creating an energy-chic home – a whole house perspective @ Highgate Society
Feb 8 @ 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm

The Highgate Society Sustainable Homes Group is running  a series of talks to help local residents bring their homes into the 21st Century.  The first of our talks will be particularly relevant if you are considering a major renovation or extension.  The talk will be chaired by John Doggart who is a government advisor and co-founder of the Existing Homes Alliance.  The speaker panel is:

Bob Prewett – a well known local architect and expert on low energy design

Russell Smith – MD of Parity projects who have been advising on low carbon renovations for several years

Peter Rickaby – an architect with many years of experience on insulation and ventilation of older homes

 

Feb
9
Thu
Watercolour Group AM @ Highgate Society
Feb 9 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
PAINTINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 1950-1980 @ Highgate Gallery
Feb 9 @ 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

In the year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Highgate Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of works by members of the Artists’ Union of St Petersburg 1950-1980.

Curator John Barkes has been working with artists in St Petersburg for more than twenty years. A chance meeting in 1993 with a painter with close links to the Repin Academy of Fine Arts resulted in nearly a hundred trips to the city, with visits to more than three hundred studios. The collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 left many elite professions without salaries or resources. Members of Artists’ Unions were no exception, but crucially they retained their studios and the paintings that represented their lives’ work.

To the artists’ surprise, and often severe irritation, John Barkes nearly always ignored their finished exhibited paintings, which tended to be rigid and formal, selecting in preference the vibrantly observant oil sketches and drawings that had no monetary value under the old system. It has thus been possible, by chance and the accidents of history, to exhibit and sell a great number of works by eminent artists and teachers at very accessible prices.

One wall will feature designs for major mosaic and mural projects from the 1960s and 1970s by Evgeni Kazmin. He is most proud of his scheme for the Sochi State Circus building, and is delighted that it survived the depredations associated with the recent Winter Olympics. The main theme of any Socialist Realist exhibition is life under the Soviet system – work, leisure and the family – paintings of a time that has passed into history, brilliantly observed.

Detail from design for the circus pavilion at Sochi 1969, Evgeni Kazmin. ©John Barkes, 2016. All Rights Reserved

All works are for sale, mostly priced from £400 to £4,000.

Gallery Talk:
On Sunday 5th February at 5.30pm. Dr Elizaveta Butakova, visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, will lecture on Socialist Realism. John Barkes will share the platform giving his insights into the Soviet art education system.
Admission £10 (HLSI members £5) on the door.
To reserve your place please eMail admin@hlsi.net or telephone 020 8340 3343.

Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
Exhibition continues until 16 February and is free.

Feb
10
Fri
PAINTINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 1950-1980 @ Highgate Gallery
Feb 10 @ 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

In the year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Highgate Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of works by members of the Artists’ Union of St Petersburg 1950-1980.

Curator John Barkes has been working with artists in St Petersburg for more than twenty years. A chance meeting in 1993 with a painter with close links to the Repin Academy of Fine Arts resulted in nearly a hundred trips to the city, with visits to more than three hundred studios. The collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 left many elite professions without salaries or resources. Members of Artists’ Unions were no exception, but crucially they retained their studios and the paintings that represented their lives’ work.

To the artists’ surprise, and often severe irritation, John Barkes nearly always ignored their finished exhibited paintings, which tended to be rigid and formal, selecting in preference the vibrantly observant oil sketches and drawings that had no monetary value under the old system. It has thus been possible, by chance and the accidents of history, to exhibit and sell a great number of works by eminent artists and teachers at very accessible prices.

One wall will feature designs for major mosaic and mural projects from the 1960s and 1970s by Evgeni Kazmin. He is most proud of his scheme for the Sochi State Circus building, and is delighted that it survived the depredations associated with the recent Winter Olympics. The main theme of any Socialist Realist exhibition is life under the Soviet system – work, leisure and the family – paintings of a time that has passed into history, brilliantly observed.

