MALVERN HILLS DECORATIVE AND FINE ARTS SOCIETY

THE GREAT IMPRESARIO GEORGIO VASARI: ARTIST, ARCHITECT AND ART HISTORIAN

He was self-opinionated, biased and at times, vindictive yet his "Lives of the Artists" is still central to any study of Italian Renaissance Art.

To contemporaries, however, his fame was not as a writer but as an artist and architect, employed by some of the greatest patrons in 16th Italy, most notably Duke Cosimo 1 de′Medici, for whom he designed arguably the greatest art gallery in the world, the Uffizi, although its original purpose was not to display art.

To celebrate the 500th anniversary of his birth, this talk will look at the various talents of this man and how they reflected the spirit of the times.

SHIRLEY SMITH

Shirley Smith graduated from the University of East Anglia with a first class honours degree in the History of Art, specialising in the Italian and Northern Renaissance. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a part−time lecturer for the University of East Anglia and for the Department of Continuing Education of the University of Cambridge.

She has run study days and certificate courses as well as residential weekend courses. Also lectures to the Art Fund and individual clubs and societies.