At Home: Portraits of Artists in the Royal Academy Collection

Until 25 November 2007

In the John Madejski Fine Rooms

This exhibition explores the rich variety of representations of artists in the Royal Academy’s collection. These range from C. R. Leslie’s tiny, intimate picture of his friend John Constable, via A. G. Walker’s depictions of studio life, to grand formal images such as Giuseppe Ceracchi’s bust of Reynolds, George Frederic Watts’s portrait of Lord Leighton and Charles West Cope’s magnificent Victorian group, ‘The Council of the Royal Academy’. Alongside these are Thomas Gainsborough and John Bellany’s revealing self-portraits, Sir Joshua Reynolds’s depiction of his theatrically dressed studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi and an early portrait of Laura Knight by her husband-to-be, Harold Knight. Together these works offer a fascinating glimpse of artists’ lives, aspirations and achievements over the last 250 years.

• Royal Academy of Arts