Royal academy summer exhibition varnishing day 2015 room scene

The Summer Exhibition is an open

art exhibition An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhib ...

held annually by the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

Burlington House Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in Mayfair, London. It was originally a private Neo-Palladian mansion owned by the Earls of Burlington and was expanded in the mid-19th century after being purchased by the British government. Toda ...

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, ...

central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

, England, during the months of June, July, and August. The exhibition includes

paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, prints, drawings,

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, architectural designs and models, and is the largest and most popular open exhibition in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. It is also "the longest continuously staged exhibition of contemporary art in the world". When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768 one of its key objectives was to establish an annual exhibition, open to all artists of merit, which could be visited by the public. The first Summer Exhibition took place in 1769; it has been held every year since without exception.

History

In 1768, a group of artists visited King George III and sought his permission to establish a society for Arts and Design. They proposed the idea of an annual exhibition and a school design. King George III approved of the idea and the first exhibition, in 1769, included 136 works. The name Summer Exhibition dates from 1870.

Selection process

Today, around 1,000 works are selected each year from as many as 10,000 entries representing some 5,000 artists. Any artist (living, known or unknown) may submit up to two works at a fee of £35 per piece for selection by The Summer Exhibition Selection and Hanging Committee. Due to the significant increase in the volume of entries over recent years, the number of entries per artist was reduced to 2 (from 3) and the fee was increased £18 per piece. The committee is formed from the Council of Academicians (the governing body of the RA) and is traditionally chaired by the President of the Royal Academy. In addition to those works selected by the committee, all 80 Academicians are entitled to have six of their own pieces in the exhibition. For the 2006 exhibition, the academy received a statue and a plinth from David Hensel. By mistake, the two parts were judged independently, with the result that the statue was rejected and the plinth put on display.

Exhibition

The RA Summer Exhibition usually opens to the public in early June, preceded by a series of

private view A private view is a special viewing of an exhibition by invitation only, often an art exhibition and normally a preview at the start of a public exhibition.Alice-Azania JarvisHow to behave at a private view... ''The Independent, 10 October 2008. ...

ings. The main event is called "Varnishing Day", the day that, according to popular legend, artists would come to add a final coat of

varnish Varnish is a clear transparent hard protective coating or film. It is not a stain. It usually has a yellowish shade from the manufacturing process and materials used, but it may also be pigmented as desired, and is sold commercially in various ...

to their paintings (compare: ''

vernissage A vernissage (from French, originally meaning " varnishing") is a preview of an art exhibition, which may be private, before the formal opening. If the vernissage is not open to the public, but only to invited guests, it is often called a ''pri ...

''). Traditionally, artists walk in procession from Burlington House to

St James's Church, Piccadilly St James's Church, Piccadilly, also known as St James's Church, Westminster, and St James-in-the-Fields, is an Anglican church on Piccadilly in the centre of London, United Kingdom. The church was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren. T ...

, where a service is held. At the opening reception the shortlists for various prizes are announced. Some years have particular themes. The 2005 exhibition theme was "

Printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

and the multiple". In 2006, the theme was "From Life." In 2008, the theme was "Man Made". The theme for 2010 was "Raw". In 2011, the selection committee agreed to have no specific theme. Almost all exhibited works are for sale; the Academy receives 30% of the purchase price. In 2003, this amounted to a sum of some £2,000,000 for the institution, which receives no financial support from the state or crown.

Curators

*2005:

Stephen Farthing Stephen Farthing (born 16 September 1950) is an English painter and writer on art history. Education Stephen Farthing grew up in London and earned a bachelor's degree from Saint Martin's School of Art in 1973 and a master's degree in painti ...

and Christopher Orr *2012:

Tess Jaray Tess Jaray (born 31 December 1937) is a British painter and printmaker. She taught at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL from 1968 until 1999. Over the last twenty years Jaray has completed a succession of major public art projects. She was made ...

*2013:

Eva Jiřičná Eva Jiřičná (born 3 March 1939) is a Czech architect and designer, active in London and Prague. She is the founder of the architectural atelier ''Eva Jiricna Architects'', operating in Britain (at first as ''Jiřičná Kerr Associates'') fro ...

and

Norman Ackroyd Norman Ackroyd (born 26 March 1938) is an English artist known primarily for his aquatint work. He lives and is based in Bermondsey, London. Background Ackroyd was born on 26 March 1938 in Leeds, Yorkshire. He attended Leeds College of Art fro ...

