We meet once a month, each time at a different pub, in Highgate. This month, June, it’s The Bull with its friendly atmosphere and on site microbrewery. It’s always a pleasure comparing the beers so lets see which is our favourite this time.
Everyone welcome, it’s a chance to meet old friends as well as new people over a drink.
This exhibition follows on from a retrospective at Leeds College of Art in 2010 where Richard Downer trained in the 1950s. Trees have been a source of inspiration for Richard throughout his working life – this exhibition captures his fascination for the longevity, endurance and prominence of trees in our environment.
He was born on the Isle of Wight in 1933 and grew up in Yorkshire. Highgate has been him family home for the last 53 years and the ancient woodlands of Highgate and Hampstead Heath have been a constant source of interest.
Richard has had a busy and remarkable working life as a designer. Following his training and two years’ National Service in the Royal Navy, he began a career in advertising as a visualizer and art director before going solo in 1966.
Richard’s many skills as an illustrator, graphic designer and typographer brought him numerous commissions including stamp design, corporate identities, major reports and accounts. As one of Britain’s leading architectural illustrators he travelled the length and breadth of the country capturing, as line drawings, notable and remote locations for the GPO and latterly BT telephone directories (1967-1985). BT also commissioned a
360 degree panoramic drawing of London from the top of the Post Office Tower that was completed in 1970 (a selection of drawings from this period will also be viewable at the exhibition). He has shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and was a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers and Fellow and Past President of the Society of Typographic Designers.
Since 1998, from his Kentish Town studio, Richard has focused on his private passion and profound respect for the lifespan of trees – their longevity and transience, their demise and regeneration.
Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
This exhibition follows on from a retrospective at Leeds College of Art in 2010 where Richard Downer trained in the 1950s. Trees have been a source of inspiration for Richard throughout his working life – this exhibition captures his fascination for the longevity, endurance and prominence of trees in our environment.
He was born on the Isle of Wight in 1933 and grew up in Yorkshire. Highgate has been him family home for the last 53 years and the ancient woodlands of Highgate and Hampstead Heath have been a constant source of interest.
Richard has had a busy and remarkable working life as a designer. Following his training and two years’ National Service in the Royal Navy, he began a career in advertising as a visualizer and art director before going solo in 1966.
Richard’s many skills as an illustrator, graphic designer and typographer brought him numerous commissions including stamp design, corporate identities, major reports and accounts. As one of Britain’s leading architectural illustrators he travelled the length and breadth of the country capturing, as line drawings, notable and remote locations for the GPO and latterly BT telephone directories (1967-1985). BT also commissioned a
360 degree panoramic drawing of London from the top of the Post Office Tower that was completed in 1970 (a selection of drawings from this period will also be viewable at the exhibition). He has shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and was a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers and Fellow and Past President of the Society of Typographic Designers.
Since 1998, from his Kentish Town studio, Richard has focused on his private passion and profound respect for the lifespan of trees – their longevity and transience, their demise and regeneration.
Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
Two groups at the same time and in the same place.
For ages 5 to 7: Learn how to make wonderful pictures! An introduction to the basics of drawing and painting. The classes run on a termly basis. Each week children will build on their skills learnt in previous weeks. The class finishes with an informal ‘Private View’ of student work for friends and family.
For ages 8 to 12: Develop your skills and look at the styles and techniques of the great artists and art movements. Join our art teacher on a tour of perspective, compostion, colour therory and mixing, design and a variety of media to improve your drawing and painting and create your own masterpieces! The classes run on a termly basis and finish with an informal ‘Private View’ of student work for friends and family.
This exhibition follows on from a retrospective at Leeds College of Art in 2010 where Richard Downer trained in the 1950s. Trees have been a source of inspiration for Richard throughout his working life – this exhibition captures his fascination for the longevity, endurance and prominence of trees in our environment.
He was born on the Isle of Wight in 1933 and grew up in Yorkshire. Highgate has been him family home for the last 53 years and the ancient woodlands of Highgate and Hampstead Heath have been a constant source of interest.
Richard has had a busy and remarkable working life as a designer. Following his training and two years’ National Service in the Royal Navy, he began a career in advertising as a visualizer and art director before going solo in 1966.
