Welcome
Welcome to the Exe Decorative and Fine Arts Society. We are based in Topsham, and cover the towns and villages on both sides of the Exe estuary south of Exeter. Our purpose is to give our members opportunities to appreciate the arts.
We have a programme of ten lectures on various aspects of the arts, held monthly on Thursday mornings, from September to June. The lectures are illustrated and given by experts in their field. These lectures are supplemented by special interest days where we look in greater detail at a particular topic.
We also have visits to places of interest in the south west, and tours further afield, including abroad. Some of our members take part in activities such as Heritage Volunteering, Church Recording and Young Arts, where we try to involve young people in the arts through initiatives in local schools and colleges.
In 2017, most decorative and fine art societies changed their names to The Arts Society, following the rebranding of the national body NADFAS. We as a society decided to retain our name ExeDFAS while remaining affiliated to The Arts Society.
We welcome new members at any time, although we currently have a waiting list. We invite anyone who is interested to come along to one of our lectures, to see how informative and entertaining they are. Please let our membership secretary know in advance so that a place can be reserved.
The Picture of the Month at the National Gallery.
Poplar trees quiver in a light breeze, silhouetted against a blue summer sky, their reflections shimmering in the river below.
Working from his floating studio – a flat-bottomed boat, fitted with slots to hold canvasses steady, borrowed from the artist Gustave Caillebotte, Monet painted this work, along with 22 others of poplars, on the river Epte, near Limetz-Villez, about two miles from his house in Giverny in Northern France.
Our 2020-21 season of lectures is now over, and this column will soon promote the September lecture, the start of the 2021-22 season.
The first event of the new season is a social event to welcome all new members. This will be held in the Boardroom at the Matthews Hall on September 2nd from 10 30 - 12 30 a.m.
Meanwhile other pages of this website will be brought up to date as soon as possible
Existing members of ExeDFAS will have received notification that subscriptions are now due for next years season of lectures. The subscription for existing members is £30. This is to reflect the fact that the programme has been so disrupted over recent months because of covid. The subscription for new members next year will be £35, and must be paid by June 30th
The National Gallery has a very extensive website with access on line to every item in the collection . Each month it publishes a new picture of the month, and this is the image for July 2021
Galleries everywhere are endeavouring to bring their great art treasures to the public who are unable to get to galleries and museums as once they did. Their curators have prepared short lectures, and the genius of modern technology can give us ‘Virtual Tours’.
Just a ‘taster’ of these facilities is now available on this website starting with lectures provided by our ‘parent body’ – The Arts Society. The section is called The Arts Society plus and has its own drop down menu accessible at the top of this page