Margaret Knight

 
notes and letters
 

Margaret Knight - Teacher and Traveller

Welcome

Hello, I'm Margaret Knight, an art and cultural historian, teacher and cultural tour organiser based in London. I have been teaching for longer than I care to say, first in the art history departments of various polytechnics and then at the Victoria and Albert Museum where I developed the Adult Education programmes at the request of the Director Roy Strong. I devised the first Foundation Course for NADFAS and the first two of the very successful V&A Year Courses, ‘Medieval and Renaissance Art’ and ‘Art and Design since 1850’. Along the way I contributed to a number of books on art and design and acted as historical adviser to the drama units of the BBC and Channel 4 including "Mrs Brown". After leaving the V&A I was co-director of ‘The Course Studies’ for 15 years, planning and teaching a series of multi-disciplinary programmes.

Margaret Knight

For over 30 years I planned and taught cultural tours in association with Millennium Tours. The link to Margaret Knight Tours has unfortunately already closed but you can get some idea of where we visited from the letters series which will also give you an idea of their range.
My recent tours have been to Friuli, Galicia, Le Marche, Calabria, Venice and Alsace Lorraine

 



 

Hello, I'll soon be going


My website will be closing sometime in 2025

Thanks to everyone who has visited here and all my friends who have attended my lecture series and taken my tours. I hope you have, and for the time being continue to, enjoy my notes and letters pages. They were enormous fun to write and even more to research.

Notes for 'The Pilgrim Roads', 'The House of Tiffany' and 'Three Artists of the Golden Age' are available in Notes and Letters.


Alsace Lorraine tour Alsace title


Since the Romans created their vineyards on the fertile plains between the Vosges mountains and the Rhine Alsace and Lorraine were desirable lands, the focus of wars between the kingdoms of the Middle Ages and between the great European powers until the 20th century. Despite centuries of annexation and religious strife the provinces produced prosperous Medieval trading towns, glamorous Ducal cities and extraordinary art and architecture. There are mountain fortresses built for Charlemagne, exquisite Gothic Cathedrals, some of the finest sculpture in the west and from 1900 the magical Art Nouveau inspired by the Ecole de Nancy.


Notes and Letters

Notes and Letters contains a continuing series of illustrated letters sent to my good friends Richard Box and Bill Barrow after holidays which usually double as scouting trips for possible tours. They are only slightly exaggerated descriptions of our encounters abroad and I hope you find them interesting and amusing. You will see that even when writing to a friend I can’t restrain myself from throwing in historical background. Once a teacher, always a teacher I suppose.

Click here to go to the Notes and Letters.

The series includes letters from Sicily, Puglia, Madrid, Emilia Romagna, Naples and Calabria, the oldest being at least 10 years old.



Lecture Notes and Self-guided Tours

New notes added

Two new sets of lecture notes "The House of Tiffany" and "Three Artists of the Golden Age" are available on the Notes and Letters page.

You will also find selected notes from lectures including 'The Secret Language' on symbols in art , 'The Troubadours and the Courts of Love' and 'The Pilgrim Roads'.

You will also find two sets of self-guided tours to Rome and Sicily which you can download and print. There are five Roman to choose from, plus notes on the Sistine Chapel, as well as two easy trips out of town. Sicily is a 7 day introduction to the island with a possible two to three day extension.


I hope you enjoy my site and please come back soon.

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