Richard’s many skills as an illustrator, graphic designer and typographer brought him numerous commissions including stamp design, corporate identities, major reports and accounts. As one of Britain’s leading architectural illustrators he travelled the length and breadth of the country capturing, as line drawings, notable and remote locations for the GPO and latterly BT telephone directories (1967-1985). BT also commissioned a
360 degree panoramic drawing of London from the top of the Post Office Tower that was completed in 1970 (a selection of drawings from this period will also be viewable at the exhibition). He has shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and was a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers and Fellow and Past President of the Society of Typographic Designers.
Since 1998, from his Kentish Town studio, Richard has focused on his private passion and profound respect for the lifespan of trees – their longevity and transience, their demise and regeneration.
Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00
Saturday 11:00-16:00
Sunday 11:00-17:00
Closed Monday
Join us for our HLSI Antiques & Craft Fair on Sat 25th June, 11-5. Admission £1.50, children free. Refreshments including cream teas on the terrace. 25 eclectic stalls.
Address: Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution, 11 South Grove, London N6 6BS
There are no parking restrictions.
Tubes: Archway,Kentish Town. Buses to Highgate Village: 271 210 143 214. Bus W5 to the end of Hornsey Lane/Waterlow Park.
Alison Rose – soprano
Rupert Enticknap – countertenor
Rupert Charlesworth – tenor
Benjamin Appl – bass
New London Orchestra
Ronald Corp – conductor
Presented by OVATION
Devised and Directed by John Plews
Book & lyrics by Jennifer Selway
Music by Simon Slater
27th May – 26th June 2016
Tuesdays – Saturdays at 7.30pm
Sunday matinees at 4pm
A BRAND NEW PLAY WITH MUSIC
Set between 1931 and 1936, Wallis is centered around the love affair that led to the biggest constitutional crisis in modern Royal history.
Just how did Mrs Simpson, a divorced American, capture and keep the heart of the playboy prince?
What secrets lay beneath the scandal that rocked British Society and threatened to bring down Stanley Baldwin’s Government?
Ticket Prices:
Friday 27th May – PREVIEW All tickets £10
28th May – 19th June:
Tuesdays & Wednesdays – £14/£12 concessions
Thursdays & Fridays – £16/£14 concessions
Saturdays & Sundays – £18/£16
21st – 26th June:
Tuesday – Friday – £18/£16 concessions
Saturday 25th & Sunday 26th – £20/£18 concessions
A concert for a Summer’s Eve.
Proceeds to Waterlow Park and The Harington Scheme.
Tickets can be purchased at Brooksby Newsagent in Highgate Village or via tickettailor on: http://www.waterlowpark.org.uk (online booking fees apply).

Red Shed is the third part in a trilogy that started with the multi award winning shows Bravo Figaro and Cuckooed.
Mark returns to the place where he first started to perform in public, a red wooden shed in Wakefield, the Labour Club, to celebrate the club’s 50th birthday.
Interviewing old friends and comrades Mark pieces together the club’s history and works with the club to campaign with some of the poorest workers in the country for their rights.
It is the story of the battle for hope and the survival of a community in a small wooden shed.
It is part theatre, part stand up, part journalism, part activism and returns to Mark’s obsessions of community and struggle.
The show will involve the audience (in a nice way) to help recreate the shed and its inhabitants.

Red Shed is the third part in a trilogy that started with the multi award winning shows Bravo Figaro and Cuckooed.
Mark returns to the place where he first started to perform in public, a red wooden shed in Wakefield, the Labour Club, to celebrate the club’s 50th birthday.
Interviewing old friends and comrades Mark pieces together the club’s history and works with the club to campaign with some of the poorest workers in the country for their rights.
It is the story of the battle for hope and the survival of a community in a small wooden shed.
It is part theatre, part stand up, part journalism, part activism and returns to Mark’s obsessions of community and struggle.
The show will involve the audience (in a nice way) to help recreate the shed and its inhabitants.
Two groups at the same time and in the same place.
For ages 5 to 7: Learn how to make wonderful pictures! An introduction to the basics of drawing and painting. The classes run on a termly basis. Each week children will build on their skills learnt in previous weeks. The class finishes with an informal ‘Private View’ of student work for friends and family.
For ages 8 to 12: Develop your skills and look at the styles and techniques of the great artists and art movements. Join our art teacher on a tour of perspective, compostion, colour therory and mixing, design and a variety of media to improve your drawing and painting and create your own masterpieces! The classes run on a termly basis and finish with an informal ‘Private View’ of student work for friends and family.
