Bendor Grosvenor
17th September 2025 @ 10.30am
Celebrated art historian and broadcaster Bendor Grosvenor comes to GAFAS to speak about his new book on British art through time, a story of how a small island nation managed to produce, after many setbacks, some of the most brilliant and distinctive artists who ever lived, such as Constable and Turner.
It’s also a story of ideas, power, faith and empire, and reveals how art helped shape the Britain we know today. Looking at key moments, objects, and individuals from each era, Bendor explores how they were shaped by the world in which the artists lived, and why it took so long for the art from these isles to actually become ‘British’. From folk art to the role of female artists, from the influences of invaders to the territories of the British Empire, the story of British art is just as much a story of Britain’s place in the world, and its impact upon it, as the art and artists themselves.
Bendor Grosvenor
Before becoming an art historian specialising in Old Masters and British pictures, Bendor studied English history at Pembroke College, Cambridge and UEA and completed his PhD with a thesis on foreign policy in Benjamin Disraeli’s second government. He is, however, better known as the co-presenter of the BBC series ‘Britain’s Lost Masterpieces’ where he discovered a number of important paintings by prominent artists. He also appeared in the first five series of the BBC1 series ‘Fake or Fortune?’, the BBC’s highest rated fine art programme where his research helped prove the attribution of works by Degas, Van Dyck, Vuillard, Gainsborough and Turner, among others.