Orange and London are worlds apart but there's one thing they share in common according to art historian Leslie Primo.
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"There was actually a big crowd, I was quite impressed by the turnout especially considering how cold it is in Orange at the moment," he said.
Mr Primo was in town in May to give a lecture on the works of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, of 'Girl with a Pearl Earing' fame.
He was invited by the Orange branch of the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society (ADFAS).
However it wasn't the first regional stop Mr Primo had made.
"It's been mostly regional actually," he said.
"When I landed in Australia it was in Mudgee and then I went onto Tamworth and Armidale and then on to Narrabri. I've really enjoyed going to the regional places actually.
"They are interesting because I do big cities all the time and being from London I'm very used to it.
"But I think the thing with big cities is you get a particular crowd which is absolutely wonderful but what you don't do is reach people that can't make it to cities.
"I want to reach people who can't reach big cities. So in a way this has been a perfect opportunity to reach that audience who want to go to cultural events but they are so far away they miss out.
"People in the countryside are absolutely interested in cultural things and I think in a way they are more interested because there is so little where they are. They want more of it."
An 18-year veteran of the United Kingdom's National Gallery, Mr Primo said he received some interesting questions from the Orange crowd on his subject matter.
"What is going on with Vermeer at the moment is he is quite an extraordinary painter of public appeal,"he said.
"There is a very big exhibition going on in Europe at the moment in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It's the largest Vermeer exhibition since 1935.
"That exhibition featured about 40 Vermeers even though there are actually only 35 or 37 in the world.
"It turned out about seven or eight of them were fakes so the one in Amsterdam has 28 and two of those are dubious.
"I got some very interesting questions, people wanted to know how do you know how much a painting is worth and someone wanted to know if the fake Vermeers were worth any money.
"Unfortunately the answer is nobody knows how much the fakes are worth because no one has offered to buy one!"
The Orange ADFAS have a number of lectures throughout the rest of the year. To learn more you can email Ellen Fisher at rosemont.fisher@bigpond.com
- June 20 - Orange Regional Conservatorium
- July 18 - ROCOCO: A MASTERPIECE, A MYSTERY AND MADAME DE POMPADOUR
- August 22 - FRIDA KAHLO AND DIEGO RIVERA: THE GOLDEN AGE OF MEXICAN PAINTING
- September 19 - PEDER SEVERIN KRYER - A Painter of Northern Lights
- October 24 - A CLASSICAL GALLERY OF ROGUES - THE ETERNAL PANTHEON
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