The Royal Academy has announced its exhibition programme for 2021.

17 September 2020.

At a recent General Assembly meeting, conducted for the first time via video conference, the Royal Academy of Arts elected Fiona Banner RA as Professor of Perspective and Lubaina Himid RA as Professor of Painting for the Royal Academy Schools. Alison Wilding RA’s appointment as Eranda Professor of Drawing has also been extended for two years. This follows the election of author Zadie Smith as Honorary Fellow earlier this year.

The Royal Academy is delighted to announce that it will reopen to Friends of the Royal Academy on Thursday 9 July and to the public on Thursday 16 July. The RA has been closed for nearly 4 months due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Royal Academy of Arts announced today that Cathie Pilkington RA has been elected as the new Keeper of the Royal Academy. Pilkington was elected as a Royal Academician in 2014 and served as Professor of Sculpture from 2015-19.

The Royal Academy’s doors may be closed, but art-lovers can still experience a range of innovative online content and activity from the RA’s exhibitions, artists and architects.

Across its award-winning website and social media platforms, the RA is sharing video exhibition tours, interviews and highlights; fun family activities; the voices of the RA’s artists and architects; revisiting popular events and discussions; encouraging the nation to get its paint and pencils out; and offering creative inspiration for new ways of working and connecting.

Main Galleries

In January 2021, the Royal Academy of Arts will present Francis Bacon: Man and Beast, the first exhibition to chart the development of the artist’s work through the lens of his fascination with animals and its impact on his treatment of the human figure. Francis Bacon (1909–1992) is recognised as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. Since his death, the world has changed in ways that make his unnerving work ever more prescient. This important exhibition will include 45 remarkable paintings spanning his career; from his earliest works of the 1930s and 40s through to the final painting he ever made in 1991, which will be exhibited publicly here for the first time in the UK. Among the works, a trio of paintings of bullfights will also be displayed together for the first time, all painted in 1969.

The Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Galleries

The Royal Academy of Arts will present a landmark exhibition bringing together for the first time the work of acclaimed British artist Tracey Emin RA (b.1963) and the Norwegian Expressionist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), two internationally renowned artists born 100 years apart. Long fascinated and inspired by Edvard Munch’s work, Tracey Emin will choose a selection of his masterpieces to accompany her own works.

Main Galleries

The Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show and has been held every year without interruption since 1769, even throughout the war years. This year Jane and Louise Wilson RA will co-ordinate the Summer Exhibition, the first time it will be curated by an artistic duo.

Online

The Young Artists’ Summer Show is now in its second year at the Royal Academy of Arts: online in July 2020 and on-site later in the year. Supported by philanthropist Robin Hambro, it is open to all primary and secondary level students aged 5-19 (key stages 1-5) in the UK and those attending British International Schools. It provides a platform for the high quality and wide range of work produced by students, an opportunity to champion the importance of art in education and to celebrate the teachers who are fostering creativity in young people.