The 1932-33 England cricket tour of Australia was one of the most widely reported of all time. During a period when long-distance communications were either painfully slow or terrifically expensive, c. 130,000 words were wired across the world over a three-day period, costing a small fortune. Nor did interest in the tour wane within a few years, and even today, over eighty years after the victorious English side left Australia, more is written about this series than any other. The reason is simple: for the first time in the history of the game, controversy that took place on the field took on a political dimension, causing Dominions Secretary, Jimmy Thomas, to later recall: ‘no politics ever introduced in the British Empire caused me so much trouble as this damn bodyline bowling’.
The talk will be given by James Newton, Head of History at Highgate School.
Two groups at the same time and in the same place.
For ages 5 to 7: Learn how to make wonderful pictures! An introduction to the basics of drawing and painting. The classes run on a termly basis. Each week children will build on their skills learnt in previous weeks. The class finishes with an informal ‘Private View’ of student work for friends and family.
For ages 8 to 12: Develop your skills and look at the styles and techniques of the great artists and art movements. Join our art teacher on a tour of perspective, compostion, colour therory and mixing, design and a variety of media to improve your drawing and painting and create your own masterpieces! The classes run on a termly basis and finish with an informal ‘Private View’ of student work for friends and family.
Maggie Jennings – Vivificante. 8-21 July.
Exuberant, colourful and vibrant, Maggie Jennings’ work celebrates the energy of living things. She works with the vigour and dynamism that she perceives in the world around her to produce strong, sensuous images.
This exhibition is the narrative of her life, and shows the stories and passions which she would like to share with you.
Her fascination is with the state of being and living: beginning with recalling the enchantments of her childhood in Devon, lying in long grass or up a tree watching animals, birds and insects lead their idiosyncratic lives. She has travelled extensively, and has taken workshops in Zimbabwe and Namibia. She was awarded a scholarship in Greece, and a printmaking residency in the Canary Islands. In Tenerife, she worked under blue skies with fragrant breezes and surrounded by brilliant blooms. This set the mood for her art career. The Tenerifians taught her a favourite word – Vivificante (life-giving, inspirational), the title of this show.
She is never without a sketch book and uses her visual diaries rather than a camera to record her travels and experiences. She will be exhibiting a series of these tiny books alongside the larger works in this exhibition.
Whilst all forms of printmaking fascinate her, the main body of her work is in the form of spontaneous, gestural mono-screenprints, painted directly through the mesh, leaving no room for correction and indecision. Her book “Fine Art Screenprinting”, published in 2015, describes these and other methods.
In her recent work, Maggie focuses on her home town London, scaling down and making more intimate works: etchings of buildings and crowds of people, made precious with hand painted papers and gold dust.
Maggie trained at Bristol (BA), and at Chelsea (MA). She teaches printmaking part-time at The Royal Drawing School and Heatherleys School of Art, and lives locally near Hornsey Lane.
During the exhibition there will be talks on the artist’s work on Sunday 10 July at 11.30am and
on Sunday 17 July at 3.30pm. Maggie will be in the gallery throughout the exhibition.
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm (3pm on Sunday 10 July) ; closed Mondays.
Maggie Jennings – Vivificante. 8-21 July.
Exuberant, colourful and vibrant, Maggie Jennings’ work celebrates the energy of living things. She works with the vigour and dynamism that she perceives in the world around her to produce strong, sensuous images.
This exhibition is the narrative of her life, and shows the stories and passions which she would like to share with you.
Her fascination is with the state of being and living: beginning with recalling the enchantments of her childhood in Devon, lying in long grass or up a tree watching animals, birds and insects lead their idiosyncratic lives. She has travelled extensively, and has taken workshops in Zimbabwe and Namibia. She was awarded a scholarship in Greece, and a printmaking residency in the Canary Islands. In Tenerife, she worked under blue skies with fragrant breezes and surrounded by brilliant blooms. This set the mood for her art career. The Tenerifians taught her a favourite word – Vivificante (life-giving, inspirational), the title of this show.
She is never without a sketch book and uses her visual diaries rather than a camera to record her travels and experiences. She will be exhibiting a series of these tiny books alongside the larger works in this exhibition.
Whilst all forms of printmaking fascinate her, the main body of her work is in the form of spontaneous, gestural mono-screenprints, painted directly through the mesh, leaving no room for correction and indecision. Her book “Fine Art Screenprinting”, published in 2015, describes these and other methods.
