Media kits

• Exhibition Programme 2017

  Announcing an overview of the year ahead at the Royal Academy of Arts.

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• Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans

  29 October 2016 – 29 January 2017

  The Royal Academy of Arts will present the first major exhibition of James Ensor’s (1860-1949) work to be held in the UK in twenty years. One of Belgium’s most prominent modernist artists, Ensor was widely considered to be an important precursor of Expressionism. Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans will bring together some 70 paintings, drawings and prints by the artist, the vast majority of which have been drawn from major Belgian collections. The exhibition will be curated by the renowned contemporary painter and one of Belgium’s foremost artists, Luc Tuymans, who will bring a fresh perspective to the selection and presentation of Ensor’s work.

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• Abstract Expressionism

  24 September 2016 – 2 January 2017

  In September 2016, the Royal Academy of Arts will present the first major exhibition of Abstract Expressionism to be held in the UK in almost six decades. With over 150 paintings, sculptures and photographs from public and private collections across the world, this ambitious exhibition encompasses masterpieces by the most acclaimed American artists associated with the movement – among them, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Phillip Guston, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Aaron Siskind, David Smith and Clyfford Still, as well as lesser-known but no less vital artists.

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Media Kits

• John Gibson RA: A British Sculptor in Rome

  8 September – 18 December 2016

  John Gibson RA: A British Sculptor in Rome will present over 30 rarely-exhibited works by the neoclassical artist John Gibson RA (1790-1866) who, during his lifetime, was one of Britain’s leading sculptors. On display will be marble sculptures, plaster casts, plaster reliefs and drawings that were shown in Gibson’s studio during the height of his career. Despite the artist’s prominence at the time, he is little-known today. To coincide with the 150th anniversary of Gibson’s death, the exhibition will highlight a selection of artworks from his significant bequest to the Royal Academy of Arts. John Gibson RA: A British Sculptor in Rome will be the first exhibition to focus solely on Gibson’s output, tracing his journey to becoming one of the best-known sculptors of his day.

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• David Hockney RA: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life

  2 July – 2 October 2016

  David Hockney RA: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life is an intimate exhibition of recent portraits by the Royal Academician David Hockney, revisiting the genre that has played such a major part across his long career. Vibrant, observant and full of life, these paintings, which Hockney considers as one body of work, have all been executed over the last two and a half years in the artist’s Los Angeles studio.

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• Boris Mikailovich Kustodiev, Bolshevik, 1920.

  Oil on canvas. 101 x 140.5 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery Photo © State Tretyakov Gallery.

  Revolution: Russian Art 1917 - 1932

  11 February – 17 April 2017

  In February 2017, to commemorate the centenary of the Russian Revolution, the Royal Academy of Arts will present Revolution: Russian Art 1917 – 1932. This landmark exhibition will focus on a momentous period in Russian history between 1917, the year of the October Revolution, and 1932 when Stalin began his violent suppression of the Avant-Garde. The exhibition will feature Avant-Garde artists such as Chagall, Kandinsky, Malevich and Tatlin alongside the Socialist Realism of Brodsky, Deineka, Mukhina and Samokhvalov, amongst others. Photography, sculpture, film, posters and porcelain will be featured alongside paintings. It will present this unique period in the history of Russian art, when for fifteen years, barriers were opened and the possibilities for building a new proletarian art for the new Soviet State were extensive.

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Media Kits

General news from the Academy

• Origins – A Project by Ordinary Architecture to go on display in October

  15 October 2016 – 15 January 2017

  This Autumn the Royal Academy has commissioned Ordinary Architecture to create a series of interventions throughout Burlington House that offer an intriguing contemporary counterpoint to the ‘origin myths’ of architecture. The history of architecture is full of ‘origin myths’, stories of how and where architecture began. What makes these ‘origin myths’ important is the way they describe the point at which architecture becomes culture, when the act of building becomes imbued with cultural meanings that can be read and interpreted.

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• Royal Academy of Arts announces The Veronica Scanner: Live 3D Portraiture to go on display in September 2016

  London, 25 July 2016: The Royal Academy of Arts in partnership with Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation and the Rothschild Foundation will present The Veronica Scanner: Live 3D Portraiture to UK audiences for ten days only in London, from 2 – 11 September 2016, and Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire from 22 – 30 October 2016.

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• Royal Academy of Arts and St Pancras International station unveil monumental installation by Ron Arad RA

  London, 7 July 2016: The Royal Academy of Arts and St Pancras International station today revealed a major site-specific installation, Thought of Train of Thought, 2016, by Royal Academician Ron Arad for Terrace Wires, the station’s public commissioning programme for new artwork by leading international artists.

  This is the second instalment of a four year partnership between HS1 Ltd. (owners of St Pancras International station) and the Royal Academy for the station’s public sculpture series, following Cornelia Parker RA’s One More Time in 2015. This year marks the fourth year of the Terrace Wires commission at the station.

