Articles
RA Schools
Inside the Academy
2 months ago
Behind the scenes in Britain’s oldest art school
The RA Schools has been nurturing, challenging and championing art students for 250 years. Before work begins on a big anniversary renewal, we took a look inside to find out what it’s like studying there in 2019.
Inside the Academy
5 months ago
Art under threat: why teaching’s in decline in our schools
Amy Sherlock addresses the slump in art teaching in Britain’s schools, and the effect this has on the art education ecosystem.
Artists
5 months ago
Art under threat: the growing crisis in higher education
Britain’s reputation as a creative country is at risk, as threats mount to the education pathway that leads potential artists from school to university to professional life. Sam Phillips reports on the political challenges facing higher education.
Opinion
6 months ago
Debate: can you teach art?
Eliza Bonham Carter, Curator and Head of the RA Schools, and RA Schools student Ewan Macfarlane share their thoughts. Cast your vote below.
Our Collection
1 year ago
The RA Collection in 250 objects: How artists learned to draw
To celebrate our 250th birthday, we’re highlighting 250 beautiful, odd and inspiring objects from the RA Collection in 25 themes. With a free display exploring how artists have traditionally learnt to draw, in this edition we head into the Royal Academy’s historic schools…
Inside the Academy
1 year ago
249 years of teaching artists in the RA Schools
At the heart of the Royal Academy, you can find Britain’s longest-running art school, which has been training artists since 1769. As soon-to-be graduates present their final year show, Skye Sherwin speaks to students and tutors to find out what’s changed in the last quarter millennia.
Artists
< 2 years ago
Rebecca Salter: “Do not tell young people they can’t do things”
On her first full day as Keeper of the RA Schools, Rebecca Salter RA talks artistic dogs, learning Japanese and proving your teachers wrong.
Artists
2 years ago
Eileen Cooper: “Artists love to say they’re unique. We’re not”
With two solo shows this year, her final months as the Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools and the job of coordinating this year’s Summer Exhibition, it’s a busy time for Eileen Cooper. In the latest in our ‘As I see it’ series, the artist talks bad reviews, good dogs, and what she’ll do once all this work is done.
RA Exhibitions
2 years ago
The studios behind the Summer Exhibition
How are the capital’s artists using their working spaces today? In the spirit of this year’s Summer Exhibition, which is encouraging artists who have not shown before at the RA, Skye Sherwin visits first-time exhibitors at work to see what they are bringing to the Academy.
Artists
> 2 years ago
Eddie Peake: “I wanted to do anything but be an artist”
Marking a solo show at White Cube Hong Kong, RA Schools alumnus Eddie Peake spoke to us about football, finding himself and “ferocious attention seeking.”
RA Exhibitions
3 years ago
Great expectations: students of the RA Schools prepare for their final show
The stage is set and the pressure is on as third-year students from the RA Schools prepare work for their final show, which opens to the public this summer in the studios of the RA. Jonathan P. Watts goes behind the scenes to meet the artists at this critical point.
RA Recommends
> 3 years ago
Gabriella Boyd: illustrating dreams, as interpreted by Freud
How do you illustrate a dream – or harder still, Freud’s interpretation of it? RA Schools student Gabriella Boyd has done just that in a new edition of Interpreting Dreams by the Folio Society.
Inside the Academy
> 3 years ago
New rules and new tools: life at the RA Schools
At the RA Schools, post-graduate students have three years to develop their ideas and work. Here second-year students reveal how the course is changing their art, as they prepare their first group show at the RA, Premiums: Interim Projects.
Artists
< 4 years ago
Lessons in life, love and art from Marina Abramovic
From losing consciousness to sitting motionless every day for three months, the inimitable artist pushes her body to its limits. Watch her in conversation with Bryan Appleyard.
Opinion
< 4 years ago
In two minds: Eddie Peake and Prem Sahib
Ahead of their solo shows this autumn, RA Schools alumni and artistic collaborators Eddie Peake and Prem Sahib describe the thought and themes behind each other’s works.
Artists
< 4 years ago
Catching up with… Tim Ellis
Six years on from leaving the RA Schools and selling his final year show to the Saatchi Gallery, Tim Ellis has been exhibiting across the world. We head to his Dalston studio.
Inside the Academy
4 years ago
Henry Coleman’s ‘The Greater Order’
Have you noticed something different about our banners? Artist Henry Coleman has co-opted them in a sculptural response to the Academy’s forthcoming architectural transformation.
RA Recommends
4 years ago
Our pick of this week’s art events: 23 – 28 May
From international photography event Photo London to a Magna Carta tapestry by Cornelia Parker RA, we guide you through the week’s top art events.
Artists
4 years ago
Preview: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at the Serpentine
The imagined portraits by this RA Schools alumna and Turner Prize nominee are revelations from another world, says Kelly Grovier.
