The Arts Society meets at The Old Bishop’s Palace for an illustrated lecture by Ian Swankie entitled `The World’s Most Expensive Art’ on Thursday April 19 from 7.30pm.

A Londoner with a passion for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral, and gives regular tours at each venue.

In the last few years the combined price paid for the dozen most expensive artworks is about the same as the cost of building three large public hospitals.

This lecture is not about the excesses of the top end of the over-heated art market, but an excuse to examine some beautiful and varied art.

These works would not achieve such sky-high prices if they were no good.

So we’ll see some wonderful paintings including those by Picasso, Cezanne, Rembrandt, Modigliani, Klimt, Bacon and Pollock, all held together by the common thread of their extraordinary commercial value.

But we will also look at the buyers and sellers, the back-story of the works, the reasons for changing hands and I will try to answer the question “Are they are really worth hundreds of millions of pounds?”