Join us for a thought-provoking and insightful session by Leslie Primo in The Arts Society at Firstsite (TASAF) Lecture series! The Arts Society at Firstsite is an organisation about connecting people who have a passion for art. TASAF is part of a global network of local societies, which bring people together through shared curiosity for the arts. You can learn more about it here. To secure your place in this session please scroll down to book. Seating is unreserved but you will need to show your tickets before entering the auditorium. Tickets can be presented on your smart device or as a printed copy. We have all heard about the great achievements of the Italian Renaissance, but there is little acknowledgement of the artistic events that took place in Britain during a parallel period. This lecture will take us back to that period in an exploration of the tumultuous creative outpourings of artistic talent that defined this period, some of which are no longer household names. Spanning a period from the late 15th century through to the early 17th century, this lecture will explore the conflicts and tensions between this mix of artists both indigenous and incoming in an effort to examine what relationship, if any, existed between the practises of the native artists and their foreign counterparts. Could the native art be said to have a unique character of its own or was it derivative and thus led by the incoming art of the day. Just how distinctive was the art they produced? How did it fare when compared to the contemporaneous work of foreign artists? How direct was the competition and was there even some interaction resulting in shared artistic knowledge and thus heritage among these diverse communities of artists? The Foreign Invention of British Art aims to place these artists and others into the context of their times revealing how British art came of age, From Renaissance to The Grand Manner. Art historian, Leslie Primo is an author and broadcaster, graduating from Birkbeck, University College, London with an MA in Renaissance studies. Leslie’s book, ‘The Foreign Invention of British Art’ is published by Thames & Hudson in 2025.