RA Magazine Blog Listing

If you enjoyed last issue's interview with David Nash RA about his landmark exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, why not listen to the recording of his recent Royal Academy evening talk. He is joined in conversation by Peter Murray OBE, Executive Director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and renowned art critic Dr Richard Cork.

Past President of the Royal Academy Phillip King has been known for his sculpture – big, abstract, colourful work – since the sixties. You can see his work in lots of places: the Sidgwick site on the Cambridge University campus and Cass Sculpture Foundation at Goodwood have permanent displays and Gloucester Cathedral shows a piece this autumn, but what he has on display at Flowers Cork Street is...

Starting this week, the Royal Academy's new Artists' Laboratory programme is an opportunity to explore the less familiar and experimental elements of the work of Royal Academicians. The first exhibition in the series features the work of Ian McKeever RA.

Ending this Saturday, Tacita Dean’s feature-length film ‘Craneway Event’ is a must-see. Read more here

Jointly organised by The Royal Parks and the Serpentine Gallery, 'Turning the World Upside Down' sees four of Anish Kapoor's highly reflective stainless steel works placed in Kensington Gardens. With video

Two Royal Academicians are contributing to a new campaign that aims to resurrect the holiday postcard while raising money for Comic Relief.

Titled 'Work and Play, London and New York'; Chris Orr RA's current exhibition at Jill George Gallery in Soho features a range of prints and drawings of iconic city scenes. From Times Square teeming with colour and human activity to a bird's eye view of traffic in Lambeth, Orr's eye for detail reveals the complex pageantry of urban life with wry humour.

The work of Stephen Farthing RA often refers to his fascination with art history and this is certainly true of his current Artists' Laboratory exhibition at the RA. Many of the drawings and paintings displayed were produced as a creative response to his role as editor of the book '1001 Paintings to See Before You Die'.

The Royal Academy's current Tennant Gallery exhibition, 'Ivor Abrahams: Mystery and Imagination' brings together the artist's 'Edgar Allan Poe' and 'Edmund Burke' print portfolios from the 1970s. Poe in particular has captured the imagination of generatons of artists. In the film below, Abrahams explains how Poe's richly metaphoric writings - a precursor to the symbolist movement - inspired his...

Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry is the latest artist to be elected to the ranks of the Royal Academicians. Perry was elected in the category of Printmaking at a recent RA General Assembly.

Anish Kapoor RA has been awarded the Praemium Imperiale award for outstanding contribution to sculpture. The imperial family of Japan, on behalf of the Japan Art Association, are presenting Kapoor with £115,000 (15 million yen), a diploma and a medal for his achievements in October.

As a tribute to John Hoyland RA, who died on 31 July, we're posting the conversation between Hoyland and Damien Hirst that appeared in the Autumn 2009 issue of RA Magazine (portrait by Jillian Edelstein). An obituary by Ian Ritchie RA will appear in the Autumn issue of RA Magazine, published 1 September 2011.

We're posting the latest RA Magazine 'Out to lunch' feature here so we can show you the photos of the meal Eileen Cooper RA and RA Magazine Editor Sarah Greenberg shared.

London Underground has unveiled the first of a series of artworks for Acts of Kindness, an art project by Michael Landy RA.

Christopher Le Brun was last night elected President of the Royal Academy. He succeeds Sir Nicholas Grimshaw PPRA who has stepped down after seven years in office.

Frank Bowling RA's current exhibition in the Tennant Gallery, Journeyings: Recent Works on Paper, coincides with the publication of a new book about Bowling's art by the critic Mel Gooding and published by the RA.

Phyllida Barlow was recently elected a Royal Academician. Tomorrow (22 October) is your last chance to see her exhibition 'RIG' at Hauser & Wirth Piccadilly.

Following on from this month's RA Magazine tributes to John Hoyland RA, who died on 31 July, Anthony Caro RA shares his memories.

Grayson Perry RA's exhibition at the British Museum opens today. The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman features objects chosen by Perry from the museum's collection, alongside new works by the artist that include drawings, embroidered wall hangings and the ceramics for which he is best known.

