General Assembly minutes, vol. 12

1 vol., 165pp.

Volume of minutes of the General Assembly, including the following selected entries: discussion of the Royal Academy’s public relations and the role of the Secretary, Humphrey Brooke, 22 April 1965; the expression of opposition to Council’s proposal to allow the Tadei tondo [‘The Madonna and Child with the Infant St John’] by Michelangelo to leave the Royal Academy on loan, 1 June 1965; minutes of meeting held to obtain the further views of the General Assembly on the proposed loan of the Michelangelo tondo and to explain the Council’s commitment to making the loan, after the Council had obtained legal advice that it held a mandate over the conduct of all the Royal Academy’s business, 16 June 1965; a large majority of members against a proposal to use a tape recorder at the meeting and presentation to the General Assembly of the Secretary’s memorandum on the Royal Academy’s finances, 22 October 1969; report of the President, Sir Thomas Monnington, dealing with the function, policy and finances of the Royal Academy, with responses from members, including a contribution from Sir Charles Wheeler, who advocated that the Academy’s independence should be retained at all costs, even if this should involve the sale of the Michelangelo tondo: although the Treasurer, Lord Holford, pointed out that this might not be a permanent solution to the Academy’s financial problems, 25 November 1970; and confirmation of resolution to increase the number of Academicians from forty to fifty, with a minimum of eight sculptors, six architects, and four engravers or draughtsmen, of whom two were to be engravers, and to reduce the number of Associates to twenty-five, with the same maximum membership of seventy-five, 14 October 1971.