250 years of the Summer Exhibition

The Royal Academy Instrument of Foundation (a document that declared the RA's mission in 1768) announced that the newly formed institution would hold an "Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Designs, which shall be open to all Artists of distinguished merit."

At the first Summer Exhibition in 1769, there were 136 works by 56 artists, but the exhibition soon grew and hasn’t stopped since. In 2019’s show, there were more than 1,200 works by 1,044 artists.

The works on show are selected and arranged by the artists who run the Royal Academy (known as Royal Academicians, and they also enter their works into the exhibition, creating an eclectic mix in the galleries. This painting from 1876 depicts artists on the selection committee (an exclusively white male group back then) choosing from entrants’ works that have been sent to the Royal Academy for consideration.

With so many works squeezed onto the walls, position matters. In the 18th century, pictures were hung floor to ceiling, very close together, tipped towards the viewer and arranged symmetrically.

This 1792 sketch by Royal Academician Thomas Sandby shows a layout plan for that year's exhibition. Not pictured, however, is the "beef tea" drink that's offered to the Selection Committee during the eight-day hanging process. The tradition continues today (and the recipe has been kept a secret all this time).

History paintings (depicting grand scenes from the Bible, history and mythology) and swaggering portraits by celebrated artists of the day sat in pride of place. They were hung “on the line”, so that the bottom edge of the artwork was eight feet from the ground: close enough to appreciate the detail, but high enough to be a little imposing. Smaller pieces sat below, and works by lesser-known artists were “skied” – hung near the ceiling where it was difficult to see them.

Art historians Mark Hallett and Sarah Victoria Turner have called it “a great urban spectacle, in which art, entertainment, commerce, education, and self-promotion have mingled together in a riot of colour and conversation.”

Here are four highlights from over 250 years of putting on the world's largest open-submission art show...

On 4 May 1914, the suffragette Mary Wood smuggled a meat cleaver into the Summer Exhibition and slashed John Singer Sargent’s portrait of the writer Henry James. Wood stated that she tried to destroy it to “show the public that they have no security for their property nor for their art treasures until women are given political freedom.” However, Wood may also have chosen this portrait – painted by an elder statesman of the artistic elite – to challenge the bastion of conservatism.

In 1917, during the First World War, the RA was bombed by a German Zeppelin, damaging one of the galleries usually used for the Summer Exhibition (you can still see the scars around the Lecture Room doorway). The Schools studios were also damaged, and there were a few broken casts as well as some shrapnel lodged in the stone paving outside. Repairs were done just in time to open the Summer Exhibition – though without the usual celebratory openings. For the rest of the year, many of the galleries were occupied by the Red Cross, and downstairs the RA Schools housed a unit that designed camouflage for ships.

In 2020, due to the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Summer Exhibition is for the first time moving to the autumn. An Indian Summer Exhibition, if you will...

Find out about visiting this year's Summer Exhibition