About the Event:

Join ADSNY and The English-Speaking Union for an engaging illustrated talk that will take us on a journey around Great Britain. Author, art historian, and journalist, Genista Davidson, will introduce us to well known Art Deco structures throughout Great Britain, as well as some of the more obscure and hidden gems along the way.

In this presentation, we’ll take a peek inside some amazing sites and be transported back to the Jazz Age. Some highlights will include:

• Exploring the illustrious and colorful past of Burgh Island Hotel––in the County of Devon––which has not only been the stomping ground of Noel Coward and the ‘Bright Young Things’, but has also hosted a King, novelists, and countless Silver Screen heroes, during its heyday.
  
• The fully restored Midland Hotel in Northern England, which was a former railway hotel built in 1933.  This Streamlined Moderne hotel features a beautiful stone mural of Odysseus by Eric Gill, a Triton and Neptune ceiling medallion, and sweeping cantilever stairs along with many impressive minimalist architectural elements.
  
• The typical, sleepy seaside resort of Frinton-on-Sea, in the East of England, which, in the 1930s was planning to undergo a large development to turn this town into a modern future looking metropolis. We will find out what happened and the legacy that is left today.
  

We will also explore a town built on windows,  the famous Savoy Hotel, all the glitz of Claridge’s Hotel, and much more.

Register today to claim your seat!

About the Speaker:

Genista Davidson is an Art Historian, journalist, writer, and author––specializing in the Art Deco period––with a BA in Art & Humanities and an MA in Art History. She is the author of guidebooks and compendiums known as the Art Deco Traveler series. These easily formatted and illustrated books, informatively advise the reader of hidden gems and day trips throughout the UK. She also teaches Art Deco courses for the Workers Education Association and is a speaker for the National Federation of Womens Institutes.

Genista’s love of all things Art Deco grew and blossomed from her childhood, where she inherited an appreciation of architecture and the materials used to create these intriguing buildings. For the past 30 years, for business and pleasure, she has always sought out Art Deco hotels, restaurants, cinemas, lidos, and places of interest,  in the UK and abroad.

She has studied fashion and textiles and has been an avid collector of vintage clothing and accessories for most of her life. For many years, she has been finding hidden architectural gems in Britain, which include original Art Deco buildings as well as those inspired by the period.