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 occasionally true, it is stated to be a "permanen ...

held annually by the

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

Burlington House Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in Mayfair, London. It was originally a private English Baroque and then Neo-Palladian mansion owned by the Earl of Burlington, Earls of Burlington. It was significantly expanded in the mid-19th cent ...

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, 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 (England), A4 road that connects central London to ...

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

, England, during the months of June, July, and August. The exhibition includes paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, architectural designs and models, and is the largest and most popular open exhibition in the United Kingdom. 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 32,000 entries representing some 16,000 artists. Any artist (living, known or unknown) may submit up to two works at a fee of £40 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 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. Some artists apply repeatedly before being selected: in 2024 Alison Aye's accepted piece ''Shifting to the Moon'' was her 31st submission.

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 Transparency (optics), transparent hard protective coating or film. It is not to be confused with wood stain. It usually has a yellowish shade due to the manufacturing process and materials used, but it may also be pigmente ...

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 '' pr ...

''). 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, England. The church was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren. The churc ...

, 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 work of art, 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 proces ...

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.

Coordinators

* 2005 Stephen Farthing and Christopher Orr * 2010

Stephen Chambers Stephen Lyon Chambers (born 20 July 1960) is an English artist and Royal Academician (elected 2005). Early life and education Born 20 July 1960 in Kensington, London to book illustrator Gillian Mure Wood (22 February 1932 – 28 June 2012) a ...

* 2011

Christopher Le Brun Sir Christopher Mark Le Brun (born 1951) is a British artist, known primarily as a painter. President of the Royal Academy of Arts from 2011 to December 2019, Le Brun was knighted in the 2021 New Year Honours "for services to the arts". Bi ...

* 2012

Tess Jaray Tess Jaray (born 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 an Honorary ...

* 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'') from ...

and Norman Ackroyd * 2014 Hughie O'Donoghue * 2015

Michael Craig-Martin Sir Michael Craig-Martin (born 28 August 1941) is an Irish-born 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 artwork, '' An Oak ...

* 2016 Yinka Shonibare * 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 Goldsm ...

* 2018

Grayson Perry Sir Grayson Perry (born 24 March 1960) is an English artist. 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 "prejudices, fashions and foib ...

* 2019 Jock McFadyen * 2020 Jane and Louise Wilson * 2021 Yinka Shonibare * 2022 Alison Wilding * 2023 David Remfry * 2024 Ann Christopher

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.R. Waite
"Cash prizes return for Royal Academy Summer Exhibition"
, ''architectsjournal.co.uk'', 22 February 2015.

Winners of Charles Wollaston Award

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 kilometers, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is i ...

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) * {{cite web , title=The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, a Chronicle 1769–2018. Index , url=https://chronicle250.com/index/exhibitors/a , website=Chronicle 250 , publisher=Royal Academy 250 , access-date=13 September 2019 , date=2018 (Search facility by artist) Recurring events established in 1769 Art exhibitions in London Summer Exhibition June July August 1769 in art