Dr Hans Fransen, the well-known curator and conservationist, who has written several standard books on local architecture and art, obliged us most delightfully by stepping in at the last minute to present his illustrated talk on the Worldwide Impressionism Movement, at our Monthly Meeting on the 26th of June. We were given a wonderful slide presentation describing and illustrating the origins, development, and the value of Impressionism as an art style, featuring many old favourites from our own Townhouse Michaelis Collection, as well as many lesser-known (but no less masterful) works by impressionist painters as far-flung as France, America, Holland, even Japan! It was a privilege to have someone of Dr. Fransen's reputation give us an insight into the style of painting that did so much to free art from the hold of stifling academicism, laying the basis for modern art.