Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

RA Collection: People and Organisations

The founding members were William Cowen, James Fudge, Thomas Maisey (treasurer), O. F. Phillips, Joseph Powell (president), W. B. S. Taylor, and Thomas Charles Wageman. It was in competition with the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS), which had been founded in 1804.

In 1863 it changed its name to the Institute of Painters in Water Colours. In 1883 it acquired its own premises at Piccadilly, across the road from the Royal Academy. In 1885 it added "Royal" to its title by command of Queen Victoria. When the lease to the Piccadilly premises ran out in 1970, it moved to the Mall Galleries, near to Trafalgar Square. It is now one of the societies in the Federation of British Artists, based in the Mall Galleries in London.

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