Articles
How To Read It
Our Collection
12 months ago
How to read it: Flaxman’s ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’
The 18th-century British artist John Flaxman was an established sculptor, but it was his drawn illustrations of ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’ that made him a sensation across Europe.
Our Collection
1 year ago
How to read it: Annie Swynnerton’s The Letter
In 1922, the Royal Academy elected its first female member in over 150 years, Annie Swynnerton – here’s how to read her enigmatic painting of a young woman.
Our Collection
1 year ago
How to read it: Meredith Frampton’s Still Life
This meticulous and mysterious work by Meredith Frampton is full of contrasting symbolism. Our Collections team guide you through it in this three-minute read.
Our Collection
> 1 year ago
How to read it: Frank Cadogan Cowper’s Vanity
Combining allusions to both Renaissance and Pre-Raphaelite painting, Frank Cadogan Cowper’s Vanity celebrates beauty while cautioning against excessive self-regard. Unravel the painting’s influences in this three-minute read.
Our Collection
> 1 year ago
How to read it: Dame Laura Knight RA’s ‘Ella Naper in the Apple Orchard at Trewoolfe’
Dame Laura Knight RA was denied access to nude models throughout her studies. In Cornwall, she found the freedom and the friends to make up for lost time.
Our Collection
< 2 years ago
How to read it: Gabriella Boyd’s “Sunhead”
In Gabriella Boyd’s “Sunhead”, familiar shapes are given a surreal twist. The painting floats on the edge of reality where nothing is certain. But what does it mean? Where did the head go? And why is this painting in the RA’s Collection anyway?
Our Collection
2 years ago
How to read it: Frank Brangwyn’s ‘Sunflowers’
Frank Brangwyn’s ‘Sunflowers’ is an explosion of colour that captures the vibrancy of a much-loved plant. But did Brangwyn copy Van Gogh? And why sunflowers, anyway?
Our Collection
> 2 years ago
How to read it: our copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper
Within the RA’s Collection Gallery is a full-size copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’, painted by one or more of his pupils. What can it tell us about the original masterpiece?
Our Collection
< 3 years ago
How to read it: The Exhibition of the Royal Academy in Pall Mall, 1771
How much has the Summer Exhibition changed in 250 years? As the Great Spectacle exhibition looks back at the masterpieces from its history, we head back to 1771 to explore a work that documented the exhibition itself.
Our Collection
3 years ago
How to read it: Thomas Lawrence’s Satan Summoning his Legions
As you enter the RA’s new Collection Gallery, a very large (and slightly absurd) figure of Satan towers over you – in what looks suspiciously like the Tory “power stance”. Here’s the story behind the painting…
Our Collection
> 3 years ago
How to read it: Frank Bowling’s Wintergreens
Vast and dense, Frank Bowling’s monumental Wintergreens is one of the modern masterpieces in the RA collection. It is currently on display in ‘Mappa Mundi’, a large retrospective of his work at the Sharjah Art Foundation.
Our Collection
> 3 years ago
How to read it: Henry Raeburn’s Boy and Rabbit
Take a closer look at Henry Raeburn’s Boy and Rabbit, an intimate family portrait from the RA Collection.
Our Collection
> 3 years ago
How to read it: Edward Burne-Jones’s The Summer Snow
Edward Burne-Jones and his fellow Pre-Raphaelites are famed for their paintings, but their illustrations, which were an important part of their early careers, are less well-known. Here’s a closer look at one of Burne-Jones’s wood engravings.
Our Collection
> 3 years ago
How to read it: Thomas Banks RA’s The Falling Titan
The Falling Titan depicts the doomed attempt of an earthbound giant to reach Olympus and overthrow Zeus by climbing up a pile of great boulders, only to be crushed by those very stones.
Our Collection
< 4 years ago
How to read it: Bill Woodrow RA’s Fingerswarm
Bill Woodrow RA’s Fingerswarm is part of a new display of sculpture curated by Richard Deacon RA. Woodrow held a swarm of bees on his bare hand at a beekeeping course, sparking the idea for this surreal sculpture.
Our Collection
< 4 years ago
How to read it: Lawrence Alma-Tadema RA’s A Family Group
This painting-within-a-painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema depicts his artist wife and her siblings examining an earlier work by the couple, painted to symbolise their marriage.
Our Collection
4 years ago
How to read it: Charles Tunnicliffe’s Chinese Geese
Pattern and design are as important as accuracy in this wood engraving by Charles Tunnicliffe RA. Come and take a closer look…
Our Collection
4 years ago
How to read it: Henry Tuke’s A Bathing Group
The year 2017 was the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality, marked at Tate Britain with an exhibition of ‘Queer British Art’, featuring Henry Tuke’s A Bathing Group from our collection. Take a closer look…
Our Collection
> 4 years ago
How to read it: Anthony Green’s The Fur Coat: ‘Hazana’
Here’s the story behind a slightly unusual work by Royal Academician Anthony Green.
Our Collection
> 4 years ago
How to read it: Constable’s Flatford Mill study
Painted quickly to develop ideas before the final work, this is one of 16 oil sketches by John Constable RA in our collection. Here’s an introduction to Flatford Mill from a Lock on the Stour.
Our Collection
> 4 years ago
How to read it: When Snow the Pasture Sheets
It’s looking rather balmy in London just now, so we’re seeking out our own white Christmas in the RA collection, with Joseph Farquharson’s snowy Scottish landscape. Did you know the sheep are fake?
Our Collection
> 4 years ago
How to read it: Salix by Gillian Ayres RA
This vast and vibrant work by Gillian Ayres was inspired by the wild canvases of Jackson Pollock.
Our Collection
< 5 years ago
How to read it: “the origin of the Corinthian order”
Sir William Chambers’s beautiful 18th-century drawing tells an ancient story about the beginnings of architecture.
Our Collection
< 5 years ago
How to read it: John Gibson’s Cupid and Psyche
Take a closer look at how one of Britain’s most celebrated 19th-century sculptors tackled an ancient Roman tale in marble.