Courtauld and Cocteau Walk with Emma Wagstaff January 2027

Courtauld and Cocteau

Walk by Emma Wagstaff

Coffee · Walk · Lunch

January 2027 (Exact date TBC)

Ahead of our 2027 trip to Arles and Aix-en-Provence, Artemisia is organising a guided morning in London exploring French art of the 19th and 20th centuries. We will begin at the Courtauld Gallery, tracing the eruption of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism through key works by Édouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas and Vincent Van Gogh. We will consider the urban, political and technological transformations that reshaped Paris at the fin de siécle and how they produced new artistic subjects, styles and modes of viewing.

We will then make the short walk to Notre-Dame de France, stopping for coffee on the way, to visit the Lady Chapel, where Jean Cocteau painted a remarkable series of murals in 1959. Here, we encounter another French artist responding to a changing world. As part of the church’s post-war rebuilding, Cocteau was commissioned to decorate the chapel, transforming its walls with his characteristic bold, flowing lines and rich symbolism. The visual language builds on ideas he had explored in the decoration of the Chapelle Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer, completed just a few years earlier. This little-known artistic treasure offers a wonderful opportunity to discover Cocteau’s only public work in the UK.

Emma is an experienced AHA tutor with a particular interest in French Modern Art. She has led many tours to France, taught at university level, and also spent time living in Paris while studying theatre at École Jacques Lecoq. She is fascinated by the drama of space, colour and rhythm, and employs these as critical approaches to the study of art history.