The Royal West of England Academy (RWA) is Bristol's oldest art gallery, located in

Clifton Clifton may refer to: People *Clifton (surname) *Clifton (given name) Places Australia * Clifton, Queensland, a town **Shire of Clifton *Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong *Clifton, Western Australia Canada *Clifton, Nova Scotia ...

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, near the junction of Queens Road and

Whiteladies Road Whiteladies Road is a main road in Bristol, England. It runs north from the Victoria Rooms to Durdham Down, and separates Clifton on the west side from Redland and Cotham on the east. It forms part of the A4018. Significant buildings on W ...

. Situated in a Grade 2* listed building, it hosts five galleries and an exhibition programme that celebrates the best of historic and contemporary British art. Elected Royal West of England Academicians use the

post-nominal Post-nominal letters, also called post-nominal initials, post-nominal titles, designatory letters or simply post-nominals, are letters placed after a person's name to indicate that the individual holds a position, academic degree, accreditation, ...

RWA.

History

The Royal West of England Academy was the first art gallery to be established in Bristol, and is one of the longest-running regional galleries and art schools in the UK. Its foundation was initiated by the extraordinary

Ellen Sharples Ellen Wallace Sharples (4 March 1769 – 14 March 1849) was an English painter specialized in portraits in pastel and in watercolor miniatures on ivory. She exhibited five miniatures at the Royal Academy in 1807, and founded the Bristol Fine Ar ...

, who secured funding from benefactors including

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one ...

and Prince Albert, and the building was ultimately financed by a bequest of £2,000 from her will in 1849. At first, the core of the Academy was a well-known group of artists in Bristol, known as the Bristol Society of Artists, who were mostly landscape painters, and many, such as

William James Müller William James Müller (28 June 18128 September 1845), also spelt Muller, was a British landscape and figure painter, the best-known artist of the Bristol School. Life Müller was born at Bristol, the son of J. S. Müller, a Prussian from Danz ...

Francis Danby Francis Danby (16 November 1793 – 9 February 1861) was an Irish painter of the Romantic era. His imaginative, dramatic landscapes were comparable to those of John Martin. Danby initially developed his imaginative style while he was the centr ...

James Baker Pyne James Baker Pyne (5 December 1800 – 29 July 1870) was an English landscape painter who became a successful follower of Turner, after having been in his earlier years a member of the Bristol School of artists and a follower of Francis Dan ...

and

John Syer John Syer (1815–1885) was an English painter. He painted landscape in a style formed chiefly upon that of William James Müller, William Muller, but failed as a colourist. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and with th ...

were well known. In 1844, when the Bristol Academy for the Promotion of Fine Arts was founded, the Bristol Society of Artists was incorporated into it. At this time the president and committee was predominantly its patrons, rather than its artists. In 1913 King

George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until Death and state funeral of George V, his death in 1936. Born duri ...

granted the academy its Royal title, with the reigning monarch as its Patron, and by 1914 a major extension to the front of the building, including the dome and

Walter Crane Walter Crane (15 August 184514 March 1915) was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Ka ...

lunettes, was completed. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the academy building was taken over by various organisations including the Bristol Aeroplane Company and the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

. Immediately after the war ended the council applied for the release of the galleries but was informed that they would be occupied by the

Inland Revenue The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation t ...

until further notice. It was not until 1950 that the building was returned to its original function, after the intervention of the then prime minister,

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...

. During the 1950s the Royal West of England Academy Schools became the West of England College of Art. This moved to the Bower Ashton campus in 1966, where it was then absorbed by the University of the West of England (School of Visual Studies), now the Department of Creative Industries, UWE, Bristol. The current president is the artist Fiona Robinson PRWA and Director (Chief Exec) is Alison Bevan BEM.

Collections

Among the paintings in the permanent collection are works by artists from the

Newlyn Newlyn ( kw, Lulyn: Lu 'fleet', Lynn/Lydn 'pool') is a seaside town and fishing port (the largest fishing port in England) in south-west Cornwall, UK.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 203 ''Land's End'' Newlyn lies on the shore of Mount ...

, St Ives and

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

Schools and paintings by

Elizabeth Blackadder Dame Elizabeth Violet Blackadder, Mrs Houston, (24 September 1931 – 23 August 2021) was a Scottish painter and printmaker. She was the first woman to be elected to both the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy. In 1962 she began ...

