Royal Academy

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Frances Reynolds
She was born into an English west-country professional or just-gentry family, and was a devout Anglican , who cared about whether or not her friends went to church and disapproved of her brother Joshua painting...
Education Sylvia Pankhurst
SP won a national competition for a two-year scholarship to the Royal Academy of Art in London. Her name headed the list of competitors for the whole country
Mulhallen, Jacqueline. “Sylvia Pankhurst’s Paintings: A Missing Link”. Women’s History Magazine, No. 60, pp. 35 - 8.
36
for this award.
Romero, Patricia W. E. Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical. Yale University Press, 1987.
29
Education Anne Ridler
Downe House had been founded at Charles Darwin 's old home by Olive Willis , a remarkable woman who was still headmistress, who exercised an important influence on AR , and whose biography Ridler later...
Education William Blake
His apprenticeship to a print-maker included training in drawing medieval tombs. He also studied for some time at the Royal Academy of Arts .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Hamlyn, Robin, and Michael Phillips. William Blake. Tate Gallery, 2000.
26
Education Charlotte Brontë
Both Charlotte and Branwell aspired to become artists. She studied drawing seriously, first with a private tutor, later at Roe Head, and after her return independently, by copying romantic illustrations from annuals such as Friendship's...
Education Dante Gabriel Rossetti
DGR attended King's College School (from 1837 to 1841), where he studied with John Sell Cotman . He led a desultory, bohemian life until in 1847, after finding the approach of the Royal Academy stultifying...
Education Louisa Anne Meredith
Sir Thomas Lawrence , President of the Royal Academy , tutored Louisa Anne Twamley (later LAM ) privately in art.
Rae-Ellis, Vivienne. Louisa Anne Meredith: A Tigress in Exile. St David’s Park, 1990.
33
Education Mary Stewart
Eden Hall school buildings and the surrounding landscape would later inspire the setting for her novel The Ivy Tree. The school emphasized training in the social graces and MS later commented that I learned...
Education Edith Craig
EC studied music in Berlin with Alexis Holländer and at London's Royal Academy , aiming to become a concert pianist.
Holledge, Julie. Innocent Flowers: Women in the Edwardian Theatre. Virago, 1981.
110
Cockin, Katharine. Edith Craig (1869-1947): Dramatic Lives. Cassell, 1998.
37
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Palmer
The best-known among MP 's siblings was her brother Joshua , seven years her junior, whose work as a portrait painter eventually won him a knighthood and the first Presidency of the Royal Academy ...
Family and Intimate relationships Queen Victoria
She became a sculptor, who exhibited three portrait works at the Royal Academy between 1868 and 1874.
Graves, Algernon. The Royal Academy of Art. Henry Graves and George Bell, 1906.
Family and Intimate relationships Virginia Woolf
Virginia and Vanessa (1879-1961, the eldest of Leslie and Julia Stephen's children), were close to one another throughout their lives. In A Sketch of the Past, VW recalls that after the death of their...
Family and Intimate relationships Clementina Black
Her sister Emma was a painter who won a scholarship to study with the Royal Academy Schools.
Glage, Liselotte. Clementina Black: A Study in Social History and Literature. Carl Winter, 1981.
19
Garnett, Richard. Constance Garnett: A Heroic Life. Sinclair-Stevenson, 1991.
37
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Rigby
ER 's husband, Charles Eastlake , was elected President of the Royal Academy ; he also received a knighthood that autumn, changing ER 's public name to Lady Eastlake.
Lochhead, Marion C. Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake. John Murray, 1961.
93
Rigby, Elizabeth. Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake. Smith, Charles EastlakeEditor , AMS Press, 1975.
1: 259
Family and Intimate relationships Barbara Hofland
The couple first met through their shared profession of teaching. He had some reputation as a painter, having been exhibiting at the Royal Academy for a decade as well as in Leeds; but his health...

Timeline

March 1755
A committee of twenty-six artists produced a plan for an Academy to improve and promote the arts.
December 1768
George III signed the papers for establishing the Royal Academy of Arts . Angelica Kauffman or Kauffmann was among the twenty-eight founding members who first met in January 1769 to hear an address by Sir Joshua Reynolds
1770 or 1771
Scottish painter George Romney did a portrait of English painter Mary Moser which shows her using the medium of oils, mark of the professional rather than the amateur.
1777
Richard Samuel engraved his Nine Living Muses of Great Britain (or Portraits in the Character of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo) for Johnson's Ladies New and Polite Pocket Memorandum for 1778...
Summer 1780
The Royal Academy 's first annual exhibition to be held in the new Somerset House (built by Sir William Chambers ) topped all records, with attendance of 61,381 and receipts of £3,074.6s.
April 1781
Giuseppi Baretti sought to make the Royal Academy exhibitions more accessible by publishing A Guide through the Academy.
1797
The complete set of addresses delivered over the years to students at the Royal Academy by Sir Joshua Reynolds was published as Fifteen Discourses on Art.
Early May 1831 and 1832
Sarah Biffin exhibited at the Royal Academy under her married name of Mrs E. M. Wright. Born without arms or legs, she became a skilled painter and embroiderer, holding her brush or needle in her...
April 1838
The National Gallery moved into its new facility at Charing Cross.
25 November 1841
Sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey died, leaving conditions in his will that after the death of his wife, more than £100,000 would be left to set up a national public collection of fine art in Britain.
1 May 1843
Richard Redgrave exhibited his painting The Poor Teacher at the Royal Academy .
7 May 1848
The Royal Academy exhibition presented 1474 works by 853 exhibitors; of these, only 126 works were by 77 female artists, a scant 10% of the total.
Autumn1848
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in rebellion against the constraints and techniques of art as practised by the Royal Academy .
Spring1849
Dante Gabriel Rossetti 's painting The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (featuring Christina Rossetti as its model) appearing at the Free Exhibition at Hyde Park Gallery , was the first to display the initials of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood .
7 May 1849
The Royal Academy exhibition (held on the first Monday in May) featured the first Pre-Raphaelite works by William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais .