The New Industrial Era – Futurism to Pop Art: Art History Reframed: Autumn 2025 Lecture Series

Art Historian Dr. Matthew Whyte offers a new lecture series, which takes the audience on an art-filled journey through the often beautiful, sometimes scandalous, and always fascinating moments in the development of Western civilisation.

Week 5: The New Industrial Era – Futurism to Pop Art

How did art respond to new technologies and their impact on society and culture? This week we explore this question by examining artistic movements which sought to address our relationship with a rapidly transforming world. In Italy, shortly after the turn of the 20th century, Futurism developed through an urge to turn away from the past and embrace the transformative power of industry for mankind. Soon after, World War I would demonstrate the full repercussions that industrial progress could have for humanity, driving artists to embrace concepts of futility and absurdity in creating new artforms. Finally, stepping into the post-war period of the 1950s, the emergence of Pop Art provides a fascinating insight into the transformation of culture in the age of commodity culture.

1. Tues 16 September
The Pre-Raphaelites & The Birth of Modernism

2. Tues 23 September
Impressionism & Modern Life

3. Tues 30 September
Post-Impressionism

4. Tues 7 October
The Artist’s Inner World – Expressionism & Surrealism

5. Tues 14 October
The New Industrial Era – Futurism to Pop Art

6. Tues 21 October
The World Transformed – Cubism to Abstract Art