The story of the Royal Academy of Arts

At over 250 years old, the Royal Academy is the oldest institution in Britain solely devoted to the fine arts. It was founded in 1768 by a group of artists and architects who wanted a slice of the success of other European academies: teaching institutions with annual exhibitions where artists could promote themselves to prominence, gain professional credibility, and have their artistic interests protected. The RA was one of the last royal academies created in Europe, and its founders were anxious to catch up with the prestige of neighbouring institutions.

They drew up a founding document, known as the Royal Academy Instrument of Foundation. Here's one of its pages, declaring that the artists and architects were "desirous of establishing a Society for promoting the Arts of Design", with the King as "Patron, Protector and Supporter".

To establish repute in its early decades, the RA focused on lofty, intellectual ideas developed by Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci. It was following what was known as the Continental theory of art, which deemed that the height of artistic achievements were history paintings. These were works that depicted scenes from the Bible, and from ancient Greek and Roman history and mythology, chosen for their moral or philosophical significance.

Needing material for its artists to study, the Royal Academy also set about compiling a collection of exemplar works – mostly casts of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures and Renaissance paintings. The RA’s founding document also stated that all members must donate one of their artworks when elected, so the Academy began to house an expanding treasure trove of British art.

The Royal Academy swiftly became one of the most significant arts societies in Europe, but it struggled to find a solid home for all those high-minded ideas. For the Academy’s first eight years the King gave some rooms in Old Somerset House for teaching, as well as a gallery on Pall Mall in London, which was just 30 feet long.

Nonetheless, it was big enough to host the RA’s first Annual Exhibitions, showcasing what they decreed to be the best of British contemporary art for an audience of thousands. The show has taken place every year since the first in 1769, and is now known as the Summer Exhibition.

In 1775, architect William Chambers (one of the Academy’s founders) was commissioned to design a new Somerset House, where the state gave the Academy an official residence with a purpose-built, 32-foot-high gallery for the Annual Exhibition.

After outgrowing Somerset House, the RA spent three decades in part of the National Gallery’s Trafalgar Square building. Fast forward to 1867 and the Royal Academy was given a home in Burlington House on Piccadilly, where it remains to this day. No wonder – the government offered the building at an annual rent of £1 for 999 years.

With a big, shiny, new home secured, the Royal Academy could begin showing international loan exhibitions as well as “specimens of works of deceased British artists”, alongside the well-established Summer Exhibition. Over the years, these exhibitions have expanded to include work by all sorts of international artists – both historical and contemporary.

A few decades later in the First World War, the RA was bombed by a Zeppelin. The Schools studios and one of the galleries were damaged (you can still see the scars around the Lecture Room doorway), and there were a few broken casts as well as some shrapnel lodged in the stone paving outside. Undeterred, the annual Summer Exhibition continued throughout the wars – 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 1949, the RA made headlines when its then-President Alfred Munnings delivered a speech during a dinner attended by Britain's most influential arbiters of art. He berated modern artists from Picasso to Matisse and plenty in between, imploring “If you paint a tree, for God’s sake try and make it look like a tree, and if you paint a sky, try and make it look like a sky.” Munnings had already decided to resign before he made the speech, and since the speech was being broadcast live by the BBC, he made sure he went out with a bang.

By the 21st century, though, the RA was embracing the avant-garde. In 2001 the Academy bought a listed building behind Burlington House, originally designed for the University of London in the 1800s. From 2003 to 2015, the RA hosted contemporary exhibitions in these new galleries at 6 Burlington Gardens, showcasing the work of Academicians from Richard Rogers to Allen Jones – as well as other exciting living artists.