This unusual and fascinating Special Interest Day brings together material from several lectures. The morning sessions outline the history, explore the terrain and examine the buildings which range from Anasazi Cliff Dwellings and Spanish Missions to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West.  En route, there will be log cabins and ‘Victorian’ towns; the morning will end with two 20th century creations – mid-century modernism at Palm Springs and the success of excess at Las Vegas.

In the afternoon we will look at the art, starting with figurative painters and sculptors like Remington and Russell and moving on to landscape painters like Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) and Thomas Moran (1837-1926). For once the word epic is fully justified. Explorers as well as artists, their paintings do justice to the extraordinary landscapes of the West. They are great names in American Art but hardly known on this side of the Atlantic.

Roger Mitchell studied History at Oxford and Fine Art at Leeds.   He was awarded Churchill Fellowship to travel and study in USA.   A former College Vice-Principal, he now lectures for the University of Liverpool and for Adult Residential Colleges.  He lives in Lancashire.

This will be a 3-lecture Special Interest Day with lunch.  The speaker is happy  to take a smaller group in the afternoon if people wish to leave after lunch.