Detail from design for the circus pavilion at Sochi 1969, Evgeni Kazmin. ©John Barkes, 2016. All Rights Reserved

All works are for sale, mostly priced from £400 to £4,000.

Gallery Talk:
On Sunday 5th February at 5.30pm. Dr Elizaveta Butakova, visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, will lecture on Socialist Realism. John Barkes will share the platform giving his insights into the Soviet art education system.
Admission £10 (HLSI members £5) on the door.
To reserve your place please eMail admin@hlsi.net or telephone 020 8340 3343.

Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
Exhibition continues until 16 February and is free.

Coffee and Computers at Highgate School @ Highgate School Library - main entrance opposite The Gatehouse Pub
Feb 10 @ 4:05 pm – 5:30 pm

Would you like a bit of friendly help with your phone, laptop or tablet? Just head to the Highgate School Library for an afternoon of free, informal one-to-one computer familiarisation sessions over a nice cup of coffee. We do tea as well. And cake!

If you don’t yet possess any electronic gadgets, don’t worry, we do and we’d love you to come and play with them.

“This is so wonderful! It’s easy – when you know how! Thank you” says 75 year old Highgate Coffee & Computers friend, who has just worked out how to move all his pictures from his phone to his tablet.

If you want more info, give Stuart a call on 020 8347 2411 (quoting Highgate Coffee & Computers). You can also email us on highgatecoffeeandcomputers@gmail.com to tell us what you want to know more about.

Please note the volunteers at these sessions are pupils from the school, ranging in age from 11 to 18 years old.  The School has a duty of care to these young people and would be very grateful if you could be mindful of maintaining appropriate interaction with them. Please consider issues such as your language, your expectations regarding the type of matter you raise with the pupils, and the sort of information that the pupils may see on your documents or particular webpages.

If you have any queries then please don’t hesitate to raise them with the members of staff at the session.

If you plan to come, it would be helpful to know, though it is not obligatory.

Warm regards

The Highgate Coffee & Computers volunteers

Feb
11
Sat
Open Coffee Morning and Environment Committee Members Surgery @ Highgate Society
Feb 11 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
PAINTINGS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA 1950-1980 @ Highgate Gallery
Feb 11 @ 11:00 am – 4:00 pm

In the year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Highgate Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of works by members of the Artists’ Union of St Petersburg 1950-1980.

Curator John Barkes has been working with artists in St Petersburg for more than twenty years. A chance meeting in 1993 with a painter with close links to the Repin Academy of Fine Arts resulted in nearly a hundred trips to the city, with visits to more than three hundred studios. The collapse of the Soviet system in 1989 left many elite professions without salaries or resources. Members of Artists’ Unions were no exception, but crucially they retained their studios and the paintings that represented their lives’ work.

To the artists’ surprise, and often severe irritation, John Barkes nearly always ignored their finished exhibited paintings, which tended to be rigid and formal, selecting in preference the vibrantly observant oil sketches and drawings that had no monetary value under the old system. It has thus been possible, by chance and the accidents of history, to exhibit and sell a great number of works by eminent artists and teachers at very accessible prices.

One wall will feature designs for major mosaic and mural projects from the 1960s and 1970s by Evgeni Kazmin. He is most proud of his scheme for the Sochi State Circus building, and is delighted that it survived the depredations associated with the recent Winter Olympics. The main theme of any Socialist Realist exhibition is life under the Soviet system – work, leisure and the family – paintings of a time that has passed into history, brilliantly observed.

Detail from design for the circus pavilion at Sochi 1969, Evgeni Kazmin. ©John Barkes, 2016. All Rights Reserved

All works are for sale, mostly priced from £400 to £4,000.

Gallery Talk: On Sunday 5th February at 5.30pm. Dr Elizaveta Butakova, visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, will lecture on Socialist Realism. John Barkes will share the platform giving his insights into the Soviet art education system.
Admission £10 (HLSI members £5) on the door.
To reserve your place please eMail admin@hlsi.net or telephone 020 8340 3343.

Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.

Exhibition continues until 16 February and is free.