, Bernard Dunstan,

Mary Fedden Mary Fedden, OBE RA RWA (14 August 1915 – 22 June 2012) was a British artist. Early years Sometimes mistakenly described as the daughter of Roy Fedden (who was in fact her uncle, as was Romilly Fedden), Mary Fedden was born in Bristol ...

, Matthew Hale,

David Inshaw David Inshaw (born 21 March 1943 in Wednesfield, Staffordshire, England) is a British artist who sprang to public attention in 1973 when his painting '' The Badminton Game'' was exhibited at the ICA ''Summer Studio'' exhibition in London. ...

, Derek Balmer,

Anne Redpath Anne Redpath (1895–1965) was a Scottish artist whose vivid domestic still lifes are among her best-known works. Life Redpath's father was a tweed designer in the Scottish Borders. She saw a connection between his use of colour and her own. ...

George Swaish George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Preside ...

and

Carel Weight Carel Victor Morlais Weight, (10 September 1908 – 13 August 1997) was an English painter. Biography Weight was born in Paddington in 1908. His father was a bank cashier and his mother, who was of Swedish and German descent, was a chirop ...

Building

The building is a grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

constructed in 1857 as the city's first public art gallery, also encompassing an art school. It opened in 1858. The interiors are by Charles Underwood and facade by JR Hirst, altered in 1912 by SS Reay and

H Dare Bryan H, or h, is the eighth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''aitch'' (pronounced , plural ''aitches''), or region ...

. The first floor is in 3 sections, the outer ones articulated by paired Corinthian pilasters flanking large shell head niches with statues of Flaxman and

Reynolds Reynolds may refer to: Places Australia *Hundred of Reynolds, a cadastral unit in South Australia *Hundred of Reynolds (Northern Territory), a cadastral unit in the Northern Territory of Australia United States * Reynolds, Mendocino County, Calif ...

. A large carving of 3 female figures - the three graces - crowns the parapet. The interior includes coloured

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

and a replica of the

Parthenon Frieze The Parthenon frieze is the high-relief Pentelic marble sculpture created to adorn the upper part of the Parthenon’s naos. It was sculpted between c. 443 and 437 BC, most likely under the direction of Pheidias. Of the 160 meters (524 ft) ...

Presidents

*1844-1859 John Harford *1859-1881 Philip WS Miles *1881-1884 Samuel Lang *1884-1887 Colonel H Savile *1887-1897 Daniel H Cave *1897-1898 Alderman

Francis Fry Francis Fry (1803–1886), was an English businessman and bibliographer. Life Fry was born at Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, on 28 October 1803, the second son of Joseph Storrs Fry. He was educated at a large school at Fishponds, in the neighbo ...

*1898-1911 Sir

William Wills, 1st Baron Winterstoke William Henry Wills, 1st Baron Winterstoke (1 September 1830 – 29 January 1911), known as Sir William Wills, Bt., between 1893 and 1906, was a British businessman, philanthropist and Liberal politician. Seat - Combe Lodge, Blagdon, Somerset. ...

*1911-1932 Dame

Janet Stancomb-Wills Dame Janet Stancomb Graham Stancomb-Wills, DBE (25 January 1854 – 22 August 1932) was the first woman mayor of Ramsgate in Kent, an office which she held from 1923–24, and she was also the first person to receive, in 1922, the Freedom of the ...

*1932-1936 Yda Richardson *1936-1971 Lord Methuen RA *1971-1974 Donald Milner OBE *1974-1984 Bernard Dunstan RA *1984-1989

OBE RA *1989-1995

Leonard Manasseh Leonard Sulla Manasseh (21 May 1916 – 5 March 2017) was a British architect, best known for the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, which he co-designed with Ian Baker. Early life and education Manasseh was born in Eden Hall, Singapore, ...

OBE RA *1995-2000 Dr Peter Thursby *2000-2010 Dr Derek Balmer *2010-2011 Simon Quadrat *2011-2016 Dr Janette Kerr *2016-2019 Stewart Geddes *2019- Fiona Robinson

References

External links

RWA's website
{{authority control Art museums and galleries in Bristol British art Culture in Bristol Grade II* listed buildings in Bristol Tourist attractions in Bristol Museums in Bristol 1844 establishments in England Organisations based in Bristol with royal patronage Art museums established in 1844 Grade II* listed museum buildings Academies of arts