The Arts Society Abingdon celebrates the golden jubilee of the founding of national organisation The Arts Society, formerly known as NADFAS, with an illustrated lecture

Can we trust the experts on good and bad art..? That’s the question David Phillips will pose on Wednesday, 18th July, at the Amey Theatre at Abingdon School.

David will explore several art controversies and tackle the trickiness of attribution by critics and experts alike. But he claims the minefields facing experts need not deter the rest of us from making artistic judgements based on our own experiences. The talk will start with a reception at 6.30pm in the Jekyll Garden next to the theatre, when celebrated harpist Pervin Shahin will play a programme of music from Baroque to Jazz.

The aim of The Arts Society, which has 90,000 members worldwide, is to ensure the arts are accessible to as wide an audience as possible. Expert lecturers have been assembled whose subjects range from English medieval gardens, to Chinese textiles, Renaissance artists, Staffordshire potters, Middle Eastern carpet-makers, Venetian glass or street art.

Alongside the programme of lectures (on the third Wednesday of every month in Trinity Church, Conduit Road, Abingdon, at 10.30am and again at 2pm), there are regular visits to exhibitions and other places of interest including this year a visit to the Bombay Sapphire Gin Distillery near Winchester.

There is ample free parking for the talk at Amey Theatre at Abingdon School, OX14 1DE, and tickets are £12.50 – to buy yours email [email protected]. For more on the society, visit www.theartssocietyabingdon.org.uk