Adrian Berg RA, who was elected to the Royal Academy in 1992, is recalled by his friend and fellow Academician Paul Huxley RA

There is an interesting split in Humphrey Ocean RA: he often wears bright colours – a dash of red or orange – and has an eternally cheerful, vivacious and optimistic disposition, yet he frequently paints grey scenes of post-war suburban buildings many people would overlook as, well, dull. This is particularly evident in his current exhibition in the glorious medieval chapel and buildings of Jesus...

The coming week is your last chance to see a retrospective of work by Frederick Gore RA (1913-2009) at Richmond Hill Gallery, highlights of which include a number of Gore's classic landscapes of loactions including Greece, Majorca and France.

Caro at Chatsworth is the first exhibition dedicated to the work of a single artist to take place in the gardens of Chatsworth House. Featuring 15 sculptures by Sir Anthony Caro RA that span a 40-year period, the exhibition is sited around the Chatsworth canal pond with its dramatic Emperor Fountain.

David Mach RA's current installation in Southwark Cathedral, 'Die Harder', was first shown in 'Precious Light' and the 20-foot crucifixion is on display until Good Friday.

Royal Academician Richard Deacon challenges the idea that ‘the whole is more the sum of its parts’ in an exhibition of recent sculptures at the Lisson Gallery. The geometric constructions on view are all comprised of a series of smaller polygonal components that assert their integrity with each structure.

There's still time to catch an exhibition of recent work by newly elected Royal Academician Terry Setch at Flowers Gallery in Cork Street this week.

Tom Phillips RA is celebrating his 75th birthday with two exhibitions and a fifth reprint of his acclaimed artist's book A Humument, as Richard Cork reports in the Summer 2012 edition of RA Magazine. We visited Tom Phillips at Flowers Gallery on Kingsland Road, where his exhibition 'The Remains of the Day' recently opened. In the video below, he introduces the exhibition and discusses several of...

The 1969 film 'The Italian Job' ends on the ultimate cliffhanger. A coach carrying a gang of gold bullion thieves and their ill-gotten gain teeters on a precipice in the Italian alps, the gang trying to figure out how to save both themselves and the gold, until Michael Caine utters the immortal words: 'Hang on a minute lads... I've got a great idea'.

'Gary Hume: Flashback' is a touring exhibition from the Arts Council Collection. It features works by the Royal Academician ranging from early in his career to the present day, and is currently on show at The Jerwood Gallery]* in Hastings.

The Scottish-born, East London-based artist Jock McFadyen was recently elected a Royal Academician. McFadyen currently has a solo show at The Fleming Collection, and in the video below he explains how this major survey demonstrates how his approach to painting has changed during the course of his career.

London's Piper Gallery is currently showing new paintings by Royal Academician Tess Jaray. In the video below, the artist discusses some of the inspirations for her work, from Malevich's Red Square to the architecture of Damascus.

When I recently sat for my portrait by Humphrey Ocean RA, the experience was both familiar and alien. After all, I have spent years looking at portraits, talking to artists, visiting their studios and writing about them. But I never knew what it was like to be the subject of a work of art, to sit still, keep quiet and be painted, until now.

Royal Academician Ivor Abrahams began using gardens as a motif in his work in the 1970s. In recent years he has returned to the subject with a renewed enthusiasm, following an exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute in 2008 that focused on his early prints and sculptures of gardens.

Royal Academician Humphrey Ocean's exhibition 'A handbook of modern life' at the National Portrait Gallery comprises a series of paintings of family, friends and other visitors to his studio. In this video, he describes what the process of portrait painting is like, from the moment a visitor first enters his studio.

This spring, the grounds of historic Hatfield House in Hertfordshire will host an exhibition of sculpture by six Royal Academicians.

Royal Academician Richard Wilson is famous for his large scale, site specific sculptures - from 20:50, a room of reflective sump oil that plays tricks with space, to last year's 'Hang on a minute, lads…' which saw him balancing a bus on the roof of Bexhill on Sea's De La Warr Pavilion. His latest project takes him from defying gravity to freezing a moment - and a movement - in time.

Recently elected a Royal Academician, Conrad Shawcross has established a career as a Renaissance man; an artist whose fascination with science has led to extraordinary works that fuse beauty with big ideas, often in the form of elaborate machines.