About the Royal Academy of Arts
The Royal Academy of Arts is an independent institution, led by distinguished artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts through exhibitions, education and debate.
A brief history
The Royal Academy of Arts was founded by George III in 1768. Governed by artists to 'promote the arts of design' the Royal Academy was the first institution in Great Britain devoted solely to the promotion of the visual arts and to raising the standing of art, artists and architecture. The RA has held an annual selling exhibition
since its formation and its first loan exhibition was held in 1870. The RA now enjoys an unrivalled reputation as a venue for exhibitions of international importance.
Royal Academicians
The eighty governing artists - Royal Academicians
- are all practising painters, sculptors, engravers, printmakers, draughtsmen and architects. On reaching the age of 75 they become Senior Academicians and so form vacancies for Membership. Elections are held annually and new Members are nominated and voted in by existing RAs. All Members are required to bestow an example of work to the Royal Academy before receiving their Diploma signed by the Sovereign, and these works form part of the RA's Permanent Collection. Past Royal Academicians include Sir Joshua Reynolds (the RA's first President), John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough, JMW Turner, Lord Leighton and Stanley Spencer, while current Members include Peter Blake, Sir Norman Foster, David Hockney, Tracey Emin, Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor.
The Royal Academy is a charity and receives no public funding. It is supported by private sponsorship, and its Friends organisation - the third largest in the world - numbers more than 85,000 members.
Summer Exhibition
One of the founding principles of the RA was to 'mount an annual exhibition open to all artists of distinguished merit' to finance the training of young artists in the RA Schools. Now known as the Summer Exhibition
and held every year without interruption since 1769, the exhibition attracts around 10,000 works, the selection being carried out by Academicians chaired by the President.
Exhibitions
The RA continues to fulfil its founders’ aims by mounting a continuous programme of internationally-acclaimed loan exhibitions, supported by extensive education programmes, seminars and debates
. The Main Galleries and The Sackler Wing of Galleries host a variety of major exhibitions from all periods and art forms including Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600 - 1600, Monet in the 20th Century, Citizens and Kings: Portraits in the Age of Revolution, 1760—1830 and From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870–1925 from Moscow and St Petersburg.
Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John (Taddei Tondo), 1504–06. Marble, 1068 mm.
Collections and Library
The RA owns a major collection
of works by Royal Academicians past and present together with the oldest and one of the best fine-art libraries in Britain. The Collection has received outstanding bequests such as the Michelangelo Tondo on display in the Sackler Wing of Galleries. Highlights from the Collection are on show in the recently refurbished John Madejski Fine Rooms
.
RA Schools
The Academy's art school
(it is known as 'The Schools' because each 'School' originally corresponded to a different element in the training of the artists that had to be mastered in a particular order) is the oldest in Britain. Past students include many famous British artists such as William Blake, JMW Turner, Edwin Landseer, JE Millais and, more recently, John Hoyland, Sir Anthony Caro and Sandra Blow. Today, sixty students study drawing, painting and printmaking on a three-year postgraduate course - the only such course currently available in Britain.
Read about Burlington House, the Royal Academy's home
Read about the John Madejski Fine Rooms
Read about the RA's exhibitions and events
