John Madejski Rooms at Royal Academy of Art
Reynolds, Frith, Alma-Tadema, Fuseli and Singleton in New Display
Dec 22, 2008
The John Madejski Fine Rooms are just one of the exhibition suites located in Burlington House, the home of London's Royal Academy of Arts. Originally a private Palladian-style mansion, the House is home to some of the nation's finest art.
Membership of the Royal Academy
At any one time there can only be 80 Royal Academicians (RAs). The membership is made up of:
- 54 Painters (including Engravers, Printmakers and Draughtsmen)
- 14 Sculptors
- 12 Architects
All Members must be artists by profession, working wholly or partly in the United Kingdom. New RAs are elected annually by existing Members. Vacancies occur when Members reach the age of 75 and become Senior Academicians. Every RA is permitted to show up to six works in the Academy's Summer Exhibition.
New Members must donate a piece of work, known as a Diploma Work, to the Academy before receiving their Diploma which is signed by Her Majesty the Queen. The Diploma Works form the core of the Academy's collection and every year items from this collection are chosen for display in the John Madejski Fine Rooms.
Past RAs include Sir Joshua Reynolds (the RA's first President), John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough, Henry Fuseli, Benjamin West, J. M. W. Turner, Lord Leighton and Stanley Spencer.
Current Members include Sir Norman Foster, David Hockney, Tracey Emin, Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor.
2009 - Two Exhibitions in the Madejski Rooms
High Art: Reynolds and History Painting 1780-1815
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), first President of the Royal Academy, favoured history painting above all other genres, presenting 15 lectures on the subject to students and Academicians between 1769 and 1790. In their self-portraits Reynolds, and his contemporaries, included props such as history books and casts of antique statues to elevate the image of the artist as a learned person.
Henry Singleton (1766-1839) went a step further. In The Royal Academicians in General Assembly, (1795) he elevated the entire Academy. He shows the RAs in Somerset House, (an earlier home of the Academy). The painting includes several imposing statues.
High Life: Celebrating the Loan of W. P. Frith's Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881
The Pope Family Trust have loaned Frith's Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881, to the Academy and this piece is the focus point of the second part of this exhibition. This huge painting, created in 1883, was the artist's last panoramic painting depicting the Victorian elite, including Oscar Wilde, Lily Langtry, William Gladstone, and John Tenniel at the Academy's Summer Exhibition of 1881. The painting was not intended as serious portrait or history painting. In this piece Frith poked fun at the Aesthetic Movement which flourished in the 1870s and 1880s and promoted 'art for art's sake' without the need for narrative or moral content.
The exhibitions also include works by Henry Fuseli, Henry Singleton, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, James Northcote, Benjamin West, Thomas Gainsborough and many others.
High Life and High Art will show until 29th November 2009 and full details can be obtained from the Royal Academy of Arts.
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