*2015:

Michael Craig-Martin Sir Michael Craig-Martin (born 28 August 1941) is an Irish-born contemporary art, contemporary conceptual artist and painter. He is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artw ...

*2016:

Yinka Shonibare Yinka Shonibare (born 9 August 1962), is a British-Nigerian artist living in the United Kingdom. His work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. A hallmark of his art is t ...

*2017:

Eileen Cooper Eileen Cooper (born 10 June 1953) is a British artist, known primarily as a painter and printmaker. Early life Cooper was born in Glossop, Derbyshire and attended Ashton-under-Lyne College of Further Education. She went on to study at Golds ...

*2018:

Grayson Perry Grayson Perry (born 1960) is an English contemporary artist, writer and broadcaster. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "pre ...

*2019 Jock McFadyen

Awards

Over £70,000 prize money, including the £25,000 Charles Wollaston Award, is awarded each year at the Summer Exhibition. In addition, a £10,000 architectural prize is awarded.

Winners of Charles Wollaston Award

*1997: R.B. Kitaj *1999:

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...

*2000:

Gerard Hemsworth Gerard Hemsworth (27 December 1945 – 15 February 2021) was a British contemporary artist and painter known for his contributions to British conceptual art. In 2000, he was the winner of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition Charles Wollaston Pri ...

*2001:

Marc Quinn Marc Quinn (born 8 January 1964) is a British contemporary visual artist whose work includes sculpture, installation, and painting. Quinn explores "what it is to be human in the world today" through subjects including the body, genetics, ident ...

*2003:

Jake and Dinos Chapman Iakovos "Jake" Chapman (born 1966) and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman (born 1962) are British visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers. Their subject matter tries to be deliberately shocking, including, in 2008, a series of works that ...

*2006:

Chantal Joffe Chantal Joffe (born 5 October 1969) is an American-born English artist based in London.Royal Academy of ArtsChantal Joffe RA Elect , Artist , Royal Academy of Arts accessdate: 29/08/2014 Her often large-scale paintings generally depict women ...

*2007:

Gavin Turk Gavin Turk (born 1967) is a British artist from Guildford in Surrey, and is considered to be one of the Young British Artists.Tate Modern. (2009)'Pop Life: Art in a Material World' Retrieved 14 August 2012. Turk's oeuvre deals with issues of aut ...

*2008:

Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror- finish su ...

*2009: Richard Wilson *2010:

*2011:

Alison Wilding Alison Mary Wilding OBE, RA (born 7 July 1948) is an English artist noted for her multimedia abstract sculptures. Wilding's work has been displayed in galleries internationally. Life Wilding was born in Blackburn, Lancashire. Between 1966 an ...

*2012:

Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan hav ...

*2013:

El Anatsui El Anatsui ( h-nah-ch-wee born 1944) is a Ghanaian sculptor active for much of his career in Nigeria. He has drawn particular international attention for his " bottle-top installations". These installations consist of thousands of aluminum piec ...

*2014:

Wolfgang Tillmans Wolfgang Tillmans (born 16 August 1968) is a German photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. Tillmans was the first photog ...

"Summer Exhibition 2014, Royal Academy of Arts"
, ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

'', 24 June 2014.

Reception

The exhibition has received both admiration and criticism. Jonathan Jones described it in 2019 as the "bloated corpse of a tradition ...

ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is immediatel ...

a tired, inward looking, end-of-the-road quality". An exhibition about the history of the Summer Exhibition, ''The Great Spectacle'', was held in 2018.

References

External links

Summer Exhibition website

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: A Chronicle, 1769–2018

About the Researching the Summer Exhibition project
(Paul Mellon Centre)
RESEARCHING THE SUMMER EXHIBITION
(The Royal Academy)
RA Summer Exhibition: The promotional power of the poster
(BBC) * (Search facility by artist) {{coords, 51.5092, -0.1401, display=title Recurring events established in 1769 Art exhibitions in London Royal Academy June events July events August events 1769 in art