In her recent work, Maggie focuses on her home town London, scaling down and making more intimate works: etchings of buildings and crowds of people, made precious with hand painted papers and gold dust.
Maggie trained at Bristol (BA), and at Chelsea (MA). She teaches printmaking part-time at The Royal Drawing School and Heatherleys School of Art, and lives locally near Hornsey Lane.
During the exhibition there will be talks on the artist’s work on Sunday 10 July at 11.30am and
on Sunday 17 July at 3.30pm. Maggie will be in the gallery throughout the exhibition.
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm (3pm on Sunday 10 July) ; closed Mondays.
Maggie Jennings – Vivificante. 8-21 July.
Exuberant, colourful and vibrant, Maggie Jennings’ work celebrates the energy of living things. She works with the vigour and dynamism that she perceives in the world around her to produce strong, sensuous images.
This exhibition is the narrative of her life, and shows the stories and passions which she would like to share with you.
Her fascination is with the state of being and living: beginning with recalling the enchantments of her childhood in Devon, lying in long grass or up a tree watching animals, birds and insects lead their idiosyncratic lives. She has travelled extensively, and has taken workshops in Zimbabwe and Namibia. She was awarded a scholarship in Greece, and a printmaking residency in the Canary Islands. In Tenerife, she worked under blue skies with fragrant breezes and surrounded by brilliant blooms. This set the mood for her art career. The Tenerifians taught her a favourite word – Vivificante (life-giving, inspirational), the title of this show.
She is never without a sketch book and uses her visual diaries rather than a camera to record her travels and experiences. She will be exhibiting a series of these tiny books alongside the larger works in this exhibition.
Whilst all forms of printmaking fascinate her, the main body of her work is in the form of spontaneous, gestural mono-screenprints, painted directly through the mesh, leaving no room for correction and indecision. Her book “Fine Art Screenprinting”, published in 2015, describes these and other methods.
In her recent work, Maggie focuses on her home town London, scaling down and making more intimate works: etchings of buildings and crowds of people, made precious with hand painted papers and gold dust.
Maggie trained at Bristol (BA), and at Chelsea (MA). She teaches printmaking part-time at The Royal Drawing School and Heatherleys School of Art, and lives locally near Hornsey Lane.
During the exhibition there will be talks on the artist’s work on Sunday 10 July at 11.30am and
on Sunday 17 July at 3.30pm. Maggie will be in the gallery throughout the exhibition.
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm (3pm on Sunday 10 July) ; closed Mondays.
Maggie Jennings – Vivificante. 8-21 July.
Exuberant, colourful and vibrant, Maggie Jennings’ work celebrates the energy of living things. She works with the vigour and dynamism that she perceives in the world around her to produce strong, sensuous images.
This exhibition is the narrative of her life, and shows the stories and passions which she would like to share with you.
Her fascination is with the state of being and living: beginning with recalling the enchantments of her childhood in Devon, lying in long grass or up a tree watching animals, birds and insects lead their idiosyncratic lives. She has travelled extensively, and has taken workshops in Zimbabwe and Namibia. She was awarded a scholarship in Greece, and a printmaking residency in the Canary Islands. In Tenerife, she worked under blue skies with fragrant breezes and surrounded by brilliant blooms. This set the mood for her art career. The Tenerifians taught her a favourite word – Vivificante (life-giving, inspirational), the title of this show.
She is never without a sketch book and uses her visual diaries rather than a camera to record her travels and experiences. She will be exhibiting a series of these tiny books alongside the larger works in this exhibition.
Whilst all forms of printmaking fascinate her, the main body of her work is in the form of spontaneous, gestural mono-screenprints, painted directly through the mesh, leaving no room for correction and indecision. Her book “Fine Art Screenprinting”, published in 2015, describes these and other methods.
In her recent work, Maggie focuses on her home town London, scaling down and making more intimate works: etchings of buildings and crowds of people, made precious with hand painted papers and gold dust.
Maggie trained at Bristol (BA), and at Chelsea (MA). She teaches printmaking part-time at The Royal Drawing School and Heatherleys School of Art, and lives locally near Hornsey Lane.
During the exhibition there will be talks on the artist’s work on Sunday 10 July at 11.30am and
on Sunday 17 July at 3.30pm. Maggie will be in the gallery throughout the exhibition.
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm (3pm on Sunday 10 July) ; closed Mondays.