Susie Harries is a writer, editor and lecturer. She has published eight books on subjects including official war art, opera, the composer Elisabeth Lutyens and most recently a biography of Sir Nikolas Pevsner. Artists have always used jokes to make serious statements, about themselves, about the world and about the nature of art. This lecture looks at artists’ jokes through the ages, from medieval monks doodling graffiti to Banksy turning supermarket walls into social satire - by way of Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Dali and Picasso: these jokes tell you a lot once you are aware of them.