A Spotlight on Walter Sickert

A Spotlight on Walter Sickert comes to the Ashmolean Museum on Tuesday 19 January 2027, with art historian and curator David Boyd-Haycock taking the lead. It's a talk built around Sickert's long, shifting career, and it's held in the Headley Lecture Theatre, so you'll be right there in the museum with the work on display around you.

Boyd-Haycock traces Sickert's journey from his early days as a talented protégé of James McNeill Whistler to his later role as the founder of the Camden Town Group. Along the way, he looks at how Sickert and his circle forged a distinctly British response to French Impressionism, rather than just copying it. The talk spends time on the French friends who left their mark on him — Edgar Degas and Jacques-Émile Blanche — and on Sickert's own fascination with the theatrical and the everyday. It also touches on his work as a critic and the sometimes unsettling subject matter that still provokes debate today. Throughout, Boyd-Haycock draws on significant Sickert works from the Ashmolean's own collection, so the lecture works as an introduction to an artist who helped bring Impressionism to Britain.

There's a bit of a catch to keep in mind: the session is exclusively for Ashmolean Members, and booking is essential. If you're a member, it's a good excuse to spend an afternoon with the collection. Tea, coffee and cake are provided, so it's as much a social as it is a lecture. The talk runs from 3pm to 4pm, with doors opening at 2.30pm, and there's an online option via Zoom if you can't make it into the city. In-person tickets are £15 and online tickets are £10.