Highlights from the RA Collection
1 January 2021 - 31 December 2025
Collection Gallery | Burlington Gardens
Tues–Sun: 10am–6pm
Fri: 10am–9pm
Free
no booking required
From Michelangelo to Moser, visit the Collection Gallery for free to see highlights from the RA Collection.
A sixteenth century copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper, the only marble sculpture by Michelangelo in the UK, works by leading British artists from the last 250 years – the Collection Gallery is a treasure trove of masterpieces.
Visit for free to see works by leading early Academicians including Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA, Mary Moser RA and Angelica Kauffman RA, alongside highlights from the collection of art they began in eighteenth century, and changing displays featuring contemporary Academicians.
This year Flaming June, Frederic, Lord Leighton's masterpiece, is on display in our Collection Gallery. Don’t miss this opportunity to see this iconic work which is on loan from the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico.
Gallery
Flaming June
Originally exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895, Flaming June is one of the most important works by Frederic, Lord Leighton PRA (1830–1896). Now, almost 128 years after it was first shown at the RA, Leighton’s masterpiece returns to Piccadilly, on loan from the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico.
Flaming June is displayed alongside works from the RA Collection, including others by Leighton, by his contemporaries, those which inspired him (including Michaelangelo’s Taddei Tondo) and those which he in turn influenced.
This partnership has been organised by the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico and the Royal Academy of Arts.
Lubaina Himid RA: Naming the Money paper-works
This free display highlights Lubaina Himid’s Royal Academy ‘Diploma work’, a set of 20 paper-works relating to her immersive Turner-prize winning installation Naming the Money.
Himid describes Naming the Money as "the story of the slave/servant, but also of the leper, of the émigré, of the refugee, of the asylum seeker". It features 100 life-size cut-out figures all allotted one of ten roles, including toy makers, drummers, painters and shoemakers, along with a soundtrack of their stories.
The paper-works on display here were produced as somewhere between a ‘sketch’ and a ‘pitch’, a way of working out how the cut-outs would look.