Inside the Academy
> 4 years ago
Catching up with… Lucy Williams
As she launches her new book, Lucy Williams discusses her time at the RA Schools and tells us how her block colour, architectural collages bring a fresh perspective to urban landscapes.
Inside the Academy
> 4 years ago
Catching up with… Mary Ramsden
Before she departs for a residency in Connecticut, Mary Ramsden discusses her time at the RA Schools and tells us what she’s been up to since graduating in 2013.
Our Collection
> 4 years ago
“Striving after excellence”: Victorian women and the fight for arts training
Amy Bluett discovers how 19th-century women aspiring to be artists had an uphill struggle to get equal access to training at the Royal Academy Schools.
Inside the Academy
> 4 years ago
Behind the scenes of ‘Premiums: Interim Projects’
We went behind the scenes in the RA Schools to follow the progress of second-year students putting together their interim exhibition.
Opinion
> 4 years ago
Inspirations: RA Schools students on their artistic heroes
As RA Schools students prepare to show their own work midway through their course in ‘Premiums’, some of the students select artists who inspire them.
Artists
> 4 years ago
Catching up with… Grace O‘Connor
From her studio in Southwark, the former RA Schools student Grace O’Connor describes how her experience at the Academy formed her future painting practice.
Opinion
< 5 years ago
Urgent appeal to save William Blake’s cottage
The country has until 28 November to donate, if the Blake Society is to transform his seaside cottage into a permanent home for the artist-poet.
Artists
5 years ago
Mathew Tom & the RA Schools Starr Fellowship
Vivid colours are coupled with formal simplicity in the recent artworks exhibited by Mathew Tom in the RA Schools studios.
Our Collection
5 years ago
RA Collection acquires first film work
The film ‘Love has no reason’ by RA Schools graduate Julie Born Schwartz has been added to the Royal Academy’s historic Collection.
Artists
5 years ago
An interview with Amy Petra Woodward
The artist discusses her exhibition in the RA’s Gallery Café.
RA Exhibitions
5 years ago
Judging the A-level Summer Exhibition Online
The judging panel of this year’s A-level Summer Exhibition Online discusses their selection process.
RA Exhibitions
5 years ago
RA Schools students discuss their upcoming final show
As students from the RA Schools prepare for their final show, what are their feelings about leaving after three intensive years of study? Some of them discuss the issues they face with Schools tutor Brian Griffiths and Phyllida Barlow RA, who has been involved in art education for 45 years.
Inside the Academy
5 years ago
Where art meets fashion
For the first time we have joined forces with the British Designers’ Collective to celebrate British talent.
RA Recommends
> 5 years ago
Our pick of this week’s art events: 9 - 15 May
From an ex-RA Schools student to Architect and designer Daniel Weil.
Artists
> 5 years ago
Ancient and modern
From traditional engravings to cutting edge digital techniques: the RA Schools is a hive of creative approaches to printmaking.
Artists
> 5 years ago
Last chance to bid in RA Schools Auction
Your chance to own work by an Academician and help us to continue to meet the cost of tuition fees for all students at the RA Schools.
RA Exhibitions
> 5 years ago
Premiums: Meet the artists
Meet some of the RA Schools students exhibiting in this year’s ‘Premiums: Interim Projects’
RA Exhibitions
> 5 years ago
New prints on the block
There is a fresh spirit of experimentation at this year’s London Original Print Fair, which takes place in the RA’s Main Galleries. Mark Hampson, the RA Schools’ Head of Material Processes, picks the printmakers to watch.
RA Exhibitions
> 5 years ago
Under the influence
What is in the minds of art students today? We find out what’s feeding the imaginations of RA Schools’ second-year students – and what direction their work is taking – ahead of their group exhibition in the Royal Academy’s galleries.
Inside the Academy
> 5 years ago
Vanessa Jackson: Curvature and Common Sense
Artist Vanessa Jackson presents the RA Schools Annual Lecture 2014.
RA Recommends
> 5 years ago
Charlie Billingham, Sarah Lucas and Ann Christopher RA
From contemporary maritime art to disemboweled books: everything worth seeing this week.
Inside the Academy
< 6 years ago
Nicolas Bourriaud: What is the exform?
Culture, history and rejection in the Google era.
RA Recommends
6 years ago
RA Schools Show 2013: Students discuss ther work
This year, 17 students will reach the end of their three-year postgraduate fine art course at the RA.
Inside the Academy
> 6 years ago
Reading in the Life Drawing Room
A one-day symposium concerned with the management of reading, with Lucy Skaer, Angie Keefer, Nina Power, Cally Spooner and Natasha Soobramanien.
Inside the Academy
> 6 years ago
Chris Kraus: A Very Literary Confession
Theory, fiction, criticism, confession?
RA Exhibitions
> 6 years ago
RA Schools students discuss Premiums 2013
The 2013 ‘Premiums: Interim Projects’ exhibition is an opportunity to see the work of RA Schools students at the midway point of their three-year course.