evening by Mrs. Maurine Cooper in the National Gallery.

This month's talk will focus on Painters of Light: Vermeer and Monet, two painters who were separated by two centuries but who were both obsessed with the effect of light.

Dutch-born Jan Vermeer, born in 1632, and one of the great artists of the 17th century, achieved immortality with his pictures of rather dark interiors dramatically lit by light streaming through a window. He differed from his contemporaries in that he liked to paint ordinary people absorbed in everyday tasks.

Claude Monet, born in 1840, came to epitomise the French Impressionists in that he never wavered from the ideals of the movement. His fascination with the effect of light was to lead him, in the latter half of his career, to concentrate on a series of paintings in which he painted the same subject at different times of day and in different lights.

Tickets for the lecture, which commences at 7.30 p.m., are $5 for members ($7 for non-members) and may be obtained at the door.

DUTCH GIRL -- One of the few surviving paintings by Jan Vermeer who, with French impressionist Claude Monet, will provide the subject for tomorrow's lecture at the National Gallery.