The Ancestors
7 September 2019 - 19 January 2020
The Ronald and Rita McAulay Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts
Daily 10am – 6pm
Friday 10am – 10pm>/br>
Free, no booking required.
Cathie Pilkington RA and Alison Wilding RA curate a new installation of busts from the our Collection, exploring the strangeness of portrait sculpture.
The installation celebrates the artistry of these works while also emphasising the peculiarities of portrait sculpture, prompting the viewer to ask questions about the sitters, the artists, and the historical practices of the Royal Academy.
Serving as a key symbol for the whole display is Goggle Head by Dame Elisabeth Frink RA, the first female sculptor to become an Academician – some two centuries after the Academy was founded. Frink sometimes displayed her Goggle Head sculptures on breeze block plinths.
The Ancestors borrows this practice of contrasting low-grade construction materials with precious bronze and marble to draw attention to the oddness of the viewing conventions that surround these artworks. Now that contemporary sculpture can be a urinal, a dinner party or a pile of blankets, where does this jumbled collection of handmade effigies fit in today?
Daily 10am – 6pm
Friday 10am – 10pm>/br>
Free, no booking required.
Image gallery
Bust of Joseph Wilton, R.A., ca. 1760
Cast of death mask of John Constable, R.A., After 1837
Bust of Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., ca. 1865
Helöise, ca. 1936
Meditation, ca. 1969
Bust of Ambrose McEvoy, A.R.A., 1916
Bust of Edward Armitage, R.A., 1876
Bust of John Gibson R.A., 1864
Bust of L.S. Lowry, R.A., ca. 1967
Goggle Head, 1969
