This year is the 250th anniversary of the Royal Academy of Arts and the occasion has been marked by the unveiling of its well-publicised £56m redevelopment project. It has also sparked tributes by arts organisations across the country.
Talks, events and exhibitions focus on RA members and their creations at institutions such as the Scottish Maritime Museum, Manchester Art Gallery and the Fitzwilliam Museum, among many others.
Since the RA’s foundation in 1768, it has counted some of the UK’s most famous and enduring artists among its academicians, many of whom have shown at the institute’s annual open hang, the Summer Exhibition. This year the show, billed as the largest open-submission exhibition in the world, runs from June 12-August 19.
Past and present
Coinciding with that carnival of contemporary art, Richard Green’s exhibition (June 13-August 19) takes a look at work by academicians of the past and present.
Over the years, the New Bond Street gallery has sold 30 works by RA members to museum collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, and The Pola Museum of Art, Japan.
Now it displays 44 paintings from the 18th-21st centuries, 37 of which are for sale. Some past RA presidents such as Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), Frank Dicksee (1853-1928) and Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) are included, as are members Algernon Newton (1880-1968), Luke Fildes (1843-1927) and LS Lowry (1887-1976).
Prices start at £18,000 and go up to more than £1m.