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General news from the Academy

• The Royal Academy of Arts celebrates Friends Week with the appointment of HRH The Duchess of Cornwall as new Patron

  London, 10 May 2016: After almost forty years, The Duke of Edinburgh will pass the patronage of the Friends of the Royal Academy of Arts to The Duchess of Cornwall. The appointment of Her Royal Highness as Patron will take place during the annual Friends Week from 16 – 22 May 2016. The Duke of Edinburgh has been patron of the programme since it was founded in 1977.

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• Her Majesty the Queen at the RA Jubilee party in 2012

  Photo: Millie Pilkington

  The Royal Academy of Arts featured in official commemorative album for The Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration at Windsor

  London, 20 April 2016: While The Queen’s actual birthday is on 21 April and her official birthday is on a Saturday in June, The Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration will take place from 12 to 15 May 2016 in Home Park, Windsor Castle, and will celebrate The Queen’s life.

  As part of these celebrations, publisher St James’s House has produced an official commemorative album for the event – the only publication sanctioned and endorsed by the organisers. In the area of the visual arts, one of the organisations selected to appear in the publication is the Royal Academy of Arts.

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• Sonia Boyce RA, 'Dance of Belem' 2011

  Image courtesy of the artist

  Royal Academy of Arts announces election of new Royal Academicians, Honorary Royal Academicians and Honorary Fellow

  London, 14 April 2016: The Royal Academy of Arts has elected Sonia Boyce as a Royal Academician in the category of Painting. International artists Olafur Eliasson and Jenny Holzer have been elected as Honorary Royal Academicians. The Duke of Devonshire and Agnes Gund have been elected as Honorary Fellows.

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General news from the Academy

• Urban Jigsaw

  Royal Academy of Arts to present Urban Jigsaw

  London, 4 April 2016; In July 2015 the Royal Academy of Arts launched Urban Jigsaw, an ideas competition which offered a platform for architects to develop speculative proposals for brownfield sites and undeveloped spaces across London. As the capital’s population fast approaches 10 million, the open call competition asked for ideas that were creative, research-driven and capable of realising the potential of these missing pieces of London’s urban jigsaw.

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• Grayson Perry RA cutting his birthday cake at the RA Schools Annual Dinner and Auction 2015

  Photo: Red Photographic

  Leading artists donate work to the 2016 RA Schools Auction to support Britain's longest established art school

  London, 19 February 2016: The 10th annual Royal Academy Schools Dinner and Auction 2016 will be held on Tuesday 15 March 2016 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. All auction proceeds support the RA Schools, the UK’s longest established art school. This year the guest speaker is Philippa Perry, well-known psychotherapist and wife of Grayson Perry RA.

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• The Space and the Royal Academy of Arts use 360º technology to offer an immersive experience of Ai Weiwei's 2015 exhibition to audiences online

  London, 21 January 2016: Following the success of Ai Weiwei, which received 372,813 visitors, The Space and the Royal Academy of Arts will extend the audience reach and the life of the landmark exhibition further with the launch of Ai Weiwei 360. Through innovative 360º technology, audiences are invited to experience this landmark show from the comfort of their own homes or on the move using their desktop, tablet, smartphone or virtual reality headset.

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RA250

• The Royal Academy of Arts unveils a monumental public artwork by Yinka Shonibare RA on the façade of Burlington Gardens

  London, 16 May 2016: The Royal Academy of Arts today unveiled a major large-scale public artwork by Yinka Shonibare MBE RA. It will wrap around the scaffolding on the façade of Burlington Gardens whilst the building is undertaking a transformative redevelopment in the lead up to the Royal Academy’s 250th anniversary in 2018. RA Family Album, 2016, consists of over 160 black and white photographs and prints, showcasing the people who have made the RA an inclusive place for artists, creativity and learning since its foundation in 1768. The 71m width design is topped by one of Shonibare’s renowned colourful fabric designs which drips down over the images.

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• Royal Academy of Arts reveals new hoarding design created by local students with support from Richard Wilson RA and HLF

  London, 10 February 2016: The Royal Academy of Arts has partnered with local students to design a section of the scaffold hoarding which will cover the façade of Burlington Gardens throughout the Royal Academy’s transformative redevelopment. The students created the design with artist Diana Taylor, alongside advice from Royal Academician Richard Wilson, and funding provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The final hoarding artwork will be revealed to the public on 24 February 2016.

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• The Royal charter and roll of obligation of the Society of Artists, showing names that were struck off

  Photo © David Parry

  Keystone of British cultural history revealed for first time in 100 years

  London, 27 October 2015: The Charter for the Society of Artists of Great Britain and its associated Roll of Obligation have been rediscovered at the Royal Academy of Arts 250 years after the Society’s foundation in 1765. Thought to be missing, these documents are central to the story of British cultural history signifying the formalisation of artists as a professional group in Britain in the late eighteenth century. The Society was crucial to the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, when a cabal of artists broke away from the Society and formed the Academy instead.

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RA250

• The Royal Academy’s north-facing Entrance, Burlington Gardens

  Image credit: Hayes Davidson

  The Royal Academy of Arts unveils plans for 250th anniversary redevelopment

  London, 11 May 2015: The Royal Academy of Arts, Britain’s foremost artist-led institution, today unveiled designs for a transformative redevelopment which will be completed in time for its 250th anniversary in 2018. The project is supported by a grant of £12.7 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

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