Work in Progress
23 July 2024 - 31 May 2025
Collection Gallery | Burlington Gardens
Tues–Sun: 10am–6pm
Fri: 10am–9pm
Free
no booking required
What’s the process behind creating a masterpiece?
This display focuses on the idea of work in progress, looking ‘behind the scenes’ at what goes into creating a work of art. From first ideas jotted down in tiny sketchbooks to compositional plans and detailed studies, all the items on display relate to the preparation and research that often go into a completed work.
See over 15 sketches, preparatory works and items of artists’ equipment from the RA Collection including Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Experiments in Colour and Media, a portrait sketch by Sir John Everett Millais, Dame Laura Knight’s design for an RA Summer Exhibition poster, sketchbooks by Lord Leighton and Eileen Cooper as well as recently acquired drawings by Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sarah Singleton.
The display has been selected from the Royal Academy Collection which has particularly rich holdings relating to artistic process and life in the artist’s studio.
The Collection Gallery will be closed from 13 – 22 January 2025.
Tues–Sun: 10am–6pm
Fri: 10am–9pm
Free
no booking required
Gallery
Preparatory drawing for the An Allegory of Painting project, head of a woman after Angelica Kauffman's Design, 2016
Activity at Tree Cottage No. 2, 1967
Studio Experiments in Colour and Media
Drawing of a colossal male head from Milton, c. 1783
